This lore post was too long in the making. I know I’ve been talking about these lore posts for ages now, so I decided to make a bit of a push to get this one finished in time to go out just before the next progress update. The problem, I find, is primarily how the posts keep ballooning in size the moment I start writing them. It occurs to me that people are going to complain about canon rules and assumptions, when the matter of the fact is that IFF is simply different in most respects, and then I start explaining only peripherally related concepts, such as my very limited explanations of the workings of seals in this lore post.
Even though this lore post is 2.200 words long, I promise you that it is on the very small side, and has been kept virtually bare bones so that I could even finish it at all. There are many things which have not made it into this post, many points which could be expounded upon much further. However, for now, this must be it. I shall be happy to answer questions in the comments, and I hope you enjoy.
Here follows several excerpts of “Taming the Gods”, by Nara Kaede
This book will not touch on the origins of the bijuu, for their origins are unknown to us, more myth and legend than history. The tumultuous times that followed the Sage left little to examine for modern historians. Entire civilizations were lost to memory, leaving behind only scarce ruins and indecipherable writings. The events surrounding the coming into being of the greatest terrors this world has ever known are lost to us, as they were lost to our ancestors, who first had to contend with their existence.
The bijuu were natural disasters, pure and simple – their rage as indomitable and mindless as that of earthquakes and volcanoes, floods and famines. They could not be negotiated with. They could not be understood. They could not be fought, or even hurt. They struck randomly and without warning or reason before withdrawing once again to go into deep sleep. When they saw each other, they fought with an unparalleled rage until one was driven away to lick its wounds. And every time they appeared, whether they clashed with one another or struck alone, many thousands died. Often, people would pilgrimage to the places where one of the nine beasts chose to slumber, and offer up sacrifices to placate them so they would stay their anger for another year. They were like gods to our ancestors.
It is not an easy thing, to capture a god and bend it to your will. Yet that is what we have done, and that process is what I give an account of, in Taming the Gods.
[…]
The oldest seal array ever found dates to the first century AS. The oldest reference to a storage seal dates to the second century AS. It was not before the fourth century AS that the understanding of chakra seals advanced sufficiently: active chakra absorption arrays were invented, and for the first time in almost half a millennium, it became conceivable to do something about the bijuu.
In those times, it was the learned of the temples who were the masters of written seals. Nothing like the enormous, organized institutions which are so prevalent now existed then, but these sages were among the precursors of modern ninja. The Sōdaina Jigyō scrolls contain an account of the development of the first seal, describing it as a gathering of the wisest and most powerful temple sages in the world. Thousands answered the call, across religions and cultures and borders, spurred by the Kyuubi’s total destruction of the incredibly wealthy island nation and trade center of Tokushu, whose remnants came to be known as the Land of Whirlpools, and were the foundation for the modern city-state of Uzushio.
The development of the seal took years, and the structure that was erected to support the seal itself was enormous, with a warren of tunnels beneath it to contain the seal’s great chakra channels. Today, the Temple of the Eldest Flame lies in the same location, nestled in between the two easternmost peaks of the Kasai mountain range. But back then, the place had another function entirely: to trap, seal and contain the Kyuubi.
The trap took years to prepare, and required the cooperation of dozens of nations. It is a miracle indeed that it was allowed to be attempted at all, for the Kyuubi was woken on purpose and shepherded many kilometers to the location of the seal, which had been constructed dangerously close to its slumbering form. It followed its taunting attackers with the same mindless rage that it laid waste to so many nations with, and though countless people had to give their lives, the Kyuubi reached the temple and the seal was activated. Miraculously, it worked. The Kyuubi was sealed within the mountain.
That first seal would, in the end, not last for long. The incredible stresses which the Kyuubi put on it caused it to fail within a decade. But by then, half a dozen other such seal temples were already being constructed across the continent, their designs refined further with every new seal. The inevitability of the bijuu’s rage was no longer a given. For the beasts, it was already too late. Now they could be challenged. Now, they could be defeated. They have largely been in our power since.
[…]
The strength of the bijuu is unmatched in the world. Nothing can penetrate their hides, and nothing can withstand their rage. Mountains crumble and lakes evaporate before them. Even a thousand of the world’s most powerful ninja could never hope to match the sheer, raw power of a single bijuu, let alone a thousand sages six centuries ago. What, then, allowed them to trap a bijuu, despite being unable to match its power?
It is because, out of all of the creatures in the world, humans are without a doubt the most dangerous. We are, most of us, weak and fragile. We do not have fangs, nor claws, nor venom. But spears, swords, canals and cities do not grow on trees. You will not find a cow considering which alloy works best for forging a sword. Only the talking animal races truly share our intellect, but they do not share our mindset. Only humans have the intellect, the ambition and the arrogance to attempt to chain the forces of the world to our wills. No one but a human could ever conceive of attempting to tame a god, and then proceed to do it.
The design of the first bijuu seal was ingenious. The wise sages of the past knew that they could not ever hope to match their strength against a bijuu even in unison, and so they did not try. Instead, they turned its strength against itself. Its own chakra was absorbed and used to power the seal which trapped it and stored its form; the more it struggled, the more power it fed to its prison. Once the basic principle worked, one only had to construct a seal which could withstand channeling the enormous amounts of chakra which were necessary to contain something with the strength of a bijuu.
