Naruto: Cthulhu: Ch. 231

The monk's body was mangled, with the skin and flesh torn apart. Apart from a few patches of firm tissue, the fat under the skin had been gnawed clean by rodents, revealing blood-red flesh and stark white bones beneath.

Nearby, amidst the gruesome remains, lay a pair of shattered glasses.

Something about the glasses felt familiar to Jiraiya, but before he could dwell on it, the sound of hurried footsteps echoed from the cellar passage behind him.

"Hiroshi, what's going on?"

"Chiriku-sama, someone… someone has died," Hiroshi stammered, pointing shakily at the bloodied remains on the floor. It was only then that Chiriku and the monks who had followed him noticed the grotesque scene of blood and gore smeared across the dimly lit floor.

Even in the violent world of ninjas, such a savage spectacle was rare. The remains were barely recognizable as human.

The ragged edges of the surrounding flesh suggested it had been carefully stripped, but reason told the onlookers that no human blade had created this carnage. The culprits were the same rats that had been terrorizing the Fire Temple for days.

This time, the terror caused by the rats had escalated to outright panic.

"It's the rats! The rats did this!"

A monk behind Chiriku shouted in alarm, his voice fueling the growing fear among the already disturbed monks, who had been roused in the dead of night.

"Silence!"

Chiriku's commanding voice, as loud and resonant as a tolling bell, echoed through the crowd, momentarily redirecting their panic away from the rats.

"Stay here and explain the situation to me. Everyone else, leave immediately and check the headcount. If anyone is missing, report to me at once!"

Under Chiriku's imposing authority, the monks slowly filed out of the narrow cellar passage, leaving more space in the chamber.

"What exactly happened here?" Chiriku asked as soon as the other monks had left.

"I-it was the middle of the night," Hiroshi stammered, "I heard rats in my room and was worried they might get into the vegetables stored in the cellar. So, I came to check. But when I arrived, I saw… this."

"There were several giant rats still on the corpse, eating its flesh!"

Hiroshi's account was brief, as he was merely the first to discover the body. The grisly sight had terrified the monk, whose anxiety and frustration over the rats terrorizing the temple had now erupted into outright horror.

"That's enough. You can leave now," Chiriku dismissed Hiroshi, then turned to Jiraiya, who was deep in thought. "Jiraiya-sama, have you noticed anything?"

While Chiriku had ordered the monks out earlier, he had not asked Jiraiya to leave. Jiraiya and Naruto, of their own accord, had stayed behind.

Jiraiya walked to a corner and examined the shelves where vegetables were stored. Strangely, the vegetables were untouched, all in perfect condition. It seemed the rats had ignored the food entirely, choosing instead to attack the people in the cellar.

However, beneath the vegetable shelves were rows of tightly placed rat traps. Every trap had been triggered, yet not a single one had caught even a strand of rat fur.

Jiraiya's thoughts drifted to the dream he had earlier. Why had those enormous rats appeared in his dream? Was it some sort of premonition?

He wasn't sure. His research into people who had encountered otherworldly creatures suggested that they all seemed to gain sudden knowledge about those creatures at the very moment they laid eyes on them.

But Jiraiya was certain he had never encountered such massive rats anywhere else before, and these rats weren't as bizarre as one might imagine.

The man-eating rats in the dream, structurally, resembled ordinary rats. Unlike the Shans, which appeared insect-like but upon closer inspection revealed structural differences so profound they instilled psychological dread, these rats were just oversized versions of normal ones. Their larger bodies and correspondingly amplified fangs made them more menacing than their ordinary counterparts.

Or perhaps the horrifying setting in which they appeared made the man-eating rats seem even more revolting and fearsome.

Wait a moment! How did I know those rats were man-eating rats?

Jiraiya's mind finally landed on a striking realization—an entirely natural and crystal-clear shift in perception that he hadn't consciously noticed.

From the moment the dream ended, his mind had, without him knowing when or why, simply accepted that the rats in the dream were man-eating rats. 

Man-eating rats—rats that, as the name suggests, consumed humans.

And the "blooming" corpse before him was indeed that of a human!

