Board Thread:Fanon Canon 2/@comment-2089817-20140925022817

1) Which village are you applying this Kage/Village Head for?

Konohagakure

2) What is the name of the candidate you are applying for this position?

Kasuga Sarutobi

3) How did your candidate become recommended for the position? (Be extremely detailed in this section, as it is quite important for the outcome of the application)

She was put into office by the previous Hokage, Seireitou, who was not able to be in the FC because some people are absolute morons... I'm getting side-tracked. Anyways, despite her more cold demeanor, she served as a standard Jounin in the village and worked with different teammates during this time. Many of them would include shinobi like those of the rookie nine from the original series, who have by now achieved jonin status and would be serving in the same capacity as Kasuga herself during that time. I feel like everybody always comes up with some kind of flashy huge story, but that isn't always necessary. Kasuga wasn't very people-friendly, especially given her training with Seireitou, but was willing to work together with people, if only because it would help to get the job done. This has led people in the village to view her as somebody that might be stern and not easy to approach, but somebody who doesn't allow emotions to cloud her judgement and makes an attempt at being friendly, even if it doesn't always work out. She tries, which is my point. But more importantly, she gets the job done. Period. I feel that this is something that is crucial for a Hokage to have. Lineage-wise, she is the granddaughter of Hiruzen, the "Professor", and the third Hokage that was regarded as one of the greatest in history; if not the greatest. This aspect probably would help out her case in being approved to become Hokage by the Daimyo and his council.

4) Upon attaining the position, what has your candidate done within the position for the village? (In terms of economical, political and militant advantages or progress for the village)

Let's go in order of military, economy, and population (which are the three statistics Kishi used for the ninja villages).

Kasuga continued the work of her predecessor, Seireitou, by focusing on the military aspects of Konoha; which were sorely lacking even before the fourth world war. However, unlike Seireitou, who prioritized the strength of the individual, especially with his previously established Kekkei Sonae which is still in force for some of the shinobi (and I do plan to have characters in Konohagakure still possessing it, those who are willing that is), Kasuga pushed for more teamwork drills. But not limited solely to teams that were assigned after gradutation, but interteam training too. She felt that the village's ninja teams weren't working together very often and remained rather isolated from one another. In the canon, you would rarely see Team 7 communicating with the other Teams in their graduating class, save for the Chunin exams. Kasuga believed that by implementing an interteam training regiment, shinobi in the team would be able to gain vast experience from dealing with a medley of opponents with a variety of different skills. This would broaden their own skills and experiences, which would then lead to them being more knowledgeable about what maneuvers to implement in more vast scenarios, which will subsequently serve to improve mission success rates. She was also a proponent of mixing together teams, choosing a team of three from two teams of four (one of their leaders and two shinobi from those teams) in order to accomplish two things. For an example, imagine Team Kakashi and Team Guy from the canon. Kasuga would take Kakashi from Team Kakashi for the leader position, Neji from Team Guy for offense, and Sakura from Team Kakashi as the medic nin. And this would be for two distinct goals. One, to train shinobi to work with different people on each mission. In actual war and unpredictable situations, one might not always have the luxury of choosing their teammates. Therefore, it becomes crucial to practice working together with new people each time. And also, on the off-chance that team rosters were ever stolen by the enemy and they learned of team composition, mixing together people from different teams, this would render the stolen information absolutely useless to the enemy.

Now, onto economy. Kasuga would introduce a labor trade system for mission payments. Why? Well, let's look back to the Land of Waves arc. Tazuna's village did not have the money for a B-ranked mission, which would've been protection from a ninja of Zabuza's caliber, and lied about the specifics of the mission so that it would be classified as a D mission and the payment would be far less. Now, instead, Kasuga designed a system for higher ranked missions that they can be paid by opting for manual labor as a method of payment. Upon the mission's completion, the client would be outsourced to another village in the Land of Fire to accomplish acts of labor for people in need to assistance in their work; whether this be part-time help in shops, construction, et cetera. Those clients, in turn, would then pay Konoha for that particular outsourced labor, which would allow for even greater funds to roll in. For example, if I bring up Tazuna again. Through this system, after the completion of his mission, Tazuna would be requested to go to another village, somewhere in the Land of Fire, to... say another construction site that needed assistance and more men on the project. Tazuna would work to pay off the mission's debt and the money that would've been paid to him, instead goes to the village, which would end up being far more than a B-ranked mission would've cost anyways. This introduces a system of debt into the Land of Fire that can only favor Konohagakure and only serve to improve the village's economy.

And now population. There's not too much to say, honestly, but after the fourth war, I'd presume that the population dwindled significantly. So, originally the numbers were 5/5, now they'd be like... 3.5/5 or 4/5.

5) From this point in the Fanon Canon Rebirth timeline onward, what plans does your Kage/Village Head have in order to improve the state of the village on the international stage? (Alliances, investing in further technology, investing in strengthening the military, etc)

Two things honestly come to mind immediately.

Since I said that Kasuga favors cross-team practices, she also believes it is crucial that the hidden villages work together on an international stage. So yes, she will pursue alliances. If I had to compare her to anybody in this regard, it'd be Tokugawa Ieyasu. She favors unity among all else when it comes to international issues. However, she is also not naive either. Kasuga is aware that the larger hidden villages will not be so willing to ally themselves. She will, therefore, focus on rallying the smaller villages and raising a huge supportive front which will make her case for unity far stronger when appealing to the other villages.

The second is that she will desire the tailed beasts. But not to directly strengthen her military might. Rather, she will use them as bargaining chips. By offering to allow shinobi from the smaller nations to become jinchuriki under their command, they will allow for an alliance to be formed between the villages, which serves to indirectly strengthen Konoha's military might. However, this will not be without insurance. Kasuga will make sure the seal keeping said tailed beast within the individual will be designed with fail safe measured to prevent that village from betraying Konoha, so... it will be important for a master of seals to join me in Konoha; though I'll just make a new character if need be. 