Chakra ink would not be invented for another century, and chakra-forged alloys were many centuries off; the seals of this age were built in stone and wood which was soaked in human blood. These seals did not channel chakra well compared to modern ones, and this necessitated the construction of the large temples. The Kōken’nin order was created and given the mandate to contain the bijuu. Within a mere few decades, all of the bijuu were sealed, and for centuries, the Kōken’nin built, maintained and protected the temples which contained the bijuu. As the centuries passed, the bijuu seals shrunk in size, until they could be forged in steel and contained within a single, large room at the center of the seal temples. Sometimes, accidents happened, and bijuu might break free for many years until they could be recaptured and safely contained again. Still, the world enjoyed an unprecedented time of peace from the rage of the bijuu.
It was in the city of Uzushio, in the Land of Whirlpools, once known as Tokushu, that the next step was taken. A new type of bijuu seal was devised by the seal masters of Uzushio, who were unrivalled in the world in their knowledge of the craft. This new seal supposedly allowed a bijuu to be sealed within a single person, relying upon their own internal chakra network to function and bear the strain of supporting it. When the Nibi broke free of its seal, this new seal was first used, without the knowledge of the Kōken’nin, and its host was brought to the Land of Whirlpools to be studied. It quickly developed that the great stress of supporting a bijuu seal turned the host irretrievably insane and rendered their chakra network virtually broken to them; utterly beyond use.
There were, however, benefits to the technique. For the first time, bijuu were portable, and Uzushio was quick to realize this. Uzushio had until then regularly warred with a neighboring city-state, Gotama, later to be the capital of the Land of Fire. Uzushio arranged to release the Nibi to rampage in Gotama, and the city suffered great damage before the Nibi left to seek a place for slumber. The Kōken’nin order was outraged to discover Uzushio’s scheme of harnessing the bijuu, and threw their whole-hearted support behind Gotama in the war that followed. By the end of the war, the city states surrounding Gotama had coalesced into a greater whole, the Land of Fire, in defense against the threat of bijuu attack. The Land of Whirlpools was subjugated, and made a vassal state of the rapidly growing Land of Fire.
For the Kōken’nin, it was already too late. As the nations realized what the development of the new bijuu seals meant, and the knowledge of how to create them spread, bijuu were seized from Kōken’nin temples across the world and sealed into hosts, which came to be known as jinchuuriki. The sacrifice of a single individual’s life and sanity was a small price to pay for wielding such power, after all, and the Kōken’nin’s selfless mission no longer held the same weight it once did. The order was largely dismantled, and many of its disciples and seal masters were eventually absorbed into the soon-to-be-formed ninja villages.
There was, of course, still far to go. Releasing a bijuu from a host inevitably meant the host’s death, as well as the death of anyone immediately nearby. Further, the seal was lost in the process, and a bijuu released somewhere would eventually have to be sealed again. To add to the difficulty, this was often deep in enemy territory, and offered the enemy a prime opportunity to catch a bijuu for themselves, should they be ready for the occasion. The nations which captured bijuu and used them most wisely grew greatly in this period – often entirely without the use of their bijuu, as the mere threat of their use was usually enough to cow individual city states into submission. The map grew to resemble something much more familiar to the modern reader, with five great powers possessing all nine of the bijuu.
An arms race began among the newly emerged great nations and their ninja villages, to create the most flexible and reliable bijuu seals. During the first great ninja war, a type of seal emerged which could withstand the process of unsealing and keep the host safe meanwhile, remaining inactive during the beast’s rampage, and then reactivating to assist with the beast’s resealing from inside, allowing a new dimension of flexibility in their military applications, while also letting the hosts retain their lives. During the second great ninja war, seals were used which were capable of resealing a bijuu entirely on their own, further increasing their possible uses. In the third great ninja war, refined versions of these seals were used by most sides, and it was only the Land of Fire which brought something entirely new to the table: a seal developed in Uzushio which allowed them – to a degree – to control the behavior of the beast while it was released.
Throughout the third great ninja war, the Land of Fire’s bijuu placement, usage and strategy was superb, and led to their alliance’s complete victory despite being heavily outnumbered in terms of beasts, due to the freedom, precision and speed with which they could deploy the Kyuubi. This was, of course, also helped along by the famous Fourth Hokage, Namikaze Minato, who often used his unique spacetime techniques to move Konoha’s jinchuuriki around the front at speed, or to make deep strikes without exposing Konoha’s own position unduly.
Fortunately for the other nations, there was a great public outcry during and after the third ninja war, due to the unprecedented casualties which were suffered due to the use of bijuu. Single cities had been destroyed by bijuu, but never before scores of them in quick succession, with casualties numbering in the millions. Today, the use of bijuu is scorned and greatly feared by the public. It is possible that their mere existence and demonstrated capacity to destroy is what now keeps the great nations from warring, lest another war as damaging as the last take place.
[…]
In many ways, bijuu have defined the past millenia of history. The world was once entirely subject to their actions, and their subjugation irrevocably changed everything, allowing greater and more prosperous nations to exist and flourish. The development of the human bijuu seal once again changed the world, revolutionizing the face of warfare to a degree which was only truly realized in the third great ninja war. It led to the balance of power which we know today, with the lands of Lightning and Fire largely dominant over Wind, Earth and Water due to their superior bijuu seals.
There are those idealists today who speak of abolishing the very concept of jinchuuriki and re-instituting the mission of the Kōken’nin order, and while it is no doubt philanthropically desirable, it is also a notion in vain. Power such as the bijuu’s is not easily cast aside, and those who choose not to capture and wield a bijuu are merely at a disadvantage to those who do, despite the distasteful sacrifices which are necessary. There can be no doubt; as the bijuu have dominated the past, so they will dominate the future.
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The Forge 