Reborn as a Nara

seventeen

C H A P T E R       1 7
— The Uzumaki Temple

To be fair, as majestic as you'd like to think the Uzumaki Temple to be, it was truly anything but that. Or rather, it looked amazing if you wanted it to be a haunted house attraction. To say the temple was rundown was a whole understatement on its own, it was beyond dilapidated and the whole area reeked of decay, blood, and wet wood.

"This place is trashed," Shirayuki commented bluntly.

She could see Sasuke looking as if he was about to voice out his agreement as well but Naruto was too taken in by everything to even consider listening to their statement. Whatever he saw before him was clearly through rose-tinted lenses and everything probably looked like sparkles and glitter to him. Well, good for the kid, she supposed.

"Chop, chop," Kakashi pushed them in, "Let's not waste our time out here, the temple isn't going to clean itself."

Shirayuki made a face of disgust, murmuring to Sasuke, "I can't believe we actually got woken up this early for cleaning duty. It's not like the temple's going anywhere, waking us up at three hours later won't make a difference."

"Hn." Sasuke agreed, despite sounding anything but agreeing.

The gloomy atmosphere didn't fade into an antique and solemn feeling as they entered the temple, in fact, it got gloomier the deeper they walked into the temple. The loose floorboards beneath their feet creaked with every step and the translucent layer of dust which draped over the entire interior added to that nightmarish feeling.

At the centre of the temple, the focus of everything was a dilapidated board lined with different kinds of demonic masks. The bottom-most part of the board chipped away, clearly the hard work of termites, but it's an astonishing thing that none of the masks looked remotely damaged. They looked terrifying under the twilight of the temple, giving off eerie vibes as Team 7 walked closer.

"Should we take down the masks and clean them?" Shirayuki frowned, "Or do they trigger some sort of trap if taken?"

"Yes to both," Kakashi replied. "But later, for now, we need to clean the floors here so we can set up camp. Sasuke, go build a fire outside the temple, Shirayuki go get water and store it in that container in the corner. Naruto, with me."

"Yes, yes," Shirayuki dropped her bag on the ground and left to get the container in the corner. It was a dusty container with a yellowish exterior and the inside was filled with remnants of dead insects and faded stains of... something, much to her disgust. Sasuke glanced into the container she was carrying before snorting.

"Shut up," Shirayuki told him promptly.

"Heh," Sasuke smirked.

"Seriously, I will hit you," Shirayuki scowled.

After that, she left before he could say anything as holding onto a bucket filled with things she wanted nothing to do with, wasn't exactly a priority on her list, thanks. Shirayuki walked over to where she remembered seeing a stream was at before pausing on the way.

There was a small pond, larger than ordinary ones but much smaller than the ones she saw in Hideo-san's backyard. There were no fish left inside the pond, despite the fact it should as there were painted-on signs saying 'No Feeding Allowed' at the side. Well, should she turn on the filtering system? There was a drainage system in the corner.

Shirayuki curled her lips up in disgust before moving forward. She picked up the broken part of a metal gate before dipping it into the water to pry the drainage hole open. Watching in morbid curiosity, the water level filled with moss and murk began to lower. Satisfied, Shirayuki walked away with the disgusting container in hand.