(Warning: The following is a fan-based product. Naruto and Naruto Shippuden are property of Masashi Kishimoto and TV Tokyo. Please support the official release of the Manga and anime series.)
Chapter 3: Into the gates of hell
Hundreds of feet beneath the compound of the fire temple, a massive labyrinth, with secret passages, and hidden traps, lay in the earth's cavernous maw. The endless series of mazes were constructed during the founding of the fire temple, to house something of awesome power. It was one of the only structures, which had not been destroyed during the attack of the previous fire temple. The walls of its corridors were flecked with runes from an ancient civilization, and horrifying tapestries of monsters, demons, and gods were painted on the tiled ceilings. In the midst of the dark halls, a small party of three silhouetted figures silently trekked the winding system of foyers.
At the head of the small party, Tenzo walked briskly over the tiles of the grand hall. Behind him, following obediently, were his two pupils, Koten, and Uten. The two of them shivered, with chattering teeth, while they followed their sensei, who was seemingly unfazed by the increasing chill in the threatening climate. Uten surveyed the area. Bordering the sides of the boundless hall, on steep platforms, were statues of intimidating onis. Their eye sockets were filled with large rubies, covered with countless layers of dust, which had accumulated over many generations. The only thing that illuminated the chamber was a series of dimly lit wax candles that were bolted to the walls over the statue's stone heads. The light from the torches made the ruby eyes flash as if they were glowering.
Uten looked at one wild haired oni statue made of onyx, which she could have sworn winked at her playfully. Uten jolted back in shock, burying her face incoherently in Koten's blue kimono. Looking up in embarrassment, with a deep shade of crimson spreading across her cheeks, she angrily shoved him aside, straight into the jade statue of a curly horned oni. Brushing himself off, Koten resumed walking, quickly catching up to the rest of the group. Through chattering teeth, he managed to mutter a query to Tenzo. "S-s-sensei, what is this p-p-place, and why is it getting so c-c-cold." "I'll answer your question momentarily. But in the mean time, be cautious as to where you step." Uten, wondering what Tenzo meant by his statement, quickly learned why he had said this. Shortly after reaching the end of the corridor, they came to a steep, ample, spiraling stairwell. Uten and Koten could feel in their bones that the source of the sinister aura was coming from whatever lay at the base of the stairwell." Before we enter," Tenzo said as he pivoted his body to face Koten and Uten. "I will tell you what this place is." "W-well, come out with it alr-r-ready." Koten said impatiently through his still chattering teeth. Tenzo stood in the light of two long metal torches that were posted at each end of the entrance of the stairwell.
"By now both of you should know who the sage of six paths is." "Of c-c-course we do. He was the first ninja to discover how to control ch-ch-chakra, and use ninjutsu." Uten scrutinized in annoyance. "That may be obvious, but do you know why the fire temple was established." Koten and Uten stared at each other; they were baffled by the question. Neither of them knew exactly how the fire temple really came to be. "Allow me to explain" Tenzo then advanced, descending the spiraling flight of stairs. With another awkward glance at each other, Koten and Uten proceeded to follow their sensei down the dark stairwell. After catching up with him, Tenzo continued his explanatory monologue. "The sage of six paths began the current day ninja system, after he defeated the Jubi and dispersed its chakra into nine separate entities. These are what you know today as the tailed beasts. The one-tail, the two-tails, the three-tails, and so on." "I get that, but what does it have to do with the fire temple" Koten asked anxiously. Tenzo stopped in mid stride; almost making the two teens behind him stumble and fall down the steep stairwell. "The Jubi's spirit is made up of two separate parts. The first part is its chakra, which gives it its astonishing power. And the second, is the Jubi's will, the pure essence of it's being. While the sage dispersed the chakra into nine separate segments, it sealed the Jubi's will and its body elsewhere."
