Ukiyo sat atop a large tree in the dense forest. Her legs lay crossed, her eyes as wide as her smile. In the distance she could see birds flocking, below her bugs buzzing, and to the north the great stream that brought life to so many of her woodland friends. She breathed deeply through her nose, filling her lungs with the warm, humid air she so enjoyed. The sun overhead beats down on her, a sweat begins to form on her brow. Ukiyo rises to a squat, mimicking the perch of the distant birds. She locks eyes with them, she thinks, and begins a staring contest. Her head tilts left, right, her eyes intensify and soften, until eventually the birds fly away with the incoming breeze. Ukiyo's smile begins to widen, but is stopped short and retracks. "Running, eh?" As the breeze reaches her, Ukiyo stands up, balancing on the now swaying tree. She closes her eyes and throws out her hand, "You won't get far!" Ukiyo yells with joy as she leaps off the tree.

She performs a hand sign and suddenly a small tree begins growing mid-air beneath her. She launches off the trunk of it and catches herself on another tree (one actually rooted to the ground this time). She swings around the branch and squats on top of it. This is nowhere near fast enough. Ukiyo widens her stance to position her feet where her hands just were and makes another hand sign. "Ready or not, here I-" Suddenly two spokes of bamboo shoot up beneath her feet, propelling her forward. Ukiyo's speech is thrown by the sudden propulsion into a slur, no longer forming words. She catches herself several trees away on a branch. She hangs there, "Where'd those guys go anyway?"

Ukiyo drops from the tree, landing on dirt below. She looks around for a moment, but gives up quickly. Birds are all such scaredy cats. She begins strolling through the greenery towards the stream. Butterflies and beas, bushes and trees, all sorts of life bustles around her. Ukiyo's wearing a type of glow reserved for places like this. It is without a doubt her element, and her one true home. She approaches a branch protruding from the bushes. It is attached to a small tree, the leaves of which have fully matured and are now the perfect feast for growing insects. As a caterpiller nibbles on one for lunch, Ukiyo approaches slowly. Her footsteps barely disturb the grass beneath them as she makes her approach, crouched. Rising to the caterpillars level, Ukiyo's eyes fixate and observe the enthusiastic munching, mere inches away. She touches a finger to the leaf that this insect is resting on and concentrates. She feels every bite, every tiny foot the caterpillar gently rests on the leave's smooth, leathery surface. She senses the tree's indifference, happily feeding the hungry in exchange for much needed services. Ukiyo's smile is in full blossom, she taps the branch that the leaf is attached to and a small bushel of berries appear. The caterpillar's eyes widen, and Ukiyo can sense its joy.

Ukiyo continues walking until she reaches a gap in the trees. For about 100 meters there's nothing but dirt. Could have been from a battle, Ukiyo thought with a distrubed tone, her eyes lowering in remorse. "Don't worry, " Ukiyo said as she made her hand signs, "it's all part of life." Ukiyo takes a step back and gets a running start. Right before she reaches the barren ground, she jumps into a cartwheel, linked to a back-handspring, into a one-handed handstand, and finishes with a backflip, landing with her hands on the ground in front of her. "Rise." Along the path she just travelled grows flush grass that coated the once barren ground. A flower here and there, even a weed or two, but all of it green. Ukiyo smiles and turns around, "All a part of life..." She continues walking towards the North.

