The shadows

ch18

This chapter is by far my longest. I didn't want to make it into two so I rushed it a bit.

It's my first fighting scene so forgive me if it is not so good. I promise better ones for the future.

The was a giant beating heart hanging from the sealing held by black tendrils that went through the cave. The heart was a dark crimson and beating in slow rhythmic pulses. The veins were also pulsing.

But what made Naruto's stomach turn was the pile of rotten bodies below the heart. There was blood all over the cave and some bodies look as if they were blasted from the inside. There were body parts and organs stuck to the walls and attached to the veins.

Most of the bodies were piled up under the heart. The stench alone was making Naruto gag. He used some chakra in his nose to block the smell and followed Ayumu to investigate the pile.

The bodies were in different stages of decay so someone must come to the cave and brought them or killed them here. Naruto didn't know. Naruto quickly made some clones to investigate the cave further.

Now that he was next to the body pile he could see that there were strange carvings on the walls and the ground. Ayumu was also close to the wall looking at the carvings.

They seemed to be in a language Naruto couldn't understand. "Ayumu-san is this some sort of ancient language? Can you read it?" Naruto asked.

He got an affirmative response and what seemed like the need for time. "If it takes so long do you want me to copy all the carvings so you can study them outside? I don't feel comfortable staying here for long. The energy feels so sinister." Naruto said.

He got another affirmative and ordered his clones to copy everything. There was no other entrance to the cave so Naruto made some seals on the entrance so that in case someone enters the cave he would be informed.

His clones can't last long in these conditions a few hours at most and even then they were unstable. When some of his clones popped he got no memories from them so he couldn't use clones as spies.

It took a while but once he had everything and confirmed them with Ayumu they got out of the cave. They went back to the hospital where Ayumu and Ichika unsummoned themselves for the day to investigate the text.

Naruto reported his discoveries to Tsunade who sent a message to both Jiraiya and Orochimaru for assistance. She sent copies for them and also Konoha to see if someone knows about the language.

Naruto also went around asking villagers but they haven't seen anything like it. In the end, Tsunade asked to also visit the cave tomorrow to take a look at the bodies.

They were back in the caves in the morning. There was no entry to the cave according to his seals but there were two new bodies in the pile. Naruto got to work putting more seals all around the cave.

Tsunade to her credit didn't show any outward reaction towards the bodies but set her equipment and got to work. It took a few hours and their air purification was wearing out so they wrapped things up quickly and got out.

When they went back Tsunade explained her discoveries. "Not all the bodies died in the cave. Some of them were moved after their death according to injuries to their bodies. The oldest body dates back to about 4 months ago while the newest was from a few days ago."

"All the faces were mutilated beyond recognition but I suspect some of them belong to the patients who died in the hospital since some of the marks and body features were familiar."

"I suggest you send a clone tonight to check the graves. We don't want to alarm the locals so we can't be discovered. There is no news from others yet so we must continue our investigations."