Choji's torch did a poor job of lighting the dark, underground halls. The flickering flame illuminated his surroundings only dimly enough to see 10 paces ahead of him, and he felt not unlike he was in a minor nightmare. The silence was deafening; not a single creature, vertebrate or invertebrate, stirred in the darkness. The air was bone dry and he never heard the trickling of water off in the distance somewhere. In its ruination, much of the stone structure had been reduced to a thick layer of fine sand covering the floor beneath his feet, softening the sound of his foot steps. Choji had found the entrance to this underworld labyrinth perhaps an hour earlier, and Shikamaru had told him to take a right while he took the left at the first instance the path split. Choji was by no means a coward, but he wasn't an idiot either. He realized quickly that sound did not echo as it usually did down here, and if something were to happen to one of them, the other would never know it. That notion disturbed him.
A faint light emanated from around the corner, and Choji increased his pace. It appeared his search might be approaching its end.
Shikamaru did not like this place.
He was used to using the darkness to his advantage. Attacking when his night-adjusted eyes would give him an edge over his opponent. If there was anything down here, its eyes would already be adjusted. His wouldn't, not for another few hours at least. Here, the darkness was to his disadvantage.
He had wandered for maybe an hour now, and his legs were beginning to tire. The trip from Sundun to Castle Mullox had been a grueling journey. However as much of a young man he was, he wasn't without limits, and his stamina was the most prominent of them. Then again, slowing his gait had its advantages. He might not have noticed the blood soaked sand if he had been going at his usual pace.
A quick scan of the wall confirmed the presence of a secret door, and the opening mechanism was not hard to find. However, it was what lay beyond the door that would be difficult to comprehend.
Corpses. Mangled, mutilated corpses. Some were fresh, some half-decayed, the rest reduced to bones. It was obvious that the fatal wounds were delivered after the mutilations, which pointed to cold blooded torture. But who could stomach deed as foul as this?
Oh, and how twisted was the manner in which he was revealed; for in the middle of the room, in a circle with a triangle inscribed within painted on the floor with blood, lay Hidan's guillotine.
It was at about this point that Hidan walked in, dragging with him the corpse of a freshly slaughtered 12 year old boy that he had found wandering around the ruins. He had been a surprisingly strong struggler, and Hidan, in his weakened state, was sure that The Dark One would understand killing in the field instead of dragging him back to his lair for the full sacrificial ritual. And it seemed that The Dark One understood completely, for who was waiting in his sacrificial chambers upon his return but his most elusive quarry, Shikamaru?
Somewhere, out in the world, a small child discovered the joy of flying a kite. Given the time period, he was probably in China.
This doesn't have any relevance to the story at all. However, so many corpses were maimed in such extreme and gruesome manners during the battle between Shikamaru and Hidan, I would have to spend 3 years at med school studying human anatomy to properly describe the fight. No updates for 3 years, or some kid in China flying a kite. Take your pick.
No, seriously, get your dirty pickaxe off the carpet. I just vacuumed there.
Shikamaru slumped to the floor, the left side of his torso suddenly bloodied. Hidan stood there a moment, stunned. Had he done it? Had he finally slain the opponent who had eluded his own death for so long? A quick check of the pulse confirmed otherwise.
The Dark One wanted a ritual slaughter, then.
Turning his back on Shikamaru, Hidan gleefully prepared his guillotine; the blade was pulled up to its greatest height. Tying the rope in place, he turned back….only to find Shikamaru had disappeared. His head whirled around desperately, eyes searching for his opponent.
Hidan looked for a long while before staring at the point he had last seen Shikamaru. The corpse. The fresh of the twelve year old boy had 3 more gouges in its torso than it did when he dragged it in. Shikamaru, he realized, had been in front of the corpse when he was 'stabbed'. Was it possible that all the blood on Shikamaru's torso hadn't been his, but from the corpse instead? It would have been so like him to fake his death with a slight of hand trick to gain the upper hand…
Hidan was so deep in thought that he failed to notice Shikamaru come up behind him, grab him by the head and trap him in his own guillotine. By the time he had become aware of this, it was too late for him to do anything other than swear.
