Whispers From The Trees [Training]

[Molokai]

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Doku Tsuta Dageki (Poison Ivy Strike)
Rank: B-rank
Skill: Ninjutsu
Effect: The user roots either their feet or hands to the ground and the focuses poison ivy vines to slither in the ground until they’re ready to strike their opponent. The vines will emerge from the ground quickly and either trap or slash at the victim, the poison is so strong that it gives an acid-like effect, searing flesh. They whip around and attack whatever the user wants them too, often so fast and entangling victims to their slow painful death.
Special: Handseals : Ram, Snake, Boar, Tiger, Ox
Drawback: The user normally uses their hands for better results, so they are rooted to the ground, open for counter attack from more than one enemy.
Description: The user puts his hands to the ground, or makes roots from their hands to the earth in order to send waves of poison ivy vines through the ground and then up from the ground to attack the victim. The vines are rather large, and numerous, grouped but can be varied depending on the user. Using hands, more vines can be made, using feet, less vines can be made.
Limit: Must be a Kouba, Must have Root Creation "D"

0/70

Rooted firmly to the ground, feeling the energy abound within him from the incredible fertile soil, Toru couldn't help but sense an odd emptiness inside. He had been struggling to pinpoint that emptiness all day, but when he heard a loud protest from the pit of his stomach he knew exactly what the problem was. How long had it been since he'd last eaten? Since he couldn't remember he guessed that it had been too long. Mist village had been so quiet of late that he hasn't been able to find a fresh meal lying around, and he couldn't risk killing a civilian, so he would have to suffer in silence.

To distract himself from his gnawing hunger, he focused his attention elsewhere. Namely, the roots growing from his hands that were sucking the earth dry. He focused his chakra into the palm of his hands and concentrated it on his plant DNA, the combination of flora and chakra was capable of creating a wide variety of plant life, and this time he wrapped his mind around the idea of poison ivy. The most minute shape of a vine began snaking it's way out of the palm of his hand, seeming to grow from the skin itself, and slowly descended toward the moist sediment. It took a bit of work, but eventually Toru managed to coax it beneath the surface and allow a leaf to form several inches down the stem. At the same time, a similar growth extended from his other hand and started to progress it's way into the earth, growing only slightly more slowly than the first.

The individual vines grew quickly to about a foot in length, with leaves in various states of formation budding randomly across it's length, and it was at this time that Toru took stronger command over his creation. The chakra surging through the vine would twist and arc, painstakingly causing the vines to grow in a curving swoop that would eventually lead to horizontal travel. The resulting path dug out by the vines was gnarled and irregular, but still successfully aimed in a general forward direction, of which Toru was very displeased with. As he continued his onslaught of curling vines, he attempted to aim them in opposite directions from each other, the vine on the right curving to head toward the surface while the leftmost sprout would bore deeper. A sensation akin to patting ones head and rubbing ones belly struck Toru, but as he worked at it he was eventually rewarded with a piece of bright green stubble emerging several feet before him.

Enthralled by the alien finger squirming forth from the earth, Toru allowed it to rise up an inch or so, meanwhile commanding the other vine to curve it's path toward the surface as well, before setting it back down into the dark. The visual effect was rather interesting, a random archway of green jutting out from the ground with a single large ivy leaf perched atop the highest point, and Toru found himself staring blankly at it for a moment. As a quick experiment, he sent a quick surge of chakra down the stem and into the foliage, which resulted in a satisfying quaking that resisted the tempo of the wind. When the second vine burst forth, he caused it to fall to the side and snake it's way along the surface until it arrived beside it's companion, at which point he attempted something new. Carefully lessening the growth at the top and increasing it at the bottom, Toru caused the vine to arch up to the sky from it's anchorage on the surface, and with careful planning he rounded it over the first and back into the earth, creating a four-sided dome of ivy vines.