Tenzo then took an extended period of suspenseful silence. "While he encased the body under gigantic layers of rock, which would be known as earth's moon, he established the fire temple, and sealed its will beneath it." Koten and Uten were amazed. How could the sage be so powerful as to create something as large in scale as the moon? And had something as powerful as the Jubi's will actually been sealed beneath them their entire lives? "So, this menacing aura that we've been feeling, is actually the Jubi's pure essence?" Uten asked bewilderingly. "After the construction of the fire temple, the sage of six paths entrusted the fire temple monks to forever guard the Jubi's will. When the fire temple was destroyed for the first time, it was almost released, but luckily the seal that kept it withstood any damage it took" As they began to descend the stairway again, it began to widen gradually. As they finally climbed down to the final flight, and reached the base of the stone steps, they saw something astounding, a humongous metal gateway, which dwarfed everything that stood beneath it. It easily stood the height of two houses all on its own. On both sides of the doors stood two bulking statues, nearly as high as the gate was.
Each statue was dressed in thick metal plated armor, brandishing a weapon in fighting position. Except the statue posted on the left side had the head of an ox, and the statue posted on the right had a horse head. The ox-headed guardian statue brandished a long curved Katana. While the horse headed guardian held up a naginata, as if ready to strike a blow to the heart of his enemy. But on the gate itself, there were three powerful, circular iron padlocks. The locks were three kanji seals, circumscribed within circles. The locks held the formation of an upside down triangle shape, with two padlocks on the doorways, and the third lock placed in the center. The first lock, on the right door, bore the kanji, which meant, "Old age". On left doorway, the second seal bore the title of, "sickness". And the final padlock, in the center of the gateway, which forever held the gates together, read, "Death". "Sensei, what the hell is this?" Uten said in a petrified tone. "It's exactly what you said. This is hell."
(Meanwhile: With Tatsumaki)
Tatsumaki was bathing in a flowing stream that flowed near where he had set up his camp. After peeling off his rancid smelling clothing, and placing them on a smooth river stone to wash out for later, he had submerged his entire body into the cold stream, whose icy waves lapped at his putrid smelling skin. He was furiously lathering his tongue and mouth, trying to wash out the putrefying taste of dung. Using a mixture of his canteen water, a pulverized mint root that he had found growing near the stream, and the gooey innards of a ripe purple fruit, Tatsumaki erratically lathered and rinsed his mouth, hair, and fowl smelling skin. "Aw man, this sucks. I could cut out my tongue and burn my clothes, but they would still probably reek." Tatsumaki said as he furiously washed his armpits in a circular motion. But while he was futilely trying to wash his shoulder blades, he was unbeknownst to the condition of his sour smelling clothing. As his jacket, scarf, black genes, sandals, and metallic bracelets sat neatly folded on the rocks, three hairy palms began to slide them off of the smooth surface of the stone.
Examining them curiously, were three long-tailed, red-faced monkeys. The first monkey's eyes were vacant of color, clearly a sign that it was blind. The second monkey was stone deaf and could not hear a thing around it. And the third monkey, unlike the other two, did not make any chattering or whooping noises, because it was mute. The blind monkey could not see what the clothing looked like, so the deaf monkey, who was fairly familiar with human customs, tried to describe what human clothes were to the other two monkeys. But since the monkey was deaf since birth, it had trouble communicating, but the mute monkey could not say he could not understand him. So the blind monkey had to communicate with the deaf monkey in sign language to tell him that the mute monkey could not understand him. They went on in this cycle until they gave up and just decided to have fun with these amusing objects.
The first monkey put on Tatsumaki's jacket, and chewed with its sharp canines on the upturned collar. The second monkey held the metal bracelets to the sunlight, watching the light flash off of its reflective surface. It then took Tatsumaki's long blue scarf, and slung it around its neck. And the final monkey put on Tatsumaki's gene pants and sandals. Unhappy with the pants smothering its long tail, it cut a tiny hole in the back to set its furry appendage free. With the three disabled monkeys wearing Tatsumaki's clothes, the retreated into the jungle brush. The blind monkey continuously tripped over plants and roots, but quickly regained its composure, and proceeded to follow its companions.
