Naruto : Monsters

Mankind was old.

Our written history could be measured in millennia, our records dating back to a period where extinct animals still lived among us but we had walked the world long before then. Our species was an old one.

Before we had the written word we had built cities, learned how to cultivate the land and tame the elements. 

Before we had learned how to speak we wandered the earth with stone clenched in fist and hides of predators warped around our form. Before even that? None knew. There was no one left who could tell us of the early days of man.

No one remembered their tales, nothing remained of their lives, of their stories, song or culture, and yet still, they managed to reach out to us.

Walkthrough the caves of ancient man and you'd find their markings on the walls. Paints of gazelles, buffaloes and bears. Of animals long gone and others who have never left. But in each of these caves scattered throughout the world, you'd find one painting in them all.

A handprint.

In every cave, in every tribe, in every continent that man walked, you'd find a similar print. Millennia ago they had stood on that very spot and placed their hand there before painting around it and leaving their mark. 

If you ever walked by one and happened to place your hand over theirs then know that uncounted ages ago, someone had stood there, pressed their hand against the very stone you currently touched and left a mark for you to find. A message for you to hear.

'I was here'

The ghost of the past yelled out through the ages just to deliver that single message to you. We were here. The weight of the time between the two of you, the sheer scale, would be enough to overwhelm even the greatest of mind that dared contemplate it.

And yet, even those ancient walls could not hold a candle to the stone monument standing before me.

Shadows danced on its cold surface, rippling like a pebble tossed into a lake, ebbing to and for as the flames lining the walls flicked on the nonexistent wind. Words I couldn't read we engrave down in neat columns, promising to reveal its secrets to any with the wisdom to unravel it.

It was old. Older than living memory and more ancient than the walls of the village that housed it. Yet the ages held no sway on it. While the world around it decayed, civilizations rose and fell, and even the mountains worn down by the hands of time, it remained untouched.

Even now, in this dim darkness of the room illuminated only by undying flames that burned with no visible fuel, I couldn't spot a single flaw on its smooth stone. 

No chips or scratches marred its smooth surface. It looked pristine as if it had just been freshly carved by its maker's hands rather than centuries-old. Proud and flawless, it mocked time with its existence

I ignored it.

It didn't matter how remarkable the stone monument was, my attention was captivated by something far more fascinating.

I was crouching against the back wall of the room, pressing myself against the corner where the stairwell met the wall, and as I watched the room through the Byakugan I felt a sense of wonder fill me.

To the Uchihas that had once guarded the place, it was the stone tablet that sat in the heart of the room that had garnered their fascination. But to me, it was the walls that held mine. For they were every bit as incredible, if not more so, than the tablet it housed.

My eyes, the Byakugan, could see through anything, past anything. From the very peaks of mountains, through miles of solid rock, my eyes could see through it all. It could even spot minute traces of chakra far too small to be seen by the naked eye. In my entire life, I had never encountered anything that it could not see through.

Until now.

These walls did not exist. I could feel them as I pressed my hand on them, trace their patterns under my fingers, but to my all-seeing eyes, they did not exist. When I gazed at them with the Byakugan all I was dirt and earth.

For the first time in my life I encountered something that even the Byakugan could not perceive.

Hours earlier, when I first set foot in the Nakano Shrine and tried searching for the Uchiha's secret meeting room, I could not find it anywhere with my eyes. 

I knew it was hidden somewhere underneath the tatami mats, though which one exactly I did not remember, but even when I knew where to look I could not see it with my eyes. 

My Byakugan showed me nothing but solid earth underneath the temple grounds. It was only after I began flipping over the mats that I was able to find the entrance.

Even now, when I stood within its walls, I could not pierce through it. All the Byakugan showed me was endless earth and dirt that stretched out for an eternity. It was as if the Shrine and open-air that I knew laid above me simply ceased to exist the moment I set foot into this room.

It's been hours since and I've made no progress. I wasn't here to examine the walls but as I hid myself in the room and waited for my target, trying to uncover their mysteries certainly helped pass the time. 

I didn't know how long I had been here, back pressed against the wall and hiding in a corner without moving but I knew that it had to be hours. Without a watch, there was no way to tell for sure but I felt confident that the sun had set long ago and it was well into the night.

But I refused to move.

I didn't twitch or made any motion that would give away my presence. The only action I permitted myself to make was to allow my eyes to roam the room, confident that small action would not give me away.

It wasn't something easy to do, to stand motionless there for hours. Even with chakra to relieve my aching muscles it was nigh unbearable. But still, I refused to move.

He was coming. I knew he was, all I had to do was be patient and I'll get my chance. So I remained standing there, in the dark, hidden from view even as I remained alone in the empty room.

After trying and failing once again to look through the walls I forced myself to look away and turned my sight to the other treasure in this room. The stone monument, the Uchiha Clan's most prized heirloom.

On its surface the secrets of chakra lay engraved. The entire origin and history of the Shinobi world was there, free for anyone to read so long as they had the eyes to do so. The secrets of the Sharingan, the Rinnegan, all of it was written on its surface.

There were so many people in the world that were willing to kill for this thing and the secrets it contained had they only known it existed. No doubt many have killed for it in the past. I wonder how many deaths had it witnessed over the years?

Snorting at the thought, I looked down at the Kunai I held in my gloved hands. It doesn't matter how many deaths it had already seen, because tonight I was about to add one more to the tally. It may have been a treasure worth more than its weight in gold but to me, it was nothing more than bait to draw in my prey.

It really was ironic that-

Something moved.

I froze, not moving even a single muscle. From my spot beside the staircase, with the wall to my back, I was hidden from view from anyone looking down into the room. But that also meant that they were hidden from my view. 

And as I heard the telltale sound of wood scraping against wood, I couldn't help but curse the walls around me that left me as blind as my prey, before moonlight flooded the room as someone pulled the trapdoor open.

Silence.

Nothing moved.

I couldn't tell how long it had been. Minutes, hours, seconds? I had no idea. My sense of time was shot. But I didn't dare move, scarily even dared to breathe, as my heartbeat so loudly it my chest that it hurt. 

I couldn't see a thing, my Byakugan all but worthless in this room, so I couldn't tell who it was. All I could do was wait for him to come to me. So that's what I did. Wait. Hidden away in my corner I waited, ready for whatever happened.

But nothing happened.

I tried to keep track of time and began to count the seconds as they passed, making sure to keep my breathing slow and steady as I could make it. When I hit the ten seconds mark, I remained calm, certain he would come. That my trap was perfect. Twenty seconds passed. And I was still sure that things would work. Thirty seconds. Forty. Fifty.

It was when I hit the sixty second count that doubt began to sink in. Ninety seconds. One hundred. When the second minute had come and gone, panic began tightening its grip on me.

Why? Why wasn't he coming down? It's been too long, he should have been down by now. Was he even there anymore? He… he hasn't left, has he? No, no that was impossible. He wouldn't leave, not without examining the monument. So he was still up there. But then, why hasn't he come down? Did, did I…

Did I make a mistake?

Gears upon gears spun in the depths of my mind, whirling as my thoughts went into overdrive and I mentally retraced all of my steps.

As soon as the Academy had ended I had set off, stopping only twice on my way here. Once to pick up a discarded kunai from a random training field, and second to make sure I wasn't being followed.

I wasn't.

No one knows I'm here.

...

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