Chapter 56
The Face in the Tree
"I don't wanna go to bed!" Timius screeched as he stomped his foot down on the ground.
Temari folded her arms and loomed over the boy. She had no idea how to get a kid to go to bed. Sure she had sort of kind of helped raise Kankuro, but that didn't mean she had been a complete parent. She distinctly remembered giving poor Baki hell at bedtime, along with Kankuro. Trouble was that Baki's idea of getting to kids to go to bed involved shuriken and kunai, and Temari doubted if the Smoke would appreciate her using their intolerable spawn as target practice.
It was the same thing every night with these kids, they just refused to go to sleep, and would do just about everything to prevent it. The big problem was that Temari couldn't exactly stay with them, or even stay for long. Since she was technically a slave here she had to be at those damn dorms at night, and the kids and their antics kept her away. So far she had managed to sail under the radar because of her ninja skills, but it was getting very irritating. She could sneak by the rest of the household pretty much undetected, but the necessity of it was very annoying. Going to bed shouldn't have to be an exercise in sneaking.
"Look, I know why you don't want to go to bed, but you're being very silly." Temari said, trying to be patient. "There're no such things as ghosts."
The boy pouted but said nothing. Temari knew that in their minds there ghosts were real. Temari had believed in ghosts when she was little, very little, but that believe had faded away as she got older. However, for these kids the fear of ghosts was still very real, and they didn't like going to sleep. After all, ghosts could get them in the dark.
Timius sighed and crawled into his bed. He knew that he couldn't convince his new caretaker that the dark people existed.
Temari nodded and turned to leave. She just managed to catch Timius mutter "The last lady didn't see them either."
Temari didn't scare easily; growing up with the fear of her little brother had killed most fear of anything else. It would be hard for anyone to top the dread she felt when Gaara changed. However, as soon as she stepped out of the room she felt a shiver of unexplained dread. Chills skated down her back and the hair stood up on the back of her neck. Sensing someone watching her she turned to her left to face whatever it was.
For a second all she could see was utter blackness, which was odd because this wall had a window facing the gardens. She should have been able to see the outside, but all she could see was black. Then the black seemed to swim and flutter, like a raggedy old cloak. Then the thing swung away, revealing the window and the outside world. Temari's head turned to follow the shadow thing. It blew down the hall and turned a corner. Scowling heavily, and determined to find out what this thing was, Temari began to chase it. However, as soon as she turned the corner she lost sight of the thing.
Temari blinked. That feeling of dread had faded, as if the thing had taken it away.
Temari wasn't the only one who had encounters with the dark things. Perhaps it had something to do with his powers over shadows, but for some reason at certain times of the day Shikamaru felt very very odd in those stables. Specifically at dusk right before he had to leave. Almost every time he passed by the northeast corner of the stables Shikamaru would feel a sudden chill, and very creepy feeling. Sometimes, when the shadows were just right, Shikamaru would see something small and dark dart in between the stalls and disappear. Every time this happened the horses would snort and shake their heads, and a few of the more high strung ones would stamp their hooves restlessly. And Shikamaru, who was always on alert these days even though he made a point to look just as lazy and tired as he normally would in the Leaf Village, would feel an odd tug on his senses. It was as if his own shadow was responding to whatever it was that was creeping about.
And then their was that feeling of being watched. Shikamaru knew that something was observing him, even in the bright light of day, but he wouldn't see anything. At first he had thought it was Urik, the man who was quickly becoming Shikamaru's personal pain in the neck. The man just grated on Shikamaru, even though he couldn't decide why. But there times when Shikamaru knew that the man was gone, but the feeling of being watched never went away. In fact, right after the man would come back from wherever it was he went the feeling of being watched intensified, as if it had become stronger.
Shikamaru, while not that inclined to believe in the supernatural, did think that something odd was going on here, and he would have bet money that Urik had something to do with it. so he kept his eyes open around the stables, making sure that he observed Urik's comings and goings. He found that the man kept leaving every single week, usually during the middle of the week, or at least during what the Smoke considered the middle of the week.
So, in order to find out what was going on, or at least find out where Urik was going, Shikamaru had decided to follow him that night. There was a bit of risk involved, if he was caught Shikamaru was certain that that they'd probably do something nasty. At the least Urik would use that whip of his. Shikamaru didn't plan to give him the opportunity.
"You're sure you don't want me to come with you?" Temari asked him quietly. She had recovered from her encounter with the "evil sheet" as she was starting to think of it. Actually, now that the ominous feeling was gone Temari thought the entire encounter was rather unbelievable, and thought that it had just been her imagination. Perhaps she had been silly.
