Chapter 26: State of Affairs

Following graduation, as potential Elite Genin we had a week off before being assigned a team and Jonin Instructor. I already knew my team – myself, Sachiko and Yatsu – but had no idea about our sensei. Apart from our group training, I took the time to catch up on some of my sealing work and the paperwork that came with being Lord of Seal-Hawk Harbor.

I know, the name is just… Well, Kaa-san picked it, and had Tou-san apply it, and then I couldn't change peoples' minds. Kaa-san asked if I didn't like it with a pout, and… I was a good son. That was it.

The sealing work in this instance was a set of two dozen seal-enhanced swords for samurai and ninja Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs), and a set of a half-dozen transferable DEWS and HUD seals for my officers in what was shaping up to be a fairly decent private army. The DEWS and HUD seals were a bit of a pain; since they weren't legally distributable to forces outside of Uzushiogakure's own, I couldn't just have Hikaru jii-san run off the copies from the Sealing Department printers in exchange for a chunk of chakra batteries. But since the seals weren't as classified as, say, the Cyclone Magazine production methods, Hikaru jii-san and I, as the inventors, were allowed to do the sealing work ourselves (so long as we included the requisite security seals too).

The problem though is we had to do all of the work ourselves; this included actually applying the seal to the body, unless the seal was self-applying. Since neither of us were on Hawk's Haven (the island's name… apparently Tou-san was getting on with Ojii-sama again, and this was part of it), that meant that I had to make self-applying seals which took a bit more work.

Funnily enough, the swords were actually much more difficult to make than the DEWS. They were based off of my own swords, Red Night's Sky and Morning's Storm, but I had needed to figure out a way of getting similar elemental-technique enhancing performance without chakra-conductive metal. Chakra-metal was extremely expensive and the kind of thing used by high ranking Samurai or the top of the elite ninja who could afford it.

I'd spent a few months of spare time hanging out with one of the better, and more creative, smiths in Konoha. Eventually, after a lot of ruined steel (that I paid for), we figured out a way to use seals to set up an elemental chakra imbuing field for the steel as it was worked. Then, different seals were applied to the Tang after it was worked to keep the elemental chakra in place, and to help channel more chakra that was added by the eventual user. The end result was a sword capable of enhancing elemental chakra channeled through it, or providing a low-level of chakra conversion for neutral chakra flowed through the blade, much in the same way that natural chakra metal did.

It was about sixty percent as good as my own blades, but brought the price down from “something only a wealthy Lord could afford” to “something a Lord's personal guards, or generally elite units might be equipped with”. Also worth bearing in mind was that my own swords were not just chakra metal but seal-enhanced chakra metal. Although my skills were still nowhere near whoever had made my swords, the swords we were producing were likewise seal-enhanced, unlike most chakra metal blades which didn't have that kind of elemental seal-work built in. Most swords didn't have any seal-work built in, as writing seals in metal was a fairly specialized skill and most Uzumaki sealers stayed in Uzushio. And that meant that my swords had further improved chakra channeling, if only for a single elemental type.

For a fairly significant additional price, we could take a vial of someone's chakra imbued blood and work that into the metal along with another seal, and improve performance for that person; it would typically bring the performance up to about eighty percent of my own blades. As a bonus, it basically ensured repeat business over time, as the blade would need to be re-attuned to each user.

Another popular option was to have the sword be turned into an inanimate summon contract. For a heftier fee, we'd even package an auto-attunement in with the summon contract, but then the summoning tattoos would ensure repeat business. It was difficult – and thus expensive – enough though that it brought the price back to “wealthy Lord” range.

We were working on changing the process so that we could attune a blade to two types of chakra at once at the request of a number of bloodline clans, but had not made significant strides. Then of course there was the even harder problem of channeling say, ice chakra as opposed to “merely” being able to channel either wind or water; it was a work in progress.

A much higher priority for me was to figure out a semi-automatic process to apply the seals; once I did that, I planned on setting up a manufacturing center in my town. Making a regular seal-making seal could be pretty difficult; this was horrendous.

In the regular process, you took a seal, for sake of argument an explosive seal. Then you wrote a seal that was programmed to apply the correct levels of chakra in the right shape and with the right timing to create the explosive seal you wanted. By feeding the seal-writer chakra through a battery, and providing stores of paper and ink (or using a more advanced array capable of chakra-scribing), it could print out seals.

This got more complicated if you wanted to seal something onto a physical surface that wasn't flat, like armor. The positioning was frequently important, and the seal-path needed to be described in three dimensional rather than two dimensional space. It got much more complicated when the seal interacted with the base material. In the case of the seal-swords, they effectively had an inorganic chakra system due to the infusions during the smithing process. But, the material properties (iron, carbon, how hard it was hit, random chance) influenced the chakra density and flow-lines, which impacted the seal's orientation and positioning, and even the size of some of the individual symbols.

That meant that the seal-printer had to not only be able to write out the seals (some of which were quite complicated) and do so into metal (which was a complication in and of itself), but the seal-printer also had to “scan” the sword and then run calculations to write the seal. This was further complicated by the fact that many of these calculations were ones I (and other Uzumaki sealers) did intuitively, so I had to figure out a whole load of advanced but highly specific sealing theory pretty much from scratch.

