Naruto : Blazing Legend

Chapter 36 : Mental Prison

The sound of splintering wood echoed through the Hokage's office as Sarutobi Hiruzen's fist connected with his desk.

"Who did this?" The words came out as a growl, primal fury bleeding through his carefully maintained facade of paternal authority.

Senzo had seen his Hokage angry before, but this was different. This wasn't the calculated displeasure of a politician denied—this was the raw wrath of a gardener discovering vandals had torn up his prize orchid. Hiruzen had invested too much time, too much careful cultivation into shaping Rei's psyche to accept this setback with equanimity.

The boy was his masterpiece in progress, a living testament to the power of the Will of Fire to transform even the most resistant Uchiha into a loyal tool. Now someone had tried to destroy that work—or worse, steal it for themselves.

"What's his condition?" Hiruzen forced his voice back to professional neutrality, but his knuckles remained white where they gripped the desk's edge.

"Critical, Hokage-sama. Even the three-tomoe jōnin from his clan couldn't break the genjutsu. They've requested assistance from the Yamanaka clan, but..." Senzo's voice trailed off, the implication hanging in the air like smoke from a funeral pyre.

But they might already be too late.

Hiruzen's mind raced through possibilities. The Uchiha clan had shown no hostility toward Rei's ANBU service—if anything, they seemed proud to have one of their own in the Hokage's inner circle. Foreign agents were unlikely; assassinating a single ANBU operative would require resources far exceeding any potential gain.

That left one prime suspect: Danzō.

The old war hawk had made his disapproval of Hiruzen's "soft" approach to the Uchiha abundantly clear. Where Hiruzen sought to bind them with loyalty and shared purpose, Danzō preferred chains of fear and surveillance. The thought of his former teammate sabotaging months of careful psychological conditioning made Hiruzen's teeth grind audibly.

Without evidence, accusations are just paranoia, he reminded himself, though the bitter taste of suspicion lingered like poison on his tongue.

"Find Tsunade," he commanded, his voice carrying the weight of absolute authority. "Tell her I need her medical expertise. Immediately."

What Hiruzen didn't know—what he couldn't know—was that the true culprit lay unconscious in a hospital bed, his own ambition having crafted the perfect trap for his psyche.

---

Yamanaka Inoichi arrived at the hospital with the urgency of a man racing against time itself. His pale hair whipped behind him as he navigated corridors that reeked of antiseptic and barely contained death. The reputation of the young Uchiha had preceded him—even seasoned jōnin spoke of Rei's potential in hushed, almost reverent tones.

The ward felt like a mausoleum when he entered. Rei lay perfectly still on the narrow bed, but his face bore an expression that made Inoichi's skin crawl—a twisted smile of contentment that belonged on a corpse, not a living child.

"Status report," he demanded, though his eyes never left the boy's eerily peaceful features.

The attending physician, a thin man whose hands shook from too much caffeine and too little sleep, consulted his charts with professional detachment. "The genjutsu is self-sustaining through the patient's own chakra reserves. Initially, the drain was minimal—perhaps sustainable for days. But approximately thirty minutes ago, his Sharingan activated and has remained active since. At current consumption rates..."

"How long?" Inoichi's voice cut through the medical jargon like a blade.

"Ninety minutes. Maybe less."

The number hit Inoichi like a physical blow. Ninety minutes to navigate an unknown mental landscape, locate Rei's consciousness, and somehow convince him to abandon whatever paradise his mind had constructed. It should have been impossible.

Should have been.

"Begin the procedure," he said, settling into the chair beside the bed. "And pray to whatever gods still listen that I'm fast enough."

---

Rei's mindscape was a void that stretched beyond comprehension—not darkness, but an absence so complete it seemed to devour light itself. Inoichi's consciousness drifted through the emptiness like a ghost seeking solid ground, calling out names that echoed back as hollow mockeries.

Then he saw it: a sphere of swirling colors that pulsed with hypnotic beauty, roughly five meters in diameter and rolling slowly across the mental landscape. Inside, barely visible through the translucent shell, a figure moved with purpose—Rei's consciousness, trapped in a prison of his own making.

Inoichi reached out, his spiritual hand passing through the barrier as if it were made of water. But his voice, his presence, his desperate attempts at contact met only silence. The boy within couldn't hear him—wouldn't hear him—because the illusion had convinced him that this place was reality.

No choice then.

Stepping through the barrier felt like drowning in reverse—air became liquid, liquid became light, and light became sensation that had no name. The transition left him reeling, consciousness scattered like puzzle pieces thrown to the wind.

When awareness returned, he stood on a street that belonged in no world he'd ever known.

