Shy Fox Chronicles
Chapter 16: From the Shadows of Seaheart
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Bolded Italicized is used for descriptive actions.
Italicized is used for internal thoughts/flashbacks.
Bold is for emphasis.
"Underlined Bold" is for dialogue/internal thoughts concerning otherworldly beings.
"Can anyone see anything? Because I can't." Naruto asked as the light was snuffed from the tunnel as they descended into the depths.
"No. I can't see my hand in front of my own eyes." Kei replied, waving his own hand in front of his face to see if he could see it.
"Just be careful and keep walking children. We are nearly there." Duan said from the front of the pack.
"How can you tell? Vampire night vision?" Shinkoku asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Vampires have many abilities, and different… I guess strains of vampires… tend to develop different powers at different rates. And tend to specialize in different abilities." Duan explained cryptically.
"I remember grandpa Seishin telling us that." Seikoku replied with a thoughtful tone.
"No, you didn't." Kei chipped in with a roll of his eyes.
"Hey! I remember stuff grandpa says!" Seikoku replied with a glare in the direction of his older triplet's voice.
"What's the name of the vampire power that does that then?" Kei asked, challenging his brother.
"Eyes of the Beast, duh!" Seikoku replied as if it was obvious.
"How has your mother not killed you three?" Sasuke groaned out in annoyance.
"Because we're too adorable!" Seikoku replied proudly, making a cute face in the darkness.
"... I want to punch you in the face right now. I don't know if I'd stop…" Sasuke replied in frustrated annoyance.
"Focus, guys. We're almost there!" Naruto snapped at the lot.
Duan soon stopped in front of them, causing a cascade of bumping and fumbling as the boys ran into him. Placing a hand on a black stone wall in front of him, it soon began to open. Sliding apart came two halves of stone, before a dull light finally shone through. As they all walked in, dull light runes showed them a wide hall going in both directions, seemingly forever. Yet, unlike other vaults, each door was intensely fortified with runes, and immensely thick and heavy. As if to be designed to take any blow that could be thrown at it. Combined with the ebony stone on everything and the eerie stillness that crept through the halls… It was deeply unsettling.
"Th… this place is creepy…" Naruto nervously said.
"Mild understatement, boy. The Black Vault is not a place for the faint of heart. Follow closely now. And, if you value your sanity, do not look in any of the rooms." Duan ordered as he kept walking.
"What's in the rooms…?" Sasuke asked, trying to hide his own nervousness as they followed him.
"Depends on the room. Imprisoned demons, eldritch abominations, cursed items by the armory load. It all depends on the room. Nothing any person should ever have to deal with." Duan explained mournfully.
"... Nobody. Touch. Anything…" Sasuke replied, a bit fearfully.
"Hey, Kei. Did gramps say anything about these vaults?" Seikoku asked his older brother.
"Only that none of them should ever be opened unless it's absolutely necessary…" Kei replied, looking over a rune.
"Then why are we here!?" Sasuke snapped at the two.
"To figure out what our weird dreams were about and what the heck this 'Time of Awakening' is supposed to be. Keep up, Duck Butt." Naruto told his friend.
"You can keep up with my foot going up your…" Sasuke grumbled before getting cut off by Duan.
"We have arrived." Duan said as he placed his hand over a rune, which caused it to glow a pale blue.
As the heavy doors slid open, to their surprise, the only thing that was really inside it was a large cube of glowing mystical energy, a mix of golden yellow and royal purple, in the center. As they all walked in, the kids noticed many swirling and glowing markings of a vastly different origin. As if they were alien in nature and not made by man. Duan then stopped in front of the cube and ushered them over.
"And here you are. Take it at your leisure." Duan explained, his hand motioning to it.
The five boys began looking over everything as Kei noticed something on the wall, illuminated by the light of a cube. "What're those markings…?" he asked, going over to investigate.
"I am not certain. That is never a language I had any luck in understanding." Duan replied, a hint of regret at his own failings coming out.
