Chapter 6
That night it was comfortably warm. It wasn’t blistering, and the nighttime didn’t make it freezing; it was just right.
It was the perfect night for a flowering ritual.
Neji sighed in the soft kiss of the breeze and took a deep breath. The Hyuuga lake was a beautifully sacred place for the clan and always reflected the moon's eye off its surface during moments like his coming-of-age ceremony. The breeze flowed through his hair as he listened to the forest’s leaves rustle in the wind.
The Hyuuga flowering ritual was an independent endeavor; no one was allowed except the individual turning fourteen. He looked down at the lotus seed in his hand–it was time.
Neji double-checked over his shoulders to ensure he hadn’t been followed–not that the clan would have allowed anyone entry anyway–and when he was sure the coast was clear, he carefully slipped off his sandals. The young Hyuuga followed the moonstones embedded in the ground, trailing into the lake and dipping his bare toes into the water. He shivered; it was chilly, but he pressed forward. Once his ankles were submerged, he untied the white beaded ceremonial robe, took a final breath of courage, and let it fall to the ground in a heap where the trail met the lake. Neji took carefully practiced steps into the water, following the moonlit bridge that glistened across the flickering surface, until his nudity was fully submerged in the dark waters.
Wide, white eyes turned up to stare at the moon; Neji mumbled a few necessary verses for the ritual before taking a breath and dunking himself under. He swam to the bottom of the lake, right where the moonlight hit the bottom, and looked at the seed in his hand. Cupping the seed and the water, he flooded his chakra into the tiny seed, before finally, gently, burying the seed into the sediment.
Neji took a gasping breath as he breached the surface of the water and brushed his soaking wet hair out of his face. He smiled and took a relaxed breath; he had done it! He was on the path to adulthood, and it was a gorgeous one, too.
“So, this was the flowering ritual you were talking about, Hyuuga.”
Goosebumps ran up his spine and bled down his arms as a familiar velvet-edged voice cut through his sacred night like a knife.
He flipped his head, brunette locks coiling protectively around his exposed shoulders as he made a measly attempt to cover himself in the water. “The hell?!” He clipped, “What are you doing here, Uchiha?! How did you–?”
“I followed the trail.” The raven simply stated from his spot, leaning against one of the trees. He pushed himself off, “It’s like Hansel and Gretel. I assumed you wanted to be followed.”
“That’s nonsense!” Neji sank a smidge deeper into the waters, “This area is surrounded! There is no way you got in without sneaking around!”
“Maybe,” Sasuke smirked, “but you can’t prove that.”
Neji grumbled in the water. What was he doing here? This wasn’t supposed to be happening–it ruined the whole ceremony!
“It’s a beautiful night to do it.” Sasuke measured his hauntingly dark eyes, never straying away from Neji’s milky irises.
Neji swallowed the lump in his throat. “Excuse me?”
He watched an ebony eyebrow tick amusedly as Sasuke reached for the hem of his shirt.
“W-What are you doing?!” Neji stuttered as the Uchiha’s pale skin began to show. He watched in abasement as the boy pulled the blue shirt over his body, exposing his toned chest to the night.
A mischievous glint flashed in his pitch-black pupils. “Come on, Hyuuga. Where’s your sense of rebellion?” Pale hands flicked the button of his pants.
“Sasuke, you better stop it right now! This is insanity! You’re not even supposed to be here, let alone seeing me like this! It’s a violation of our principles and–” He gasped as the boy stripped completely bare before him. Neji hurriedly covered his eyes and turned away.
He heard a small, high-pitched gasp from behind him. “Woah, this water is colder than I thought it would be!”
That set off a red alarm in the Hyuuga’s head, “You better not be in the water! This is sacred ground and belongs solely to the Hyuuga clan! Everyone, especially Uchiha, is forbidden from entering the body–”
“Am I?” The low, steely voice whispered into his ear.