Shortly after the theft of his clothes, Tatsumaki concluded that he was as clean as he could possibly get. So he dragged himself to the stream bank to dry himself out in the sunlight. As he lay on the pebbles that bordered the stream, he decided to get re-dressed. Rising from the bed of rounded pebbles, he came to the smooth rock where he had left his clothes. But as he looked over the stones surface, he found no trace of his clothes besides one shiny bracelet. "Where the hell did my clothes go!?" He frantically searched the area around rock, and even rolled it over to look beneath it. But he found nothing. He was stranded in the middle of a jungle, crawling with vicious giant animals, with the looming danger of erupting volcanoes, and to make his situation even worse, he had absolutely no clothes. His face sweating from anxiety, Tatsumaki fanatically searched for something to cover himself with. Across the stream was a sleek green river snake, which was about the size of a dog, whose hissing sounded like a mocking laugh at his nudity.
Tatsumaki quickly grabbed a moderately sized river rock to cover his crotch. But after that he was still not spared of the river snake's taunting hiss. Tatsumaki then retreated into the wooded area of the jungle, covering himself as best as he could. Heaving in exhaustion and anxiety, Tatsumaki rested on the soil of the jungle. He couldn't believe this was happening. He then retracted his hand from covering himself, and rested it in the soil. Surprisingly, Tatsumaki felt a slight depression in the soil where he had placed his hand. Pulling his hand away to look at the indentation, it surprisingly looked like a human hand that was slightly smaller then his hand. He then turned his head to see another identical hand print, about a foot in width apart from the other print. He then looked from his left to his right, seeing two other sets of handprints just like the ones he had just discovered. And he noticed more prints in the exact direction that he had come from. But there were two odd things about these mysterious prints. One was that they seemed to end right where he was sitting, in the middle of the jungle. The second was that he saw no footprints, only handprints. As if whatever animals left them only walked on their hands, or had hands instead of feet.
He then heard a piercing shrieking cry from the canopy above. He then felt a sharp pain in his head as a flying coconut knocked him on the cranium. It was raw, fuzzy coconut, which busted on impact with his head, splattering him with chunky coconut milk. As he rubbed his sore scalp, he stared in the branches of a nearby giant tree. He saw the three thieving monkeys that had stolen his clothes, and were now wearing them, taunting him by swaying their shiny red butts-the monkey wearing genes had pulled its pants down-in tune to a melodious song that the blind monkey sang. As they waved their bright crimson back ends at him, Tatsumaki's face turned the same shade of red in frustration. "You stupid, god damn, monkeys! Give those back right now!" The monkeys only replied by spanking their butts in unison. Tatsumaki then reached for the stone he had used to censor himself, and tossed it in the direction of the monkeys. But the apes quickly dodged, and swung from vine to vine, deeper into the jungle.
"Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr!" Tatsumaki growled no only in spite of the monkeys, but because in his anger he had discarded his only method of censorship. Flailing in rage Tatsumaki screamed into the jungle and at his assailants who were far off by now. "I gotta get those damn dirty apes!" (AN: Sound familiar XD) But Tatsumaki had to find some way to cover himself first. Tatsumaki glanced all around him; the only thing that he saw were leaves. And then the idea hit him. Using a lengthy vine to tie them together, Tatsumaki used the nearby palm fronds, and shoots of grass, to weave a grass skirt, which cut off at the knee. Tatsumaki, with hands on his hips, silently appraised his makeshift clothing. But it was cut short by the loud cawing of two giant macaws. The first macaw, which had blue feathers and yellow tail feathers, was pointing its left wing at Tatsumaki as if to ridicule him. While the other macaw, with a red plume and blue tail feathers, was rolling on the branch where they were perched in mirth.
Tatsumaki then realized that his new apparel made him look very effeminate. He wanted to berate his two teasers, but he did not have time for that now. Tatsumaki rushed back to his camp to retrieve his tools. Strapping his weapons pouch to his rope belt, Tatsumaki brandished his kusarigama, ready to pursue his targets. Since they were swinging from the trees, the monkeys left no print trail to go by. But there was another trail that he could follow. The deaf monkey, who wore Tatsumaki's bracelets and scarf, had unwittingly dropped most of the silvery jewelry on the jungle floor. Following the shining trail, Tatsumaki was intent on coming back to camp fully clothed, and with three bowls of monkey brain soup.
