Naruto: Cthulhu: Ch. 239

Yamato once taught Sai that only those who possessed emotions could truly be called alive. Whether it was joy or sorrow, it was only through the heart's ability to feel these emotions that one avoided becoming a mere walking corpse.

At this very moment, Sai finally understood Yamato's words, grasping the meaning of human emotion. However, what he experienced was neither joy nor sorrow, but humanity's oldest and most powerful emotion.

It was fear.

In the painting Ghoul Feeding, Sai was struck by an utterly horrifying image: a close-up depiction of a humanoid creature.

In this painting, Sai could clearly see the creature's skin, gleaming faintly in the moonlight, as if made of rubbery material.

The creature held a human head in its clawed hands. The head, with its scalp bitten through to reveal the stark white skull underneath, still bore an expression of terror from its final moments—a lifelike visage so vivid it seemed to pierce through the canvas.

Thanks to Pickman's extreme realism, Sai had never seen such a terrifyingly lifelike work of art. It felt as if Pickman had painted this scene directly from reality.

No wonder Ike had fled the moment he saw this painting. Anyone with even the faintest trace of a normal mind or aesthetic sense would refuse to remain in a studio that so boldly displayed such an image.

In comparison to Pickman's work, Sai's own paintings were like the efforts of a child, lacking even a basic sense of gloom.

Besides this terrifying piece, most of the other canvases on the easels also depicted humanoid creatures with rubbery, elastic skin. However, these were more distant scenes, showing the daily lives of such monsters.

In these paintings, the creatures were portrayed in groups, appearing in dark and decayed places such as sewers and graveyards. Under the moonlight, they fought each other with claws over prey or crouched on the edge of their victim's beds at night, ready to tear into human throats.

One particularly abhorrent painting bore the signature Lesson in the lower right corner. Yet this so-called "lesson" was not a human classroom. Instead, it depicted a group of dog-like humanoid monsters crouched in a circle, while larger creatures demonstrated how to eat to their "students."

As for the food they used for demonstration? Sai vowed never in his life to even consider tasting such a thing, let alone put it near his mouth.

The rest of the paintings were equally profane, yet they wove these vignettes of monstrous lives into a coherent narrative.

Sai could even trace the life cycle of a single creature from these works—its birth, learning to eat, hunting alone, and finally maturing into an adult ghoul.

Why did the name "ghoul" come to mind?

He was certain he had never heard of the term "ghoul" before learning about Pickman's story.

And yet, at this moment, though Sai desperately wanted to deny the existence of such creatures, his heart was convinced by Pickman's hyper-realistic paintings that ghouls might not be entirely imaginary.

Pickman could not be a romantic dreamer. His works did not depict the wavering, multicolored, and ethereal landscapes of dreams. Instead, they presented an unflinching, chilling, and profound horror.

Sai was convinced that such paintings could only have been created by someone who had spent a long time observing that world, rendering it with unparalleled skill.

He had no idea where Pickman had glimpsed these forms—crawling, running, hunting. But among Pickman's inexplicable sources of inspiration, one thing was certain: Pickman was portraying a terror that walked the earth!

Where?

Where?

Sai's eyes scanned the studio, which lay entirely exposed, searching for anything out of the ordinary.

Although the rent receipts on the table indicated that Pickman's lease for this place had expired, Sai was convinced that Pickman had not left.

Those remarkable and eerie paintings hadn't been taken away, so Pickman must still be here!

Sai's heart raced as his gaze swept across the room until it suddenly stopped on a painting of profound significance.

It was an artwork depicting the cracks in the floor of an old room. Unlike the other paintings, this one didn't feature humanoid monsters. It was just an ordinary indoor scene.

However, it differed from typical interior paintings in one crucial way: the scene was set at night. Moonlight streamed in through the window, illuminating the floor and casting a sinister, eerie atmosphere.

The crack in the floor wasn't actually a crack—it was a lifted plank.

Beneath the lifted floorboard, an even more terrifying darkness spread across the canvas, compelling an unsettling curiosity about what might be hidden in the shadows.

This was a technique of using negative space in painting, but Sai felt it was more of a hint.

Upon closer examination, Sai noticed that the old room in the painting bore a resemblance to the layout of Pickman's studio.

Could it be…?