He flinched and turned to see Sasuke’s dark eyes locked with his. Neji’s breath caught: water was cascading down the soft lines of his jaw and dripped off the tip of his nose. His usually spiky raven hair was now glued to his face, framing that penetrating gaze that seemed to stare right through him.
His lashes are so long… Neji thought, he’s such a pretty boy…
Neji watched a single droplet trail from Sasuke’s chin, down his neck, and into the nook of his collarbone. He gulped at the sight of Sasuke’s bare chest, obscured by the lake’s surface.
Neji suddenly felt very warm in the cool water.
“Neji?” Sasuke hushed; Neji could feel his breath gently brush his cheek.
He swallowed, “Yes?” A pair of strong arms wrapped around his shoulders and pulled him into his chest, face to face.
Sasuke never broke eye contact, a smoldering fire in his usually cold eyes. His lips, usually set in a firm line, had softened, one corner quirked slightly. “Your lotus has bloomed.”
Neji turned to the pink flower fully bloomed on the water's surface. “That’s impossible…” He whispered. A normal lotus took at least a year to bloom, but the Hyuuga lotuses, moon lotuses, took four years to grow.
Neji watched in amazement and confusion as the handsome Uchiha retrieved the flower from the water. “Guess you’re grown now.” He peered into the white eyes and brushed a strand of wet hair behind Neji’s ear.
The boy leaned in…
…Neji shut his eyes and tilted his head.
He waited for the fireworks to come…
…but he woke up instead.
The brunette blinked slowly, trying to adjust his vision, before he recognized he was in his room. He was still bleary from sleep, but snapshots of his dream were starting to pop like popcorn into his head. The exhaustion left him instantly, and reality hit him like a brick. What the fuck? He thought as he propped himself up on his bed, Why did I dream something so weird? Well, he couldn’t go back to sleep now. Neji looked at his clock and groaned when he saw that it was 3:30 am; he couldn’t get comfortable if he tried!
He did try, but he was so uncomfortable now that that dream was stuck in his head. There was also this pressure in his abdomen that wouldn’t leave, no matter which way he turned.
Neji groaned and flipped onto his back. This feeling was getting annoying! He grabbed his blanket and ripped it off exasperatedly, before turning as white as his sheets and shoving the blanket back down. “What the fuck?” He whispered to himself after seeing the tent in his pajama bottoms. “What the fuck?”
Creak.
He perked up frantically, “Hello?”
Neji watched the fuzzy night shadows contort in the darkness as the shape of his bedroom door slid open.
Neji swallowed and covered his lap further as the small figure peeked into the room, “You’re door gets stuck.”
“Yeah, it does that.” Neji squinted at his cousin's voice in confusion, “What are you doing here?”
“We have a mission.”
“We do?”
She nodded, “Come on. The others are waiting.”
“What?” Neji quickly glanced down and shook his head, “Whatever. I’ll be out in a second.”
She nodded and closed the door. Neji sighed and experimentally pressed on the hard-on; he winced. Why did this have to happen right now? He didn’t even have time to think of why he had responded this way to his dream about Sasuke. Surely, it was just a coincidence? Sasuke didn’t have anything to do with this.
He groaned–guess he had to deal with this now.
Neji snuck through the compound’s twisting hallways before he made it to the Hyuuga compound’s front entrance. It was there that he saw all of Konoha 12 standing at the gates, plus Kakashi-sensei and Guy-sensei, as usual.
“What are you all doing here?”
Kiba sneered, “You wanted to find the crypt, right? Well, we’re here!”
Neji blinked, “Right now? It’s three in the morning!” He turned to the others standing around, “That doesn’t explain why everyone is here either!”
“You need us for the information we gathered.” Shikamaru shrugged easily, “Plus, this is the time that works best for us with the festival schedule.”
“Yeah, I’m in a cook-off with my mom tomorrow.” Choji agreed.
Neji sighed, “Fine. I guess we’re doing this.”
The group walked through the empty village in comfortable silence. Not even Naruto and Lee were saying a word as they meandered into the old compound, or what used to be the Uchiha compound.
