Year 37 of Konoha, night.
The roots of the century-old clan cherry tree no longer draw nourishment from the soil. They have long been soaked in the filthy blood of generations slaughtering one another. I can “hear” the tree’s vitality, sickeningly sweet and rotten. This is the curse bestowed upon me by my clan’s “Forest of All Creation Secret Art,” which lets me sense the essence of life energy.
Tonight, the screams from the side courtyard abruptly stopped once again. I knew another relative who opposed the “Blood Sacrifice of Kaguya” path had become a sacrifice on the altar of power and madness. My father’s, mother’s, and elder brother’s faces flashed through my mind. This blood-fed cherry tree was the family in miniature: flourishing on the surface, but hollowed out within by a thousand years of fate.
Before dawn, I crossed the courtyard through the cold dew and took one last look at the eerie cherry tree. Petals drifted down onto the still-wet blood, their red painfully vivid. I didn’t look back. Behind me lay a tomb doomed to sink into ruin. Ahead lay Konohagakure, which seemed bright under the rule of the Third Hokage. The cold animal mask of the Anbu was the new identity I had chosen for myself, and the coffin in which I would bury the past and my fate.
It feels like a newbie's work.