Otogakure Updates
The Past
The beginnings of Oto were mired in dark days and dark deeds. It's founder, the First Otokage, Orochimaru the traitor Sennin of Kohnoha, was undoubtedly one of the most brilliant and powerful Shinobi of his time...but at what cost? After the defeat of their founder, and their crushing losses, the Hidden sound sank into reclusion...
After a hundred years of solitude, Oto opened up for business once more. The walled fortress of a village began doing missions for the Rice Country, causing a massive power shift from the Feudal Lord to the Merchant Alliance of the eastern coast. With the backing of the Merchant Alliance, who footed the bill of the massive uprising ninja village, the second Otokage set in motion the rise of the village hidden in the sound.
Fast forward now to the time that the Otobe clan bloomed within the walls of Otogakure. The clan was unknown to the second Otokage, and the Otobe only came back to Oto's service once the Third came into power. The skills shown in several Chuunin exams, and the odd sensing capabilities shown in many tracking missions, of that singular clan gave Oto that very much needed 'one-up' over Konoha's Uchiha clan.
After a short fifty years of peace, and a rising amount of graduating students from the academy, the Fifth found Orochimaru's hidden Kinjutsu scrolls. Upon studying those scrolls the Kage went insane and murdered twenty students at the Otogakure ninja academy- which sent reverberating messages through-out the ninja world. Then, when the Sixth Otokage was selected, the scrolls were destroyed...or so the village thought. The Kage made sure to keep the scrolls within a secret location, which was completely unknown to her fellow villagers. Evil was still afoot in Otogakure, and it could be felt by any who passed by its masterful walls and lanes.
Fast forward forty years, when the clan that had been a mere advantage to village had gained great prominence and status...the Otobe. And the Otobe clan had dsicovered that the Kage's had been concealing the hidden scrolls. The lie told to most of the clan was that they were intended to take the scrolls for the purposes of protecting them...but the leader of the clan at the time had other intentions. The Otobe rose, trying to defeat the Kage who they believed to be corrupt, and as a result, were defeated. Through a harrowing battle that took the lives of many elite Jounin annd nearly killed the Kage himself, the Otobe were cast back, and sent back into the shadows of defeat...exiled.
As a new Kage was chosen, after the exiling of the Otobe clan and few mysterious events which led to the death of the previous Kge, more clans, such as the highly skilled Hana clan, began to bloom in the promising village, which caused the village to become stronger with every passing day. More ninjas, more power, more missions, and more money began to thrush into the ninja village. Otogakure is a village that no one would cross, and even when there wasn't a Kage for roughly thirteen years the village was simply exploding into the world.
Or...so it was thought.
The rise of the Fifth Dawn the incident with the Master's let the world changed forever, and Otogakure was no exception. The Fifth Dawn claimed Otogakure as it's own for a time, offering it even further chance to prosper. Under a New Kage appointed by the Fifth dawn, the village served it's purposes toward their goals for some time, life going on as it would for the village hidden in the sound...
However... when Shou, the Kage appointed by the Fifth dawn chose to leave his appointed position and the alliance with the Fifth dawn was broken by the orginization's defeats and seclusion from the world at large, a new Otokage was appointed.
An Uchiha. Uchiha had carried on a branch in Oto for some time, almost since it's founding, and had provided many powerful shinobi to the villages ranks in the past. However, the last Uchiha to be a Kage had been the very one to exile the Otobe clan, a move which crippled the villages forces at the time, only saved by the Hana clan's rise to fill the gap.
Perhaps it was a sing of things to come...perhaps, because of the betrayal the first faced at the hands of the Uchiha, he truly had cursed the position of Kage for any and all Uchiha who would try to claim it...either way, dark times once more fell on the village. Though for a very long time Saiya Uchiha, the Kage chosen, led the people through times of peace and made her people happy...it was destined to all end in tragedy. A time of weakness and depression soon fell upon the village, the Otokage herself choosing, upon seeing the village withering away between her fingers, to mysteriously vanish... the Uchiha clan within the village vanishing along with her, if only to avoid the stigma which had been placed upon them in these hard times...
The Uchiha were, sadly, the scape goats for the people's suffering...and were no longer welcome in the village of the hidden sound...
However... happier times were on the Horizon.
In the midst of a dying village the shinobi ran low and Saiya no longer remained to be their leader. It was a time of silence and darkness in the village, where life was still and the once blossoming power had seemed to have reached it's crest and fall into decline. Otogakure needed a Kage, the villagers came together and elected one of the most powerful shinobi. A younger man, who was born off in the hills of the rice country. Okazai Kasuke, The Spirit of the Wind was instated as the 12th Otokage. His leadership brought untold prosperity and life renewed in the village.