[Zetsumei]

+10

[Molokai]

10/70

An artistic display of shrubbery lay idle in the dirt of the mist village, obediently awaiting command from it's equally idle master. Toru recalled the vines, slowly extricating them from the complex network of tunnels created as they bored their way through the earth to their current configuration, and marveled at how thin and weak they appeared in their current state. Hard to believe that such a thin cord of plant matter could ever amount to anything, really. But Toru was by no means going to allow himself to be discouraged. No, rather than that, he found himself more determined than before. Pumping chakra into the palms of his hands, fusing it with the complex floral deoxyribonucleic acid of his flesh, and giving a mighty push he thrust a vine from each of his two palms, each significantly thicker and stronger than the first two created.

The initial outburst sent the vines deep into the ground, and Toru took immediate command over them. With the added girth, the vines were easier to control but required more energy, as such he still tried to test his dexterity with them beneath the ground. A simultaneous curve took them both in a parallel path away from him, and another identical movement caused them both to burst out of the ground at exactly the same time and stand as stiff as pillars from their respective burrows. A gentle relaxation of the chakra within caused them to lose some of their rigidness and sag slightly, while pushing hard at the front end of the column to prevent it from completely collapsing. From there, Toru commanded the vines to sway from side to side by pooling and releasing chakra on either side in sequence. The gentle dancing of the creations did not follow the rhythm of the wind, which confirmed that it was in face Toru commanding the movement.

As he found the plants bending further and further to each side, he eventually allowed it to bend low enough to reenter the sediment, at which point he pushed hard to return them to their previous depth. From there, he curved the rightmost vine toward the right but kept the left vine traveling straight forward for another few inches before turning and paralleling it's partner again. A swift thrust of chakra sent each vine rearing back in opposite directions, only to once again become parallel to each other when the maneuver ceased, before sending them to weave and dance around each other beneath the soil. An intricate braided pattern soon developed as each vine circled and twirled around each other, and when Toru was satisfied of their entanglement he once again arched the path of the vines to take them to the surface where the rose to about his standing height and stayed as a monument to natural art.

Toru detached the base of the growth from the palms of his hands once he was satisfied with the outcome, only to be quickly replaced by another set equally as thick. But, there was also a third. Growing from the same base of his right hand as the first, a second vine grew as well. Small, thin, brightly colored, and equally as wimpy as the very first vines he created, it was certainly nothing to be proud of. But proud of it Toru was, and he focused most of his attention on that one itty-bitty wittle planty-thing that most shinobi would just sneeze at. He pumped it with chakra, grew it longer, twisted and turned it in every conceivable direction, and when it burst forth from the earth alongside the braided column it was the most beautiful thing in the world. Before his pride could get the better of him, he sent it back into the moist abyss and forced his attention back to the matter at hand.

[Koori.]

+8

18|70

[Molokai]

The earth constantly resisted Toru and his plants, resisting their forward movement to the best of it's ability. However, this resistance did little more than increase his drive and determination to press onward. Digging his fingers, which were previously resting flat, into the surface of the soil, Toru reasserted control over his unique DNA and thrust the naturally occurring plant growth beneath the sediment. Two fully formed vines and one green worm emerged from the arch of his palms and followed an erratic writhing pattern until they found the remnants of his previous attempts, where they curled around the stalk and hooked itself in to the flesh of the other plant. Then, following the same path they had arrived through, Toru retracted the vines and pulled them and everything they were attached to back into the moss-covered sod. It was almost a shame to destroy what he considered to be a work of art, but he put those thoughts in the back of his mind and pressed on.

Unleashing his two and a half vines from the pits of his dirt-caked hands, Toru wondered if he could control the vines efficiently when they were above ground, and thus use them as weapons rather than artistic wastes of chakra. He thrust them with force into the damp sod, the partially formed half-tendril trailing miserably behind it's mostly-formed predecessors like a decrepit schoolboy trying out for the track team. Once the vines had reached a decent amount of yards away from the body of Toru, he commanded them into a tight curve. Slowly tightening that curve as the vines continued to travel, he coiled them until they formed a series of concentric circles terminating in the middle. Then the end of the vine grew through the surface and aimed itself at a particularly intrigued squirrel, which was all the more enthralled when the odd worm-shaped thing started to point at it.

