Naruto: Blind

"The parietal lobe—which processes sensory information—and the occipital lobe—which processes visual information—are both located towards the upper back of the head," Sakura continued, "Attack those directly, and your opponent should be unsuspectingly thrown into a genjutsu without being able to do much about it. It's a stronger attack, and because of that, few people are able to break from it. Conversely, because the back of the head is difficult to gain access to, it is a generally unused practice."

This made sense; genjutsu users were generally long-range type attackers, and tended not to go too close to their opponents. People who would manage to get a clear shot of the back of the head were usually ninjutsu or taijutsu users. But the effects of close range genjutsu were something he hadn't even heard about. But despite its rarity, Sasuke realized the importance, and the dangers of it. Few people could escape such a powerful genjutsu—few…but that meant that some people had managed it. If he could break free of it…if he could manage to escape an attack that was directly to his brain, then…

"If you can get out of a genjutsu attack that was aimed at your head…" he started, voicing his thoughts—something he seldom did, "Then you can escape any genjutsu attack, correct?"

"In theory, yes. But there are some kekkei genkai genjutsu that are impossible to get out of because of the genetic specializations," she replied lightly, "Other than those, everything else should be easy to get out of. Anyways, with your permission, I'd like to try it on you. Just to see the effects."

He paused for a moment—a powerful genjutsu attack. The most powerful one he had succumbed to in the past, he had been unable to break out of. The Mangekyou Sharingan—the most dangerous aspect of his clan's special doujutsu, one of the mentioned bloodline genjutsu that was impossible to break out of. But it was Sakura who was going to put this genjutsu on him, not Itachi.

"I trust you."

After a month and a half of darkness, the sight of a wide-open field surprised him. The grasses were a lush green, the sky an uncanny hue of blue; all around him, cheer and happiness seemed to jump out at him in the forms of colour.

"Sasuke?"

Sakura's voice was no longer coming from everywhere, but was projected from a spot behind him. Turning he saw the petal-pink locks, those bright viridian eyes, but she appeared to him in the form of a child. Her hair was not restrained by the leaf headband that he was used to, but rather that red ribbon that she wore when they were children; and as she realized that he was looking at her, that radiant smile crossed her face.

She walked over to him and it was as she approached that he realized that his mind had been misled so that he too was in a child's body. He reached out his hand to her and she met it with hers, their palms touching, and fingers outstretched. She felt real, looked real, sounded real.

"I guess it worked," she said happily, smiling at him, "You can see me, right?"

"Aa," he replied, looking at their small hands before them.

"You don't realize how strange that sounds coming from you as you look now," she said, her smile fading slightly, replaced with a disapproving frown.

He shrugged lightly, dropping his hand away from hers, and looking out over the field. The location seemed familiar, like a place from a dream, or a forgotten memory.

"Where are we?" he asked her after a moment.

"I don't know," she said, coming up beside him, following his gaze over the horizon, "I made it up off the top of my head."

"You couldn't have," he told her, a frowning deeply, "It wouldn't seem familiar if you did."

"You have a weakness in your genjutsu defense then," she replied, sitting down on the grass, toying with the red ribbon in her hair, "A powerful enough genjutsu can influence other parts of the brain that are associated with memory. False memories can be deadly,"

Something jolted within him at this new information that she had given him. His mind registered two things at once. One was that if he had parts of his memory missing, as he did now, and if he was susceptible to false memories, he would be very vulnerable to attacks. What if Orochimaru knew about implanting false memories? He could use it against him if he ever wanted to hunt down the young Uchiha. False information, false locations, false names—all could result in dangerous situations because he had no other memories to conflict with, or correct the implanted ones.

The second thought was the realization that Sakura possessed the ability to cast a powerful genjutsu on him, one powerful enough so that he believed that this world was from his memories.

"Well, I guess that answers any questions I had on the influence genjutsu would have on you," Sakura stated mellowly, "I'll dispel it now."

"Wait."

He found himself speaking without even thinking of it, baffling both Sakura and himself at the same time. He looked over the green field—a place that seemed so real, yet it was an illusion; the very sensation of sight wasn't real. It was entirely deceptive—he was blind, he shouldn't forget that, but…

"Sasuke," Sakura said after a moment, her voice gentle, "It's not real. As much as you might want believe that you can see this, you can't forget how things really are. Don't lose yourself to an illusion."

He grunted in response, but did not turn his illusionary vision from the scene, imprinting the scene on his memory until the very last moment when he woke on the ground, with Sakura kneeling over him, the rock digging into his back, and the world—black.

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