Kasuke's philosophy was one of peace, his desire to see a world where war and Ninja were no longer nessecary, his desire to break the cycle of hate reminiscent of the ideals Kohnoha had preached so long ago. Oto was a place of peace and contentment...for a time.
With peace came a steep price. The village military weakened, the number shinobi low as it was. It seemed that the village may sink into more of a economic village than one of ninja. It was during this time that three young Ninja rose into the public eye, becoming symbol of young prodigies amidst the villages softer days. Less than a day after their acceptance as Genin the team had managed to bring to light a misunderstanding which had almost caused an invasion of an opposing Kage, exposing a cult and defeating one of their dangerous experiments while informing the two Kage's, Kasuke and the attacker, Nakamura of the waterfalls and the snow, of the truth before the two could finish the battle which they had begun fighting in earnest amidst the village streets. Together the two Kage's defeated the cultists, and after yet another incident later called "the second great misunderstanding" in which again, Team Four and certain ANBU played a small role in stopping the matter from turning violent, the two villages declared a peace treaty, the Tsuchikage himself showing up as well and actually sealing the matter with what he called "rock concert". Surrealism aside, it was another sign of peace.
Even while the Fire Daimyo rose with his infamous betrayal of the Hidden leaf just next store to them, the Rice remained peaceful for a few months, the worst crime occuring the rash of robberies conducted by the mysterious and rather well mannered "Phantom", who always provided the courtesy of warning people ahead of time before robbing them.
Though there was a brief stir when one of the Member's of Team Four claimed the Snake Contract of the First from the under the Mountain, the first to be accepted by them in centuries, it was more a sign of taking the old Oto and making it into something better...something new...
That attitude was challenged when the Fire Daimyo's war spilled over into Rice. The edges of the country faced invasion from desters and raiders, the peaceful Kasuke slow to act and put his Ninja at risk. Though one among Team Four, Kimiko Momoe, over the course of a year, earned much favor escorting and protecting refugee's and saving villages during this time, while her teammates were off either settling old scores or defeating Missing Nin organizations, it did little to bolster the Kage's reputation among the people.
Then, in a single night, everything changed.
The Otobe had returned. Leading an army of mercenaries and rogue Ninja, the Otobe took the village as bloodlessly as possible, their exceptionally skilled "Knight's of Forte" besting the village's remaining forces as the Knight's Leader, Orikami, was said to have engaged Kasuke himself in a battle unlike any seen for years. When the wind torm over Oto vanished...it's Kage seemed to have as well, the civilians captured by the strategies of the infamous, Kyojin of the Last Laugh, who had entered the Otobe's employ.
Many of the village's Ninja surrendered, but it's young Prodigies, now all the level of Jounin even though they were so young, the two eldest a mere 15, refused to give in. Team Four left the village that night, taking many lives in the process, and earning themselves there own titles in the process... The villages heroes had become Missing Nin...
And the Otobe...? With the death of the former Clan head in charge of the attack, his son, Orikami, took control. In a single night, a heart felt speech to the whole village and releasing the defeated Ninja unharmed, he declared that the Otobe would not be trying to oppress their fellow Otogakurans, nor take revenge, but take this opportunity to guide them all to a new future...
By sending the remnants of the Otobe's haired army to help the land of Rice reclaim it's borders, he has done much to fullfill that promise in their eyes...but this is only the beginning. He will restore Oto to greatest and protect every soul in it to his best ability... no matter what he must do to make it so...
Current Status:
The state in Oto is surprisingly calm considering the recent take over of the new Otobe regime, the Otobe's charismatic efforts to tame the populace and restore order and control the village working rather well given the words and actions of their newly instated leader, Orikami Otobe, current Clan head and newly instated Otokage.
The Shinobi of Old Oto are under surveillance, but seem to be allowed enough freedom to work much as they did before, regarding they follow the laws and order given them by the new Otokage. The exception to this is ANBU, which has been disbanded, expanded, and replaced with the mostly Otobe equivalent, the Otokagure secret police. The minimal damage from the invasion is mostly repaired, the bill for which has been covered by the Otobe themselves, and the attitude for the future at the moment seems very optimistic, though a few die hard supporters of the old regime have been quietly...apprehended and dealt with, it has not become widely known and is not a common topic for discussion.
The Future
Otogakure is slowly collecting Students, and intends to rebuild the next generation of Oto into an elite group of Loyal and compitant weapons, capapble of carrying out their new Kage's orders. When enough have joined for the class to be held, events may pick up quickly.
A Political visit between the New Oto and the Hidden Mist is underway, and plans for it have already been confirmed for the near future. An alliance may be on the horizon.
