A place to lay my head

I stood in the main hall of the old joki academy, for a moment I wondered what memories this place might have held for me if I had remained here for my childhood but then shook such thoughts from my mind and got back on task. Investigating the room and its foundation and structural supports I was able to tell that this place could indeed be salvaged which meant that for the most part this project would be more cleaning than constructing. With a few hand seals I spat out a wave of wind chakra that removed most of the exposed dust and allowed me to see more of what was left over and while it wasn't much it was more than I had been expecting.

Under the ashes I discovered training tools of the academy, to my surprise many of the tools were similar if not exactly like those I had used as a child in Chikagakure, for a moment I wondered if there were other things this similar between the rebellion and the empire but then shook the thoughts from my head and got back to cleaning up. Forming wind chakra into a makeshift blade around my hand I started cutting away at a large beam that had broken through the ceiling from the floor above. This process along took the better part of the day that remained but with its removal all the ground floor work was reduced to patch work and basic cleaning. I would come back to this later and move on to the second story to see what could be accomplished there as it seemed it would become our living quarters.

I made my way to the second floor to find myself ambushed, a creature rushed from the shadows towards my face and managed to slice open my lip before I jumped to the side to roll into shadows as well. Surrounded by darkness I closed my eyes for a moment and opened them to reveal my sharingan which was able to show me a very minor chakra signature of a confused animal searching for me. I took out three senbon and threw them with enough precision that I nailed all three in what I assumed was the torso. A solid thud hitting the ground let me know I had been granted success and out of curiosity I went to inspect what it was that had managed to wound me.

When I got to the body I swore under my breath, before me laid out was the corpse of a female hawk. Female, red-tail and from the looks of her feathers and behavior either was would would soon have been a mother. I moved around carefully for a bit until I found the nest with a single egg left intact which meant I'd need to stay on the lookout up here for predators. I was about to move on for a moment until I was caught off guard again by the sound of the egg's shell membrane cracking apart. I let my head fall down to look at the ground and tuned back to get on a knee for a better view of the baby coming out. I had to help a little bit by pulling back little bits of the shell and within a few minutes a new baby hawk was fully hatched and due to me killing and then asking questions I was the first thing she saw. "Damn it..."

I held my hand against the side of my head as I thought about this situation, without knowing it I had managed to create an orphan in this world. I would have to take responsibility for this mistake now so I went outside and dug out a half dozen worms and smashed them up. Feeding them to the baby from my finger tips so that she would be quiet for a moment so that I could finish cleaning the area. The touch up work would need to be done when I returned but for now I needed to sleep but whenever I laid down the chick would cry out so eventually I picked her up and placed her on my chest until she went to sleep followed by me doing the same. In the morning I would wake up and make my way to Morigakure with this new little pest going with me.

[end]