Kakashi frowned at the remnants of police tape that clung like spider webs on the trees, just as Sakura stepped around the overgrown grass and weeds covering the old sidewalk.
“I thought they bulldozed this place,” Ino whispered, clinging to Shikamaru’s arm.
He trod on, “It was. Guess the machines can’t erase everything.”
The group stared, and a handful of them shrieked at the sickening crack that pierced the air. They flipped their heads to see the blonde knucklehead lifting his foot urgently from a stray piece of glass on the ground. “Naruto!” They shouted unanimously.
“I’m sorry!” He hushed, “I didn’t see it!
“Let’s just find this crypt.” Shikamaru leads, “What do we have to go off of?” He pulled out a piece of paper. “I was able to get my hands on an old map of the compound.”
“No, shit! Really?” Kiba questioned while looking over his shoulder.
Shikamaru pulled it closer, “Yeah, and we have your nose, so we should be able to find something.”
“I’m glad that you guys think so highly of my tracking abilities, but my nose is pretty useless if I don’t have a scent to go off of.”
“Just use Sasuke’s scent, idiot!” Naruto scolded, which had Kiba glaring daggers.
“Sasuke doesn’t smell like dead people, Naruto!”
“How about ashes?” Neji questioned out loud.
He turned to look at the boy, clearly confused, “Ashes? Weren’t the members murdered?”
Neji rolled his eyes, “Yes, but the Uchiha typically cremated their dead. That’s where the ash for the ash day comes from.”
“I’m not going to bring up how weird that is,” Kiba responded insensitively, “but I guess Akamaru and I can search for where the smell of ashes is the strongest.”
“Great! Anything else?” Sakura asked hopefully.
Neji nodded, “Sasuke also gave me a verbal map. If we can decipher it, we might be able to find the general area faster.”
“A verbal map? I swear, Sasuke was in a cult. I’m calling it.” Naruto repeated.
“It goes like this. When crimson eyes bleed into darkness, count seven stones from the silent guardian. The path reveals itself only to those who walk backward through time. Where fallen stars sleep beneath roots that drink from the underworld, find the door that opens with bloodied tears.”
“What the hell does that mean?!”
“I’m not sure, Naruto. That’s what we need to figure out. Are there any landmarks on the map, Shikamaru?”
He hummed, “A few. Let’s see…” Shikamaru rolled the paper out on the ground, and everyone crowded around him. “Based on that riddle, we’re looking for a statue, or symbol of some sort, hence' the silent guardian', but the stone trail is going to be difficult to find in the overgrowth.” He put his forefinger to his chin, “I’d assume the 'fallen stars' verse is referring to the dead, so they must be buried under a tree.”
“Great.” Ino dragged, “How are we supposed to find the right tree in the Leaf village?! There are millions!”
“We just start looking.” Shikamaru reasoned.
“What about the–uh–bloody eye thing?” Naruto shivered and rubbed his arms.
“My best guess is the Sharingan. When you use that jutsu for too long, your eyes become exhausted and start to bleed. It’s mostly seen in more experienced users, though.”
“Jeez, could the Uchiha be any more convoluted?” Kiba exasperated.
“Less complaining, more searching.” Neji commanded, “Let’s get moving. We don’t have much moonlight.”
That turned out to be a complicated feat. The group searched in the dirt, they searched in the trees, they tried to follow the “map” by walking backwards from random trees that they thought fit the picture of the “roots”.
They were coming up with nothing. This was impossible!
After an hour of searching, Shikamaru called the group back over to rendezvous. They all came up empty.
He sighed, “Man, supposedly I have a pretty high IQ, but even I’m running into dead ends.” He groaned, “What a drag.”
Sakura turned to Kiba, “Did you guys find anything?”
Akamaru whined, and Kiba looked ashamed, “Not a whiff, no pun intended.”
“I thought you would be able to find the ash smell?!” Naruto scolded the duo.