Looking over them carefully, Kei recognized something from his studies. "Wait… some of these are ancient hieroglyphics. And that right there. That's the language of the Oni." he said, pointing to a spot on the wall with strange kanji, older looking than any Naruto and Sasuke has ever seen and crudely carved into the wall.
"Oni? Odd for the bringers of chaos to use Oni script. Last time I checked, they were not exactly on good terms with them." Duan explained as he began to pull from his robe pockets a scroll and an ink pen, alongside a strange scroll. "Use this Scroll of Comprehend Languages, boy. I will transcribe it for you. Have you ever used a spell scroll before?"
"Only a couple of times, but I think I can pick it up quickly. I snuck a couple of minor ones from the clan's vaults." Kei replied, accepting the spell scroll.
"Then go for it. Proceed when ready." Duan said, readying himself.
Kei unfurled the scroll and read it aloud. "Lore of the Arcane: Comprehend Languages!!" he firmly said, and, with that, the writing lit up, before the scroll was consumed in arcane fire.
"I… I can read it now! I can even tell what races the languages are from! That right there, that's the Language of the Fishmen!" Kei called out in amazement, pointing to the first part of the script that seemed to be written in a language that looked like it was carved into the stone using jets of water.
"... So, you can just do that? Why does no one else get to use these scrolls?" Sasuke asked, stunned at what he just witnessed.
"They're one use only. Now hush up and let those two translate." Shinkoku explained.
"'In the age of convergence when sun, moon, and stars align...'" Kei read off carefully.
"Isn't that where someone's butt crack is?" Seikoku asked, interrupting only to get smacked upside the back of his head by Sasuke and Shinkoku. "Ow…!"
Turning his gaze, Kei was surprised. "This is in the Language of the Majin. It says 'A child of shadow and light shall arise, bearing a power divine...'" he read off in disbelief.
"This would indicate an exceptional individual. Even among my kind, such divine power is exceedingly rare. Let alone for the wayward starfolk." Duan said musingly as he diligently wrote it down at superhuman speed.
Kei nodded at that. "Yeah. But that raises the question of who is this 'child of shadow and light' mentioned in that stanza...?" he noted in confusion.
"Hey Naruto. I think we found your long-lost cousin in mischief." Seikoku said jokingly.
"Hey!" Naruto snapped back before being shushed by Kei.
"Next is the Language of the Giants. It says 'Nine paths they must walk, nine truths they must know... Only through uniting nine shall their true strength grow...'" Kei read off carefully.
"Was this written by a seer or a poet? I have always hated that about prophecies. They never got to the damn point." Duan grumbled as he wrote it down.
"What are these 'nine paths' it mentions? Could it be the Nine Races who fought defeated the God of Chaos...?" Seikoku asked, accidentally leaning against the cube with his hand placed against it.
As soon as it was touched, the cube turned a bright, vibrant godly red, changing the color in but an instant. Sasuke noticed this first and turned on his heels to face Seikoku with a stern look. "Sei! What are you doing!? I said not to touch anything!" Sasuke snapped angrily.
"Sorry! It was an accident!" Seikoku called out apologetically.
"No, that's good! I can read it better now! Don't touch anything more until we finish!" Kei told the others.
"What does it say?" Naruto asked curiously.
Kei looked closely at the next line of the prophecy. "It says…" Kei began to say before the sound of shifting stone interrupted him.
The floor began to rattle and shift, though disturbingly in an organic way. Blocks of stone and other pieces practically grew out of the ground, with strange alien glowing symbols. Some pieces were not even fully attached, as if levitating from some unknown force. But what they could make up as they backed away were arms, legs, and a body before a glowing rock moved forward to imitate a head. Duan instantly got in front of them defensively.
"It is the room's guardian! Get away children! I will handle this!" Duan ordered firmly as he grew out his claws.
"What about you?!" Naruto yelled back.
"Do not worry about me! Get to safety!" Duan roared, as his eyes turned full red, and his fangs grew more pronounced.
"Nobody said anything about a Golem!" Seikoku called out in a panic as the boys spread out.
