Brand New Morning

It was nice now. Tsuji was able to sleep in these days, with their child nearly a year old now. Considering it was his first child, Arashi had taken the time he needed to bond with his newly growing family. He already had visions of his future, dreams really, of being the new patriarch of the Tekiatsu Clan; having a new start in Hoshi as an all-important family, like his ancestors did in Kumo after they fled their homeland. He smiled as he stood on the balcony of his home. If his parents could see him now; a hero, a prince, a skilled shinobi, and a protector. A man of loss and a story of struggle. And his story wasn’t over yet, it had only begun a new chapter.

The benefit of his position was apparent in how he appeared in this early morning. He had spent almost a year on a family leave as Hoshi went through its own changes, and for the most part stayed out of both the public sight and the defense of the city. But the biggest benefit was the balcony he was one. His eastern/western fusion of a compound that served as his home was a historic building in Hoshi; a watchtower far from the gates that watched over the alpine wilds in the direction of the wildlife preserve and the lake of his name. The rear defenses against the rogues and enemies of Hoshi. While no longer an actual watchtower (there were plenty of shinobi watchtowers along the walls, it instead was a gift for a growing family.

Currently it only holds three Tekiatsus. The rest of the residents were Tsuji’s family, and a small group of shinobi residents who followed Arashi and graciously took the offered place to stay. These shinobi were skilled in water and air chakra, and though they would never really be able to utilize the full power of the Kumonikutai, they were talented enough to learn the Cloud Fusion technique, or at least a faux version. They weren’t Tekiatsus by blood, but they would be protectors of the clan.

Of course, between having shinobi learn his techniques and being out of the action for nearly a year, he could feel it in his bones; he was a bit out of shape. If he were to get back out there, he needed to return to his prime. And that is why in the early morning hours while the majority of the compound was silent, he was awake. He spent the time, an hour at least, to meditate and rebuild his vast chakra reserves, reminding his body how to flow and move the chakra around. Slowly the air seemed to crackle with his chakra, and he smiled at the old familiar feeling. Bringing both of his hands together and holding them in cup shapes, he pooled his chakra between them, until a small ball of clouds began to form in the air between them. His cloud chakra fusion was still there, working like he was climbing back onto a wall.

His meditations completed, Arashi once again looked over the view he held, and glanced down at the training grounds nearby. He walked over to the railing, and grabbed a hold of it. Taking a breath, he smiled, as he vanished from the balcony in a shunpo. He reappeared in the training grounds, and brushed himself off. Looking down at his hands, he stretched out his fingers, and began making signs.

“Kumo bunshin no jutsu!” he called out, as clouds shot out from him, forming into figure beings before the clouds seemed to dissipate, leaving only copies of himself standing there. Three copies of Arashi stood with him, glancing at each other and smirking. Arashi didn’t say anything, but his clones knew what he was doing, and what the plan was. A dewdrop on a nearby blade of grass was weighing the blade down, and threatening to drop as it dipped lower and lower. The blade finally let go and the drop hit the rock below. At that exact moment, the three clones jumped into action, rushing the original.

In a flurry of fists and legs, the four figures began fighting, with the original Arashi blocking and trying to counter the other three. Moving almost too fast for visual perception, Arashi acted like he was in an ambush, and for the moment was doing only physical work against the clones. Finally, Arashi got a grip on one of the clones, and used that clone to swing at another, knocking the two of them back and leaving an opening for Arashi to escape. So, he did. Kicking off the dirt and dropping his arms behind him, Arashi took off into the woods around his home, with the three clones rushing to follow him. With distance between the 4 growing, the three clones grabbed kunai and shuriken, and started throwing them ahead of Arashi, impacting the trees near him.

Instead of grabbing his own weapons and throwing them back, Arashi started making hand signs until he ended at the Ram, holding it up as his chakra churned, and more clouds shot from his back. They formed into flying shuriken, which Arashi fired at the chasing clones. Two of his weapons impacted the attackers, but the rest were being blocked by the clones’ own weapons. Arashi burst through the trees and ran into the river… or at least on top of it. He paused to take a breath, turning to watch the other clones follow through the trees and take positions on the bank.

Arashi made a few signs, this time to work on a more water-based attack. “Water Dragon Jutsu!” he called, as the waters behind him erupted and formed into a serpent-like shape. The clones responded in kind, creating their own signs and erupting from the river two more dragons. The third clone never burst from the trees. He evidently was able to defeat that one. The water dragons launched at each other, creating a rain on top of Arashi as he avoided the turbulent center where the dragons were fighting. Even with the two on one, Arashi’s dragon was not only holding its own, but it seemed to be able to overpower at least one of them. With a smile, Arashi launched his dragon at the two, before turning on his heels and running down the river. His dragon burst through one of the opposing dragons and right into one of his clones, erasing it from existence.

