Hana Matsuba

Background
Hana is the second eldest child of a family with five children in the Matsuoka Clan, a small clan that took up residence in the area where the shinju took root from its creation up until modern times. They mostly stayed out of the wars in the warring states period, except for a few members here and there who left or came back. Being a small clan, they were forced to look outside the village to maintain genetic diversity, so ninja and civilians from outside the clan were brought in from time to time, leading to a small village being formed, and various basic ninja arts being taught. This would not really be a hidden village, but more like an out of the way town. Most of the people in the town who could use wood release weren't taught much more than extremely basic level self-defense, and only those who showed aptitude were given any real ninja training, forming a self defense force in the village.

Hana, like all the other children in the clan, was taught how to use wood release at a young age, however unlike most she showed an extreme aptitude for the release, as she was a member of a branch family that had only split off the main family two generations back, and as such her bloodline was stronger than most. She was enrolled in the local ninja academy, where she was taught basic ninjutsu and refined her wood release skills. Over the course of the next ten years she increased her skills with the techniques until she graduated and became a member of the Self-Defense force of the village. She oversaw a section the forest that became the village's guardian, as other than the designated routes in and out, it was too thick to easily get through without wood release. This task continued for another five years until one day, chakra that was all too familiar swept over the forest, increasing it to a gargantuan size. The chakra of the Shinju from the 4th war had finally made its way to the other side of the continent, nearly 28 years later. The trees had grown together into one giant tree, essentially closing up the hole the village was in, albeit due to the abilities of the self defense force, it was not destroyed. Given time, they managed to shape the tree to allow them access to the outside again.

However, they did not know what had caused this sudden outgrowth to occur. As such a member had to be sent to investigate the occurrence that had caused the growth. Hana was selected to do this due to her unnaturally strong affinity for the wood release and her relative closeness to the head family. She is currently out in the world, determined to figure out what had caused the changes in the forest, and if it will happen again.