Chapter 171 Will-o'-the-wisp
Xiao Li has a real influence on me, he thought, because instead of pushing her away like he usually did, he just gave a token protest and let her hold him like this, her strong arms tightly around his shoulders, her head safely tucked under his chin.
"Thank you, Neji-nii-san," she whispered.
"Hmm," he muttered, reaching out to pat her back gently. Neji had never been one to express his feelings, and probably never would be, but even he had to admit that this felt... good.
"Next time you decide to fight the 'old man in the tower', remember to tell me in advance."
She nodded and Neji could feel her smile.
"I promise."
---
Later, as the two of them slowly walked back to the clan's territory, Neji carefully examined the injury on Hinata's arm.
The bruises were worse than he'd imagined, the red spots were from overloaded blood vessels causing broken capillaries. This must have happened recently - the bruises were too fresh to be more than a few hours old.
"What did you do?" he asked, taking her arm and turning it over, examining it carefully. "You know I've been helping you develop that technique, right?"
Neji stopped walking.
"Hinata, don't tell me..."
Hinata rubbed the back of her head with her good hand.
“I did.”
---
The first thing Kakashi saw in the darkness was fire.
It surrounded him, strange and swaying, as pale as moonlight.
He suddenly had a strong premonition: he shouldn't be here, no one should be here.
Before him was a cemetery, set in a vast space that had once been carved out of the rock.
The boundaries of the room are vague and elusive, as if its very existence is a kind of hesitation.
Each tombstone protruded from a strange, soggy mound of earth, black as tar, like an all-consuming swamp.
They were arranged in a weird pattern, covered with a strange blue-green moss and surrounded by countless red spider lilies.
The flowers flowed between the tombstones like blood, spreading all the way to Kakashi's feet. A lonely path passed through the blood-red sea of flowers, paved with the same black rocks as the Torii gate.
At the end of the path, there were also densely packed talismans, the ink marks had become a little blurred, like ancient tattoos, deeply engraved on the pale rocks.
Slender lily stems peek out from the ancient runes, as if with a hint of fear.
"Don't stray from the path," Kakashi whispered, remembering the warning his father had repeated as he recounted the old legends.
"Oh my god, do you think I would?" Puck muttered, but still followed closely at Kakashi's feet.
Above their heads, dozens of strange balls of light floated about—eerie blue orbs of fire that cast long, eerie shadows across the tombstones.
Most of the orbs move in an unsettling way, twitching suddenly without warning and sometimes even jumping several meters.
There were also some light balls that flickered, like radio waves with poor signals. They disappeared in an instant and then suddenly reappeared not far away.
Others were completely motionless, not even flickering, as if frozen somewhere outside of time.
In addition to these strange, floating balls of fire, some of the graves themselves were burning with another kind of flame, a steady, rust-colored flame that surrounded about two of every ten tombstones.
As soon as Kakashi stepped onto the path, one of the balls of light flew past him like a stone across the water, almost brushing his left earlobe.
Parker jumped in shock and ran to his other leg, tail tucked tightly in his tether.
"What is that?" it asked in horror.
"Will-o'-the-wisp." Kakashi whispered, keeping a close eye on the movement of the light ball while being alert to other light balls nearby. He bent down and gently patted Puck's back. "A will-o'-the-wisp that usually appears on the battlefield. Don't touch them."
The ninja dog growled nervously and clung to Kakashi's legs, following closely when he took another step forward.
"You don't have to tell me twice."
This path, like the stairs just now, seems to have no end.
With every step he took, the blood-red flowers around him swayed, their trailing stems spreading outward like waves. However, there was no wind at all.
Kakashi tried not to think about it.
"What on earth is this place?" Parker asked after a while, staring at the lilies warily. "This place... is too weird. How can there be flowers growing in a place without rain and sunshine?"
"Do you know why most ninjas choose to cremate the bodies of their dead, Parker?" Kakashi asked, trying to keep his tone calm even though every cell in his body was screaming at him to get out of here.
"Of course I know." The ninja dog answered without hesitation. "This way, enemy ninjas won't be able to steal intelligence or secrets from their corpses, nor can they use their corpses against us, and so on."
"Yes, that's one reason," Kakashi agreed. He paused as another will-o'-the-wisp suddenly twitched and flew past him. "Another reason is to avoid places like this."
Parker looked around, his eyes wide.
"Your father said this was a catacomb."
Kakashi shrugged and continued walking carefully along the black stone path.
"I'm sure it was here before." The flowers began to ripple again, waves of red rising and falling, as if they were breathing. "But the real difficulty in burying ninjas is that their chakra doesn't necessarily disappear with their death."
Parker paused, staring at the hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of tombstones in the distance, where generations of his family were buried.
"You're talking nonsense."
Kakashi shook his head and gently nudged the ninja dog, signaling it to keep going.
He didn't want to stay here any longer.
"Even the remains left behind by powerful ninjas after their death may contain enough chakra to pose a threat. Modern family cemeteries have special protection measures, and Konoha's cemetery is close enough to the 44th area of the Forest of Death, where the natural energy can absorb leaked chakra." He explained in a low voice, almost a whisper.
He didn't dare to speak loudly here.
"But if you bury too many ninja bodies in the same place - ancient tombs, battlefields, mass graves - you're going to end up with something like this."
He pulled a practice kunai from his pocket—blunt at both ends, meant to inflict damage but not kill—and threw it into the sea of red flowers surrounding him.
The flowers retreated as if alive, like frightened animals, revealing a corner of the black substance underneath.
Kakashi took a deep breath and continued, his tone low and serious, his eyes fixed on the black rings left by those strange flowers:
"Death and the ancient chakras weaken the boundaries between life and death, between the world we know and the unknown world that lurks around us."