When the spring-loaded vine burst forward from the depths, it rocketed toward the surprised-looking creature and nearly embedded itself in the poor things skull. If not for the quick thinking of the high-strung woodland animal, the vine would have killed it instantly. Instead, Toru had to pour chakra into the side of the sinuous tentacle and attempt to snatch the beastie off of it's branch, to no avail. The ascent was too fast and Toru's control too feeble, so it just collided at a slight angle with the tree his target had previously been peacefully sitting on and draped over the branch like a snake suffering a heart attack. Now as as good a time as ever to practice his control, so he flooded his failure with chakra yet again. A pronounced quiver was the only evidence that Torus efforts were doing anything even remotely productive, until the vine managed to rise and hover an inch or so over the surface of the branch.

His progress, as mediocre as it was, was still enough to hearten him and strengthen his resolve further. A pool of his energy would be set at the base of the limp drapery, causing the weight to slide off of the appendage and hurtle toward the ground. However, as Toru had hoped, the chakra that had previously lifted it that minuscule distance off of the branch was capable, when increased, to hold it a good foot above the ground. Concentrating on such an abstract proposal was difficult to say the least, as the vine had no muscles to contract or anything of the sort, so it was completely up to his chakra to move it about. Biting his lip with intensity, he forced the vine to creep forward across the exposed ground, ominously creeping forward like some kind of headless serpent feeling for its prey. Torus optics found the squirrel again, hiding in a bush hopefully away from the leaping plants, and set the grotesque slithering in that general direction.

[Kama the Popcorn Kage]

+10

[Molokai]

28/70

Controlling what had become appendages of his own body had proven a more strenuous task than first anticipated. He still had an amount of curled tentacles hidden beneath the area, but currently all of his focus was on one agonizingly slow bit of sinuous growth. Inching along, each movement and eternity in and of itself, Toru straining and pushing with all of his might, it finally reached the edge of the bush where his unsuspecting victim awaited deaths cold embrace. Gritting his dagger-like teeth against the strain of the moment, Toru commanded the vine to rise and poise like a viper ready to take it's meal. It slid smoothly to his coaxing, rising at a brisker pace to the desired position and coiling in such a way that one could be convinced that it had a mind of it's own.

If Toru expected to ever be able to catch hes elusive ball of fur, he would need speed. At the moment, the vines movement was similar to that of an inchworm; elongating, anchoring at the front, contracting, anchoring at the rear, wash, rinse, repeat until he was spotted and he had to watch his hard work escape into the trees. There had to be a better way, and simply inching faster was not going to be an option, so he sent all of the chakra present in the vine into the very tip. He watched in wonder as his creation shot at an amazing pace in a general forward direction, careening first into a tree, then up said tree as he pointed the business end to follow the trunk. Such shocking success gave him an idea, such an idea that might very well work, unlike all of his others before. The vine became gorged with chakra, as Toru made it a point to fill every inch of it with his potent energy, and from that point on it responded promptly to his every command.

Foolish squirrels, they never learn. Using his new found control over a solitary vine, Toru coursed the deadly barb back into a spring-loaded position beneath the ground. Well, maybe squirrels do learn eventually, too bad for this one it learned the very instant that the missile nailed it's head to the tree it rested upon. A squeak and a splatter of blood and brains confirmed his targets demise. In a gleeful bit of morbidity, Toru hooked the end back into what was once an identifiable skull and gave it a quick snapping toss across the field. In a cruel, sick form of a childhood game, he challenged himself yet again by firing his remaining vine at the flying remnants of his decapitated plaything. Oh, what a glorious sound, that sopping squish of pierced organs and bloody fur. Repeating the previous process, Toru filled the projectile to bursting with his chakra and watched as the sudden surge pinned the already impaled rodent against an innocent-looking sapling.