Ukiyo reaches the stream and removes her shoes and pants. The current of the water is strong, flowing downstream with enough force to pull small animals away into it. She wades into the water to about waste level and closes her eyes, making a hand sign. Her feet slowly sink into the mud below as she circulates chakra, becoming more and more in tune with the water around her. She molds her chakra into water and uses it on the surface of her skin to push back against the current, cancelling it out. The water surrounding Ukiyo now moves around her as it did before, but without making contact by about 1/10 of an inch. She begins pushing her chakra outward to move the water away, but as a result, her feet start being influenced by the natural energy fo the mud and interrupts her. The water is now 1/5 of an inch away from her and the mud is slowly crawling up her leg. Ukyio changes her hand sign and attempts to split her concentration, something quite the oppose of what she's used to when merging the two to form Mokuton. She peels the earth off her leg like a scab; bit by bit, in an attempt to see how detailed of control she has. The water is steady at 1/5 an inch away, and the mud on her leg is slowly falling off. She relaxes her chakra and allows the water to come back to 1/10 an inch. She then concentrates on extracting the water from the mud around her legs, turning it back into dirt and allowing it to crumble away slowly. The water extracted is leaked back into the stream, and after a few minutes her legs are clean again. The mud surrounding her feet she likes; it keeps her connected to the ground physically as an anchor and to help her stabalize her chakra by acting as a buffer. When she feels confident, Ukiyo begins to rotate molded water chakra around her body against the current. First slowly, having to concentrate on molding the chakra, moving it in as close to a circle path as possible with the offset of the current, and controlling the earth surrounding her feet. She gradually increases the speed, more and more until eventually she successfully reverses the stream's flow around her. And now for some power. Ukiyo opens her eyes to see the strength of the stream before her. She changes hand signs once again and begins adding more chakra to the rotation. The more she adds, the more the water around her is pushed away. 1/10 an inch, 1/5 an inch, 1/3, 1/2, 1 inch. Ukiyo slowly tilts her head to see her feet; but they are engulfed by mud. She grins and raises her head. Fuck it. Ukiyo cuts off the chakra in her feet and concentrates fully on the rotating water chakra around her. The water is pushed back much faster now; 2 inches, 3, 4, 6, 10, 12. A small whirlpool forms around her as she closes her eyes once again and strains herself to maintain the flow of chakra. The mud that has been climbing since she cut off her control of it has now made its way up to her stomach. With one final push, Ukiyo forces the water to 2 feet off her person, and now has full visibility of about 1 foot of the stream's rocky floor. The mud rapidly climbs to just under Ukiyo's neck when she releases the chakra. Instantly, water flows in, washing away some of the mud. Ukiyo laughs and falls into the water, splashing and swimming until all of the mud's removed. When she's ready to get out, Ukiyo swims as low as she can and places her hand on the stream floor. A huge bush grows in the water, raising her out of the stream on its surface. Ukiyo lays there, drying in the sun with a smile as the water does little to move the bush. She picks berries from it and snacks as she and waits for her bird friends to come for their share.

After eating her fill, Ukiyo gave up on the birds. “I’ve much too important things to do anyway” Ukiyo says with a pout. She hops off her bush and lands along the bank of the stream. She kneels down and places her hand in the water. Making a hand sign with her free hand, a small plant begins growing from her palm underwater and rises to the surface; a lily pad. She plunges her hand into the soil and buries the seed, then takes her hand out and washes the mud off. After a few moments, the seed was pulled out of the mud and the lily pad was washed away by the current.  Ukiyo stands up and sighs as she watches the lily pad drift out of sight.

Enough pouting. Today is a day for action! Ukiyo plants her fist in her palm decisively and grins. She then plants one of her hands on the ground, Now then, where are those damn- and activates her jutsu. A tree 25 feet tall grows up beneath her with herself on top, -bIRDS! “Well then.” Ukiyo begins looking around. She grabs the very top of the tree’s trunk and hangs off of it to the side, with her feet planted on the trunk as well. She swings around it 360 degrees, but to no avail. Damn scaredy cats. Ukiyo does see one thing of interest though; a black bear had come up the stream for a drink. The animals around these parts were all accustomed to Ukiyo’s presence, so the tree suddenly sprouting out of the ground didn’t intimidate.

Ukiyo slides down the trunk of the tree and lands at its base, facing the bear. He was drinking at the stream but had now turned his attention towards Ukiyo. “Hey bear! What you doin drinking from that stream?” The bear went up on its hind legs and let out a roar. Ukiyo smirked, “Big ol’ bear, you need some big ol’ breath mints.” Ukiyo laughs at herself, knowing just how stupid she sounded. The bear finds no humor in this and begins charging her. Ukiyo smirks and wags her finger, “Come on bear, you know better than that!” Ukiyo slides underground, leaving a hole where she once stood. As the bear looks around frantically in both rage and confusion, Ukiyo pops up where the bear originally stood. “Over here!” Ukiyo says with a smile and eyes closed. The bear begins charging again, bearing its teeth. Ukiyo hears this and makes a hand sign. Suddenly a small tree sprouts up in the bear’s path. The bear begins jumping over it, but it is still in the process of growing, and proceeds to lift the bear 10 feet into the air. The bear looks around confused and scurries down the tree hastily. Ukiyo winks at him, “Had enough?” The bear roars again and charges her. They never do learn. Ukiyo waits until the bear is within striking distance. He lunges at her with his claws outstretched, but Ukiyo dives beneath the bear with her stomach up, making her body as flat as possible. As the bear passes over her, Ukiyo pokes the bear in the stomach. She stands up and turns around. Sure enough, the bear is after her again. Ukiyo smiles and closes her eyes. She lets her hair droop over her face and announces, “Come on. You should know better.” Ukiyo makes a hand sign and suddenly a huge bush grows from the bear’s stomach, pushes against the ground, and propels the bear into the air. The bear lands on his back with a thump. Defeated, he crawls away back into the forest.

