Ikiri

All the time I invested in becoming more powerful made sense, as there was a little turmoil in the environment.

The area so stable known to me as the central area was destabilizing, a couple of years ago we discovered the powerful Senju clan.

Their area of influence was wide but mostly around a city governor, called the Fire governor.

You didn't have to be very smart to know who the latter was and how far he would take his family.

The governors had started troop movements, first small attacks with wandering ninjas, then assassinations of important people such as governors or feudal lords.

Until finally the central region fell into a deep militarism, the cities armed themselves, those with greater resources hired the most powerful clans.

We were still far from the Senju clan and the Fire Country were moderately far from achieving a great expansion although they were already on their way.

During these five years we fortified our Ninja village with walls and the latest ninja technologies to detect intruders, which would be things like wires attached to explosives or traps.

At the same time we took over the City of Ikiri, truth be told it was a fluke, as the city was attacked by an unknown clan killing the main and second family.

The only daughter of the governor was kidnapped, but the group of assassins met one of our ninja teams that were returning from a mission.

To their misfortune, among them was my uncle Raiko, who easily eliminated them.

The girl was the only survivor of the clan, but because she was a woman she could not inherit, to fix the problem we contacted the manager of the city of five thousand inhabitants and an agreement was reached.

Ikiri Haruko, as the girl was called, would marry a member of the main family of the Kurokawa clan, while she was growing up, the governorship of the city was in the hands of the Kurokawa clan.

Because of the girl's age which was two years old, it was decided to marry her off to my luck to my younger brother Kurokawa Souta who was already five years old.

And he proved to be a nuisance to mother because unlike me he cried in great quantities during his early years.

But like any of my father's children, he learned to shut up with just one look from him.

Clearly the Hyuga's asked for a piece of the pie, it was an intense negotiation.

But a good compromise was reached after a lot of give and take.

First of all the city would have some streets whose taxes would go directly to the Hyuga clan, others that would go to the Kurokawa clan and a last one that would go to the city administration.

Apart from having spaces where they could build some buildings without tax.

Secondly, it was promised that as soon as the Hyuga clan had a candidate to marry outside the Hyuga clan, she would be promised in marriage to the heir to the governorship of the city.

In this case they must be waiting for a member to be born without the Byakugan, it is a rare occurrence, but it happens once every few births.

Lastly and most important was that the marriage of Kurokawa Souta and Ikiri Haruko was approved by them only if a new clan was born separate from the Kurokawa clan.

They were strong demands, but they were necessary in order to find stability in the city.

We couldn't defend it alone for now and that's not what we wanted either, we would only use the city as a source of funding to increase the quality of our weapons and power.

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Unfortunately trouble during periods of war even if you don't want it to always come knocking on your door.

This time it was from a future acquaintance, the Sarutobi clan, they were a bit far from home, but we guessed that they had been sent by the governor of a city to finish the job with Ikiri, possibly the same one who ordered the massacre of the main family.

And it is also possible that the ninja my uncle killed were ninja from this clan.

Although I had the respect of the clan I still could not lead the clan in battle, and in time I came to understand the words my father once told me.

About not wanting to be the head of the clan yet, but I really felt that my ideas were better than the rest of the council members.

This time to stop the Sarutobi clan my father commanded the troops and I would fight in earnest.

Sure enough, the battlefield was a dense forest.

From the information I had, I knew beforehand that the Sarutobi clan was good with Fire Jutsus so I would take care to use my strategic advantage.

- "Kuchiyose no Jutsu."

-Vidar: "Oh, what do you need Aki?"

Aki: "Flood the whole area with your water."

Vidar didn't care much about this request and immediately a stream of water flooded the entire forest.

It was time to put their training into practice.

The enemy Ninjas climbed the trees waiting for the water level to go down, but Vidar would keep it that way for a while.

Kento: "What the fuck is that giant turtle thing Aki?"

Aki: "It's my summoning beast."

I lunged forward and summoned twenty water clones.

I stood back while facts fought with the enemies, and used the summoning of whirlpools and water fangs to generate trouble for them.

I had more than twenty ninjas distracted by me, I was winning and...

A gigantic fireball appeared out of nowhere, there was a powerful Katon user.

A huge wall of water rose up and resisted the fireball, it was Lord Kano, he was also a powerful Suiton user.

He launched himself to fight against the Katon user, looking as always for close range combat, meanwhile I continued to keep under pressure the ninjas fighting against my Water clones.

This allowed on some sides of the battlefield the enemies to be outmatched, that and we had several members of the Hyuga clan among us.

We had a strong front line with the Hyuga combat and the strong Kenjutsu of our clan, supported by some very good ninjutsu users and in case of getting hurt they were supported by the field medics.

A strong formation, the enemy had no ninja too powerful that could unbalance a battlefield.

The Fūton user of the Sarutobi clan was smart and decided to preserve his life by retreating and with him, all his troops.

Our losses were minimal, only light to serious wounds, while they suffered almost fifteen casualties.

I doubt that the Sarutobi clan will ever leave their safe place again. At least for this generation.

I took care of healing the wounded and before leaving for Ikiri I was interrogated.

Lord Kano: "Was that beast yours?"

For some reason although he didn't show it on his face, he felt kind of angry.

Aki: "Yes, his name is Vidar."

Lord Kano: "How long have you known Vidar?"

I knew what my mistake was, but I felt a sense of danger at the thought of admitting it.

Aki: "About six months ago, I met him on one of my scouting trips".

Lord Kano: "If I don't know the information of the entire clan's strength, then I don't know anything, think about that the next time you want to hide something from me."

He turned his back to me and started giving orders to some members who were nearby.

Maybe I made a mistake by not telling him about Vidar before this mission, but I think keeping it hidden for years was the best decision.

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Soon Ikiri became a growing town, the surrounding land began to be planted, as migrants entered the territory.

Then we saw the big problem that came from keeping a constant force in Ikiri to protect it.

It was too dangerous to divide the forces so much, of the three hundred ninja that the Kurokawa clan could mobilize, one hundred and fifty were on missions to patrol and defend Ikiri.

The rest were on missions and scouting key locations for information as well as defending the Kurokawa village.

The Hyuga had almost three hundred ninja in Iriki, consequently they requested more construction and tribute slots, fair enough we should give it to them.

Which left us with a major problem to solve, our population was too small for the economy we were now managing.

We could now support about a thousand well-armed ninjas, but we could only reach a maximum of three hundred.

This was also thanks to the fact that battle losses began to decrease.

But, how do we solve the population problem?