"I'll be fine, as long as you don't mind snuggling with a log."
"If you refer to this as 'snuggling' again I am going to poke you in the back with this knife." Temari snorted.
"Woman, would you lay off?" Shikamaru muttered. He wondered why Temari persisted in her foul mood. Was she really still upset over the way he had insulted her brother? Or was it something else?
Whatever, that wasn't his problem for tonight. Sighing Shikamaru switched himself with a transformed log. He leaped into the trees near the house and waited for Urik to show himself. Shikamaru knew from talking to Temari that the free servants had their own section in the actual house. Shikamaru settled down on a branch and waited. A few hours later the man emerged from the house.
Urik nervously looked around, checking over each shoulder. Shikamaru snorted. The man had no idea how to sneak around. For one thing he stomped over every single little twig in the forest. For another he was wearing a white shirt and black pants, he might as well have glowed in the dark. Still he didn't seem to be catching the attention of anyone at the house, which only made Shikamaru more and more irritated. It was like these people were retarded or something.
Shikamaru followed Urik as the idiot Smoke tried to sneak through the trees. Shikamaru traveled through the trees, and it amused him that the idiot never once looked up, and indeed looking up never seemed to cross his mind.
Shikamaru didn't like the forest here at all. It was strange and dark, and felt off. For one thing the fog came in pretty easy in this place, and in fact in the hours that Shikamaru had waited the fog had rolled in, chilling the air and making the entire place look ghostly. Then there was the fact that the tress in this place felt off as well. They were not the gigantic trees of the Land of Fire, but they seemed much older, at least they somehow felt older. If he squinted hard enough Shikamaru could see the forest floor, and while the tops of the trees were not as large and wide, the roots on the ground were extensive and gnarled. It was odd.
After a few miles Urik came to what appeared to Shikamaru to be a larger then normal for the Smoke tree. The tree's trunk seemed to be completely and utterly black in the night, but Shikamaru could bet that was just a trick of the darkness. The tree was old and twisted, warped around at odd angles. It was completely and utterly leafless, which of course made the small branches resemble claws instead of actual branches. Shikamaru knew that its gloomy appearance was the reason that he felt an involuntary chill down his spine. He knew that it was just a tree, just a bit of wood. The fact that it looked evil was just an illusion.
And the fact that, for just a moment, Shikamaru could have sworn that it was looking at him and grimacing, that was just a shadow passing over the room. It was just a cloud casting a shadow, nothing more. He didn't see a mouth filled with teeth in that tree. Not at all.
Shikamaru watched as Urik took out what appeared to be a small bone from his pocket. Shikamaru thought it might be a chicken drumstick. As he pulled the bone from his pocket a piece of paper fell out. Shikamaru slid from the tree and eased himself closer. Shikamaru eased closer and plucked the paper from right under Urik's nose. Urik wasn't even paying any attention to what was going on behind him. Shikamaru probably could have herded both Naruto and Lee out there in all their bouncy loudness and Urik would have been clueless. Honestly, it was embarrassing. It was sometimes hard to take these Smoke seriously until you remembered that their weapons were so advanced. Once he had the paper, Shikamaru darted behind another tree. He continued to watch as Urik tapped the tree with his chicken bone.
To Shikamaru's shock the tree began to move, the bark twisting and rippling away. The bark seemed to move away, exposing a hole in the tree about the size of a human. Urik looked around again, not spotting Shikamaru, and vanished into the hole. Shikamaru gritted his teeth and followed.
He held back a bit to let Urik get some distance on him; just enough so that he was sure that he wouldn't collide with Urik if he stopped suddenly. Shikamaru studied the area around him. He appeared not to actually be in the tree itself, but in an almost perfectly rounded dirt tunnel that led downwards at a gentle angle. There were strange little glowing globes stuck in the walls, casting long shadows but giving enough light to see by.
Once Shikamaru was certain that he wouldn't hit Urik if he collided with the man, he started to follow him down in the darkness of the dirt tunnel. He felt an odd tugging at the shadows, similar to the one he had felt in the stables, but stronger and somehow more insistent. He began to get a little nervous, and he didn't like this at all.
Shikamaru squinted. Was the darkness…swirling? He shook his head. He couldn't be seeing this! it looked like the shadows were starting to move, a bit like a whirlpool. The shadows in front of him lengthened and blended together.
Shikammmaru.
