Parallel Lines | Naruto

𝟒| Unruly paradigms

Cremation became a common practice as mortality rates increased.

Sakura would know, it was a transitory process that didn't require much thought- only action. To stack piles of bodies, corpses that had started the process of decay, corpses that were already rotting away and watch as it corrodes. 

It was more practical to burn numerous bodies at once than to sort them out individually, omitting the very few who choose to keep the ashes as a form of remembrance, though, not everyone had that luxury. Sakura knew that many people didn't want to remember, she being amongst the numbers, which was why it was an easy decision to ignore the flames that had once blanketed the body of her mother and drink the flurry of emotions away.

There was an exception to mass cremation. It was only ever considered an option because back then there simply wasn't enough space to bury all the bodies, let alone, the equipment to cremate them customarily. Lingering Cursed Energy Manifestation (LCEP) was a common occurrence that had been the cause of many deaths and many deaths to come, and it was pretty much self-explanatory. It referred to stray, cursed energy diffusing from a wider source that habitually affected anyone unfortunate enough to come in contact with it, ruling out those who were immune solely based on the way their chakra path-system chooses to operate. Or in other words, pure, goddamn luck.

The families of the fallen had the option to again, cremate the LCEP recipient or donate their body to a research facility for experimentation. Sakura had wholeheartedly dedicated herself to research two years post-Departure and it was all she had ever known since: knowledge, research and work. It had made her a social pariah, but she never bothered with keeping up appearances when she couldn't give a shit about what anyone thought of her business.

In the early afternoon, Sakura had received word about her post-mortem examination and the results were an anomaly. It was the first time she ever felt something in a long while. Anomaly meant different, different was a change from years of continuity and dead-ends.

She wrapped her arms around her body as she kept her eyes trained on the screen. The morgue was a cold place that reeked of death and decay, but the scent was something she had acclimatised to. Sakura had spent majority of the past couple of months surrounded by metal trays of surgical equipment, hazmat suits and lifeless bodies — the most recent one was splayed before her in all its misshapen glory.

Her name was Akiko Motaru, a twenty year old woman who had a knack of dwelling in the dark corners of overcrowded taverns and upheld an unhealthy relationship with gambling. Despite this, she was described as a kind-hearted individual who had once strove to become a nurse. It was recently known that she had gambled her father's business away, leaving her and her family bankrupt, the decision ultimately led to their deaths. On her deathbed, she signed a contract that enabled the usage of her body after she had passed away, but Sakura felt like there was something crucial that she was missing— a key factor that could very well be a turning point in the research she had conducted.

Sakura pursed her lips. The stages of decomposition in an LCEP recipient halted during autolysis, meaning the body in itself didn't need to be embalmed or preserved in a mortuary. However, Motaru was a different case. Her cells were rapidly destroying itself as if the cursed energy hastened the process of apoptosis and, in this case, it was strange.

"Decay began from her torso." She murmured to herself. "Branched off to her organs, her intestines soon dissolved, then her kidneys, pancreas, liver, gallbladder, urinary bladder. It avoids the heart completely, leaving it to last, but then focuses on her spleen, muscles, veins- her arteries had ruptured prior the process, but her heart continued to beat as if something was keeping it alive."