Chapter 561: The Secret Hidden in the Treasure Map
"Not bad, Naruto. You actually managed to find a hidden door?"
Kenichi looked at Naruto in surprise.
He genuinely had not expected Naruto to be the first one to discover a clue leading to the supposed treasure.
Naruto smugly rubbed his nose.
Kenichi wasted no time.
He placed both hands against the hidden stone door and tried to push it open.
It was extremely heavy.
Years of erosion from the river had made its surface slippery, and the entire doorway had been embedded directly into the rocky wall.
Previously, the rushing river had completely concealed it.
Even now, with the water level lowered, the entrance remained extremely difficult to notice because it almost perfectly blended into the surrounding stone.
Kenichi applied a little more strength.
Creak...
The heavy stone door slowly opened just wide enough for them to pass through.
At the same time, a strange smell drifted out from inside.
"Let's go. Hurry inside."
Kenichi glanced behind him.
Water was already beginning to leak past the temporary dam and trickle back into the canyon.
The earth and rocks blocking the river were struggling against the growing pressure.
It would not be long before the current broke through completely.
Naruto and Sasuke quickly scrambled through the opening.
Kenichi followed immediately behind them and took the opportunity to close the stone door.
Otherwise, once the river returned, having water flood into the passage would become troublesome.
"It's really dark in here."
Sasuke looked around.
He could not see anything.
There had been a faint trace of light while the stone door was still open, but the moment Kenichi closed it, that light vanished completely.
The cave became pitch black.
It was the kind of darkness where they could not even see their own hands in front of their faces.
"Who knows how many years this place has been sealed?"
Kenichi turned his head.
The rock beneath his feet was slippery.
When they had first opened the door, a small amount of river water had flowed inside, though fortunately it was not much.
"You can't exactly expect the lights to still be working."
"Big brother, can you use a Fire Release jutsu?"
From the sound of Naruto's voice, Kenichi could tell that his younger brother was somewhere ahead and slightly to the left.
But he could not see him at all.
"Sasuke, you do it."
Kenichi did not reject the idea.
He had already checked the air.
There was no overwhelming smell of decay or stagnant air, which suggested that this place had some form of ventilation.
Sasuke nodded.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu!"
A fireball suddenly shot through the darkness.
The instant the flames illuminated the cave, Kenichi hurriedly searched through his ninja tool pouch.
He pulled out a wooden stick and a bundle of cloth.
A moment later, the fireball disappeared.
Although the Great Fireball Jutsu possessed respectable destructive power, expecting Sasuke to maintain it continuously as a source of illumination was obviously unreasonable.
Fortunately, Kenichi had already prepared what he needed.
Even after the darkness returned, he assembled the stick and cloth by touch.
Then he poured oil over the fabric until it was thoroughly soaked.
A crude torch was ready.
"Sasuke, one more time."
Kenichi called out again.
Sasuke immediately released another Great Fireball Jutsu without complaint.
Kenichi used the brief burst of firelight to ignite the oil-soaked cloth.
The torch flared to life.
For the first time, the hidden cave that the Uchiha Clan had concealed for countless years was properly illuminated.
"Whoa. This really is a cave."
Naruto looked around in surprise.
Sasuke, meanwhile, immediately began examining the nearby walls.
There was nothing written on them.
Kenichi briefly studied the torch.
The flame burned steadily without any strange behavior.
That confirmed the cave had enough circulating air.
"Sasuke, do you recognize anything here?"
Kenichi handed the torch to Naruto.
Then he took more materials from his ninja tool pouch and quickly prepared two additional torches.
He gave one to Naruto and one to Sasuke.
"No."
Sasuke shook his head.
"There aren't any markings at all."
The place looked painfully ordinary.
It was simply a cave.
Sasuke could not help feeling somewhat disappointed.
Perhaps there was no treasure left after all.
Maybe something valuable had once been stored here, only for earlier generations of the Uchiha Clan to retrieve it.
The treasure map might simply have been forgotten afterward instead of being destroyed.
Kenichi did not comment.
They had already come this far.
Leaving without searching the cave thoroughly would make no sense.
Besides, the stone door behind them had been surprisingly effective at keeping out the river.
That made Kenichi suspect there might still be something hidden farther inside.
Kenichi led Naruto and Sasuke deeper into the cave.
The passage, which had initially been rather narrow, gradually became wider.
"Big brother, do you see that thing ahead?"
Naruto lowered his voice.
Kenichi narrowed his eyes.
"I see it."
They approached.
"This looks like... a prison cell."