(Meanwhile: At the fire temple)
Tenzo, Koten, and Uten, loomed beneath the shadow of the hulking gateway. But accompanying them in the black dungeon, were three extremely elderly gurus. Their skin was pail and sickly from living in the darkness of the underground chamber. Their long gray beards hung down to the stone floors. And their robes were stained and worn out with age. "Sensei, who are those creepy old guys?" Uten whispered to Tenzo. "These three men are the fire temples oldest gurus, they've been guarding the gateway to hell ever since they were born." When the three gurus recognized Tenzo, they forced their lanky, scrawny, bodies to hobble over, arch their bony backs, and lower their heads in a respectful bow. Tenzo in turn deeply bowed to the three gurus in humility. With the formalities out of the way, the leader of the three gurus then stepped forward to speak. "I am exceedingly happy to see you Tenzo-san." "It's nice to see you again Oji-sama. These are the two pupils that I told you about." He said gesturing to Koten and Uten standing behind him. The second monk then emerged from the darkness, and said, "For years we have prophesized that you would arrive here to train two male students. One student who is clad in blue, the other who is clad in red. Though we never understood why the red child was wearing a mini skirt."
This statement infuriated Uten. Eyes flashing red with rage, Uten sprinted to the monk who had deemed her male, and her fist collided with his cheekbone, instantly shattering it. The guru that she had cuffed flew through the air, knocking over the other two gurus, and sending them hurtling into the stonewall behind them, making it comically explode on contact. With the gurus in a nearly unconscious state, the third guru, who had not talked until this point said, "We also predicted that the young red boy would be extremely violent." Uten, with flames in her eyes, then gave a menacing glare to the trio. "I'm sorry grandpa," She said in a sarcastically sweet voice, "My hearing is a little bad. Did you just say that I was a boy!?" She growled while cracking her knuckles. The gurus were terrified out of their minds. Frantically in synchronicity, the three gurus yelled, "We meant to say pretty young lady! We really did!" Behind Uten and the gurus, Koten and Tenzo stood with large beads of sweat rolling off their heads. "Why does she have to do that every time?" They both said at the same time.
Shortly after the ordeal, when the monks had regained their composure, and Uten apologizing with persuasion from Tenzo, two simultaneous high-pitched voices rang out in the dank dungeon. It came from a pair of identical twins, about nine or ten years of age, that stood atop the heads of the hybrid statues. Each brother wore identical clothing, yellow sleeveless karate gi tops, with purple dyed cotton canvas pants. On the back of the gi tops were two parallel horizontal brush strokes, the kanji that represented the number two. The only difference between the twins, was that the brother standing on the ox head at the left wore a gold circlet on his crown, while the brother on the horse head wore a cap with a plume of blue phoenix feathers. "It's about time you guys got here!" Yelled the twin on the left so that the people at ground level could hear him. "Yeah," continued the brother posted on the right. "We were getting bored playing with the geezers!" The brothers then leaped from their high platforms, landing with grace onto the floor.
"You two already know the twins, don't you?" Tenzo asked craning his neck in the direction of the boys. Koten and Uten were all too familiar with the twins. The brothers were the well-known hell raisers of the fire temple. Shou, the brother who wore the golden ring upon his head, had once dyed all of the fire temple monk's robes bright pink. It had taken months to sew together all new robes, so they were forced to walk around in neon pink robes for the entire time. And Jou, the one with the phoenix feather cap, spray painted over the murals of the heavenly sages with graffiti. As punishment, he had to repaint the entire mural from scratch. But there was no deadlier force than when the two conspired together. The same went for their synchronized fighting style. "So, sensei. What kind of training are we gonna do with these nerds?" Jou inquired. "Who are you calling a nerd, runt?" Said Koten as he delivered a swift cuff to his right ear. "Come to think of it, what are we going to do here?" Uten asked, repeating Jou's unanswered question. "Your training lies just beyond the gateway. But I must warn you, what's behind it is greater then any enemy you've ever combated." Tenzo explained diligently. "That sounds fun." Shou and Jou said mischievously in unison. Uten was pondering the meaning of Tenzo's words when she realized, how would they open the gate with its monstrous size and weight.
