The Shackles Binding the Shinobi World

"So, the farce in the Land of Rivers was all orchestrated by that masked mysterious man called Tobi?"

The Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, folded his hands together, his expression grave.

If that mysterious man could mass-produce those [Ghouls], then the entire Shinobi World might face enormous upheaval.

To other ninja, the Ghouls in the Land of Rivers were merely a rebel force of two or three hundred, possessing the strength of Genin and Chunin.

Konoha was vast, with countless powerful ninja. A rebellion of that scale could be easily dealt with by dispatching just a few Jonin.

But Hiruzen Sarutobi, who had held power for many years, did not see it that way.

The Shinobi World had maintained its current stability because the Five Great Nations had tacitly agreed to keep ninjutsu in their own hands, allowing it to rarely spread beyond their borders.

As for the smaller ninja villages, they at most possessed a few of the most basic ninjutsu.

Not to mention that most small nations served merely as buffer zones between the Five Great Nations, and battlefields when necessary.

The core leadership of these ninja villages had countless ties to the surrounding great nations. While they could not exactly be called puppets on strings, they were incapable of stirring up any real trouble.

When true war came, their fate was simply to wave banners in support and serve as cannon fodder.

Through this control over [advanced knowledge and information], the Five Great Nations and their subordinate small nations, together with the noble classes that had long existed in the Shinobi World, had formed an exceptionally solid ruling system.

The commoners at the bottom of that system could only muddle through their entire lives, and one careless mistake might even get them killed by some ninja lord.

It