Ukiyo made her hand signs and began climbing a tree covered in bamboo chutes. She grasped each chute and threw herself up to the next one. As she approached the top, she looked below her at the web of bamboo she had just climbed. She smiled and flung herself to the tip of the tree's trunk. Ukiyo breathed deeply and gathered her chakra. The humid air condensing on her face, forming refreshing drops of condensation in response to her chakra. She made her hand sign and, activating her jutsu, the water on her face dissipated. A little harder each day... Suddenly the tree began to shake as the web of bamboo sprouted more complex layers of chutes from the existing ones. Ukiyo smiled and closed her eyes, her hair warming up in the sunlight overhead. She then reached her arms up and stretched them exaguratedly. With a little squel, she dropped her arms and relaxed her body. Ukiyo looked below her, breathed in deeply, and dove. She swerved left and right, anticipating each chute and dodging with pinpoint accuracy. She lightly brushed against bamboo several times as she passed through openings no more than 1" larger in diameter than her own body. Finesse was truly her strongsuit. When she nearly reached the bottom, Ukiyo opened her hand and caught a chute she was passing, stopping her in an instant and budging only slightly. She hung for a moment, then blew several pieces of hair out of her face and dropped lightly to the ground.

Ukiyo fealt somewhat tired having trained for several hours straight. She strolled through the woods down a lovely path with some flowers she had familiarized herself with since long ago. Her footsteps were as light as she could make them, hardly dampening the fresh grass which paved the walkway of this sanctuary. Every fully-blossomed flower was met with the poke of Ukiyo's petite, pointy nose, inhaling its fragrance and lightly cuddling its stamin. She giggled as the pollen-coated tips playfully tickled her nose. Ukiyo's chakra flow was at ease; freely drifting around the garden, mingling with flowers and bugs alike. Her breathing was steady, even with the influx of capacity that came with each deep inhale of heavenly scent. She made two hand signs and began caressing the brush as she walked down the path; lightly stroking each flower's pedals as she passed them. When she got to the end, Ukiyo turned around and repeated the same routine. Once in a while, when she found a perticularly happy flower, Ukiyo would bend over and wipe her face with it. Nose, cheeks, lips, forehead; she missed not a spot. When she got to the other end of the lot, the one she began in when she had arrived here, Ukiyo activated her jutsu. Suddenly, all of the flowers before her began twirling delightfully. A thin mist of pollen filled the air, along with a joyful energy from the thankful plantlife. Ukiyo's smile was delicate, yet strong. Her eyes were closed as to enjoy the full extent of the immaculate aroma that now surrounded her.

After a few minutes past, the mist had dissipated, sending the pollen off to wherever it was needed most. Ukiyo opened her eyes and breathed a breath of fresh air to clean out her lungs. She felt somewhat tired, and decided to sojourn to the tree she had been taking her daily naps in the past few days. She pivoted about-face with a twirl, her near weightless body riding the current of the air to turn and using her foot just for balance. She enjoyed the spin so much that she neglected to put her other foot down when turned around, allowing her twirl to continue another 90 degrees before her balance finally gave. She fell onto the grass lightly, with nothing more than slight “thump” from the impact. Grass beneath her gently brushed her body, tickling her in a both comforting and relaxing way. She giggled as she rolled in place, nuzzling the grass as if each blade a precious child. Maybe I shouldn’t be a shinobi. I could just stay here forever. That’d be…nice. Ukiyo’s chakra freely spread out amongst the grass. What was once 3 inch blades grew to 6 inches in no time. Ukiyo shook her face back and forth on her back, paddling it between the brush. Ukiyo’s thoughts drifted from one thing to the next, meditating on the beauty around her. “How I wish I was a tree.” Ukiyo said aloud, staring at the canopy up ahead. The last thing she thought about before drifting off to sleep was this statement and her kekkei genkai. Hm..

When Ukiyo awoke, she found herself covered in bits and pieces of bark. Dew coated the grass around her and any piece of skin not covered in this newfound bark was soaked by it. She sat up in a panic and the bark, as if “caught”, disappeared by the time she was fully awake and upright. That dream…it seemed far too real. I wish I could say it was a nightmare but…it was quite peaceful. Maybe I should try it…no. It’s far too risky of a jutsu. I’m only a genin, I’d kill myself doing something like that. Someday though… Ukiyo stood up and stretched. Several appendages made a crackling noise and bits and pieces of wood chips fell out of her shirt. Ukiyo giggled at herself and began shaking her hips. A few more chips fell out; Ukiyo looked pleased. She smiled, made a satisfied “hmph” sound, and continued on her way.