Massive metal beasts roared past on ribbons of stone, their eyes blazing white fire and their bellies full of passengers. Towers of glass and steel stretched toward heaven like the fingers of buried giants, each one adorned with moving pictures that spoke in languages he couldn't understand. The very air hummed with energies that made his sensor abilities scream warnings of impossible power.

People flowed around him like water around a stone—dozens, then hundreds, each one wrapped in fabrics and fashions that hurt to look at directly. When he tried to speak, to ask for help finding "Uchiha Rei," they stared at him with expressions ranging from confusion to outright hostility. His words emerged as gibberish in this place, and their responses were equally meaningless noise.

How is this possible? The detail was beyond anything he'd encountered in decades of mental exploration. Every face was unique, every sound distinct, every sensation perfectly calibrated to convince the observer of its reality. This wasn't just genjutsu—this was artistry of the highest order.

And somewhere in this alien metropolis, Rei lived a life that felt more real than reality itself.

---

Zhang Lie—for that was his name in this place, had always been his name—whistled as he walked toward the company offices. Two months of honest work had rebuilt his confidence, restored his sense of purpose. The accident felt like a distant nightmare now, the strange dreams of ninjas and supernatural powers fading like morning mist.

Today was payday. Nine thousand yuan that would help his parents, maybe even allow him to take Li Ling out for a proper dinner. The thought of her laugh, her mock outrage at his flirtations, warmed him more than the summer sun.

The envelope in his hands felt too thin.

Zhang Lie's fingers trembled as he tore it open, revealing a pay stub that made his vision blur with rage. Five thousand yuan. Four thousand deducted for "workplace harassment" with a note explaining that his interactions with Li Ling had been deemed inappropriate by management.

Inappropriate. The word tasted like bile in his mouth.

"What the hell is this?" His voice cracked like breaking glass as he confronted Manager Liu, a soft man whose smile never reached his calculating eyes.

"Now, now, Brother Zhang. You know how these things work." Liu's tone held the patronizing patience of someone explaining basic concepts to a child. "The girl caught the vice president's attention recently. He's been... persistent in his interests. When he saw how friendly you two were getting..."

The words became static in Zhang Lie's ears. Images flashed through his mind—Li Ling's genuine laughter, her casual touches on his shoulder, the way she looked at him without fear or calculation. All of it reduced to a transaction, a power play between men who saw her as property to be traded.

Something snapped inside him like an overstressed cable.

He took the stairs to the fifth floor three at a time, each step fueled by righteous fury that burned brighter than the sun. The vice president—a bloated toad of a man whose wedding ring hadn't stopped him from propositioning half the female staff—looked up from his desk with mild annoyance.

"What do you want? I'm bus—"

Zhang Lie's fist connected with the man's nose before he could finish the sentence.

---

In the hospital, alarms began screaming.

"His vitals are spiking!" The attending physician's voice cut through the mechanical wailing like a scalpel. "Chakra consumption has increased tenfold!"

Tubes and monitors painted a picture of internal catastrophe. Rei's body convulsed against the restraints, his Sharingan spinning wildly beneath closed lids as if tracking targets only he could see. Whatever was happening in his mental prison was killing him from the inside out.

"Ten minutes," the physician whispered, his professional composure finally cracking. "Maybe less at this rate."

That was when Tsunade arrived like a force of nature given human form.

"Get out of my way," she commanded, and the medical staff obeyed with the alacrity of people who'd heard legends made flesh. Her hands glowed with healing chakra as she assessed the situation with eyes that had seen more death than most people could imagine.

A slug materialized on Rei's chest, its soft bulk pulsing in rhythm with Tsunade's own heartbeat. Chakra flowed between them like liquid light, buying precious time against the drain that threatened to hollow out the boy's life force.

But when she lifted his eyelids to check pupil response, what she saw made her breath catch.

Three tomoe spun in each eye like pinwheels made of blood and shadow—the Sharingan in its mature form, achieved through trauma so profound it had rewritten the very structure of his ocular nerves.

"Magnificent," she breathed, professional admiration warring with human horror. The old man's investment in this child suddenly made perfect sense. Talent of this caliber appeared perhaps once in a generation, if they were lucky.

But talent means nothing if he dies achieving it.

"Hold on, kid," she whispered, pouring more chakra through the slug's connection. "Whatever paradise you've built for yourself, it's not worth your life."

In the mental prison he'd crafted with such meticulous care, Zhang Lie threw another punch at corporate corruption made flesh, unaware that each blow was hammering nails into his own coffin.

And somewhere in the void between realities, Yamanaka Inoichi ran through alien streets, searching for a ghost in a city of dreams.

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