As this realization dawned on him, Jiraiya's tall frame couldn't help but tremble slightly, though he quickly steadied himself.

"Jiraiya-sama? What's wrong?" 

The voice of Chiriku pulled Jiraiya out of his deep contemplation. Jiraiya bent down to pick up the shattered glasses he had seen earlier upon entering the dark cellar.

"These glasses... Are there any others in the temple who wear glasses?" 

Jiraiya wanted to directly ask for a name, but that would have been too blunt. He decided to be more tactful.

Upon seeing the glasses, Chiriku immediately thought of a name, his face turning pale as he stammered, "In the temple, aside from Hiroshi, there shouldn't be any other monks who wear glasses."

At that moment, hurried footsteps echoed from the passageway.

The three in the cellar turned toward the sound to see a small figure appear at the cellar entrance.

"What happened here?"

It was the young boy, Sora. Chiriku immediately realized the danger and tried to usher Sora away, but it was already too late.

Sora's gaze quickly landed on the familiar glasses in Jiraiya's hand, and then, belatedly, shifted to the floor.

The gruesome, blood-soaked remains struck Sora like a thunderbolt. His body swayed violently as if about to collapse.

At that moment, more footsteps echoed down the passageway, heralding the arrival of another monk.

The monk, standing on the staircase, reported to Chiriku, "We've finished counting the monks in the temple. Aside from Hiroshi and Sora, everyone else is accounted for."

"According to other monks in the same dormitory, Hiroshi left after noticing that Sora hadn't returned from washing up. He went out to look for him and hasn't been seen since."

"As for why Sora disappeared, no one knows."

The reporting monk, unwilling to look further at the grisly scene in the center of the cellar, turned his gaze aside—and noticed Sora kneeling on the ground.

Though he could only see Sora's back, it was unmistakable—Sora was the only monk in the temple with hair.

"Sora! What are you doing here?"

Sora, kneeling on the ground, didn't respond to the monk's question. Instead, he cried out in anguish:

"It's me... It's my fault that Hoshin died!"

---

Under Chiriku's persistent questioning, Sora slowly recounted the events.

It turned out that after dinner, just as Jiraiya had speculated, Sora noticed that Naruto's room was dark while passing by the guest quarters. He decided to play a prank. 

After the prank, fearing that Naruto might report him or that Hoshin might question him and force him to apologize, Sora hid in some secluded spots around the temple. Sora had overheard earlier that Naruto and Jiraiya would only be staying at the temple for a day and would leave the next day.

Meanwhile, before going to bed, Hoshin realized Sora hadn't returned to the dormitory. Assuming Sora was sulking somewhere again, Hoshin went out to look for him. 

As fate would have it, when Hoshin reached the cellar, he encountered a swarm of rats. Starving, the rats mistook Hoshin for food and attacked him. 

Hoshin, the only ordinary monk in the temple and physically small even by normal standards, was powerless to resist or escape from the sharp-fanged rodents. 

Once the chain of events became clear, Naruto and Jiraiya were both struck silent. Even Naruto, who had been initially furious about Sora's prank, couldn't muster any anger toward him anymore. The boy before them had already paid the most tragic price for his actions: the death of a monk who had raised him like a parent in the temple.

Only Chiriku scolded, "Sora, what a foolish mistake!"

No amount of reproach could bring the dead back to life. Jiraiya cast a glance at the chaotic surroundings, then looked toward the deeper darkness within the cellar.

The cellar seemed much larger than anyone had imagined. Only the front portion was used as a storage area for the Fire Temple's provisions. Beyond that, the deeper and darker spaces were shrouded in impenetrable shadows. 

Jiraiya recalled seeing the edges of a rat hole in the guest quarters earlier. The gnawed wood had traces of blood on it—likely Hoshin's. It seemed the swarm of rats had surfaced after consuming Hoshin, then wreaked havoc above ground.

This implied that the rats had most likely emerged from somewhere within the depths of this cellar. 

Thinking back to the nightmare he'd had earlier, Jiraiya wondered if it was more than a dream—perhaps some form of premonition. If that were the case, could these carnivorous rats actually be some horrifying rat-like creatures?

