Some Memories to Make

Konoha Jounin Posts : 746 Join date : 2015-08-16

The young boy who most commonly went by the name of Gen would complete his morning ritual as seemed to be his way as of late, first rising from his bed to take a nice, warm, long, and totally comfortable shower. He then moved on to dress himself, today selecting a simple, very dark green shirt with no particular markings at all as well as some simple pants which would not inhibit his movement or training and a pair of simple black shoes that would allow him freedom of motion. He then went on with the rest of his day, going to grab some food, today a breakfast of a few fried eggs over top some nice and delicious rice, and got some stuff to drink as well, opting for some hot tea today rather than plain water or anything of the like. He then went off to brush his teeth before deciding that he was officially read to leave and begin a day filled to the very top of the brim with a great deal of mostly nothingness as he had yet to have any assignments and still was not ready to begin any training for the time being that of the current present moment.

However, he did not currently need any sort of motivation or order from on high for today. No, for today and the foreseeable future, he had some free time. The young boy had only recently been promoted, had essentially prevented a life threatening assault against the local feudal lord, and finally – finally – ascended to his true purpose of having fully imbibed the wood release. He felt that he was entitled to a bit of relaxation, though the elders of the clan tended to disagree. While he was happy to head out and chill out, perhaps pick up some contacts and information along the way, the elders wanted him to be fully sequestered to the village and to train in the ways of the wood release. Had they their way, they may never allow him to leave the village. This would not pass, much to their outrage.

No, Gen was free to roam and move about the world and he pleased and fully intended to do so. His newfound rank came with a great deal of newfound privilege and he could think of no better way to gather information that to go out into the world and see it for himself. Additionally, a part of him wanted to get away from the endless edicts and demands of his village and, more importantly, his clan. A clan to which he felt less allegiance than most would deem healthy. Regardless, he was taking some respite from the norms of village life, though he couldn’t help but recall the faces of the council when they learned of his newfound powers.

The whole of the council of elders had been in attendance when Yogensha’s parents had brought him before them. Why? He had no particular idea. His mother had simply spirited him away to his father one day when he was training, and right as he had begun to get a hang of making the plants grow when he inserted chakra into him. His mother, and subsequently his father, had acted as though he had suddenly had some kind of revelation straight from the gods and swept him away to an impromptu and yet extremely well attended meeting in the center of the clan compound.

There was a lot of talking. A lot. Clan members among one another, council members among themselves, council members to other, lower ranking clan members, and, of course, his parents were talking to everyone. Well, that was not quite accurate though. They were not so much talking to everyone as they were being talked at, above, around, and over by everyone. And there were questions. And endless slew of questions paraded up and down the ranks, starting most often with the questions the council elders asked of Gen’s parents and then rippling out into the general audience in attendance. Occasionally a question would have another place of beginning, some little side conversation going on, but inevitably an elder would hear of it, direct it to the parents, and the process of dissemination would begin all over again.

No one spoke to Gen.

No one asked him questions, no one talked to him, no one talked at him or over him or through him. They all talked around him and while they did this almost no one saw him. Which was weird, since this whole meeting stemmed from him. The whole reason any one was here, the whole reason for this ceremony and meeting and this talking and questioning was, apparently, him and his training. Yet, he, the guest of honor in such a space, was left standing about randomly, hovering next to his parents while they answered question after unending question, the answer to nearly all of them being “We don’t know.”

After an excruciating time spent repeating the aforementioned questions and comment over and over, Gen was finally addressed. The entire room stilled and went silent. It was the silence of the breeze outside, of the whistle of one of the men’s plugged noses, the squishy sounds of people shifting in their seats. It was a stillness of rapt attention, all forward, all directed upon one young boy, standing at the front of the room on a raised spot passing itself off as a podium. Holding a pot. A fucking potted plant. The little tree in the pot, a little bonsai tree growing crookedly off to one side of the edge of its clay container, was the first plant someone found in the room. Gen was supposed to make it grow.

And so he did.

Well, first he watched everyone in attendance with a strange look in his eye, his eyebrow raising in outright confusion at what was going on. The people here, his own clansmen, were acting insane. They treated him with this strange sort of reverence, like he was a religious artifact that they all desperately wanted to touch, to have and to hold, but were not allowed to. They all looked at him with one eye and at the elders with the other, their gazes flickering back and forth endlessly. However, he could not just stand here indefinably, staring out at an audience that clearly had no intention of responding to his questioning gaze. He sighed and pumped some chakra into the plant.

The thing grew, not amazingly, not immensely and not instantly, but it grew. The roots filled the bottom of the pot and the tiny trunk thickened and extended forward, extra branches budding and new leaves sprouting from the tips of the branches. Sighing once more, the young boy would shrug, fiddle awkwardly for a bit, and then place the plant down on a nearby ledge, something people used to place papers for speeches. A podium. He turned back to the audience, expecting the to begin talking at any moment, only to find nothing.

The whole room was stunned, paralyzed, it would seem, as though a still picture had been painted of them all taking a breath in at just the same time. They held for some moments, longer that the young boy Gen would ever have imagined. It was absurd, ridiculous even, that these people were so amazingly perplexed. He shuffled some more until one of the elders finally spoke up.

“He did it.”