Lumbering forth, the Golem began making its way towards Seikoku. Panicking, Seikoku created a small sphere of white-hot flames that he threw at the stone guardian. The sphere of flames exploded on contact with the Golem only for it to continue lumbering towards him, not even slowed down by the attack. Seeing this, Duan dashed forward as the Golem raised its stone fist to slam it down onto Seikoku. Appearing in front of the Kamishini boy, the vampiric Dragon-Man punched back as the stone fist came crashing down, barely stopping it in place.
"They sure knew how to make… one tough golem…!" Duan grunted a bit, straining against the force exerted by the rock monster.
"Get lost!" Seikoku yelled out in a panic, launching another white-hot fireball right into the stone guardian's face, making it stumble back a bit.
"Do not draw its attention to you, boy! I will handle it! Get to safety!" Duan ordered, sternly looking at Seikoku.
Looking at him in concern, Seikoku looked up fearfully as the smoke began to clear from the Golem's face. Though one of its eyes had been destroyed, the other glowed red with fury. His attack had barely damaged it. Instead, he only infuriated it. Looking at Duan, the boy nodded to the vampire and backed up to let him fight.
Taking a deep breath, Duan extended his claws and brought them up in front of him, prepared for battle. Dashing forward, he slashed across the Golem's body as it tried to crush him by smashing the ground where he stood. Barely dodging by jumping back, Duan grit his teeth. 'This thing is faster than it looks…!' he thought.
Jumping up onto its fist, Duan ran up its arm, cutting and slashing with his claws as he went, trying to cut it into pieces. However, wherever he cut it, the stone knitted back together using rock from the ground. Cursing, Duan leapt up and kicked it in its face as its eye slowly repaired. This its head back, making the rock monster stumble. However, that was all it accomplished.
"I'm starting to see why Oda hates fighting so much…" Duan muttered under his breath in frustration, as the golem lurched onto the attack.
Bringing its stone fist down like a giant hammer, the rock guardian tried to smash Duan like an insect. Barely jumping aside to dodge, the vampire saw the dark stone-ground crack on contact as a trench was dug into the ground from the impact. However, before he could recover, the stone arm swept across the battlefield right towards Duan while kicking up rubble as it swept across. Cursing, Duan tried to jump only to be smashed aside by the sweep of the arm as it swung like a great, flying pillar.
'What does it take to hurt this thing!?' Duan thought as he was sent flying, trying to keep up the assault. 'I don't know if I can beat this thing by myself…'
It was at that moment that Duan crashed into the wall, cracking it on impact. Crying out in pain, he tried to recover as the golem continued making its way towards Seikoku. Noticing it was targeting Seikoku, who was the one who touched the cube, Sasuke got an idea. An insane idea worthy of his blonde Uzumaki friend, but an idea, nonetheless.
"Out of the way, Kei! I need to get to the cube!" Sasuke yelled as he rushed over to the floating relic.
"I'll try to distract that thing so you can get to the cube! Whatever you're gonna do, do it!" Kei called out, charging black-colored lightning between his hands.
Sasuke rushed over as Kei unleashed his divine lightning, firmly getting the golem's attention as the black colored levin bolt slammed into it. He ran up to the cube and looked at it. Yet as he did, he noticed he could start to see inside the cube. He lurched his head away from it after a moment of looking.
"There's… there's something inside this thing! This golem is protecting whatever's inside the cube!" Sasuke called out.
"No shit! Now hurry up!" Kei called out, launching another lightning blast at the golem.
"I'll help Sasuke!" Naruto yelled, rushing over to him, forced to slide under a sweeping arm of the golem to do so.
As soon as Naruto reached him, Sasuke looked at his blonde Uzumaki friend. "Naruto! We need to touch the cube to get that thing's attention! I'll do it first to get its eyes on me and lead it away, then you touch it!" the Uchiha boy told his friend.
"Why should you do it first!?" Naruto yelled.
"Because I'm faster than you, so I'll take longer for it to try to kill!" Sasuke replied as if it was obvious.