“Hey! Akamaru did his best!” The white fluffball snuggled closer into his master’s neck and whimpered.
Naruto blinked, “What’s wrong with him?”
Kiba petted his dog comfortingly, “Look, Akamaru’s right. This entire area smells like…blood.”
You could hear a pin drop.
“The Anbu can only cover up so much, and that cleaning stuff doesn’t keep anything from our noses.”
“Well…” Sakura stuttered, “What about Shino? Could his bugs…you know?”
Shino shook his head, “My bugs won’t search the grounds.”
“Why not?”
“The smell…scares them. There’s an aura to this area that weighs their wings. They physically won’t leave my body.”
The wind blew through the leaves, an ominous rustle resounding through them. Even the stars were afraid to come out.
“Well,” Naruto flubbered, “Who needs ya then?! What good is your team if you can’t find anything?!”
“Shut up! You didn’t find anything either!” Naruto and Kiba squared up to fight each other before Hinata interfered.
“Guys, quit it! This isn’t helping anyone!” She yelled softly.
“She’s right.” Tenten agreed and put her arm around Hinata in support, “We need a new battle strategy. Any ideas?”
Shikamaru’s eyes furrowed, “It can’t be this hard to find an underground room filled with ash. There has to be something we’re missing.”
“Perhaps we should inspect the map again,” Neji suggested, to which Shikamaru nodded.
The Chunnin rolled open the physical map, and they all gathered around it.
“This is such an old map.” Choji commented, “It’s yellowing at the edges. Are we sure this is right?”
“Of course it is!” Naruto exclaimed, even though the pudgy boy was not talking to him. “Why wouldn’t it be? See,” he pointed to the date on the map, “it says 1630 CE. That’s around the time of the first Hokage!”
“There’s no way you remember that.” Sakura clipped in snarky judgment.
“Wait,” Neji pondered out loud, “1630? That’s during the Warring States Period, before the Nine Tails Attack.”
“So what?” Ino asked.
“No, he has a point.” Shikamaru agreed, “The Uchiha were relocated after the attack. This map is from thirty years before.” He groaned, “We’ve been looking in the wrong area. What a drag!”
“Are you serious, Shikamaru?!” Ino scolded, “We’ve been here for an hour!”
“Don’t get it twisted, Ino.” He countered, “We’re in the right section, but the layout is different. See here,” he pointed to the map, “this infrastructure is far too grandiose for what the Uchiha had. Their buildings were smaller to accommodate the limited space, therefore,” he circled an area with his finger, “their whole compound would’ve been compressed into this blue print here.”
“That is a single building!” Lee dramatised boldly.
“It’s actually a Noble House,” Neji corrected, “it was used to keep the main family and it’s immediate relatives.”
“Still,” Hinata stuttered, “It’s a very small area for an entire clan. Especially the largest clan in the village, or…” she fiddled with her fingers, “what used to be.”
“Uh,” Shikamaru took in the faces of the Genin and averted their attention, “anyway, we need to focus our search here.”
They nodded and continued to search in the small field, looking for any sign of the clues.
“Guys, I’m still not seeing any statue, or tree, or fucking whatever! This place is barren!”
Neji was starting to feel discouraged. Was Sasuke just pulling his leg with this riddle? He wouldn’t put it past him. Sasuke was more of a trickster than people gave him credit for; that had to be Naruto’s influence.
Thinking of Sasuke made his chest…ache? He wasn’t sure, but it was almost like there was an inflated balloon in his chest. He gripped his shirt; was he having a heart attack?
“Let’s just call it a night, guys,” Kiba announced. Neji’s head flipped, no! They can’t stop now! “We don’t even know if the crypt is still here!”
“No, it’s here. I know it is.” Neji defended, gaining everyone’s attention. “We have to keep looking.”
Kiba groaned, “Dude, let it go! It’s pointless! Sasuke duped you, just face it!”
A deep frown pulled at his face. “No, I don’t believe that.”
“It’s Sasuke. He’s an Uchiha, they were extremely secretive. There’s no way he would give away the crypt that easily.”