Kenichi stared at the rusted iron bars before him.
Behind them was a cramped room.
The chamber was incredibly simple.
There were only bare stone walls and something on the ground that resembled old ash.
Sasuke silently studied the cell.
It certainly looked like a prison.
However, there was no prisoner inside.
There were not even any bones.
"Huh?"
Naruto sounded disappointed.
"So this isn't where the treasure is hidden?"
He waved his torch around.
The shifting light illuminated more of the surrounding area.
Kenichi could now clearly see several other cells nearby.
"This... might have been somewhere our clan imprisoned enemies."
Sasuke raised his torch and continued walking.
Cells lined the passage.
Some of the doors even stood open.
Yet every cell appeared empty.
Kenichi yawned.
It looked like their supposedly exciting treasure hunt might end in an extremely boring way.
"Huh? Is this a bed?"
Naruto curiously raised his torch toward an object inside one of the cells.
Kenichi leaned closer.
It appeared to be a crude wooden bed.
After so many years, the wood had badly deteriorated.
Kenichi casually pressed a hand against it.
Crack!
The entire bed collapsed immediately.
"It looks like the only thing we can take home is some rusty iron."
Kenichi lifted his torch and examined the surroundings.
This really did seem to be nothing more than an abandoned secret prison.
Most likely, the Uchiha Clan had used it to imprison enemies during the Warring States Period.
Places like this generally would not contain treasure.
The cells themselves were built from solid stone.
Even if the prisoners had possessed valuables, there would have been almost nowhere for them to hide anything.
"Tch. This is so boring."
Naruto curled his lips.
If he had known their treasure hunt would end like this, he might as well have stayed home reading manga.
Kenichi scratched his head.
Come to think of it...
Ever since they started searching the cells, he had not heard Sasuke say anything.
Kenichi looked around.
In the darkness, Sasuke's torch was easy to spot.
He led Naruto toward the light.
"Sasuke, we're almost..."
Kenichi stopped halfway through his sentence.
His expression froze.
Inside one of the cells stood a strange object resembling a large iron box.
But that was not the important part.
From a damaged opening near the bottom of the box, a small bare foot was sticking out.
Something was wrong.
Very wrong.
Kenichi rubbed his temples.
This place was supposedly a secret detention facility abandoned by the Uchiha Clan for who knew how many years.
The Uchiha Clan itself had already been massacred.
Only a handful of survivors remained.
Itachi.
Obito.
Sasuke.
And even with the treasure map, the three of them had spent half the day locating this place and uncovering the hidden entrance beneath the river.
Based on Kenichi's observations, nobody should have entered this facility for a very, very long time.
So the question was...
What exactly was this iron box?
And why was there a foot sticking out of it?
Was someone actually inside?
That seemed almost impossible.
Kenichi did not know exactly how long this place had been sealed, but it had clearly been more than a few days.
Even if Hiruzen himself had been locked inside with no means of escape, he would eventually have died from dehydration or starvation.
Ordinary people could survive only a limited time without food and even less without water.
Ninja possessed unusually resilient bodies, but that did not mean they could survive indefinitely.
"Sasuke, was this already here when you found the room?"
Kenichi looked at the stunned boy beside him.
Sasuke had obviously been the first person to discover it.
"Yeah."
Sasuke nodded stiffly.
"It was already like this when I got here."
That was exactly why his thoughts had completely frozen.
Brain.exe had stopped responding.
End application?
Before Sasuke could mentally force a restart, Kenichi's arrival had already pulled him back to reality.
"This is getting interesting."
Kenichi stared at the iron box.
The small foot protruding from the damaged section shifted slightly.
The box itself was large enough that whoever was inside could not reach the floor from that position.
Kenichi looked around.
This particular cell was noticeably larger than the others.
There were even several wooden tables and chairs inside.
Judging from the arrangement, whoever had once been imprisoned here had lived under considerably better conditions than the prisoners in the other cells.
However, the heavily rusted bars proved that the cell had existed for a very long time.
Kenichi scratched his head.
He did not remember anything in the original story about Itachi or Obito maintaining some secret prison near Konoha.
Moreover, Sasuke had discovered the map inside an old Uchiha text.
That made a connection to either of those two even less likely.
So...
Should they open the box and see who was inside?
The only thing Kenichi could infer from what was visible was that the person inside might be a young girl.
The foot was small and slender, but Kenichi was not a medical specialist.
Distinguishing someone's sex from a foot alone was hardly reliable.
It could just as easily belong to a boy around Naruto and Sasuke's age.
