Watch Them Dance (Naruto fan fiction)

Decimated

Ayako's POV

The air around me was suddenly cold, my toes chilling as the moister from the grass seeped through the fabric of my shoes. Even though I was only a short distance from the village the sun had already faded, falling behind the clouded sky up above. Just as surprisingly the land was now almost void of animals, no birds crying in the distance, no scurrying of leaves as the small animals of the land went about their day.

Shikamaru stood just to the left of me, a little behind my body, appearing to let me take in the view before my eyes. We were in what many might've taken for a meadow, a small clearing behind the Leaf Village, secluded from the world.

"What are we doing here?" I peered over my shoulder, turning slightly to face him, Shimo nudging my lower legs.

"Showing you something new." He gestured for us to keep moving, Shimo and me following his lead. The ground continued to crunch under our feet as we travelled across the plane, walking at a steady pace. In the distance I saw a light grey formation beginning to form, a wall of rock appearing in our view. The three of us continued to walk towards it, only stopping when we were about two meters away from it.

"I know it seems quiet here, but just wait. Here, this is where we climb up." Without warning he jumped up and touched his feet to the side of the wall, standing at a sharp angel to me. He reached his hand down, offering me help up. I took it gratefully and leapt till I was standing next to him, chakra focused to my feet. Once I was standing next to him, Shimo resting on my shoulders again, he let go of me, as if suddenly realising.

We continued up the stone slope in silence, the ground facing my back. Our feet reached the top of the stone embankment and curved with it, our bodies slowing returning back to their ordinary states. I sucked in a breathe looking out at the area I had been standing in moments ago.

"There's a story in this land, a simple one." He told me, staring out at the cold world before us. "Before the Leaf Village was built there was a smaller one here as well, the land dotted with them. What happened here isn't really known, but from what was gathered it was brutal, like so much of what happened during the wars.

"I'm showing you this place because the village was said to have people who were known for summoning, I thought there might be some similarities." He paused then, turning to face me as if he was about the break some bad news. "The village was killed in one single night, a fire decimated their remains in the end, causing the ruins you see around you now."

"So you think, both this village and my own, were killed because they could summon something? Probably the dragon." He nodded, his eyes still on me. I turned back towards the village, my face scrunching up as I thought over the idea. "And then, of course, the person they were trying to kill, me, survived. As the stories always go."

"Well I guess." He laughed at the idea, finding humour in the clique I was talking about. "I think they may have summoned the dragon in the end, actually, I mean the village was destroyed in fire, though there could be many reasons for the fire, I suppose."

"But, they'd have to be crazy old by now, if they were alive then, those three." I reasoned, desperately trying to find something to disprove the frightening theory we were coming up with. "They certainly don't look it."

"That's true." We stood in silence for a while, staring at the barren, ruined, village before us, a small collection of stone held together in odd designs, scarily like my own clan's. With our arrival a few animals had creeped a little closer, believing the area to not be so bad if others were there, though still not getting awfully close to the structures lining the clearing.

I peered down the other end of the rock formation my feet were on, crossing it in four small steps, and looking down at the rest of the area. The quiet land continued, a few small houses on either side. "We're in the middle of the village." I breathed out, surprised.