"If you're so much faster, then do it then!" Naruto shot back.
"Fine!" Sasuke shot back before touching the cube in frustration.
Touching the cube, Sasuke found that it felt strangely warm to the touch. Not harshly so, but like the warm glow of a campfire. Yet, as he touched it, the glowing lines went to a dark blackish purple. The change in color was matched by the golem, which soon turned to "look" at Sasuke. Seeing that time was of the essence, Sasuke rushed off to distract. Seeing that, Naruto looked down at the cube. If this was going to save his friends, then it better start.
Naruto then touched it, and again it changed color to that of a deep, heavenly sky blue, stronger than the pale blue of the lights. Again, this caused the Golem to change, but as it looked at him, something else happened. The cube rumbled and shook, expanding out to display a room. A room that looked like a nursery, filled with toys and other knick knacks for incredibly young children. Yet the strangest of all was an altar, made of stone cut in a very strange way, with a baby clad in a black cloth diaper on it. As soon as the room appeared, it disappeared with the cube, leaving the baby now in Naruto's arms.
"Um…" Naruto muttered in shock at what was in his arms.
The baby was not abnormally large or small, with fair skin and two white bud-like horns on his forehead. As it began to open its eyes and let out a little yawn, Naruto noticed it had two different eyes. One was yellow, one was purple. This matched its hair, as half was white as snow, and the other black as night neatly down the middle. The baby then looked up at Naruto.
"Goo…" came out from the baby's mouth, as it cocked its head to the side, not sure what exactly was holding him.
"Um… hi…?" Naruto replied in confusion.
"... That's it!? That's the Nythralian!?" Sasuke called in outraged disbelief. "We almost died multiple times for a fucking baby!?"
"Hey! Language!" Naruto shot back, covering the baby's ears.
"Goo!" the baby called out indignantly while giving Sasuke a dirty look, as if it could understand the Uchiha boy.
"Did that baby just insult me!?" Sasuke yelled as he dodged the golem's smash attempt at him.
"... Sasuke. It's a baby." Shinkoku pointed out.
"Gah." the baby said with a smug little smile.
"We're going to die! Please do something!" Naruto called out to the baby before tickling its tummy to try to get it to do something.
The baby looked up at Naruto, as if to wordlessly say that he chose what was about to happen. Right before the baby started to cry loudly. As it did, a strange, dark purple energy began to come off it. The energy expanded and glowed as it came off the baby before sparking and lashing out in all directions. The others screamed in fear as they ducked under the bolts of strange energy.
"Naruto! What did you do!?" Sasuke called out in fear as he dodged the bolts of energy.
"... I didn't do it. The baby did." Naruto said with equal levels of fear. "Hey little one… we cool?"
As he said this, the golem turned to look at the crying infant. Meanwhile, the infant tearfully glared up at Naruto before screaming, beginning to levitate. Then a massive bolt of energy shot from the baby in Naruto's direction. Sliding down underneath it, Naruto ended up under the baby as the bolt of energy hit the golem. To the surprise of all present, the levin bolt of energy shattered the golem like glass, blowing it into shards of molten stone.
"Guys. We need to never make this baby cry again." Naruto squeamishly said, as he tried desperately to calm the baby.
"Try rubbing its head… Some babies like that instead of tummy tickles…" Duan groaned out as he slowly stood up. With his back very clearly still in immense pain.
Gulping nervously, Naruto jumped up and began to gently pat the baby on the head. Though the baby screamed less loudly, and the energy bolts became less violent, it did not help much.
"It didn't work!" Naruto called out in a panic, ducking under a bolt of energy.
"I said rub its head! Not pat!" Duan groaned in frustration.
Flinching, Naruto gently rubbed the baby's head. To his surprise, the baby's crying slowly began to subside as it tearfully looked up at him. The baby then began to giggle as Naruto dried its tears before going back to rubbing its head. As he did this, a strange, warm golden light filled the room as everyone began to feel their aches and pains at ease, as if the light were undoing their injuries.
