Naruto: Cthulhu: Ch. 224

The sliding door beside the training grounds opened from within, and Shikamaru, Ino, and Chōji slowly stepped out.

Outside the training grounds, Akahoshi, Yotaka, Shisō, and the villagers of Hoshi had completely surrounded the area.

Akahoshi wore a satisfied, slightly twisted smile as he watched Shikamaru and his team obediently emerge. His expression clearly conveyed his smugness.

"Until this is over, no one is leaving Hoshi."

Despite having long planned to capture the trio, he made no further moves, standing silently in place even as they stood before him.

Suddenly, Shikamaru spoke, "Aren't you curious about the whereabouts of the first meteorite in the village?"

Akahoshi's eyes flickered, his brow twitched, but his voice remained calm.

"I don't need you to tell me. I've long known where the meteorite is. Besides, it's no longer important."

His words sent a chill down Shikamaru's spine. He had hoped to exploit Akahoshi's rationality by using the meteorite as a distraction, but the man seemed entirely unmoved.

Now standing in the center of the crater, escape had become even more daunting than before. The barren depression offered no easy way out.

At that moment, Sumaru burst out from within, shouting to Akahoshi, "Akahoshi-sama, do you know who stole the meteorite?"

Sumaru's sudden interruption disrupted Shikamaru's plan. Shikamaru had instructed the genin to quietly observe from inside while he tried to expose the truth about the village's changes, convincing the untainted genin to side with him and escape together.

However, Akahoshi ignored Sumaru's outburst, simply looking up at the sky.

Seizing the opportunity, Shikamaru said, "The one who stole the meteorite wasn't anyone else—it was your mother. She took the meteorite to stop your village from practicing star training."

"You must have noticed it too—star training causes severe harm to the human body."

"My mother… is she still alive?" Sumaru asked, astonished.

"Yes," Shikamaru nodded.

Sumaru stood speechless, his memories of his mother flooding back.

The other genin inside the building were equally horrified. Their gazes were fixated on the villagers of Hoshi, noticing something deeply unsettling—the unnatural colors on their bodies.

These were not colors belonging to this world; they were indescribable, pulsating like living hearts, flashing rhythmically.

Meanwhile, Hoshi was undergoing more transformations.

The village now resembled a primordial jungle. Grass and shrubs along the roads were growing wildly, their twisted branches writhing grotesquely.

Even lifeless wooden objects sprouted new shoots, their slender vines thrashing mercilessly at everything in their path. Small animals caught by the vines were ensnared and hung at the base of the vines.

In the courtyards, countless wells erupted with dazzling pink-purple light.

A small amount of this glowing light seeped from the edges of the wells, forming tendrils that seemed alive, grasping chaotically for any nearby living beings.

Though the pink-purple light controlled many of the surrounding creatures, whenever these colors appeared directly before them, their subconscious minds experienced a fleeting moment of clarity—like a dying ember of reason igniting in their brains.

Some remaining villagers tried to flee, but after just a few steps, the vines from the trees and wooden objects caught them. The vines wrapped tightly around their bodies, cocooning them and hoisting them high into the branches before delivering them into the radiant light of the wells.

Some villagers did not attempt to escape. Perhaps they realized that fleeing was now futile, so they stayed where they were, engaging in all sorts of irrational acts.

"You can't escape! None of us are getting out of here!"

They screamed maniacally at their fellow humans who were trying to flee, and some even stuck out their feet to trip others as they passed by.

In the end, these frenzied individuals met the same fate as those attempting to escape. Vines and branches wrapped around them, forming cocoon-like structures, and delivered them to the well's glowing depths.

Whatever horrifying entity resided beneath that well seemed insatiable. Humans, animals, whether fully transformed or clinging to the last shreds of sanity, were mercilessly consumed by the bottomless pit.

As these sacrifices were forced into the well like offerings, the radiance emanating from its depths grew ever brighter. The light was so dazzling that even a single glance could blind onlookers and strip away their sanity entirely.

The pillar of light surged higher, forming an intangible torrent of colors that human eyes could scarcely comprehend. When the colors left the well, they cascaded skyward like a vibrant, inverted waterfall, flowing into the vast night sky.

Far away, everyone near the crater could see the changes occurring. In the direction of Hoshi, the village was emitting an unprecedented brilliance. Several radiant beams of light were piercing the night sky.

