Chapter 320: Genjutsu Space: Sasuke Uchiha's Punishment
The atmosphere inside the Hokage's office thickened, turning heavy enough to choke on. Silence stretched, taut as a wire. Deep within Uchiha Akira's eyes, concentric purple ripples began to unfurl, bleeding outward to consume his dark irises.
Rinnegan.
'Then, the punishment... begins,'Akira thought, his cold gaze locking onto the trembling boy before him.'Let us see if your pride survives experiencing exactly what Naruto endured.'
Genjutsu: Samsara of Life and Death.
Sasuke's body seized. A violent tremor wracked his frame. Before his eyes, the polished wood of the Hokage's desk, the towering figure of Akira, and the nervous face of Naruto all warped. The world twisted into a sickening spiral, the colors bleeding together before shattering into a billion jagged, blinding specks of light.
When reality reassembled itself, it did so with a brutal, sickening lurch.
"Ugh..."
A hollow, gnawing agony clawed at his stomach. Sasuke snapped his eyes open. Above him hung an unfamiliar, rotting wooden ceiling, thick with gray dust and heavy, drooping cobwebs. The air he breathed tasted stale, thick with the stench of mildew and neglect.
"Where... where is this?" he croaked. His voice sounded wrong—too small, too frail.
He pushed his palms against a thin, lumpy mattress, struggling to sit up. His limbs felt like lead. A deep, terrifying emptiness echoed in his skull.
Who am I?
Why am I here?
His identity, his memories, his pride—all of it had been wiped clean. The only truth that remained was the ravenous, agonizing hunger tearing at his insides. It felt as though his very stomach was digesting itself.
Driven by pure survival instinct, Sasuke stumbled out of the pathetic bed. His bare feet slapped against the cold, grimy floorboards as he tore through the cramped, crude apartment. He yanked open empty cupboards and overturned trash bins until his desperate eyes locked onto a half-empty carton of milk sitting in a shadowed corner.
A surge of desperate joy flooded him. He snatched the carton, his small hands trembling as he twisted the cap off, and tipped it back into his mouth without a second thought.
Thick, sour clumps hit his tongue. The stench of rot flooded his nasal cavity.
Sasuke gagged, his throat convulsing as he tried to spit the vile liquid out. But the agonizing cramp in his belly screamed louder than his disgust. Tears pricking his eyes, he forced his throat to swallow, choking down every last putrid, curdled drop of the spoiled milk.
Wiping his mouth with the back of a filthy sleeve, he staggered toward the front door and pushed it open.
Harsh, blinding sunlight stabbed at his retinas. He instinctively raised a hand to shield his eyes, squinting at the bustling street before him. Villagers walked back and forth, chatting and laughing in the morning light.
But the moment he stepped onto the street, the atmosphere shifted.
Laughter died. Conversations turned into harsh, hissing whispers. Sasuke shrank back as he felt the weight of a dozen stares lock onto him. The eyes of the adults were not just cold—they were dripping with absolute disgust, venom, and a deep, irrational fear.
"Look, it's that..." a woman muttered, pulling her grocery basket closer to her chest.
"Stay away from him! Don't get tainted with his bad luck!" a man spat, dragging his wife to the opposite side of the street.
"What a monster. Why does the Hokage still let that thing live in our village?"
Monster?
Sasuke looked around, his small hands clutching the hem of his oversized, worn shirt. Are they talking about me? He didn't understand. He hadn't done anything.
Down the road, a group of children roughly his age were running around, laughing as they played a mock ninja game. Sasuke watched them, a dull ache of loneliness settling in his chest. He hesitated for a long moment. Then, forcing a stiff, awkward, fawning smile onto his face, he shuffled toward them.
"Can... can I play with you all?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
The children froze. Their bright smiles vanished, replaced by the same mirrored hostility he had seen in the adults.
The oldest boy in the group scowled, bent down, and snatched a jagged stone from the dirt. He hurled it with all his might.
Smack.
The rock struck Sasuke's forehead, scraping the skin. He stumbled back, clutching his head.
"Get lost! Monster!" the boy yelled.
"Don't come near us!" another shrieked.
"My mom said if you play with him, he'll eat you!"
The children scattered, screaming as if a literal demon had just crawled out of the earth. Doors banged open. Parents rushed out from the nearby shops, snatching their children up and hiding them behind their legs. They glared at Sasuke as if he were a plague.
Sasuke stood frozen in the dusty street. Warm blood trickled down his forehead, mingling with the dirt. The pain throbbed, sharp and biting.
Why? His lip quivered. What did I do wrong?
Day bled into day. Night after night. Time within the Genjutsu stretched into an infinite, suffocating loop.
Sasuke lived through countless iterations of this hell. He scavenged for expired food behind restaurants. He drank spoiled milk just to keep his stomach from cramping. He wore the same threadbare, oversized clothes, walking down streets where every single glance was a blade of disgust.
Until one bleak afternoon.
Sasuke was leaning over the rim of a rusted trash can in a damp alleyway, desperately searching for half-eaten scraps. The sound of approaching footsteps made him freeze.
He turned to see three older boys blocking the exit.
"Hey! Monster!" the tallest one sneered, cracking his knuckles.
"Are you stealing food again today?" another mocked.
"Hit him!"
They lunged. Fists and heavy boots rained down on Sasuke. He threw his arms up, trying to block the strikes, fighting back with wild, desperate swings. But his frail, malnourished body was no match for them. Two fists could not fight off six. A heavy kick caught him in the ribs, sending him crashing into the muddy ground.