I was glad I had taken computer-programming once upon a time, and had some experience with automating manufacturing processes using CAD-controlled lathes and mills. That brought the project down from “practically impossible” to “just really ridiculously difficult”. But that’s why it was a fun project.

As a note, many seals, especially at high levels, included a ninjutsu input that defined field of effect, intensity, etc, so being able to write the seal was only part of it. Sort of like a telephone; the phone makes the call, but the user tells it which number. Also, as people got better at writing seals, they gained a feel for how all sorts of weird things would affect the seal's efficiency, and learned to compensate.

While it wasn’t as important for bulk basic explosive notes, which were basically the lowest level of applied seals, for something like a sword it was similar in effect to the difference between mass-produced swords or those made by a master. The chakra balance would be a bit worse, it wouldn't feel quite as “sharp” or precise, that kind of thing. Still, quantity had a quality all of its own, and a functional factory would mean a new revenue stream for me and my people. More importantly, I would finally be able to stop making swords as my forces grew.

I had given the general sword-making process over to Uzushio's Sealing Department, and it had already become a major earner even though I only got a tithe; the demand wasn't even close to being met. I figured I was about a month away from being done with at least a functional prototype of the automatic-sealer seal, at which point I'd really start raking it in. And once the market reached saturation, I could drop price so that lower-than-elite but still high-quality units could be equipped, then maybe even regular units.

Outside of Whirlpool, everyone's forces still depended on steel; I planned to become the premier weapons supplier.

As an added benefit, the new techniques would, eventually, lead to better laser weapons and a major next step in developing DEWS. Metal could tolerate much larger heat and radiant chakra damage (both caused by very high chakra-flows) than other materials, and so I hoped that with proper development and improvement of metal-sealing techniques I'd finally be able to bring the power and rate of fire high enough to make it more than a personal weapon.

Those were the applied sealing projects I focused on; on a more cerebral level, I was interested in what kinds of materials I could make by combining my scientific knowledge and chakra manipulation. But even for that, those sealing projects were a great first step.

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Gaining Uncle and Auntie and Yasu hadn't changed anything about Sachiko being my chief assistant (shadow, minion, best-friend – she was a multi-role retainer), and so it was part of her duties to have everything organized for my quarterly intelligence review video-conference with Tou-san.

The intelligence review was pretty interesting. I was watching as the world changed; more interestingly, I was watching as my country changed from a small but rich one into a real world power. There were all sorts of political developments, from how Whirlpool's society was shaping itself to how other countries were reacting. It was very cool to watch history being made; admittedly, it filled me with a certain narcissistic glee that I was the cause.

Uzushiogakure had maintained its policy of semi-isolation. They didn't really want all those possibly dangerous ninja coming over. So it stayed much more of a “family-clan-vassal-village” location, with a healthy helping of “fortress”, and was actually even less focused on “ninja” arts than before as the sealing arts gained prominence (partially my fault). Anyone with any inclination towards sealing was being pushed into that direction, and expanding chakra-networks to allow for more seals to be used became a major Academy focus there.

Whirlpool was also following a fairly intelligent policy with regards to Mist and Water Country. Rather than having large centers of semi-isolated and self-interested ninja (a recipe for intrigue if ever there was one), a number of mixed elite military villages had been coming about. They typically combined a traditional military base garrisoned by regular soldiers, as well as a smaller command and special operations section staffed by samurai and ninja. The bases were often located near or at a port.

There was a focus on keeping these places about the soldiers and family members who lived there, and keeping most of the business in nearby towns. The troops drew pay from the central government. Uzushiogakure was still the premier military center, even if it focused most on the Uzumaki clan and sealing, as it pretty much always has been.

There were of course the traditional samurai lords and their retainers as well, though Kazuo had gone for a more "late-period" bureaucracy that included samurai and efficient officials, rather than a super-traditional feudalism. There was still some more traditional feudalism, but it was, for the most part, enforced more by custom than law; citizens had a high degree of rights in Whirlpool.

Take my own retainers; there were a number of ways they could leave my service, though their own personal understanding of honor forbade it. Since Water was a recent addition, there were a lot of local "military governors" with broad powers over their territory, but these were not automatic hereditary seats.

Basically, the leader of the Uzumaki, and thus Whirlpool, was elected. He wasn't a big fan of permanent, multi-generational appointments, as the risks of such were well understood. For all its militaristic traditions and feudal overtones, Whirlpool was fairly meritocratic. It was quite pragmatic though too: wealth, land, and power were considered merits, whether earned personally or through inheritance.

I had a lot of power over my smallish island because I and my family, who had partially come under my theoretical leadership and were heavily involved in the colonization and modernization there, were granted property rights over the whole port-town, and some surrounding fields, forests and mines. I was also the senior court official, and technically military governor. Further, Tou-san, partially under my instructions, had already turned it around and made it productive (or at least peaceful), and had recruited enough troops to actually send them out to help Whirlpool where there was trouble with Kiri ninja or other Water Country hold-outs.

