Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Where We Come From

Of Blue Eyes and Red Eyes

The day had already reached its prime. Children were playing in the street, the smaller ones were chasing rubber balls and the slightly older ones were tossing wooden ninja tools at each other and clashing with wooden swords. Playing ninja was one of the most popular past times for kids old enough to grasp the basic concept. It was more common amongst young boys, girls usually played a strange simulation game where they're just sitting around at home taking care of their dolls which were supposed to be their kids. It was quite usual for the two groups to play together and fuse their seemingly separate universes into one.

Each kid had their "family", a "wife" they left at home when they ran off with other boys to play a great war of ninjas. Girls liked being part of boys' group and their silly antics never interrupted their own game so they played along with this weird social contract. It was a small model of how society worked, the most common and simple particles of it, at least. There were some girls who didn't fancy just sitting at home feeding the dumplings that their mothers gave them for snacking to their dolls. 

They played alongside boys and went to war yet it never bothered either the boys or the girls. Girls accepted those other girls as part of their group, let them occasionally visit their "family" and boys treated them as their equal partners. If a girl was considered a weaker ninja of the group it wasn't because of her gender, it was because she wasn't creative enough to make a strong imaginary persona for herself and lacked the skills of imagination and quick decision making.

Maybe to some this would have seemed weird, those people would most likely not have experienced the world where the spiritual and physical energy of one's body was able to augment one's abilities to compensate for natural shortcomings. Some people would have attributed this strange aura of equality that surrounded the children, usually, the least likely group to behave appropriately and respect equality, to a certain amount of time having passed since the strongest and the leading ninja of the village was a respected woman. Even more, one who could've shattered the dreams of any man trying to match her in the physical strength department. Those people would not have known how things were before that woman took over from Star of Hope, Howoku, the Fourth Hokage.

Obviously, in a world where people's lives were wasted left and right a woman's decision to devote her time to raising children was very much respected. No woman was scorned or scolded for choosing to devote their lives to that goal, maybe even the opposite was the case, they were respected even more than an average ninja who devoted their life for their village would have. They enjoyed specific protection, a certain social elevation in their importance which was tough to explain but quite visible if one was to spend some time amongst the villagers.

A whole year had passed since Chestnut Hanasaku became the Fifth Hokage, her face was quickly added to the monument amongst the other Hokage of the past. The village was living in some strange state of having frozen in time after the initial shock of having lost their Hokage and most of their Sannin. There was an obvious vacant gap left, for the first time in many years Konohagakure had no Sannin to be proud of: Misu and Tanshu had killed each other in their battle, Hanasaku left the spot open by becoming the Fifth Hokage. 

The council tried to raise some of their more prominent jounin to the rank but for one reason or another, they were refused. Konoha had plenty of powerful jounin but they weren't quite on that level just yet. Knowing full well the amount of danger and respect that the rank granted Hanasaku rejected each candidacy, the woman simply didn't think any of them could have handled the fame and the desire of so many bounty hunters from the sides of both: rogue ninja or other villages to take them down and add their heads to their collections.

Konoha still didn't have people in Kirigakure to observe the village's political and administrative life. Despite being the primary motivation of Hanasaku's election to the great chair, the woman just said that she either needed most ninja selected for that role in the village and at her disposal or she simply didn't trust them enough.