How did a village whose founding clan (the Yaramachis) seems to be completely focussed on traps with their mine jutsus end up as hardcore against the more subtle sides of being a ninja, glorifying direct combat?
Also, could a sufficiently powerful and innovative Yaramachi pull of a Macross Missile Massacre and eventually build intercontinental cruise missiles? Because it isn't far from Mines that move on their own to guided torpedoes to guided missiles.
It's a long story, but it has to begin with something that everyone's taught about, the Shimakage. In the aftermath of the 4th Ninja wars, the clans of the archipelago took an opportunity to do something no Ninja had done before, successfully. They overthrew their Daimyo and set themselves up as rulers, the Oyabun in charge calling himself (or herself, there were 6 in 60 years, but Shizue remembers that a lot of the short reigns were towards the end) the Shimakage. They divided taxes among each other, wrote poetry, operated as a Hidden Village of 300-400 Ninja. So, a genuine, real, high-end small minor village. With decent quality control and everything! Even sent envoys to Konoha, fearful that someone would try to restore the old Daimyo.
But, just like Samurai, in an age of peace they tended to find other reasons for being. Rulership, most of all. Genin changed, became more like 'squires' than 'trainee assassins' though they still learned thet secretive arts of the Ninja. Chunin were thus 'Knights' or 'Barons' and Jonin, the elite, were 'Lords', who sometimes held the rights to the taxes for entire islands and villages, by the merit of their strength. So they fought duels, practiced rulership, and got somewhat lax on things. The specifics you don't know, or how they got 'lax.' All the teachers do is tell a story of 'And then man grew proud' as it were. When the Shimakage was overthrown, the whole island descended into chaos, into a dozen competing factions that reduced themselves down to three. Island, which claimed to be the rightful heir of the Shimakage. Reef, protected by their mines, the smallest and weakest of the bunch, but for a time the cleverest. And Tide, led by a number of Missing-Nin who took advantage of the chaos to move in.
And ever since, bold, brave, and heroic Reef has fought and bled and sacrificed to gain the title of Shimakage and restore peace and harmony to the lands and its peasants, longing for rightful and universal rule! They have lost much, the cunning and clever dead on numerous battlefields, the art of war and raid and counter-raid meaning that less subtle skills at first seemed less important, and then meaningless, compared to the duels of the great Jonin, the clashes of the Chuunin, the desperate scrabbles of the Genin.
One day, though, Reef will triumph, if only you believe in its mission, fight for it with all of your heart, and die for it if need be! And thus the civil war enters it's 4th decade.
*****
Missiles, yes, intercontinential cruise missiles...probably way, way, way too chakra heavy, so if it's at all possible it'd have to be a big fuinjutsu ritual where people burn through all of their Chakra to add to your 'pool' to do something cool.