It helped that I was a somewhat notorious genius and none of my fellow countrymen were too interested in seeing what I might do if pissed off, especially with so much favor with the national leadership. There were lower lying fruits for the greedy with a shit-ton of land and honors up for grabs, especially considering how small Uzushiogakure was.

So for that laundry list of reasons, I had been able to consolidate almost total control over my island; cue maniacal laughter.

Overall, Whirlpool was effectively shaping up into a mostly benevolent four-tier semi-autocratic government with a high level of general rights. The lowest tier were the general citizens, who had general rights but little power or influence beyond that. They could only vote for the most local elections, and many of the more important posts weren’t elected to begin with.

The third tier were the non-voting recognized citizens. This included some retainers, clan-members outside of the Uzumaki, low level sealers, ninja and samurai (many from Wave or more recent immigrants or converts). The third tier had some special rights and powers, but not the right to vote for the leader of Uzushiogakure; they did sometimes have voting rights at levels of organization below the national one, depending on the region.

The second and top tiers consisted of voting citizens. The second tier was anyone capable of voting for the Uzushiogakure leader. This included the more important and powerful, with known loyalty to Whirlpool, as well as many of those who might have been third tier if they weren't citizens of Uzushiogakure (which had a lower bar for at least basic voting rights, though they'd only be able to cast one or two votes per person).

The second tier was pretty broad, ranging from an Uzushiogakure genin on up to the Lord Admiral of the Fleet. As people from the third tier were considered to have proven loyalties, they would typically gain at least minimal voting rights.

The top tier was anyone who was capable of voting for the Uzumaki Head Candidates. This top tier consisted only of Uzumaki clan members. That said, a low-ranked Uzumaki was still lower in all other respects than a high-ranked official outside of the Uzumaki, including in the number of votes they could cast once those candidates were selected. Some individuals had been granted the right to vote in Uzumaki elections, typically as a special honor, or to many of those that had married into the clan. This was a long-standing historical policy and had led to the effect where there was such a large number of Uzumaki families from different backgrounds.

Overall, the voting system that was shaping up seemed very practical. It was based on the true fundamental base of democracy, which was not (as many liberals or those with rosy-glasses towards history believed) based on morality.

Democracy came about in Greece as a way of finding out how the military age males felt about their leaders so that they could determine who would win any actual fights over who ruled without actually having the fight. There had been this whole mess involving, of all things, a homosexual love triangle (I'm not kidding, you really can't make this shit up- democracy has its roots in homosexuality) involving a pair of leading political figures and their pretty-boy object of affection. It got conflated with all the politics at the time, and basically the situation exploded. To prevent blood from running in the streets in the future, voting was introduced designed to show everyone where the balance of power rested.

But straight democracy doesn’t work well when some people are death-dealing gods capable of slaughtering thousands in personal combat. Much in the same way that it didn’t work well during the middle ages on Earth, when knights were so much more dangerous than peasants.

Worlds apart, the Uzumaki, Uzushiogakure and Whirlpool had a similar system, though modified to account for this difference in power. Votes depended on personal power, achievements, honors and the like. The Uzumaki, as an essential component of the village (we had all the best sealers) selected leadership candidates, who were then approved by those considered to be loyal to the nation (anyone with Uzushiogakure voting rights), again through a vote depending on power, influence, contribution to the state, etc. The commoners and those new to society weren't really considered to matter. It was harsh, and somewhat favoring males, but it reflected the reality of the situation.

As for the rest of the world, our no-longer-enemies Earth and Lightning had taken fairly significant losses back during that failed invasion, and the minor nations especially were using that chance to escape their clutches and settle scores. Lightning was getting harassed by all the pirates driven away from Mist and Water Country, and had lost their control of Frost which had basically declared neutrality and slowly begun making overtures to Whirlpool.

Earth and the Hidden Rock Village meanwhile had it even worse, as they were embroiled in a little war with Wind and the Sand Village over vassal-states and local influence. River with their Hidden Valley Village had joined in on Wind's side. In Fang and Claw, traditionally Earth and Iwagakure turf they were being pressed pretty hard. Rain, unfortunately right between the major Suna and Valley combined command and the main Earth forces, was getting fucked as usual; the Sand and Earth ninja made things even worse as they were particularly harsh on non-allied civilians.

Konohagakure had actually done really well politically. Grass had moved much more in the direction of Leaf and Fire, as had Waterfall, Rice and Hotsprings. With the recent Uzushio naval dominance, Hotsprings (whose economy depended on tourism and fishing the Haran Bay) had actually made moves to become a part of the Whirlpool alliance with Fire and Konoha, and was basically the junior nation in the developing power-house alliance. Rice was making overtures to both Iron and the Land of Fire; they lacked a ninja village, but didn't have any real enemies and were in a good negotiating position as the local bread-basket.

Whirlpool was becoming the leader of maritime trade, and many of the large international trading companies were locating new offices and transit centers in Water-Country to make use of Whirlpool Naval Escorts for trade convoys. The decrease in corruption and piracy was a huge boon to the former Water territories.

Basically, as far as the Elemental nations went, things were good; very good if you lived in Whirlpool or Fire Country.