The Reclamation

Ashitaka Inuzuka Senju surveyed the lands around him and did not like what he saw. The human casualties were to be expected, but since it had been some time since he had been in a battle on the scale of the ill-fated Black Site mission, he'd forgotten just how much collateral damage could be caused to the environment by a war among humans. To say the world was being devastated by the war was to make a great and terrible understatement. It was possible that even with his power, the recovery process would still take years if it happened at all. There was more to an ecosystem than just the trees after all. Still, at least his command to evacuate the trenches for a couple miles surrounding his current position was being carried out. Nobody wanted to be within the potential fallout radius of jutsu used by someone with his level of power.

Granted, it was entirely possible that someone powerful from either side would show up to stop him from what he was doing, and while it would only be a minor inconvenience, he still hoped they didn't. There were already arrows sticking in the trees and siege stones bouncing off them from the people who weren't getting the message, but eventually those too stopped when it was clear they weren't getting anywhere. It would defeat the point of his coming here to heal the land if he had to cause it further damage by taking part in the senseless violence. If he was lucky when it came to dealing with somebody with power great enough to trouble him now, he might be able to talk them out of it. The longer the damage remained, the longer it would be until wildlife returned here, even with his help. Still, he wasn't about to totally undermine his allies' progress in this damnable war, so he intended to limit his restoration to their domains. At the end of the day, he was still obedient, loyal, and pragmatic.

Naturally, there was a general evacuation of the enemy's side, as well. They didn't have information as intimate as his own did on the matter, but "this guy showed up and the entire enemy front is leaving" tended to inspire reciprocative action. Not that he especially cared what they did. He wasn't here to mow down their forces. He formed the Tiger seal and summoned two Wood clones, one to stand over a trench on either side of him. In unison, both formed the Boar, Dog, and Ram seals and began flooding the trenches with clear, fresh water. As the new rivers ebbed and flowed, the original Ashitaka formed the Snake seal then placed his palms on the scorched earth, feeding his Mokuton chakra into it and calling forth life. A vast forest erupted around him, obscuring and covering him as it spread out for a hundred meters in every direction save up, where the height of the trees was limited to fifty meters so as to not overly tax the ruined soil. Further, he did his best to make the new flora imitate what had been here before as closely as possible.

While he concentrated on his task, the two clones each stepped into a nearby tree and merged with it, emanating their Sensing Fields as they split their focus between watching out for potential danger and maintaining formation of the new streams of pure, clean water. Since all three of them had total contact with the ground, their range was effectively doubled, extending out far beyond the limits of the brand new grove of trees even as it continued growing. Ashi knew full well that not everyone was going to have the same priorities as himself, so he didn't let his guard down for a moment.





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Stuff:

The forest and rivers expanded ever further, reaching a significant way towards the limits of his expanded Sensing Field. And yet somehow he managed not to draw the kind of attention that would disrupt his work, so he continued unabated. The solitude left him time to think about... well everything. Where he was and why, what he was doing and why, and all the things that led up to this moment of what would be silence were it not for the echoing roar of trees growing with explosive force. The noise only seemed to amplify the loneliness, since the nearest things resembling living beings were just Wood Clones of himself. While he could imitate the plant life that had been obliterated impeccably enough, the same could not be said for the animals. And even if that were possible, the cacophony generated by his jutsu would probably have scared them all off anyway.

And so he sat, pouring his chakra into the earth as his clones did the same for the water flanking the rapidly-growing grove. As he did, his life played out in his mind like a movie. Starting with his waking up alone in the woods, unable to even walk or form words. Time passed and he ate bugs to keep from starving, eventually teaching himself to stand, walk, and finally even run and jump to a limited extent. He remembered being found by his Pack and taken in by its Alphas. The first family he was cognizantly aware of taught him how to hunt, to work as a member of a team, and to tear meat from bone with his teeth. It was also the first time he made a weapon, albeit nothing more than a sharp rock tied to a stick, which he used to kill the bear that had mauled his new family during a territory dispute.

He remembered his second family, the Inuzuka who'd adopted him when the wolves decided that he should be with his own kind and brought him to the nearest village, which happened to be Konohagakure no Sato. They were everything he could have hoped for in a human family: warm and caring, and yet still willing to maintain the strict discipline he needed to make the transition from a feral creature to a proper human child. They laid the foundations for his morals and work ethics, his compassion and studious attentiveness to everyone he met, friend or foe or anything in between. Their loving embrace of him ignited the coal of his heart into a burning ember for anyone he considered a companion.

