"Alright."
"So, Mist was formally founded sixty six years ago, three years after the founding of the first modern shinobi village, the Leaf."
"The founding period was preceeded by a bit over two centuries of fairly chaotic warfare, which broke out after the last emperor of the Shining Dynasty died without heirs. The daimyo, who had been provincial rulers under the empire, began to feud among themselves, with a few other factions throwing their hats in - the most significant at first was the core of samurai loyal only to the emperor, under the shogun."
"Shinobi at that time were fairly marginal, mostly serving as spies and assassins. Shinobi very often allied with revolutionary movements, and, of course, were mercenaries who didn't hold to samurai ideals of honor. The daimyo exhausted their forces over the course of the Warring States Period, though, and the toll it took on the countryside - and on civilian willingness to tolerate samurai rule - hampered rebuilding those forces. Some did better than others, especially those willing to train civilians as samurai."
"The overall power of the shinobi clans increased over the Warring States Period. During the end, there was a phase of consolidation, both among shinobi and samurai. Smaller clans were either absorbed or subordinated. The shinobi villages arguably grew out of that process, as consolidation left regions containing only powerful but relatively equal clans, who couldn't subordinate each other without risking wiping each other out."
"Of course, how this played out varied dramatically between regions. Wind doesn't have clans, per se, the way most other nations do. Leaf was the closest to a full consolidation - Fire had only two leading clans by within a few years of Leaf's founding, and then the Senju partially subordinated the Uchiha, forming a bloc no other nearby clans could challenge."
"In Mist, consolidation hadn't advanced nearly as far as in any other nation - but, because of our geography and resource differences, we were much less intensely at war with each other than with external enemies. The Land of Water and Mist both consolidated only in response to external threats - Fire was very closely allied with Whirlpool, one of our old enemies, and Fire had economic interest in breaking any hold Water could claim on regulating ocean trade, and Lightning - which had had the most total consolidation - was starting to expand outside of their peninsula."
"This had advantages and disadvantages. We hadn't utterly destroyed our infrastructure when trying to murder each other, and we had less bad blood internally. We had more individually powerful shinobi. We also had far less of a gap between each level of power, both with clans and individuals, and the process of choosing a leader and negotiating an alliance was fraught. Still, we managed, and then mostly stayed out of the First War - we stood to profit more from shipping than from invasion, and prior to that we'd been successfully hedging our competition out. Lightning tried to invade us, but was mostly tangled in the mainland, and Whirlpool was having internal issues that distracted them."
"We did, however, get dragged into the conflicts between the First and Second War, and then we got fully dragged into the Second War. The Second War was the longest single conflict this continent has seen in centuries, and it was also one of the bloodiest and most intense each year. The five deadliest battles of those we have records for all happened over its course. Both the Second and Third Mizukage died in that war, and it was a significant contributor to our later instability. The Fourth Mizukage took power thirteen years into the war, and she is usually credited as the primary actor who ended the war - not through strength of arms, because Mist was basically shattered, but through diplomacy."
"She maintained that start - peace, diplomacy, reconstruction, reconciliation - for four years, but... Not forever." Shinrei closes her eyes.