Uten pitched her head to the right in the direction of Tenzo and said, "Sensei, how does this thing open? It would be impossible unless we had some giant keys to open those locks." Tenzo pivoted his head in turn to reply to Uten. "This doesn't open like a normal gate Uten.
The only way to open it is to pour in the gift of the heavenly sages. The gurus are the only people who know how to open it correctly." He then nodded to the three gurus standing near the demolished wall. They nodded in return, and took ten paces toward the great doorways of the gate, and assumed a triangular formation, just like the locked seals on the doors. The first guru to the right thrust his hands into the boar seal, the second guru to the left weaved a serpent seal. And the lead guru, who stood at the head of the triad, interlocked his fingers into the bird seal. With the three gurus standing in the formation, their specific hand seals cast, the space in between them began to glow with a dim white light. The radiating light increased in flair, and began to steadily expand and extend into a bright column of white light. The energy they were producing was the chakra of the heavenly sages.
As the height of the pillar increased to its fullest, it began to divide itself into a brilliantly shining prism. The prism then separated into three linear rays, and the chakra of the heavenly sages began to flood into the locks. With the sudden transfer of chakra, the locked seals began to quiver and jolt randomly. It was the seal on the right that first reacted. The circular seal began to turn at a ninety-degree angle, making a convoluted system of gears rotate behind the gate. When the seal made a one hundred eighty degree turn, it slid from its place to the left, opening the right side of the gate. The left lock followed the same process, turning, rotating gears, and then sliding to the left. Finally, the center seal began to twist in its position. As it painfully slowly rotated, the crowd beneath watched in anticipation. Until at last, the seal slid away to the left, exposing the gate in a vulnerable position. A booming click, and more of the incessant turning of gears, shortly followed the unlocking. On their own, the gates drowsily yawned open, leaving an endless black gap within the gates creaking doors. When the doors began to slide across the chamber floors, a powerful frigid burst of air surged through the creek. For just a moment, every single thing within the dungeon ceased moving, daring not to make a single sound.
But the serene silence was violently interrupted, by an ear-splitting screech that sounded through the chamber. The startling shriek echoed off of the dungeon's walls, hurtling the vibrations straight back into everyone's sensitive ears. They covered their fragile eardrums in pain and fear of the horrible cry. Tenzo reacted as rapidly as he possible could. "Hurry, we need to close the gates again before to much of the Jubi's power leaks out! You need to go into the gate right now!" Tenzo screamed over the haunting echoes. Uten reacted in delusional surprise. "You want us to go in there!?" She shrieked, pointing to the broad crevasse. Tenzo then turned his head to the trio of gurus in their positions. They seemed exhausted, as if under the strain of some unbearable force. "There's no time to explain! The gurus can't force it back much longer!" It was first the twins who dove straight into the gaping crack of the gateway, laughing happily the entire time. Koten stared in disbelief as he witnessed the two brothers dive giddily in to the horrid gateway. He himself then bolted towards the deep cleaving gap of the gate. All but Uten were now within black dimension of the gateway. Her eyes were staring mesmerizingly at the clouded darkness of the jarred doorways. Tenzo finally shoved Uten into the gate forcefully. "Kyaaaaaa!!!!" Uten shrieked in panic as she hurled into the shadows. As the last of the fire temple pupils fell into the shadows, the weary gurus released their hand seals. At the exact moment the monks released their grips, the chakra in the gates receded, and vanished into the ether. And as the chakra leaked out through the seals, the doors quickly slammed shut, trapping the children, and whatever perils lay behind it, within the gates of hell.
(Well, that was my third chapter. Remember, if you have any questions about the chapter, future chapters, characters, or if you just want to talk, just comment on the chapter and I'll gladly message you back. And also: This is a non-profit fan-based product. Naruto and Naruto Shippuden are property of Masashi Kishimoto and TV Tokyo. Please support the official release of the manga and anime series.)