---

Akahoshi gazed obsessively at the colors in the sky. His face displayed a mixture of emotions: fear, fanaticism, and astonishment. The blend of feelings twisted his already unpleasant features into an even more grotesque visage.

Behind him, the villagers of Hoshi turned to face the radiant columns ascending skyward. The colors covering their foreheads and bodies glowed brightly, coursing through their exposed veins like fluid ribbons of light. As if responding to the scene, the colors seemed to grow even more active.

Inside the buildings, the genin were also startled by the spectacle. They poured outside to witness the slow ascension of the colors into the sky.

Ordinarily, they might have spoken or asked questions. But now, their minds and senses were wholly occupied by the sight of the rising colors. Their visual cortex overwhelmed their reasoning, rendering them incapable of speech.

Even Shikamaru, who usually maintained his composure, was no exception. He found himself utterly paralyzed—his body and gaze fixed on the magnificent beams of light.

At first, the ascension of colors was slow. But within twenty seconds, the speed at which the colors surged skyward suddenly accelerated.

In the eastern forest of Hoshi, plants, animals, humans, rodents, and even wooden objects—all things that had grown wildly or mutated grotesquely under the influence of the colors—began to emit streams of vibrant light.

These threads of color rapidly peeled away from their sources and flowed toward the central pillar of light.

Even the villagers far from the crater weren't spared. From their foreheads, pink-purple diamond-shaped openings appeared, allowing the colors to escape and return to their origin.

As the colors were stripped from these living beings, their life force visibly drained away. Plants withered, animals collapsed, and humans aged rapidly. Life in every form, within a radius of hundreds of meters, was being pulled into the torrent rushing toward the central pillar.

At the pillar's base, all the colors converged into a massive, swirling cyclone. The vortex of color formed a colossal tornado that radiated an unparalleled brilliance across the night sky. It carried with it the accumulated life force of the region, surging higher and higher into the heavens. Nothing could halt its ferocious momentum.

In the violent winds, Shikamaru looked around in despair. He saw the people around him withering away, their bodies visibly deteriorating. Glancing down at himself, he noticed something horrifying: streaks of color were peeling away from his own skin, clinging to the vortex as they were drawn upward.

Panic consumed him. Avoiding food and water hadn't saved him from the colors' corruption. Perhaps his body had already absorbed these malevolent colors through his daily actions when he first arrived.

When he looked up at the dazzling, incomprehensible tornado, he realized he could see something within it—something horrifying.

It was a world completely beyond his understanding. A world filled with unspeakable horrors.

In comparison, the most dangerous environments in the human world seemed like acts of mercy from this otherworldly realm.

And in this kaleidoscopic world, he finally saw the truth, though it had come too late.

When Shikamaru beheld this world, embraced by a myriad of vibrant and fantastical hues, he finally realized that the existence of these colors far surpassed his imagination.

They were called the Color Out of Space.

Originating from a place unimaginably distant from this world, these beings were alive and sentient, similar yet fundamentally different from humans and animals.

The forms of the Color Out of Space appeared as hues imperceptible to the human eye.

These were pure colors, neither gas nor physical matter, manifesting as an anomalous, non-material lifeform that defied conventional scientific explanation.

The Color Out of Space could effortlessly navigate through water, roam across land, and soar through the skies.

When they moved, they resembled luminous, shapeless masses of paint flowing and rippling freely.

As for sustenance, the Color Out of Space consumed organic life forms. When they fed, they would infiltrate the victim's body, causing the victim's exterior to emit a faint glow, identical to the Color Out of Space, during the night.

These entities hailed from the deep void of space. A mature Color Out of Space could produce a seed—a hollow sphere the size of a handball, its surface gleaming with the same iridescent brilliance as the parent entity.

When the seed landed in a nutrient-rich area, the embryonic Color within would integrate into the local ecosystem, while the seed itself would gradually dissolve, transitioning from tangible to intangible.

Once the embryonic Color merged with the ecosystem, it would trigger abnormal, rampant growth in the local flora, resulting in bitter and astringent fruits. Insects and animals exposed to it would develop twisted, entangled limbs and give birth to deformed offspring.

By night, all flora and fauna affected by the Color Out of Space would emit their characteristic phosphorescence.

This was the first stage Shikamaru observed.

In the second stage, the embryonic Colors expanded their influence, seeking food farther afield. They began to drain the life force from the regions they had previously affected, fueling their rapid growth.

Plants in these areas would start to decay, turning gray and malodorous, their fruits becoming brittle to the touch.