Shikamaru jumped backwards and prepared to fight. He could sense something. He wasn't sure what it was though.
The shadows in front of him seemed to be forming a shadowy dark face with glowing red eyes and, for some insane reason, what appeared to be a wide brimmed hat. The face filled the dirt path, blocking Shikamaru's way. Other then the eyes and the hat the face was a totally featureless void.
Commme to usss, Shiiiiiiiikaaamaruuu. Come and be with the ssssssshadows. Don't you want to be with usssss?
Shikamaru had never in his life felt the dread he did right then. Not the time he had almost died facing a group of Sound ninja during the Chunin exams. Not when that flute playing crazy had him in her genjutsu. Not even when he had to face the fact that he had failed a mission. Even the horrible sounds of the werewolf transformation and the raw power of the Smoke weapons didn't feel him with this kind of dread. He was frozen in place, and for a few moments he couldn't move. Then that odd tugging came again, stronger and almost irresistible. He looked down and saw that his own shadow was lunging at the shadow face, trying to get to it. To join it. Somehow he was certain that if he let his shadow touch that face, then that would be the end. He would be lost.
Htat thought spurned Shikamaru on, and he turned and ran. Running from that thing was like running through water, he kept feeling something dragging at his feet. He realized that his shadow was still trying to get to the face. Shikamaru ran faster, like his life depended on it. He had a feeling it did.
He could see stars out of the hole in the ground where he had entered and gasped. The hole appeared to be closing. Shikamaru channeled more chakra to his feet and propelled himself forwards. With a final leap he scrambled to the hole. He was halfway out when the hole closed around his middle.
Cursing rather rudely, Shikamaru wiggled and twisted. He could feel his shadow straining to get back there. Finally with a pull he managed to wiggle free, falling to the ground. Shikamaru didn't pause to see if the shadow face was following him, he shot forwards to the trees and swung back to the mansion, never looking back once.
"What do you think it could have been, Temari?"
It was the next morning after Shikamaru's incident with the tree. While the Smoke kept both of them busy, the slaves of the manor did get a day off every two weeks, and today was that day. Not only that, but as long as they didn't try to leave the grounds, and there were enough free servants running around who would be glad to report wandering slaves if they ever did get the bright idea of jumping a fence or something, they could pretty much go wherever they wanted. Shikamaru and Temari had found a nice secluded spot, that was also as far away from both the stables and the forest with the evil tree as Shikamaru could find. They were situated pretty close together, and anyone who came across them assumed they were being intimate. The slaves usually reacted to this by ignoring the couple, while the Smoke would sniff disdainfully and turn away, as if the two ninja were a pair of dogs rutting on the front lawn.
Shikamaru had decided long ago that this people had huge problems with their sexuality, even worse than some feudal lords did. Okay, so ninja weren't exactly touchy feely as a rule, but these people were just ridiculous.
"Are you sure it wasn't some sort of trick?" Temari asked.
"I doubt it. I mean, I'm not sure what the Smoke technology is capable of, but it didn't feel right."
Temari sighed. "Genjutsu?"
"Maybe, but by who? Rogue ninja in the woods? If so, then why did they recruit a Smoke? And why haven't they shown themselves. I mean, we've not really been hiding our chakra."
"Maybe he's not as loyal to the Smoke as you think?" Temari shrugged "And if there are rogue ninja in the woods then maybe they are not sure of us. Maybe we are just a mystery to them as they are to us?"
"Yeah, but what about this. What do you think this scribble is?" Shikamaru held out the paper that Urik had dropped. "It doesn't look like anything from us."
"Huh." Temari studied the paper. On one side of the paper was writing, but Temari was uncertain of what it meant. Some of it was in the Smoke language. "It's saying something about 'the great well under the earth' and 'the worm' and 'chaining soul to soul.' It's odd." Temari flipped the paper over. The other side held and odd pattern of lines and circles, the lines were in the shape of a star, with the circles ringing each point. "Really odd."
"Do you have any idea what it could be?"
"I'd guess magic of some sort."
"Huh?"
Temari looked at Shikamaru and rolled her eyes "Remember Kankuro's witch friend? Remember the werewolves? We aren't the only people out there with powers. Maybe this is a new type of power."
"Maybe." Shikamaru shrugged. "But I don't like it. It feels wrong."
Temari nodded, as the wind picked up. Perhaps it was just their imaginations, but for some reason the wind carried a voice with it. Neither Temari nor Shikamaru acknowledged it, but each heard it.
Shikkkkkkkkkkkaaaaamaru. Come back to ussss.