Sai abruptly looked up at the window depicted in the painting, then quickly ran over and yanked down the old curtain hanging there.

Moonlight streamed through the window, spilling onto the room's wooden floor. Sure enough, Sai noticed something unusual about the floorboards.

A few long, rectangular boards were connected together. Sai easily slid his fingers into a gap and pried one of the boards up.

Beneath the floor was a massive black hole.

In the faint light that seeped into the space, Sai could make out stone walls with wooden stairs, rudimentary and crude, leading downward.

The dark, low entrance did nothing to deter Sai's resolve. He immediately ran to the cabinet nearby, lit an oil lamp, and began descending slowly, holding the dimly glowing lamp.

The basement, though dark, was far more spacious than Sai had imagined. Even the musty smell in the air was less oppressive than that of the studio above.

By the dim light of the oil lamp, Sai noticed something painted on the broad walls of the basement—a mass of indescribable shadows. Perhaps this was yet another of Pickman's conceptual depictions of terrifying monsters.

But that wasn't the important part. What mattered was that Sai spotted another painting on the wall.

This painting was framed with exquisite craftsmanship, even more refined than the already stunning works in the studio above.

And this time, Pickman hadn't painted grotesque humanoid monsters but instead… a normal human.

From the serene posture and expression of the figure, it genuinely appeared to be an ordinary portrait of a person.

"Pickman's Self-Portrait, painted on October 21, 1962."

This note in the bottom-right corner of the canvas confirmed that the painting was indeed Pickman's self-portrait.

If there was no exaggeration, Sai had to admit that Pickman's features indeed exuded the unique aura of an artist. His naturally curly hair gave him a striking presence that would make him stand out in any crowd.

Why would such an outstanding realist horror painter create a meticulously framed self-portrait?

What significance does this self-portrait hold for Pickman?

After taking a few more steps forward, Sai noticed another portrait.

From the distinctive natural curls, Sai could immediately tell that the subject in the painting was once again Pickman, a fact confirmed by the signature in the lower right corner.

"Pickman's Self-Portrait, painted on October 22, 1962."

Judging by the date, this painting was completed just one day after the previous self-portrait. Even the brown suit worn in both paintings remained the same, as did the positioning of Pickman's hands, which were almost identical.

However, upon closer inspection, Sai noticed subtle differences in Pickman's appearance compared to the previous day.

In this self-portrait, Pickman's hands rested naturally on his knees, fingers loosely clasped together. But what stood out was the fingernails—noticeably longer than normal.

Most strikingly, the middle fingernail had grown to nearly half the length of his finger, resembling a sharp claw.

If the date on the painting wasn't fabricated, could an ordinary person's nails grow this long in just one day?

What's more, beneath Pickman's collar, Sai noticed something depicted with extraordinary detail.

This wasn't a random smear of misplaced paint—Sai could feel the deliberate meaning behind it: Pickman's skin was depicted as festering and decaying!

Sai swallowed nervously, a result of overproduced saliva due to stress, then continued to walk toward the next painting.

At the same distance ahead, Sai encountered yet another finely framed self-portrait. Once again, Pickman sat in the same posture as in the previous two paintings.

But this time, Pickman's skin had deteriorated alarmingly—chunks had rotted away, revealing a gray, rubbery texture beneath. His right cheek showed a grotesque blend of healthy skin and the gray, decayed flesh, creating a horrifying visage.

Pickman's expression had also changed. Where he once wore a calm demeanor, he now displayed a wide, malicious grin—a smile charged with an unsettling, particular malevolence.

Sai couldn't tell whether this transformation was an artistic embellishment or a reflection of reality, but there was no doubt: the eyes in the painting glowed crimson, a detail absent from the previous two portraits.

The painting's timestamp read October 23, 1962, painted just one day after the second self-portrait. That meant the painting was completed yesterday, relative to Sai's current moment.

If Pickman had been creating self-portraits at the rate of one per day, then the next one should have been completed today.

However, as Sai raised his kerosene lamp and continued forward, he found no self-portrait on the wall where he expected it to be.

The space was empty.

Had it not been finished yet?

Sai lifted the lamp higher to illuminate the area further ahead.

In the distant darkness, something seemed to respond to Sai, a faint glimmer appearing in the distance.

