Two Leaf Fires (MadaNaru)

To See: An Embittered Fire

Important Note: So this is set after the war, but there is canon divergence within it:

~The moon bitch didn't come up and doesn't exist.

~Kyuubi and Naruto don't get along

~Madara did come back to life. (as in canon) but did not become the sixth-sage thing

~The death toll was higher.

~Gai didn't help defeat Madara

                                           Chapter 1: An Embittered Fire

Trepidation encompassed him upon each dismounting step, wrangling wired strings of doubt pulling upwards towards the taunting light of noon behind. It stung at his sensitive corneas, burnt at his clothed back and bare hands; it mattered not, sunlight made an invisible laceration within his skin every second exposed. The cellar hatch shut with a loud echo over ancient stone walls; he automatically closed his eyelids to the sound, gripping at the menial wooden railing only recently placed.

The wooden door rattling within metal, as his steps descended each with a soft tapping reverberation against the -carved, stone staircase. A torch was alit before him, one of two within the staircase, both emitting a gentle illuminance, enough to show the way and give a slight warmth when near the dim fire. The entire zone near promulgated a caliginous aura; as if, descending into the lair of a malicious demon, as he well knew.

The tapping of his shoes upon the stairs, of course, would have alerted his arrival to any current occupant. Not that he bore a particular concern of his presence being known, still, the grasping wires pulling him upwards would have brought blood to fore should they have existed; as it were however, the daunting -bloodied- grip of his subconscious was ignored in favour of flickering morale. In reaching the smoothened rock walkway he grasped the only torch alight at the bottom of the stairs, to guide his way through the tenebrous hall. However, bile arose in his throat as the accursed smell of putrefied decay reached his nose, and he pinched his nostrils in a hope to divert the aroma, without success.

Walking was measured, each cell door glinted only marginally under the firelight; as most were rusted by age and wetted by the moisture seeping ever slowly from aboveground soil, they were covered in grime. Thin fingers shook for the decrepit sight, his hand both loosening and tightening in grip of the wooden torch: Knowledge of plausible outcomes to the war continuing to dance within the forefront of his -normally, ardent mind, now pessimistically made.

Still, in a vehement determination, and in despite of his perfervid despise of the so obvious abusive treatment unto the prisoners within, he shone the light of his torch into each cell, often finding no one. Yet, upon occasion, there was a person; dead or alive, their positioning indicated neither, hung limpin from shackled chains secured to the dampened -molding, walls, unto some their flesh was rotting inside the cuffs blackened outlines around their wrists made visible even only under the dim fire's glow. Skeletons with a margin of bloodied bone and rot tendrils of muscle lay in many cellars.

To reach the end was where he found the man he sought. A step further downwards, hidden within an alcove to the left was a cellar, a curved rockway supporting iron beams. A light was needed to see the man hung from ceiling-mounted chains, as of course, the entire imprisonment was dark.

Yet, the alcove possessed a type of morose aura; lugubrious, perhaps from the man shackled afore. Uncertain, Naruto placed the torch in the divot within the wall beside the bars, and in spite of their mismatching height, he sat down on the dampen floor before the cell door, neither expecting response nor awaiting one. Listening intent unto the crackled sounding of embers from the fire, relishing himself to the introverted space.