His mind journeyed through his time at the Academy, which he spent burning through his grades and pausing only to help teach the dimmer students how to understand some of the advanced concepts put forth to separate them by their tiers of intellect. He probably could have reached greater heights if he chose to leave everyone else behind; but Ashitaka personally felt that it was more important to maintain a bridge of understanding between the smart kids and the dumb kids to stifle the animosity that severe separation of minds bred. As much as he'd admired the brilliance of Akihiro Uchiha at the time, he thought it was a waste if no one else around him could understand his thoughts.

And then... he graduated. From there, everything seemed to fall apart. Not all at once, of course. Little by little, his bonds with other people wore thin and eventually snapped. His sensei didn't want much to do with him even before the promotion to Hokage gave him little time and opportunity to anyway. His Team immediately broke out into a fight that he was threatened with the assignment of responsibility for, though whether it was intended as training or punishment for his ambitions was unclear. They tried to patch things up but ultimately they had little time for each other with the War leading to their being sent out on separate missions, after which everything seemed to spiral ever further out of any semblance of control.

Chika's words and actions confused Ashitaka, and the wrath they incited from the veterans only inspired hate, fear and despair in him. He knew that his teammate had internalized his Clan's resentment of the Uchiha, but he never would have guessed that the older boy would go so far as to sell out the sitting Hokage, their own Sensei (even if in name only), to the enemy. With only Akihiro's accusation to go on, Ashitaka still refused to believe it, and was incensed that his superiors would pressure Nyguyen Uchiha into ordering an execution on one man's word alone. And worse, that of a man who was not assigned to that mission and whose presence on the scene was at best debatable.

To salt the wound, the Senju Prince himself was presented with the opportunity for vengeance by his own hand and categorically denied it by virtue of the circumstances in context. To achieve his personal goals, he would have to publicly endorse the religious oppression of an entire nation through a spectacular mockery of a sacred place. He had been forced to face that decision, alone, and in doing what he believed to be the right thing he only invited more scorn and whispered accusations of treason on his own part. As a consequence, he'd been spending less and less time in Konoha due to the fact that no matter what honeyed lies the Hokage offered him, it was clear that he was not safe in that city. If he survived to see this wretched war's end, he'd see to moving out permanently. He was old enough to know that it was unwise to attempt doing so before then, and he hoped that by not learning the village's exclusive techniques he'd inspire them to be more open to the idea of letting him go alive.




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Stuff:

More time passed, and still more trees grew. The scope of the jutsu had rocketed past the limits of his Sensing Field, but now it was drawing to a close. As if on cue, multiple ninja entered the newly-formed forest the moment it stopped growing. Ashitaka picked them up as soon as they got within range, but he didn't have the chakra to spare to deal with any threats, so he had one of his Wood Clones extract itself from the tree it had merged with and go investigate. It turned out that the intruders on his newborn woods were... employed by the Stag Emporium, judging by the easily-recognizable and dapper uniforms they all wore, even out here on the front lines. For a moment, he regretted not wearing his himself, but he was pretty sure that doing so would compromise the sacred neutrality of his employer's establishment.

The clone dropped down in front of the group, compelling the armed members of it to reflexively reach for their weapons until the courier being escorted identified him and waved them down. They remained tense, but shifted their focus to the edges of the large grove, dispersing out to them to better monitor the area for potential disruptions to the delivery of the message. The courier approached to within a few meters of Ashitaka and bowed theatrically.

"You gave us quite the fright there, Young Prince of the Forest," the man greeted the boy. "My guards nearly turned you into a pincushion, showing up like that!"

"Rest assured, if I wanted to harm you in any way, they would be down before they realized I was acting." Ashi replied, matching the messenger's faintly threatening smile with one of his own. "Now, what seems to be so troubling that our dear Employer would put his subordinates and the sanctity of his establishment's protection from all sides by sending all of you out here after me?"

"I am not at liberty to know, myself, but I'm certain that whatever it is is well worth such a risk. I don't need to tell you that Lord Okane is no fool," the man replied as he passed a scroll over to Ashitaka, who accepted it and opened it. "I imagine it'd be an emergency summons, though. However, regarding what situation I cannot guess at. To my knowledge, there have been no known threats to his person or to his business that require your immediate involvement."

"Hm... you are correct." the boy replied after scanning the document with his eyes and closing it back up. "This is a serious problem, but for my village more than the Emporium. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I'll be arriving there immediately."



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[WC 476
Exit Thread]