Reborn as a Nara

eighteen

C H A P T E R        1 8
— The Sealed Box

"So?"

Shirayuki pursed her lips, her shadows expanded everywhere in this temple, Sasuke wasn't wrong to say that the entire area was covered in shadows, it was almost like they bred them as if shadows were sentient organisms who required nurturing. But there weren't any signs of life aside from the four of them, despite all the evidence saying otherwise. Her lips pursed and she paused.

Butterflies. Inverted Torch. Death.

"Butterflies, an Inverted Torch, and Death." The words she repeated echoed the ones that rang in her mind. As she reclaimed her shadows, she repeated those four words under her breath almost like a mantra. On and on, her words made no more sense than they did the first time she had said it out loud and yet it had to mean something to her.

"Death," Shirayuki said again, but this time with a realisation that struck her dumb. She had been so stupid, her mind couldn't handle the information and the intelligence that she used to be so proud of was like a rock tying her down into the cold depths of the ocean. How could she have been so stupid?

"Death, that's it!" Shirayuki turned to Sasuke. "It was Death this whole time, this is the Uzumaki Mask Temple! These masks are Oni Masks, they're all associated with the afterlife. That's why it feels like there's someone else. That's why the dead fishes were fresh. That's why the butterflies could be found inside the hole despite being covered."

"You're not making sense," Sasuke informed her bluntly, his eyes growing wary.

Shirayuki ignored him as she snapped her fingers, "Of course, this world probably doesn't believe in them. Sasuke, do you know about Zeus? Hera? Poseidon, Hades, or even Aphrodite and Apollo? I bet it's a no, right? What about Odin? Loki? Thor? Osiris? Seth?"

Sasuke looked slightly weirded out now but still, he replied because even though Shirayuki had sounded rhetorical, the way she questioned things made her sound a bit mad. Insane. Crazy. Or any other word you can use to describe the mentally unstable. What did she mean by this world?

"None of those names means anything to me," he gritted out pointedly.

"Let me tell you a story," Shirayuki started. "There once was a King, the son of another King, he was heralded as the wisest of man. He who was named Sisyphos swore to the Gods that he was the Master of Death. He had cheated Death and even beneath the eyes of the Gods, he was proud of what he had done. And on the day Death came knocking on his doors, he kidnapped him and locked him up. But of course, this is wrong."

"...What's the point of this?"

"Death cannot be locked up. Death is the one unchangeable thing about Life," Shirayuki said. "And the Death of this story had a name, a name called Thanatos. Thanatos was the God and Personification of Death. His symbols are butterflies and an inverted torch. In this world of ours, Thanatos is what we know as the Shinigami."

Sasuke widened his eyes, "You mean, this place is haunted by the Shinigami?"

"The masks, they're Oni Masks. Onis are demons, no matter how we want to treat them as folklore or mythological jokes, it is indisputable that these stem from a belief in the afterlife — directly associated with Death. We're the very first people to step foot into this place in years but what's different?" Shirayuki asked him. "Think, we can't be the only ones who stepped foot in this place. It's an abandoned temple but it's also an unclaimed shelter. And yet, despite this, why is it that it's only our group that was shown signs of his existence?"

Shirayuki could see the very moment Sasuke realised why, he looked at the mask and then back at her, his complicated look morphing into one of mild horror mixed with slight intrigue. Then, without even needing to be prompted by her to continue, he spoke again with a clear confirmation.