The words were simple, trivial even. Of course he had done it, that’s what he had intended to do. That was why he had been summoned here. It would be absurd to imagine that he would not do what they had randomly told him to, that he could not do what they had asked of him. In fact, to assume, as it seemed that everyone had, that he was incapable of this simple feat, was frankly offensive. Of course he could. Why the hell else would these people all be here? Why else would they have all gathered so quickly and at such a short notice to watch a failure, a fraud, a liar?

However, simple as the words were, they had their effect. An instant and insane effect even more absurd than any instance that had happened previously. Only a moment after the elder had spoken the words, in the single space of one breath, the room exploded. People cheered. People cried. Some threw themselves to the floor in prostration. His parents gained this manic, crazed smile as though they were simultaneously please and also had no idea what was going on or what they could do about it. The elders had already grouped, were whispering fervently to one another and babbling under the crowd.

Life changed that day. The elders took a much greater interest in the boy, sharing with him some of the fundamentals of the wood release that he had, apparently, been divinely blessed with. They told him of the life giving nature of the release, of the great things he could do, of the power that lay within him, and of the noble life and history of the clan. They did not, however, tell him of the techniques, of the powers and unique abilities of the clan or how to do them. They were not training him, they were alternatively teaching him and watching him. They had him come to the compound daily for training and watching him. Sometimes they would encourage him, oftentimes they would ignore him. They never discouraged him and never gave him tips, simply allowed him to improve of his own accord. Allowed him to learn for himself.

They also routinely lost their minds. They would gush to one another endlessly about what they saw that day, about the progress he made, about this that or another thing that he had done. He had never been overly remarkable in the Academy. Sure, he was smart, resourceful, quick, and sarcastic, but he had never stood out, partly because he never wanted to. Now he was like a celebrity, if only among a small group of six or so old men. They went on endlessly about what he had done, what he was doing, and what he would be expected to do in the future.

He wanted none of it.

He knew he was skilled, knew he was smart and progressing, knew even that he was strong. But they treated him like a god, like some prophet descended to the earth. He had reverence, received anything that he wanted at the drop of a hat, could take long breaks and request food and lemonade. He also had near constant scrutiny when he was training with them to the point even that he felt certain that someone was listening to him when he peed, taking notes on the stream or the way he so interestingly flushed the toilet.

It was absurd. But it was useful. He learned. He learned so much. Wood bent to his will, plants grew when he was around, his will became the will on the plants near him. Everything that he wanted, everything that he desired of them, came true almost without effort. When the elders said that he was a natural, it was not untrue. It sold him short, to be frank. He was, truly, a genius. He created techniques that no one had thought of and that no one could emulate, though the latter was due to the fact that no one living could currently use the wood release. The clan, while boasting such a powerful bloodline, seemed to manifest said bloodline in such a small percentage of the population. Perhaps this was the result of the power of the blood, or perhaps the elders were right. Perhaps his abilities truly were the gifts of a god. Either way, he had them.

His endeavors paid dividends as well in practical knowledge and combat powers. He would occasionally enter into practice combat with some of the elders, going through stances and tactics. He always one. With his ever increasing powers of wood release on his side, even when he was instructed specifically not to use illusionary techniques – something few of the elders had much experience with – he could still overpower them with the raw force and power of a never ending world of plants. The trees, the greenery, everything quickly became a battleground of Yogensha’s making and of his control. Even if he did not inundate the world around them with plants, he had a mastery of earth and water releases at his disposal as well, and this allowed him to effortlessly manipulate the battlefield in nearly any way that he saw fit. His defense was good, but his offense and creativity was on par with none around.

As for specifics, he had, apparently miraculously, revived the lost art of the wood clone technique in his training, something that kept the elders taking for a full month about nothing else. With this, his zone control of the field increased greatly and he could summon forth a veritable army of nearly perfect clones of himself, capable of creating additional techniques for their own use. He created, of his own volition, an interesting ability which allowed him to swiftly cover any surface in a vast thicket of tall grasses, which allowed him to further craft mokuton techniques from the plant matter that he spawned. This impressed the elders a great deal as they had no records of this ability and his creativity again amazed them.

However, perhaps his strongest and most astounding discovery was that of a newly crafted secret technique of the clan. He had created an ability which would allow him to, on his whim, spawn an entire forest, a huge progression of trees that could trap his opponents as they grew outwardly in a near instantaneous fashion. He could control the trees, their branches, roots, trunks and leaves, in any way that he wanted, and, when asked, he insured that they were capable of easily piercing even the strongest of defenses, a claim that the elders had him prove again and again. They were never disappointed. This was something amazing, something spectacular even that the elders could never have dreamed of. Curiously, they kept it all quiet, not sharing any of this information of their newly created prodigy with anyone from the outside world, not even Council of leaders who controlled the village, and even among clansmen only a select few were allowed to know.

Yogensha blinked. He’d been lost in his thoughts, his consciousness away while his mind had been on alert, passively sensing about for any intruders into his thoughts. He looked around, noticing that the forest and greenery had shifted away from the usual to something devoid of much vegetation. Sand had taken its place, and Gen had only one place in mind: the legendary bathhouse of Sunagakure. He moved up to the village in nondescript clothing, just green T-shirt, some flexible jeans, a pair of well-fitted shoes, and a white cloth strewn about his head and mouth to keep out the sand and to repel the sun. Onwards, to the bathhouse.

Exit
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Spoiler:

» Voltaire Hayashi(willing to make changes if need be)