Down to one. The shinobi ran as fast as he could, and glanced behind him for a moment to see the last clone on his tail. He started making his signs to bring up some short cloud shurikens, but instead stopped, reaching instead into his pockets and taking out some kunai. He turned his head, sighting his target and throwing them at his opponent. The clone wasted no time blocking them and kept going. Arashi sighed, rushing down the surface of the river and towards the mountains, the clone following. Before he could get there, however, suddenly he felt a sharp tug on his foot and his world spun. Arashi found himself tumbling over himself a good distance on the surface of the river until he finally lost his chakra control and fell beneath the surface.

Kicking himself back up to a standing position, he stood in the hip-deep water. His clone ran up to him, but by the time he made it to the original Arashi, he had turned white and faded back into clouds. Arashi sighed with a frown, dropping onto the bank. Yup, he was still a bit out of shape. He had to rebuild his own strength. It was about that time he looked up at a nearby tree to see a hawk sitting there, looking at him. He raised an eyebrow at the seeming random attention, especially with the hawk lifting his foot and gesturing. It was then that he realized it was wearing a symbol of the Land of the Air, and carrying a message. Raising an eyebrow, Arashi extended his arm out, and the hawk flew over and landed on it, holding out its foot. It was frankly rare these days to have bird messengers as it was, so it was even more of a surprise when he opened the message to see his family seal. There were very few around who knew of the sign, and none that he could remember in the land of Air. It seemed odd that anyone would be from there, considering it was Air and Fire who destroyed his ancestral home.

There was just a single line on the message, indicating that the note was under a jutsu. Arashi looked at the note while the hawk got impatient and decided the message was delivered and it would head back on its own accord. Instead, Arashi used his chakra to break the jutsu, showing a larger scroll with a larger print.

Dear Arashi,

I hope this letter finds you well. I heard about the birth of your daughter, and to that I say congratulations. You cannot begin to understand the joy I found about the Tekiatsu clan’s demise being more exaggerated, and that the family found refuge in another land. You don’t know me, but then again most of your family didn’t know about mine. You see, in the ancient times, when the clan was the controlling family in the land of Tornadoes, there were branch families as well. My family was one of those branch families. The main clan thought ours was wiped out during the war between Konoha and Suna, and it nearly was, but what ended up happening was that we were captured by the Land of Air and taken back as prisoners of war. While Suna was eventually satisfied that we weren’t spies for the Land of Fire, they decided to take my family as a spoil of war, even going as far as sealing our clan’s bloodline to make sure we couldn’t escape.

Over the years the animosity between Suna and my family faded, and the seals eventually weakened. But by the time the seal had broken, our family, much like yours in Kumo, had already made ties in our village, and our family remained part of Sunagakure’s shinobi force. We didn’t have access to the family history like your main clan had, so the Kumonikutai was mostly lost to us, and still is. However, our branch family has since developed our own use of our bloodline. The reason why I wanted to bring this up and write to you was because I wanted you to know that while you are the new head of the Tekiatsu Clan, you are not alone. And if you want to learn more about the secrets lost to the Tornadoes, we are willing to meet and let you know that you have more blood spread out here.

Let us know what you decide.

A fellow Tekiatsu

Arashi was stunned. He knew he had been the last. Knew it. But here was a letter telling him otherwise. Or at least letting him know that he was the main branch but there were side branches that survived. Side branches? That wasn’t information on his scrolls. Whether it was because the main branch only thought they survived, or the branch families united under the main branch, but nothing talked about the history of branch families at least in Kumo. This was… new. At least if true. There was a valid reason to believe this was a trick. Arashi knew of one person still alive who would be more than willing to find a way to trick him into going to the land of Air. But still, it wasn’t an opportunity that he was quite willing to give up. If there was a chance, even slim, that his blood was still out there in the world, it was important that he find out. To either confirm what happened, or give closure to the history of his family.

The Hoshi shinobi rolled the scroll back up and put it into his jacket. There was at least one person to talk to before he bothered to leave. Well, two. One was of course, Tsuji, who should be just starting to wake up by now. But the second one? The village leader himself. Ayato. Arashi took a deep breath, bringing the Ram sign to his chin. He closed his eyes for a moment before opening them to show swirling thunderclouds in his iris. Starting from his feet, his body and clothes turned white and then puffy, formless as he turned into a cloud himself and faded from view. He had to make his way back, and decide what to do from there.

[WC: 2135]