Today, a reader happened to bring this up.
Why was Qi Shuang trained by Kirigakure and allowed to become a shinobi?
I imagine many people have the same question, so I have no choice but to explain.
First of all, there must have been a reason for Kirigakure's rejection of Kekkei Genkai users.
It couldn't simply be that the Mizukage said, "I'm in a bad mood because I saw those Kekkei Genkai users today. Kill them all."
And then passed such a ridiculous decree, right?
Moreover, Kekkei Genkai shinobi were stronger than most shinobi. On top of that, their abilities were inherited through their families, and they lived together as clans rather than existing as individuals.
Although Kekkei Genkai users were quite rare in the original work, with only one or two appearing occasionally,
surely no one thinks that a Kekkei Genkai clan could be supported by just one or two people, right?
Just look at the Uchiha before their clan was wiped out. A Kekkei Genkai clan couldn't possibly have had only a handful of people.
With such a large force of elite combatants, the Mizukage would have had to be completely out of his mind to reject them all.
Therefore, Kirigakure's rejection of Kekkei Genkai users applied only to certain people, and there was a specific reason behind it. That was what forced the Mizukage to make such a self-destructive decision.
Haku said in his memories that after the Civil War, the people of the Land of Water were extremely wary of Kekkei Genkai users. (I deliberately went back and checked this just now, and that point is correct.)
To survive, many people began concealing their names and identities, afraid to reveal who they were or what they could do.
At that time, from the beginning of his memories, Haku lived with his mother in a small village.
That village was not Kirigakure. Surely no one thinks that run-down settlement was Kirigakure, right?
Although Naruto often gives people the impression that one village and one city make up an entire country, in reality, no matter how small a country is, it couldn't possibly consist of only one village.
Therefore, the impoverished village in Haku's memories was not Kirigakure.
He accidentally used his Kekkei Genkai once, and his father discovered the secret. That was how the identities of mother and son as Kekkei Genkai users were revealed.
Clearly, his mother married after concealing her identity, and only then gave birth to him. (The possibility that she remarried while bringing someone else's child along is too small.)
In other words, Haku's mother had already begun fleeing before he was born.
Haku was fifteen when he died, while Zabuza was twenty-six.
Therefore, when Zabuza was around eleven, Haku had just been born. Zabuza was the same age as Kakashi, and Kakashi was around thirteen when the Third Shinobi World War ended.
So Haku's mother began fleeing during the Third Shinobi World War.
There is something quite interesting here. In Haku's memories, it was because of the Civil War that the people rejected Kekkei Genkai users, forcing many of them to conceal their identities.
And the Civil War happened to take place at the same time as the Third Shinobi World War. Doesn't everyone find that a little too coincidental?
The entire country was fighting an external war, yet at that crucial moment, its own people broke out in civil war. Wouldn't that be a little too foolish?
Weren't they afraid that Kirigakure would settle accounts with them afterward?
I don't think certain people were simply being foolish. Rather, someone was deliberately stirring things up!
You have to understand that during wartime, everyone used whatever methods they could. It shouldn't be difficult to understand that each village would send people behind enemy lines to cause trouble, right? (Like our Hundred Regiments Offensive.)
The most typical example was when Orochimaru infiltrated Kumogakure during the Third Shinobi World War, released the Eight-Tails, and killed the previous Eight-Tails Jinchuriki.
Therefore, someone must have deliberately stirred up the Civil War that broke out in the Land of Water at that time.
As for who was behind it, it isn't difficult to analyze.
The countries closest to the Land of Water were the Land of Lightning and the Land of Fire. Kumogakure had lost the Third Raikage and was in complete chaos internally. It didn't even have the energy to fight in the Third Shinobi World War, let alone cause trouble in Kirigakure.
At that time, the Land of Fire was at war with the Land of Water.
Would Konoha have benefited from sending people to cause trouble in the Land of Water?
The answer is yes. The benefits would have been enormous!
Creating internal unrest in the Land of Water could ease the pressure on the front lines.
Moreover, Konoha was ruled by the Third Hokage during this period, Hiruzen Sarutobi, while Danzo was extremely active behind the scenes.
Therefore, it was obvious that the Civil War in the Land of Water was the result of instigation by someone with ulterior motives.
One of the factions involved in the Civil War in the Land of Water must have included Kekkei Genkai clans. That was why the people came to reject them.
Thus, the reason the higher-ups of Kirigakure rejected Kekkei Genkai users was that those people had rebelled and caused internal unrest.
So they would only target the factions and clans involved, not other innocent clans.
This also explains why Haku's mother concealed her identity and fled.
That Ice Release clan of theirs must have participated in the internal conflict in the Land of Water.
Moreover, Haku was later taken in by Zabuza, put on a mask belonging to the Hidden Mist Anbu, and given a forehead protector identifying him as a Kirigakure shinobi. This was enough to show that Kirigakure did not reject all Kekkei Genkai users.
At that point, Haku was alone. No one could investigate his background, and he did not even have a surname. Everyone simply regarded him as a Kekkei Genkai user who had been abandoned outside the village.
As for my setting for Qi Shuang, he is an orphan.
That means he had nothing to do with the Civil War in the Land of Water, and Kirigakure had no reason to target a child with no background whatsoever.
As for where his Ice Release came from,
everyone knows that Kekkei Genkai are acquired through inheritance.
Even if a person's Kekkei Genkai never awakens, the information for it still exists in their genes.
Even if not one of their descendants awakens a Kekkei Genkai, that genetic trait will still be passed down.
It's just that, as the bloodline grows weaker, the likelihood of an awakening in future generations becomes lower and lower.
I don't know whether everyone has heard of the phenomenon of "atavism." Occasionally, one or two people will display traits possessed by ancestors from many generations ago.
Although I never established a direct blood relationship between Qi Shuang and Haku, it is not impossible for him to possess a trace of Ice Release genes passed down from an ancestor many generations removed, then awaken them through atavism.
That is all I wanted to say. If everyone insists on arguing and believes that Kirigakure indiscriminately rejected all Kekkei Genkai users, then there is nothing I can do.
Different people will see it differently.
Before you continue