Contrary to what Toru expected, the corpse remained rooted to the side of the young tree even after the object holding it there was withdrawn. Deciding to leave it be, as a sort of macabre monument to mounting success, he allowed the vines to retract back into the cup of his hand and prepared himself for another go. A burst of chakra and a congregation of floral DNA sent three fully-formed vines from each hand rocketing into the ground. They cohered with each other and formed a veritable ball of tightly coiled plant matter, seemingly with no shape or pattern to it at all. But, when they burst forth from the earth, the vision of six leafy tentacles thrashing and grabbing wildly was strong in Toru's mind. Alas, only two of the six actually contained within them enough chakra to hold their rigidity above ground, the other four just flopped uselessly to the ground and lay there like the remnants of a slain squid.

[Kama the Popcorn Kage]

+10

[Molokai]

38/70

The Kraken existed beneath the soil of Mist village, it's tentacle-like appendages rearing forth from the sediment and thrashing about in a terrifying show of ferocity. Well, it would have been terrifying and ferocious if more than two had actually done something more than flop uselessly to the ground. He tried everything, from dividing his chakra equally amongst the tendrils to simply forcing more and more chakra into each. Each attempt failed in it's own magnificent, violent way and left him with two weapons and four worthless vegetables, back to square one, as it were. Almost as if on cue, a wayward fawn appeared and wandered into Toru's little patch of heaven. Stopping cold and staring at the flailing bits of foliage as if they were a pair of bright lights coming at it at a high rate of speed. Toru noticed this and wasted absolutely no time in taking advantage of the momentary hesitation.

With a cracking whip-like motion, the tendril farthest to the right descended with blinding speed upon the exposed back of the helpless baby dear, tracing a deep cut around both flanks and binding it helplessly in place. Meanwhile, the one on the left of Toru swung in a wide arc along the ground that would sweep the feet out from under it. Both vines pounced as soon as the bulk hit the ground, the one around the waist wrapping around even tighter and rooting the other end in the ground, while the second repeated the process around the creatures neck. Not so tight as to strangle the thing, but not so loose as to allow it any kind of movement whatsoever. His mind running on autopilot, noting the subtle variations of muscle movements and chakra patterns without consciously thinking about them, as the remaining four vines slithered over to the pinned animal with increasing speed.

It was a clash of flora versus fauna, and for the first time in centuries it was the flora ravaging the fawn. Hopelessly pinned down, the creepers mounted their assault on the young dear. Toru could feel his control over the vines increasing steadily as one bound the crying animals mouth shut and further anchored the head, another hogtied the legs and squeezed until nearly the breaking point of the joints, a third wormed it's way slowly into the stomach by way of the naval, and the fourth reared back to strike with viper-like precision at his targets most vulnerable points. Namely the eyes, heart, and a few key arteries. Eyes widened, blood flowed, and the stench of stolen life emanated from the carcass to permeate the once tranquil forest. The vine constricting the bound neck tightened and squeezed until a sickening crack echoed through the clearing. The struggling stopped, all sound vanished, and the woods lay still.

Still, it was not enough. Not for Toru, not now that his white half had gained control and wanted to play a sick game with the remnants of the beast. His ivy stalk that had pierced the belly would rip out the way it had came, trailing behind it a sickening slurping noise and a spray of bloody entrails, and emerged as disgusting and verbose as imaginable. All six tentacles under his control were now responding promptly and powerfully to his commands, and as each one relaxed it's respective hold, he allowed the hogtie to remain in place. To test the strength of his creation, Toru gave a mighty heave in an attempt to vault the corpse up into the air. Alas, he only succeeded at lifting it slowly to an upside-down slaughterhouse position, so he held it there for as long as he could handle and watched the dripping of blood cohere and form a puddle beneath the dangling game.

[hotaru]

+9