The Light Of Konoha

Lilies

Aki's P.O.V.

I glared harshly at my team.

"What's wrong with you?!! You can't just all randomly gasp then not tell me what it is!!" I growled, thoroughly annoyed at their almost mocking silence.

"It can't be that bad," I continued as they all stood frozen in confusion,
"It's been what, twelve hours since it started?
Nine hours during the night and three hours in this temple.
We've still got sixty hours to figure something out..."

Izumi gulped and shook her head,
"U-um... W-we got... Actually... I-it says..."

"Just spit it out already," I snapped,
"Your making me anxious."

"Thirty-three hours," Gaara said loudly into the choking silence that hung over the room.

I laughed humourlessly,
"T-that isn't funny," I barked.

There was a flash of movement as Kiba drew a kunai.

I flinched, "K-Kiba?!!"

But he held it in front of my face, tilting the smooth blade so that I could see the reflection.

With a gulp, I lifted my chin to see the tattoo for myself in the knife's surface.

And sure enough, the death count read '118830.'

One hundred and eighteen thousand, eight hundred and thirty seconds.
Or one thousand nine hundred and eighty minutes and a half.

Thirty three hours.

If that wasn't shocking enough, my hand flinched so badly I dropped the katana still in my hand when I noticed...

The clock wasn't going down in seconds.
It was going down in tens of seconds.
Time was flowing ten times faster.

"T-that doesn't make any sense!!" I stuttered,
"If the time had been flowing ten times faster the entire time it would be even lower and we would have noticed sooner!!"

"I think it's been going faster since we entered the temple," Izumi said gravely.
"Since we've been in here three hours, that means it's taken thirty hours on the clock..."

"Why would it do that?!" Lee shouted nervously.

Izumi shook her head,
"I don't know, but we have to get out of here as quickly as we can..."

I breathed deeply, drawing in the energy humming through the air.

Birds chirped and insects hummed as I sat cross-legged upon the dewy grass.

We had quickly escaped the temple, returning through the tunnel to the bright skies of the land of fire.

It seems the countdown returned to normal speed once we left the temple.

The sounds of swirling sand and a heavy 'thunk' had me peeling open my lids to watch as the large coffin was gently laid on the ground.

Panicked and rushed for time, we hastily decided to just carry the item with us using Gaara's sand.

He now was leant precariously against a tree, panting slightly.

'He must of used a lot of chakra...'

As I was fixated with him, he took out his canteen, taking a long swig.