"Quoi….quoi…QOUI A LA TABERNAC-"
"Well, it as just as you said; one of us did end up in the guillotine."
"NON NON NON! YOU ARE NOT EVEN DO-EENG EET REE-GHT! EE AM SUP-PO-SED TO BE FACE-EENG DOWN! EE AM NOT SUP-PO-SED TO SEE DZE BLADE COM-EENG!" Hidan protested loudly. Shikamaru pulled the lever and the blade fell anyway, swiftly severing Hidan's head from his body. The head rolled over twice in the air, and landed facing Shikamaru.
"Doesn't seem to make a difference."
Hidan was not amused. "Stu-peed lee-tle eeng-lee-sh man! You have re-moved mee head from mee bod-ee. NOW WHAT?"
"Hn. Looks like the blade was too fast after all."
"Non, stu-peed! Ee am un-dead! A leech! Ee cannot be keelled dzat ea-see-lee!"
Shikamaru held up Hidan's pendant. "This wouldn't happen to be the phylactery that's keeping you in the realm of the living, would it?"
Hidan was both shocked and amazed. Not only had Shikamaru known that a lich could be defeated by breaking its phylactery (the library! He probably looked it up some long time ago in his blasted family library!) and deduced that his pendant was his phylactery, but had also taken it off his person without him noticing. Then again, he shouldn't have been surprised. He had pickpocketed keys off him before. While wearing heavy manacles, no less.
"You would not dare!"
Hidan's ghostly eyes widened as Shikamaru snapped the pendant between his fingers.
"Een ret-ro-spect, may-be Ee should have made eet out of sum-dzeeng weedz a hee-er ten-see-le strength."
The temperature of the room swelled, and a menacing cackling began to echo in the room. The corpses began to smolder, then ignited with a hellish blaze. The floor tiles inside the triangle feel away into an infinitely deep pit filled with grasping hands covered in mouths of sharp teeth and red eyes with 3 small pupils embedded within the iris.
Hidan did not curse. The time for cursing was long past. Now was the time to plead with his dark god for mercy. He tried first in his native tongue, then what he knew of Latin, and finally the tongue the Dark One had taught him. His voice, usually arrogant and sharp, was quite pathetic and afraid.
Shikamaru, wide eyed as Hidan, backed away slowly as the circle of blood began to glow. He leaped backward when a giant hand, similar to those in the pit, burst up through the circle and grabbed Hidan, guillotine and all. Unable to watch anymore, Shikamaru bolted out the door, hitting the closing mechanism on the way out. Then he kept running, brain scrambling to remember the way out in the darkness. The exhaustion that had plagued him no longer mattered; a voice followed him from that room, a booming voice speaking of evil things in a language no mortal could understand. Collapsing near the door out, Shikamaru wobbled on his hands and knees. The voice echoed, but grew fainter as another voice called out his name.
Choji dashed down the hallway towards Shikamaru, completely ignorant of the mental horrors he was fighting off. "Shikamaru! I've got great news! Naruto managed to free Jiraiya!"
Naruto and Jiraiya were quick to follow. "And what's more, I got all the gold in Castle Mullox redistributed to its proper owners using an elaborate system of tunnels in the space time continuum….. I mean, leprechaun magic!"
"What can I say? The boy can get anything done when he puts his mind to it!"
Banishing the horrors he had just encountered from his head (his friend's overwhelmingly positive attitude really helped. Either that, or the Dark One sensed Rawhead and decided he did not enjoy being on the receiving end of mind rape. Take your pick), Shikamaru resumed his usual overly relaxed demeanor. "Well, it looks like we're finished here. Time to get back to Sundun I suppose."
And with that, they exited the underground halls. But nothing could prepare them for what was waiting outside….
I'm off to the math exams tomorrow, and then I'm finished with high school for good. Wish me luck!