Ukiyo skipped, twirled, swung around tree trunks, and danced to her next training spot. The sun was only about an hour away from setting and she wanted to at least get two more exercises in. She “walked” to where she knew there was a small dip in the forest. This dip was made years ago when the Kyuubi had attacked and the Fourth Hokage diverted its attack to the dense forest. Since then, it has regrown beautifully; trees along its edge created a canopy to keep it hidden from above, bushes, grass, and various other brush partially lined the inner walls, and at the bottom lay a small pond. Ukiyo climbed one of the trees around the outer circle and walked out onto one of the branches that overlooked the water. She sat down and placed her hand on the branch. Making a hand sign with her other hand, Ukiyo sprouted a twig on the branch where her hand lay and on at the end of it, an apple. She picked the fruit and began eating, waving her legs in the air and humming a tune she learned at the academy. When she was done eating, Ukiyo broke the core of the apple in half and harvested the seeds. She placed all but one of them in her pocket and balanced the last one on the tip of her finger. Ukiyo made a hand sign with her other hand and concentrated greatly. Her chakra swirled in a fury; amassing wildly much direction. She breathed deeply, but it was difficult as she tried to direct this energy. Bits and pieces of twigs, leaves, grass, and other miscellaneous greenery began sprouting all around Ukiyo’s body. Her hair started to become think and leathery, as opposed to its normal silkiness. Ukiyo’s breathing transitioned into short, rapid spurts, and her hand (not balancing the seed) began to tremble. Ukiyo felt a pain in her chest from the power she was conjuring, and her heart was pounding against her rib cage painfully. She let out a yell and forced everything she had into the tiny seed. After a second, a small root sprouted out of the apple seed and began wrapping around her finger. Ukiyo held this jutsu for as long as she couldn’t, which was only about 15 seconds. The seed, having only sprouted its root about 12 seconds in, only grew its appendage to be about an inch and a half long. Ukiyo released her chakra, and suddenly all of the weight she had been bearing was released. She looked at the seed she had given life to, raising it to eye level and bringing it within an inch of her face. Glorious. Ukiyo had been trying to give life to seeds other than her own ever since she awakened her Kekkei Genkai. Senju users tend to only utilize their body’s resources with Mokuton chakra, however Ukiyo firmly believed it has far greater uses. She loved every bit of the nature she grew up/lived in, and wished to assist it in any way. She had been sprouting seeds like this one for a few weeks now, every time getting a little bit further. It was the first step in a dream she had long ago while living in the warm embrace of the woods.

Ukyio stood up on the branch again and looked below. She smiled and lifted her hand to look at the seed. She took aim, then flung it off towards the edge of the water. Her foot began to shake and tap the tree excitedly. She bounced on the branch once, twice, thrice, then sprang up and flipped into a dive. Ukiyo slipped into the water below with ease, and in fact cut through with enough force to reach the bottom and then some. Her hands plunged into the mud below, using her chakra to ensure the earth was soft enough. As she rose to the surface, Ukiyo spun her chakra once again around her body, creating a small whirlpool up ahead that came down to meet her. She emerged from the water and released her chakra, allowing the water to fill in and raise her to the top. Ukiyo lay on her back atop the surface of the pond, blowing leaves away that fell from the canopy above. With each breath, the leaves would spin back up into the air and any cuts/tears in them would be mended. The mokuton chakra spread itself thin on top of the pond, attracting lily pads, fallen leaves, and pedals to Ukiyo. She waved her arms and legs back and forth as if making angels in them, only for the plants to swim back to surround her.

After several minutes of this, Ukiyo sank back under water and swam to a slope with some algae. She took hold of a handful of it and made a hand sign. Then, Ukiyo began pulling on it, and all along the side of the pond dirt/mud began ejecting into the water. From the gap in the earth stretched out a chain of algae, much stronger than usual. Ukiyo released her grasp and the long chain of algae was suspended in the water. She swam to the surface and caught her breath, spitting water she accidentally sucked up in excitement. Ukiyo swam over to the side of the pond and got out, then sat on the edge with her feet in the water. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back, taking in the sunlight. Bugs of all kinds swarmed around her, this pond being one of their treasured hotspots, though none seemed to bother the young girl as she sun-bathed. Like most animals in this forest, Ukiyo had a connection to them and, in a way, had their respect. Their tiny wings fluttered about her with hurried buzzing, pardoning themselves as they swept across her skin. She meditated on the connection of all life; the fragile ecosystem she and the rest of the world composed and supported. Ukiyo’s chakra was joyful and she herself was glowing. What a perfect day.

Ukiyo awoke, covered in grass, dirt, and several insects sleeping on various parts of her body. She yawned widely and sat up, apologizing to her friends.

"I must be going. It is late and the sun's nearly set. If I don't get to my tree and fall asleep out here overnight, I'd be as good as dead!" Ukiyo smiled at her joke, but deep down was truly afriad of the thought. Her smile weakened as the reminder of death settled in. She shook her head and headed towards home.