Humans and animals, meanwhile, would exhibit more intense phosphorescence along with varying degrees of physical and mental mutations and degeneration.

Once the Color Out of Space absorbed sufficient life energy in this stage, they would transition to their final phase.

In their ultimate phase, the Color Out of Space would depart the world they had fed on, returning to their place of origin to mature fully.

But before leaving, they would extract the life force of all organic beings affected by them within a radius of several hundred meters.

This radius wasn't fixed; in resource-scarce environments, the Colors would expand their reach to compensate.

Additionally, the Color Out of Space were inhibited by bright light, retreating to dark places during the day—such as underwater, the depths of wells, or damp, shadowy spaces.

These were the insights Shikamaru perceived within the brilliance of the light. He couldn't explain why he could grasp this information from the radiant hues surrounding him.

Unfortunately, this understanding came too late. The Color Out of Space had already reached their final stage, ready to leave this world and siphon away all life within their reach—including Shikamaru himself.

Though he was the first to sense the peculiarities of the colors emanating from the meteorite, he had unknowingly been infected by them long before.

The strange, colorful threads of the Color Out of Space began to peel away from his skin, carried by the violent storm of color raging within Hoshi.

As these shimmering tendrils slowly unwound and exited his body, his arm underwent a visible, alarming transformation, rapidly aging. What had been youthful and smooth instantly became shriveled and wrinkled, resembling charred, denatured protein.

Similarly, Ino and Chōji, standing nearby, displayed the same symptoms. Their bodies were aging at an unsettling rate.

For Ino, who had always prided herself on her appearance, this was an unbearable shock. Her mind failed to process the horror and madness of the situation, and she collapsed unconscious.

Although Shikamaru and the others had absorbed far less of the Color Out of Space compared to the villagers, their bodies couldn't escape the inevitable fate of having their life force drained by the alien light.

Meanwhile, the villagers were in even worse condition. The radiant phosphorescence of the Color Out of Space poured out of their mouths, nostrils, eyes, and ears like a human bomb about to detonate.

At its peak intensity, the brilliance of the Color Out of Space storm, combined with the light emanating from the villagers and animals, reached such heights that the pinkish-purple glow began distorting space itself.

The sheer intensity of the hue was blinding. When it reached its zenith, the human eye could no longer perceive the saturation or detail of the color. To Shikamaru, the overwhelming pinkish-purple transformed into a stark, blinding white.

The world was engulfed in a vast, radiant whiteness that seemed capable of searing through vision in an instant.

It felt as if everything was coming to an end.

At that moment, a faint shadow descended from above, bringing a cool, refreshing sensation to Shikamaru—like a gentle breeze cutting through the blazing heat.

Within this shadow, he discerned a faint humanoid figure with enormous, translucent lavender wings radiating light. These wings partially blocked the overwhelming brilliance.

That figure—

Shikamaru thought he recognized the person, but before his mind could catch up, the blinding white light surged, accompanied by a shockwave of explosive force.

The explosion's impact, combined with fierce winds, followed close behind. Though the crater beneath mitigated much of the blast, he was still thrown to the ground.

His head collided with the earth, and he lost consciousness.

---

Shikamaru didn't know how much time had passed before he woke up.

His ears buzzed incessantly, and his limbs felt heavy and sore. Yet he was relieved to find they still had sensation. His eyes, however, stung sharply; forcing them open during the final moments of the explosion had rendered them temporarily useless.

Suppressing the pain coursing through his body, Shikamaru willed his arms and legs to move, dragging himself forward.

The terrain around him felt strange to the touch—covered in an unfamiliar, clinging dust. His hands, searching blindly, encountered the sticky residue at every turn.

He didn't know what the substance was, but his survival instincts drove him to keep crawling forward.

Suddenly, his hand touched something solid.

In this world coated in ash and dust, the presence of a tangible object brought a glimmer of hope. Yet as Shikamaru continued to explore the shape with his fingers, his expression twisted with dread. He tried forcing his eyes open to confirm his suspicions, but his eyelids fluttered ineffectively.

Still, as a ninja, he quickly pieced together what he was touching.

It was a human skeleton.

Zooming out, the scene revealed his hands resting on a skeleton partially buried in gray ash. Embedded in the chest cavity of the skeleton was a meteorite—the same meteorite that had fallen in Hoshi two centuries ago.

The meteorite was now crumbling, slowly disintegrating into fragments.