Judging from its size, the person might simply be a child who was still growing, or perhaps someone who had suffered from poor nutrition.
Kenichi rubbed his chin.
For some reason, the entire situation gave him an odd sense of familiarity.
"Big brother, are we going to let them out?"
Naruto finally could not contain himself.
There was nothing else interesting anywhere in the prison.
The iron box was the only object completely different from everything around it.
"..."
Kenichi did not answer immediately.
He walked toward the iron bars.
Then he grabbed them and forcibly pulled.
Crack!
The bars offered virtually no resistance against Kenichi's strength.
Years of rust and corrosion had weakened them so badly that several snapped outright.
Kenichi looked at the broken iron in his hands.
Then he glanced toward the prison door.
Its keyhole had been completely clogged by rust.
That settled one question.
This place was almost certainly not an active secret base.
At the very least, it was not somewhere Itachi or Obito had been regularly using.
If either of them had imprisoned someone here, they would never have allowed the entrance to corrode until it was practically unusable.
"Stay back for now."
Kenichi raised a hand, stopping Naruto and Sasuke from following.
Then he entered the cell and circled around the iron box.
The box itself was rusted as well.
However, complicated patterns still covered its surface.
They looked like a sealing formula.
There was also an emblem belonging to the Uchiha Clan.
Other than that, there was nothing remarkable.
Well...
Except for the foot.
Kenichi crouched to examine it more carefully.
There were subtle differences between male and female skeletal structures, but Kenichi was not a medical ninja.
Trying to determine someone's sex based solely on one foot was too unreliable.
And considering the size, the person inside might simply be malnourished or still in the middle of growing.
This really was strange.
What kind of person would the Uchiha Clan have treated this way?
Someone important enough to receive a large private cell, yet dangerous enough to be sealed inside an iron box?
And whoever this was had remained sealed away until now.
The person had never been mentioned in the original story.
If Sasuke had never stumbled across this hidden prison...
Would they simply have remained here forever?
"Big brother, can we come in now?"
Naruto was growing impatient.
He desperately wanted to know what was inside the box.
Sasuke was curious as well.
However, his attention was focused even more strongly on the box itself.
He had clearly recognized the Uchiha Clan emblem engraved upon it.
"Come in."
Kenichi nodded.
The sealing formula on the iron box appeared relatively intact.
At the very least, the foot was no longer moving.
Perhaps whoever was sealed inside could not hear anything outside.
Otherwise, considering all the noise they had made, there should have been some response.
Naruto immediately rushed into the cell.
He first searched around the room, still unwilling to completely abandon his hopes of finding treasure.
Sasuke, meanwhile, approached the iron box and began studying it closely.
"Do you recognize this sealing formula?"
Kenichi asked.
Sasuke shook his head.
"I don't know much about sealing jutsu."
Kenichi had not expected much anyway.
Sasuke was still a child.
Expecting him to have already mastered every ninjutsu and sealing technique passed down by the Uchiha Clan would have been unreasonable.
Their Shadow Clones were still back at the training ground practicing ninjutsu even now.
"Big brother, what does this iron box do?"
Naruto eventually wandered over.
There was nothing else worth investigating.
The tables and chairs were so badly decayed that touching them caused pieces to crumble away.
So naturally, his curiosity shifted toward the iron box.
"It's sealing something."
Kenichi answered casually.
Then he saw his foolish younger brother reach out.
"Naruto!"
Kenichi immediately grabbed him and tried to pull him back.
But Naruto's hand had already touched the box.
Whether Naruto's luck was simply that ridiculous, or whether the iron box itself had deteriorated too badly over the years, a loud creak suddenly came from its structure.
Crack...
Kenichi immediately became alert.
But before he could prepare for whatever might happen, the entire iron box suddenly broke apart.
Pieces of rusted metal collapsed across the floor.
And at that moment, Kenichi finally saw the person who had been sealed inside.
Long black hair fell to the waist.
Pale skin.
A face that immediately struck Kenichi with familiarity.
Hikari?
Kenichi's expression changed.
He instantly removed his jacket and wrapped it around her before Naruto or Sasuke could get a clear look at her unclothed body.
But then Kenichi noticed something strange.
Naruto and Sasuke showed no reaction at all.
"You..."
A clear, ethereal voice broke the silence.
"Thank you for the clothes."
Kenichi instinctively raised his head.
He met a pair of crimson eyes.
Within them, dark tomoe appeared.
Then the pattern rapidly changed.
Mangekyo Sharingan!
....
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