"Then the rumors are true. They do really wield chaos itself." Duan said in awe as he felt the pain practically disappear.
"Dah!" the baby called out in joy as Naruto gently rocked him.
Naruto smiled. "Hey, little guy…" he said to the baby as the little thing gently groped at his whisker marks.
"Gah ba ga bush." it gurgled out happily.
"... I wanna hold it." Seikoku whined.
"... You can hold it if you want. I'm not going near that thing until we know it's safe." Sasuke replied, eyeing the baby warily.
The baby then hiccupped, vanishing in a flash and appearing in Sasuke's arms. Sasuke looked down at it with a deadpan look. "Me and my big mouth…" the young Uchiha grumbled.
"Duh buh." the baby gurgled out.
"I am not a duck!" Sasuke said in annoyance.
"Nah wuh?" the baby gurgled.
"... Okay. Crying bad. Laughing good. Hiccups equal teleportation. Good to know…" Kei noted in fear before pointedly looking at Duan. "Anything else we need to know about this baby, considering that your king didn't feel the need to tell us this stuff!?"
"We didn't know it could do that." Duan explained, dumbfounded as the rest of them.
"... Fair enough!" Kei replied, his eyes twitching in annoyance.
"Right then. We have the baby. Now let us decommission this vault and get out of here before the mountain explodes." Duan explained nonchalantly. "Oh, there is one thing I do know about the baby."
"... And that would be?" Shikoku asked, clearly a bit annoyed.
"Do not pull off the horns. Let them come off on their own. It is like baby teeth. Except these baby teeth are attached to a mystical timebomb if you pull them out." Duan explained as he left the vault.
"... Do we even want to know what'll happen if the horns are pulled off too early…?" Sasuke asked in annoyance and a little fear.
"Massive explosion. So do not pull them off, even if the baby looks like it is in pain because of them." Duan explained as he worked with some runes.
Sasuke stared down at the baby in disbelief as it smiled at him with a big, toothless smile. "... Think fast, Naruto!" Sasuke fearfully called out, tossing the baby to Naruto and forcing him to catch it.
"Did you just throw a baby!?" The other five present screamed in horror.
"I don't know about all of you; I don't want to be at the center of a massive explosion that'd kill us all!!" Sasuke called out in a panic, running to hide behind Duan.
"Yes, boy. And being a few feet away from it is so much better." Duan said, looking down at Sasuke with disappointment.
"At least, with you in front of me, I have a living shield…" Sasuke grumbled.
"And what about your friends? You are going to let them die?" Duan asked.
"... Good point. Guys! Get behind here with me! Except Naruto, because the baby likes him for some reason!" Sasuke called out, realizing Duan's point in his own way.
As the baby giggled, at what no one could tell, Duan finished his work. In the blink of an eye after the door closed behind them, the very room itself disappeared. The kids would be shocked, if they had not dealt with all the other crazy stuff that day. After that, Duan led them out of the vault in a bit of a hurry. After closing the Black Vault, they rushed as fast as their legs could carry them. Yet as they went, shockingly little stopped their progress. No spirits, no waves of people, nothing. Naruto looked down at the baby, who continued to giggle happily, as if finding moving this fast fun. Finally, they rushed out into the wider world, escaping the mountain. Stopping to catch their breath, Duan covered himself up as they felt the sun begin to beat down on them.
"Right. I know where the rendezvous site is, children. Keep close." Duan said.
"Um… guys…? Should the mountain be smoking like that…?" Seikoku asked, pointing upwards.
Everyone looked up to where he was pointing, even the baby. From the distant top of the mountain came thick, black smoke. This made the whole lot of them nervous. Except Sasuke, who began to panic at the site of a smoking mountain, knowing exactly what that meant.
"... Naruto! Quick! Make the magic baby laugh again!" Sasuke called out in a panic.
Naruto gulped nervously before turning to address his friend. "I don't think that's gonna help this time…" Naruto ominously replied, cold sweat starting to come down his face.
To Be Continued…