Jiraiya was unwilling to miss the chance to investigate what might be an otherworldly phenomenon. He immediately asked Chiriku what lay deeper within the cellar.

At first, Chiriku hesitated. But after Jiraiya explained the potential consequences, Chiriku reluctantly revealed everything.

"I only learned about this place when the previous abbot passed away. Before he died, he told me about it."

"Master Jiraiya, you should already know the Fire Temple's history—how it was once regarded as a place of great evil."

"The previous abbot told me that the Fire Temple's dark past is buried beneath its foundations. To safeguard that secret, the temple must never relocate, and no one should ever disturb the forbidden area."

"Even I only know that there is something beneath the temple. I don't know exactly where or what it is."

The monks' earlier cryptic conversations now made sense, confirming Jiraiya's suspicions: something was indeed hidden beneath the Fire Temple. Determined to uncover the source of the carnivorous rats, Jiraiya decided to venture deeper into the cellar.

Although initially hesitant due to the former abbot's warnings, Chiriku eventually agreed to accompany him after Jiraiya's persuasion.

As for Naruto and Sora, their stubbornness made it impossible to leave them behind. Sora, in particular, was adamant about seeking out the rats to avenge Hoshin. 

With no other choice, Jiraiya and Chiriku allowed the two boys to join them.

In their imaginations, one was the renowned Jiraiya, one of the legendary Sannin, and the other was said to be the strongest abbot in the history of the Fire Temple. Against a few rats, even if they were man-eating rats, these two should be more than enough to ensure safety throughout the journey.

The four of them carried lanterns and slowly advanced into the depths of the cellar.

The trembling light of the lanterns barely illuminated more than two meters ahead. Beyond that, the darkness of the cellar swallowed the faint glow entirely.

The limited visibility made it impossible for Jiraiya to gauge the size of the cellar. To approximate its dimensions, he picked up three small stones and tossed them in three different directions, listening to the sound of the stones hitting the ground.

The crisp echoes bounced through the cellar several times as Jiraiya tilted his head, listening carefully to deduce its approximate size.

The cellar was much larger than expected—practically an underground plaza. The portion used by the Fire Temple as a storage space for fruits and vegetables likely only occupied a tenth of the cellar's total area.

To support the structure, aged stone pillars stood every few meters, extending from the stone floor to the ceiling. Their ancient, weathered appearance gave the space an air of foreboding.

Jiraiya brought his lantern closer to one of these pillars and noticed some clay-like substance sticking to the cracks.

Dipping his finger into the substance and bringing it closer to his nose, he detected a faint metallic scent.

Iron has a distinct smell, especially when present as iron ions in human blood. In a damp environment, this metallic odor lingers and does not easily dissipate.

The sticky material in the crevices of these stone pillars was a mixture of blood and flesh. Although the area had been cleaned, it had not been completely sanitized.

In the hard-to-reach corners at the base of some pillars, traces of dried blood still clung to the surface, staining the stone with mottled patterns.

It was clear that, in the Fire Temple's more distant past, this vast cellar was not merely a storage space for fruits and vegetables. It was once the site of grisly deeds involving blood, flesh, skin, and bone.

As they continued forward, Jiraiya and the others eventually encountered a solid black stone wall just two meters ahead, illuminated by their lanterns. The imposing structure stood tall, blocking their path entirely.

"That's it?" Naruto, who had been tense the entire way, was caught off guard by the sudden end of the path. A strange sense of anticlimax filled him.

Though Naruto often appeared bold, he wasn't particularly well-suited to eerie, sinister places like this.

His comment left Jiraiya equally puzzled. On their way to the deepest part of the cellar, they hadn't heard any squeaking sounds from rats, yet they had reached the end of the passage.

"Let's look around here and see if there are any rat holes or other traces," Jiraiya suggested.

At his prompting, the group spread out, examining the corners of the stone wall in the deepest part of the cellar for signs of rat activity.

After a while, Sora finally made a discovery. He shouted loudly to call everyone over.