Chapter 7: Crumbled
Hinata looked up at the blue sky, there were some hazy white clouds were in the distance. She somehow got back home and found herself in the big flower garden. A few metres away in front of her, Neji and their father were sitting in the gazebo located at the centre of the garden. They were engaged in a fierce chess match from the looks of it. Occasionally the two men would look up at each other and talk in hushed voices before looking her way worriedly. Hinata strained her ears to hear the conversation but could never catch any words. The wind picked up and Hinata could hear the sound that's similar ocean waves made by the woods that surrounds the rear of the garden. Out of the corner of her eye she spied something strange poking out of the earth in a flower bed. She approached it and was shocked to see that it was a corner of a wooden coffin. Was this a prank from the gardeners? Hinata turned and shouted for Neji and her father but realized both of them had vanished without a trace. The ground shook and Hinata saw the earth around and under the coffin fall away to form a big sinkhole, but the coffin did not fall. It had chains that connected to giant rocks on the sides of the sinkhole wrapped tightly around it. Hinata stared at the coffin suspended in mid-air over the seemingly bottomless hole. Where did Neji go? He's the archaeologist; he would have a field day with this. That was Hinata's final thought before the coffin lid cracked and spewed out black mist everywhere.
"Uugh!" Hinata sat up halfway in the dark, she started coughing violently. It felt like some dust got stuck at the back of her throat. Within seconds, Hinata realized she wasn't back at home, she was laying on the ground somewhere and there's no light. There was a click, and then a stream of light shone towards Hinata, just about blinding her. "Oh God! Don't you have a lower setting for that thing?"
The flashlight turned upwards away from Hinata's face and lit up Naruto's face which had a mild apologetic expression on it. Spotting an unconscious Neji next to her, memories of previous events came crashing down on Hinata. The only outward signs of Hinata processing and coping with what had happened were closed eyes, furrowed eyebrows and a lot of lip biting. She could feel a lot of bruises on her body, mostly along her legs. She could still move them with no problem but would need to be careful to avoid pain. At least the three of them lived through that crisis.
"Are you all right?" Hinata inspected Naruto for signs of injuries. Naruto gave a curt nod in reply.
Hinata could hear Neji snoring quietly next to her…wait, snoring? She promptly turned and wacked Neji on the shoulders, jolting him awake.
"You were sleeping?!" Hinata hissed at a spluttering Neji. With the Hyuuga siblings awake, Naruto dug out a small plastic ointment container from one of his pants pockets.
"I woke up first but you weren't awake and I was feeling pretty worn out so I must have just- what is it Naruto?" Neji was desperate to change the subject and was grateful towards Naruto for providing the opportunity. Naruto signalled for them to use whatever inside the container to smear on their necks and back of hands. Neji opened the container only to turn away quickly before letting out a sneeze; Hinata thought he was going to pass out again. The smell wafted to over to her and she realized just how bad it was. It smelt like a mixture of wax, pickled vegetables and to some degree there was also the distinct smell of raw sewage. Hinata wrinkled her nose and turned her head in a vain effort to avoid the smell, Neji was already dry heaving on the ground. Only Naruto looked undisturbed, in fact he was rolling his eyes as if in exasperation.
"What is this stuff?" Neji managed to gasp. Naruto replied in a flurry of sign language, pointing to his own nose. Neji nodded as if in defeat. "Ok, Naruto says we need this ointment to cover up our own smell because those monsters we saw earlier use smell to track down escaped prey. There could be more of them and we cannot afford any more direct confrontations." Hinata gritted her teeth; it made sense to her so she was willing to go along with it. At this point she was quite happy to do anything to avoid having to shoot down another platform.
"Naruto, you seem to know about those monsters. What were they?" Hinata asked the blond who was trying to hide his amused grin at the way Neji grimaced as Naruto smeared a chunk of that terrible smelling balm across his pale neck. Naruto paused and with a serious face, made some gestures to his head then his feet and finally his mouth. Neji looked shocked but recovered quickly to explain to Hinata.