They stomped on his back, his legs, his head. Sasuke curled into a tight ball, gasping as the breath was driven from his lungs.
"Pah! What a useless piece of trash!" the leader spat.
Panting from the exertion, the bullies delivered one final kick to his stomach before turning away, laughing and grumbling as they left the alley.
Sasuke lay motionless on the cold, filthy cobblestones. Every inch of his body screamed in agony. Bruises mottled his skin, and dirt caked his bleeding lip.
Slowly, he forced his eyes open.
Just inches from his nose lay a shallow puddle of murky rainwater. In the rippling reflection, a face stared back at him.
It was an unfamiliar face.
Messy, bright golden hair. Dull, pained blue eyes. And three distinct, strange whisker marks etched into each cheek.
Whose face is this...?
A name—sharp and deafening as a thunderclap—tore through the absolute blankness of his mind.
Uzumaki... Naruto.
The dam broke. The amnesia shattered. The endless grievances, the bone-deep agony, the suffocating loneliness, and the absolute, crushing despair of being hated by the entire world—all of it rushed back into Uchiha Sasuke's consciousness. The suppressed emotions of a lifetime of isolation detonated like an erupting volcano.
"Ahhhhh! AHHHHHHHHH!"
Sasuke threw his head back and unleashed a mournful, agonizing roar. It was a scream of pure, unadulterated despair.
Under the sheer force of that raw emotion, the sky above the alley cracked like glass. The entire Genjutsu world splintered, collapsing into a million jagged shards.
...The Hokage's Office.
The purple ripples in Uchiha Akira's eyes faded as he severed the chakra connection, releasing the Genjutsu.
"Ugh... ah... ahhhhh..."
Sasuke collapsed to his knees on the hardwood floor, his body convulsing violently. His fingers dug into the wood, his knuckles turning white. His face was contorted in absolute agony. Heavy beads of cold sweat poured down his pale forehead, dripping off his chin. Uncontrollable, scalding tears streamed from the corners of his eyes, soaking into the collar of his shirt.
"Teacher! Sasuke... what's wrong with him?!" Naruto cried out, his eyes wide with genuine panic. He took a step forward, reaching out for his rival.
"Don't go over there."
Akira's voice cut through the room—calm, cold, and absolute. Naruto froze in his tracks, his hand still outstretched.
"Hoo... ha... hoo..." Sasuke gasped, his chest heaving like a fish thrown onto dry land. He dragged oxygen into his burning lungs, his eyes darting wildly around the familiar office.
Was everything just now an illusion?
The gnawing hunger, the freezing nights, the stones hitting his flesh, the absolute despair of being abandoned and despised by the entire world... it had all felt so terrifyingly real. So real that his mind was still struggling to separate the illusion from reality.
Trembling, Sasuke slowly lifted his head and looked at Naruto.
The countless, agonizingly lonely days and nights he had just lived through overlapped with the worried, earnest face of the blonde boy standing before him.
So... this was your childhood?
Everything Uchiha Sasuke had ever complained about, his pride, his perceived slights—it all suddenly seemed so utterly ridiculous. It was pale and pathetic compared to the literal hell Naruto had walked through every single day of his life.
He was still just a child. And after enduring the crushing psychological weight of that Genjutsu space, the last of Sasuke's emotional barriers shattered completely.
He broke down.
Loud, ugly sobs tore from his throat. Tears and snot streamed down his face, ruining his clothes. He didn't care about looking cool. He didn't care about his pride. The aloof, untouchable Uchiha genius was gone, replaced by a broken boy weeping on the floor.
Naruto stood completely stunned.
He had never seen Sasuke like this. In his mind, Sasuke was always the arrogant, untouchable prodigy who looked down on everyone. But seeing him shattered, crying so openly...
"Sa... Sasuke..." Naruto murmured, his voice thick with confusion and concern.
Minutes passed. The heavy sobs gradually subsided into exhausted, intermittent sniffles. Sasuke wiped his face with a trembling, tear-soaked sleeve. He forced himself to look Naruto in the eye.
"Naruto..." Sasuke's voice cracked. "I'm sorry..."
This was no longer a forced apology dragged out of him by an authority figure. It was a raw, heartfelt repentance from the very depths of his soul.
Naruto stared at him, a chaotic storm of emotions swirling in his chest. For the first time in his life, the loudmouthed ninja didn't know what to say.
The heavy silence was finally broken by Akira's measured, authoritative voice.
"Uchiha Sasuke."
"Yes... Hokage-sama," Sasuke choked out, his shoulders flinching.
Akira looked down at the boy, his expression unreadable. "From this moment on, you are confined to your home for two weeks of mandatory self-reflection."
Sasuke blinked, his tear-filled eyes widening.
"During this period," Akira continued, his tone leaving no room for negotiation, "you are not to step foot outside the Uchiha Clan compound. You will reflect on your actions daily., you will write a ten-thousand-word reflection essay, which will be personally reviewed by your father, Uchiha Fugaku."
Sasuke knelt there, absolutely stunned.
A ten-thousand-word essay? House arrest? Compared to the horrifying, mind-breaking torture he had expected—compared to the hell he had just witnessed inside the Genjutsu—this was practically mercy. It was a world apart from the worst-case scenario his terrified mind had conjured.
A massive wave of relief, like a man pulled from the edge of a cliff, washed over him.
"I understand, Hokage-sama!" Sasuke responded immediately, bowing his head low to the floor.
Beside him, Naruto let out a long, exaggerated exhale, his shoulders dropping as a massive sigh of relief escaped his lips.
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