Quickening his pace, Sai moved toward it, only to discover that it wasn't a painting—it was a mirror hanging on the wall.

Sai's tense mind, preoccupied with apprehension, had failed to notice the presence of this mirror deep within the basement.

Directly in front of the mirror, Sai spotted an old-fashioned camera.

This was a box-style camera mounted on a tripod, the kind that required support for stability. While not very portable, it would likely produce high-quality images.

A piece of red velvet cloth covered the camera, secured tightly by an elastic band to prevent it from slipping off easily.

The sudden appearance of this camera added a mysterious atmosphere to the cramped space of the basement.

Driven by curiosity, Sai placed the kerosene lamp on the floor and instinctively leaned his head under the red cloth.

Underneath the velvet cover, Sai brought his eyes closer to the camera's viewfinder.

What appeared in the viewfinder wasn't a live image of the present moment but rather the last photograph captured by the camera. Since no one had advanced the frame, the camera had preserved the previous shot.

And in that image, Sai saw something utterly horrifying.

It was, of course, not a painting. That much was obvious.

This was a camera—a device designed to record and faithfully reproduce a moment from reality.

For Sai, most aspects of the scene displayed in the camera were all too familiar—it was none other than the very basement he was standing in now.

The basement shown through the camera was brighter, as the oil in the wall-mounted lamps had not yet burned out at the time the photograph was taken.

Opposite the camera stood a mirror, with its center perfectly aligned with the unmanned camera facing it.

And slightly lower in the frame, Sai could see the true subject the camera had been set up to capture.

It was a horrifyingly vivid image, so vivid it seemed ready to leap out of the frame—a humanoid creature.

It had pointed ears, sharp claws formed by elongated fingernails, and gray, rubbery skin. Its body was not entirely exposed, however. Draped over it was a tattered brown suit, likely shredded by the creature's claws.

If that brown suit had been worn by Pitman, it would have added a certain sharp elegance to his already striking appearance. But when draped over the monster, it could only be described as grotesque, unsettlingly mismatched, and eerie.

Wait! That shredded brown suit—it was the very same one Pitman had depicted himself wearing in his self-portrait!

And on the final photograph captured by the camera, the humanoid creature wasn't sitting upright like Pitman had been. Instead, it crouched on all fours like a dog or some other crawling beast. Its dog-like face was lowered close to the floor, where, beneath its sharp teeth, lay the wide-eyed body of a poor, unfortunate soul.

Judging by the remote location of this basement and Pitman's recent failure to pay rent, Sai had every reason to believe that the devoured man was none other than Peters, the landlord of the house.

The gory sight of Peters' mutilated, blood-soaked neck, with flesh torn apart and raw red tissue exposed, was hardly the most shocking detail. The truly horrifying part was Peters' wide-open, glaring right eye—because where his left eye should have been, there was only a hollow black socket. From that socket, a few strands of eye tissue, leaking yellow pus, hung grotesquely.

As for the eyeball itself? It was clenched between the monster's teeth.

The creature held the eyeball in its mouth as if it were delicately cradling a cherry used to garnish a fine dessert. Its sharp upper and lower teeth pressed lightly against the eye while it turned its "refined" profile toward the camera, just as the magnesium flash suddenly lit up.

In that instant, Sai finally understood why Pitman had sought Ike's help with his artistic process.

It turned out that the final step in Pitman's "Self-Portrait" series required Ike's assistance with staging and capturing the composition. By this point, Pitman had completely lost his sanity—and he knew it.

But even without Ike's help, Pitman had devised an ingenious mechanism to photograph this shocking moment at just the right time.

The only imperfection in his masterpiece was the slightly elevated angle of the camera. If someone had been present to adjust it just a little lower, the horrifying impact of the image would have been even more striking.

Nevertheless, his grand creation was complete.

And the model for Pitman's masterpiece was none other than himself!

As for poor Peters, he was merely a living sacrifice—a prop to showcase the monster in its most raw and bloodthirsty form.

While Sai's rational mind was racing to piece together the truth, his trembling fingers accidentally brushed against the camera's button to take the next shot.

The camera's viewfinder refreshed instantly, shifting from the old image to reveal the present-day reality.

In the reflection of the dark mirror across from him, Sai saw a hunched, gray silhouette standing directly behind him, raising its clawed hand high above his head.