“Easily?” Ino crossed her arms. “If that’s easy, then I must have chicken’s feet!”
“More like hooves,” Sakura mumbled.
“What was that?! Billboard brow?!” The two rolled up their sleeves, but Choji held her back easily.
“Are you rethinking the search, Neji?” Shino asked.
“I was thinking,” he began, lost in thought, “that we are thinking of the riddle wrong.” Neji thought long and hard…he’s a genius, he has to find something! “What if it’s not literal?”
“What do you mean, Neji?” Kakashi questioned, scaring Naruto.
“Gah! I forgot you were here, sensei! It’s been so long since you’ve spoken!”
“It’s hard to fit everyone into the narrative.” He responded easily.
“Huh?”
“Anyway, Neji. Your epiphany?”
“We’ve been taking the riddle for what it is: a guardian is a statue, the trail is the sidewalk, the roots a tree–”
“Ok, we get it! The point, please?” Kiba exclaimed.
Neji’s annoyance ticked, but he continued, “What if it’s metaphorical? Let’s think, who would be the guardian of the Uchiha clan?”
“The head,” Shino answered, and Neji smiled.
“Precisely! What are stars?”
That one took another pause.
“Uh,” Naruto shrugged, “dots in the sky?”
Shikamaru snapped, “No, balls of gas, but so is the sun, AKA what the Uchiha worshiped.”
“Yes! Fallen stars are referring to the crypt itself! It’s not just fire they associate themselves with, but heat!” He stuttered in excitement as he began to connect more dots, “And, and the bloodied tears bit? You need the Sharingan to open the crypt. It has to be referring to that!”
“Alright, let’s say this is the translation,” Sakura pondered out loud, “what about the roots? That has to be a tree.”
He hummed, “I’m thinking it’s referring to a family tree. If we say that the guardian is the head of the clan, that means that they are directly related to the founders of the clan. Perhaps all that this map is telling us is…” Neji's eyes widened and he gasped, “the crypt is underneath the main house!”
They all shook like they were all hit with a bolt of lightning.
Kiba was fuming, “Are you kidding me?! All of this convoluted poetry shit and all it tells us was that it’s underneath a BUILDING?!”
“Not just any building,” Neji responded calmly with a smirk, “It’s Sasuke’s childhood home.”
“Oh, and he couldn’t just tell you it was underneath his fucking house?! What a fucking prick!”
Neji chuckled, “He’s a jester, that’s for sure.”
“Jester…” Naruto mumbled, “That is not a word I would use to describe Sasuke.”
“You must not know him very well.”
The silence that hung was deafening as Naruto blinked, mouth open in offense. Even Neji was surprised by his statement.
“In any case,” he pointed to the right, effectively distracting the others, “the main house would’ve been in this direction. If we find the old Uchiha wall separating the main family from the rest of the clan, we’ll find the entrance.”
“Let’s hope you’re right, genius.” Naruto spat, crossing his arms petulantly, “since you know Sasuke so well .”
He winced slightly. Had he stepped on a landmine? Naruto couldn’t possibly be upset with him about that comment.
“Come on, guys,” Sakura clipped. No way, was she upset too? “Let’s get to searching before the sun rises.”
Kiba groaned, “God, Team 7 is the worst!”
“Yeah,” Choji agreed as his stomach growled, “and I’m hungry.”
“Hold out a little longer, buddy.” Shikamaru supported, “It won’t be much longer.”
“Let’s hope!” Kiba announced, “Because I’m getting sick of all of this drama and not getting anything cool out of it!”
Neji blinked, “Drama?”
Team’s 10, 8, and Guy stared in cryptic unison.
“Let’s move.” Shikamaru led instead of giving Neji an answer.
“I swear, if this crypt isn’t here at this fucking wall, I’m going to officially make the Uchiha extinct!” Kiba concluded as the group followed the two moody teens from Team 7.
Neji sighed; this was going to be a long night.