The Forest of Devourers

     When the first Botanical seed landed and buried itself in the moist soil, the little South village wasn't a village, but an entire Tribe called the Fountain Lotuses. [in this world, tribes are huge networks of very very very distantly related people.] The land was slightly overfarmed, but still green and able to sustain the Lotuses easily, the water naturally flowing through their irrigation canals. There weren't many trees at that time, only low shrubs and a few stray Barb trees. If times were normal, the single Botanical seed would never have grown properly. [oh, and the South village's tribal clothes and stuff all still have a lotus, though its name is just 'Westing'.]

     But times were not normal. The South had always been in turmoil, and it was no surprise when the Red Sticks [history!!!], always an enemy of the Lotuses, attacked. In fact, they'd attacked several times before, and the Lotuses had always defended and counterattacked successfully. But this time they had allied with the Blue Riders and Eight Eyes, small but powerful rising Tribes, and with them, especially the Eight Eyes, came magic. There were many Lotus magicians, but the Eyes had as many, and twice as powerful. They knew the secrets of the earth and air, and combined with the Riders, incredible marksmen, and Sticks, excelling at hand-to-hand combat, the Lotuses didn't stand a chance.

     During the fight, the Eyes had redirected the rivers and rains, plunging the heavily aggricultural Lotuses into a permanent drought, and blocked off their best escape route with magic Botanical trees. And here is where the history lesson stops and the biology one begins.

     These Botanical trees were not naturally man-eating, but they did sometimes seem alive and could easily be controlled by magic, which is why the Eight Eye magicians chose the single Botanical sappling to become able to eat life energy. Through magic, they made clones of the tree and spread them all across the way to the only river they had spared (for personal use) and the North. The cloned trees were less self-sustaining than the original one, and thus needed solid flesh. As a self-defense mechanism, if any brave warrior killed or severely harmed a tree, the master tree's roots would either destroy or eat the culprit. Scattering their seeds (the Eyes had hightened their ability to reproduce), the man-eating trees devoured almost all of the once great Fountain Lotuses, and finally, in an act of despair, the Lotuses made a bargain--they surrendered, and the Eyes set up a barrier between the remaining village and the trees, preventing their further spreading. The Lotuses were completely crushed.

     In a sense, Rukamina Runo was incredibly lucky. It was the original sappling, the master tree, that was eating him, and so he lived much longer than Kuchiha would have if she stayed in the clone. But the average amount of time that a person can live in a life-sucking Botanical tree is 24 hours. He'd been in there for almost 78. So in a sense, Runo was incredibly unlucky that Kake only killed the master tree when a normal human would have died two days ago.

     And yes, Kake slashed the master tree to ribbons with Kuchiha's Wsword. 

     "Ah!" Rika cried. "Kake-nii-san! You didn't get eaten!"

     "Ka...you idiot! When'd you get my sword?"

     "Eh, this? The outlaws' hideout. You ran too fast, and then I got lost and somehow made my way back there."

     "That's a lie!"

     "Well, if you say it's a lie I guess it is. So do you want the swords?" He brandished the katana and Wsword in his left hand, his bamboo staff in his other.

     "That's...not the point...but give them to me, anyways."

     "Only if you act as my bodyguard to the Forest of Angels. No exceptions this time."

     "You...peddler..." She laughed weakly. Maybe it was because her brain wasn't working properly from blood loss, but she accepted. "You got me this time." With no hesitation.

     "But don't worry, Kuchiha. You've got company." He grinned, and turned to the motionless body lying where it had fallen from the tree. "Rukamina Runo, pleased to meet you. In return for saving you from the tree, you now are required to act as my bodyguard. I hope you'll get along with Kuchiha."

     The last thing Kuchiha felt before she blacked out was pure horror.

Table of Contents

Chapter 9

Chapter 11