"Those creatures are referred to as Blood Zombies by people in the business of tomb robbing due to the colour of the fur they have. It is the most vicious form of several types of zombies that can be encountered in a tomb. As that guy Shisui mentioned in that rhyme he recited earlier, zombies with white colour fur are not violent due to their lack of intelligence. They tend to patrol the tomb but do not actively track down and attack invaders, so they are only cause a 'fright'. Blue furs on a zombie means they are violent towards invaders but can be deactivated by specific commands or conditions met. Blood Zombies cannot be deactivated and will pursue their targets until their own destruction." Neji looked around nervously at the dark corridor they were in as Hinata took some of the smelly substance to rub on to her own skin. "Naruto also said these zombies were actually human once upon a time. They were especially selected to be altered into these undead things to guard the tomb. The specific techniques to making each type of zombies are different but share similarities in being quite gruesome and cruel. A special type of poison is given to an individual to drink and made to circulate in their bloodstream from open wounds created in the head and the soles of the feet, the person must be alive so the blood will circulate to distribute the poison around the entire body. When that's done the person is pretty much dead, then body is embalmed with bandages soaked in special skin hardening chemicals before being buried head downwards vertically in the ground for several years. The final step is to dig the body out again and place them in the tomb they have to guard."
"…that's sick," Hinata shook her head and muttered. "We need to get out of here ASAP." Neji nodded in agreement, Naruto hesitated but nodded too.
"We still need to find Professor Jiraiya," Neji reminded Hinata.
"Neji! Look around you! This place is a Hell Hole! I don't mean to kill your hopes but the professor is very likely to have already passed on. We need to leave immediately while we still can!"
"We need to at least try to ascertain whether the professor is still alive or we'll be no better than those two grave robbers!" Neji stood up to his full height over his younger sister. He knew it was foolish to try to find the professor; none of them were prepared for this and at this rate even if they found the professor alive it's still uncertain if they could successfully leave. But there was a stubbornness in Neji, he would do the right thing even in dire situations and even if it killed him. In fact he was already regretting bringing Hinata into this even though he knew without Hinata it's likely both he and Naruto would be dead right now. His sister had nothing to do with this mess and now she was paying a heavy price because of him.
"Well at some point you're going to have to make up your mind whether you'd rather we be alive or be better." Hinata spat, glaring up at Neji with hands on her hips. If the trainings in the army taught Hinata one thing, it was how to stand your ground. Neji had to realize he cannot boss her around like when they were kids anymore. "As it is, we're already in a lot of danger without having to worry about another person. Bear in mind your decision will have consequences not just for yourself!"
"So yer sayin' we should leave the professor for dead and just save our own skin?!" Neji shot back hotly. Both Hinata and Naruto paused and raised their eyebrows. "Oh come off it Naruto! You know I start having that weird accent when I get angry!"
"When did that happen?" Hinata turned to Naruto. Neji was busy shaking his head and shooting Naruto warning glares which were really ineffective due to the dark environment. Naruto held up his notebook with a short answer: Result of trying to learn street slangs to impress girls at a pool party a year ago. "Wow, didn't know you had it in you bro."
"…Shuddup."
"Back to topic though, I still say we should find a way out first. I mean finding the professor is great but he obviously hasn't found a way out of here and army training tells me securing a safe exit route beats all other things in emergencies." Hinata reasoned.
"I see your logic but Naruto and I just want to confirm the professor's status ASAP," Neji sighed. "What do you think Naruto?"
Naruto bit his lower lip deep in thought before making a series of hand gestures.
"Wh-what!?" Neji spluttered in surprise. "You want us to split up?!"
Ten minutes later, Neji and Hinata were trudging down a dark corridor sans Naruto, each of them gloomy about different aspects of their predicament.
"Hinata, am I that useless in these kind of situations that Naruto doesn't want us around?" Neji was still reeling from the fact Naruto wanted to split up from them in this Hell-hole of a place. People say strength in numbers right? And not to mention Naruto has been his closest buddy for the last few years when they did archaeology digs.
"No, I think he just wants to cover all bases and in a way it makes sense. We find the exit, he finds the professor and we meet back at the designated meeting spot in an hour whether we find our target or not," Hinata sighed while running a hand through her now completely messed up hair. "Now keep your eyes peeled and ears on alert, we don't want to run into anymore of those freak monsters. Their sense of smell might be impeded with whatever Naruto gave us but we don't know how well their sight works." Neji grunted in affirmation and the two plodded along in silence.
Author quick points:
Sibling rivalry conflict yay!
I'm very conflicted about how now since all the characters are split up I need to write in different people's POV in different chapters (pain in the arse I say!) and starting that kind of thing was really unintentional! (ahahah and I'm supposed to be the author…) so we'll see where that goes
This is turning into annual updates and I can honestly say I keep on having to go back to previous chapters because I forgot what my characters were doing last time I left off (less for this chapter but I might have to re-read my own fanfic to prepare for my next chapter). Why do I have so much to do in real life?! I miss being a student, just not the exams, tests and assignments part. (Ohoho did I let slip my rough age?)
