Several weeks had passed since Domen Nobu’s return to Sunagakure. It had been almost a year and a half since his original departure, and his family gave him a good talking-to for sneaking off without any sort of permission. His mother, at least, was proud of him for his discoveries. She had been a shinobi before her illness, after all. She appreciated the personal significance of awakening a Bloodline ability far more than the curmudgeonly family elders did.
Ultimately the return made him happy, of course. He was able to return to his duties as a genin just fine, quickly settling back into the swing of things. The teachings he had acquired during his time in Moon Country had broadened his horizon as a shinobi, and while he hardly continued himself a master, his control of ninjutsu had grown exponentially. Taijutsu still wasn’t his strong point, but he had also become much more skilled at the use of genjutsu. All that on top of the natural power of a Senju had put him many steps further along the path to his goal of becoming the singlemost powerful shinobi in Sunagakure.
Why, then, did he feel so empty?
It took a while for Nobu to really put his finger on it. Inside of the village, his natural sensory abilities were always abuzz with chakra signatures all around him, yet his ability to feel natural energy felt dampened. There was so much life in the village and at the same time so little. It almost made him miss the time he spent within the vibrant nature of the distant island country, surrounded by plant life and animals.
Nobu began to wander into the desert while off-duty. Short walks outside of the town borders turned into several nights of camping. Nobu found himself increasingly irritated as nothing brought any true relief of that sensation of something missing. Camping with his new Senju abilities did give him new appreciation of the sandy dunes. He couldn’t pinpoint animals near him, but he could feel the pulse of life hidden beneath the sands, camouflaged or burrowed or even swimming through the endless emptiness.
Oases gave a momentary reprieve from the nagging sensation. Green trees and bushes provided a flush of natural energy that a concealed anthill did not. Nobu did not feel the energy of life strongly outside of the oases. Sometimes he felt a colony of cave crawlers below the earth or a distant pack of Sand Wolves, but they were fleeting sensations. The more Nobu wandered the sea of sand, his search changed.
He realized that what he was feeling was not simply the absence of life. Every time he passed a carcass or sun-bleached skeleton within the desert, the feeling spiked. It made shivers run through Nobu’s body every time, and every time it became stronger. Soon he could swear he smelled grave dirt and musty cloth on the wind every time it flared up again. The more he encountered it, the more he realized that the intensity differed per location.
At home, Nobu became more and more interested in what he could be feeling. The scrolls that Domen Tsubasa had left within the family archives made no mention of this. It talked all about her days as a sage and the time she spent in the Moon Country, but at some point, the writing just… stopped. It did not end with her death – Domen Tsubasa didn’t die until years after the last date-mark. The only thing Nobu had to go by to theorize what he was feeling was logic. If the feeling was the absence of life, empowered by the presence of corpses and strong in the unforgiving desert… Was it the energy of death?
Sleep escaped Nobu as he worked at this new conundrum. He knew no other Senju or sages within Sunagakure personally, none that he could ask for their opinion on the strange energy Nobu could feel coursing through the world. He began to map out his exploration on maps of the Wind Country. This whole issue was consuming him. On one hand, Nobu was worried. Was this thing he was feeling natural? Was there something wrong with him? Was he feeling this because he was dying, perhaps, coming closer to death as his own passing approached? On the other hand, the new discovery excited him. Perhaps he was tapping into some entirely new source of power, a different source of strength to exploit for his goals.
Then one night, when Nobu put the last stroke to the paper and put his pen aside, he swallowed. The search was paying off. He could see a pattern forming on the paper, radiating outwards from a particular area in Sunagakure.
Godsfall.
Ultimately the return made him happy, of course. He was able to return to his duties as a genin just fine, quickly settling back into the swing of things. The teachings he had acquired during his time in Moon Country had broadened his horizon as a shinobi, and while he hardly continued himself a master, his control of ninjutsu had grown exponentially. Taijutsu still wasn’t his strong point, but he had also become much more skilled at the use of genjutsu. All that on top of the natural power of a Senju had put him many steps further along the path to his goal of becoming the singlemost powerful shinobi in Sunagakure.
Why, then, did he feel so empty?
It took a while for Nobu to really put his finger on it. Inside of the village, his natural sensory abilities were always abuzz with chakra signatures all around him, yet his ability to feel natural energy felt dampened. There was so much life in the village and at the same time so little. It almost made him miss the time he spent within the vibrant nature of the distant island country, surrounded by plant life and animals.
Nobu began to wander into the desert while off-duty. Short walks outside of the town borders turned into several nights of camping. Nobu found himself increasingly irritated as nothing brought any true relief of that sensation of something missing. Camping with his new Senju abilities did give him new appreciation of the sandy dunes. He couldn’t pinpoint animals near him, but he could feel the pulse of life hidden beneath the sands, camouflaged or burrowed or even swimming through the endless emptiness.
Oases gave a momentary reprieve from the nagging sensation. Green trees and bushes provided a flush of natural energy that a concealed anthill did not. Nobu did not feel the energy of life strongly outside of the oases. Sometimes he felt a colony of cave crawlers below the earth or a distant pack of Sand Wolves, but they were fleeting sensations. The more Nobu wandered the sea of sand, his search changed.
He realized that what he was feeling was not simply the absence of life. Every time he passed a carcass or sun-bleached skeleton within the desert, the feeling spiked. It made shivers run through Nobu’s body every time, and every time it became stronger. Soon he could swear he smelled grave dirt and musty cloth on the wind every time it flared up again. The more he encountered it, the more he realized that the intensity differed per location.
At home, Nobu became more and more interested in what he could be feeling. The scrolls that Domen Tsubasa had left within the family archives made no mention of this. It talked all about her days as a sage and the time she spent in the Moon Country, but at some point, the writing just… stopped. It did not end with her death – Domen Tsubasa didn’t die until years after the last date-mark. The only thing Nobu had to go by to theorize what he was feeling was logic. If the feeling was the absence of life, empowered by the presence of corpses and strong in the unforgiving desert… Was it the energy of death?
Sleep escaped Nobu as he worked at this new conundrum. He knew no other Senju or sages within Sunagakure personally, none that he could ask for their opinion on the strange energy Nobu could feel coursing through the world. He began to map out his exploration on maps of the Wind Country. This whole issue was consuming him. On one hand, Nobu was worried. Was this thing he was feeling natural? Was there something wrong with him? Was he feeling this because he was dying, perhaps, coming closer to death as his own passing approached? On the other hand, the new discovery excited him. Perhaps he was tapping into some entirely new source of power, a different source of strength to exploit for his goals.
Then one night, when Nobu put the last stroke to the paper and put his pen aside, he swallowed. The search was paying off. He could see a pattern forming on the paper, radiating outwards from a particular area in Sunagakure.
Godsfall.