Mindscape

Ashim Sarutobi P.O.V

It has been a month since I created my eight stable gates technique and for the first two weeks, I have spent perfecting it. I am now able to open my first gate for an hour, if I am using the technique and without it, five minutes. Unfortunately, I am not able to open the second gate yet. Not to mention that this new technique is not nearly as powerful as the old one and I won't even be able to stay alive in the war.

Currently, I am inside a park in the village. This particular park is not my usual one and a long way away from the Sarutobi compound. I like to train in peace, when nobody is around and my usual park was quite crowded today. It had happened many times before and that's when I choose a different park. I am just getting ready to start my daily training. Life is going to be very busy soon when the ninja academy starts and I should push forward as much as I can right now.

Recently, I found out that the special cells whose vitality were burned during the process are regenerated, like other cells in the human body. Hence, the eight stable gates technique doesn't consume any vitality and even makes it stronger as more it is used, the more special cells are regenerated and the regenerated cells are more refined, with better vitality.

It was quite strange when I first found this phenomenon as in eight inner gates technique, the older version, the vitality is consumed and doesn't increase. So, after a little experimenting and reading more books on the technique itself, I came to a conclusion.

In case of the older version of the technique, when the gate is opened, it doesn't only forces the special cells to produce more vitality, but because the chakra doesn't have anywhere else to go, it pressurizes the special cells and constantly burn the cell metabolism in a way that is unable to recover because they are being constantly damaged from their very root through the monstrous pressure that is put on them.

The reason for the success of my technique aside, I had started practicing with rasengan again, a week ago. I am now able to burst the air ball with both kind of rasengans and while the core rasengan showed little improvement after stabilizing, I am now able to form two pair layers in my layer rasengan. Their destructive force aside, it is very difficult to achieve the third step with either of the two.

I have no doubt that I will be able to achieve the third step if I keep working hard, but I like things faster, not to mention that I don't have much time left. I know there must be a way that I can succeed. So today, I am going to try out one of the most craziest of ideas, which is, combining the two techniques.

I don't know if this would work and in theory, it should be even more difficult than the third step of the rasengan, as you have to constantly make sure that they don't detonate accidentally.

I used to write compute codes in my past life and I know that sometimes, when nothing else works, trying out something crazy would give you a new idea and might even solve the problem altogether.

Time Skip - Two Hours.

Currently, I am standing in the shadow of a giant tree. It has been about five minutes since I have opened my first gate. I try to keep my first gate opened as much as I can as it increases my vitality.

After clearing my mind, I take in a deep breadth and hold my right hand forward.

I concentrate in the middle of my palm and release chakra. The air around starts to twist inward on top of my palm.

At the same time I hold my left hand on top of the right one and release chakra.

As a small ball was forming in between my palms, an outer layer starts to form on top of it. Then, they start to compliment each other as the rotate faster.

I stopped supplying chakra as soon as an initial shape was created. It is just an experiment and I don't want to blow myself up.

After a few seconds, it seems as if an equilibrium has been created between the two. The resulting rasengan is a golf ball size.

Now it's time to check it's destructive force.

I push a big amount of chakra into my right wrist, ready to cushion from the resulting explosion by transferring the force outwards. I don't have to detonate it to check it's power as even if I hit something with it, the rotating force will do a lot of damage, but that wouldn't be the full extent of it's potential.

Suddenly, I remove my left hand from the rasengan, ready to hit the tree in front of me.

Unfortunately, as soon as I remove my hand, it destabilized and becomes an oval shaped.

Without wasting any time, I push the chakra that was on my wrist toward my palm with everything I had.

SFX - *BOOOMM*

A very fierce force hits me from the front and my vision start to darken.

As I was send flying backwards, the only thought I had in my mind was to stay awake. To stay alive.

So, I managed to stay awake as my consciousness started to roll back inwards.

First, my field of vision starts to narrow as darkness devourers the world around me, but somehow, my consciousness doesn't fade as I am able to think clearly.

Then, darkness swallows everything and I find my self in a vast space. I noticed that I have no body. I am only a consciousness.

In this space, the only source of light is a piece of land beneath me. That land is glowing in golden color. I can see it's edges. It has circular shape and the light is more concentrated in the center. It is like looking at a light bulb from the top, just much bigger. It is surrounded by a strange white mist, which is rotating around it's edges and spans much further than my field of vision.

Then, I look around and find something bluish rotating on my right. It's color gets lighter as we look further from the center and completely invisible at the edges. I can feel a pulling force from this ball, as if it is trying to suck me inside. This rotating thing is swallowing the white mist rapidly and releasing a blue mist, which is travelling further right to who knows where.

On my left, I see more stationary blue mist floating around. Somehow, I feel very strange when I look at the blue mist. It's almost like, it is calling me. I can feel an affinity with it, like I can control it.

The blue mist generated by the ball is very far away and it will take a very long time to travel there. I also feel a sense of fear when I look at it and I want to get as further away from it as possible. So, I move towards the blue mist on the left, which is not moving. As I move closer, I feel a little pressure on myself, but it is not much, so I keep moving. After a few minutes, I arrived and gradually go inside the mist.

As I was moving, I noticed that this blue mist is my own chakra and I can control it.

After realizing that, a sudden thought hit me. Am I inside my first gate.!?

I look at the rotating blue sphere. It could be the core rasengan I made. The golden land beneath me, could be my vitality cells and the white mist around it could be the physical chakra being generated.

There is only one way to find out.

I will the blue ball to stop rotating.

After a few minutes of trying, it gradually shows down.

At the same time, the white mist surrounding the golden land gradually sink inside the darkness as the golden land starts to dim.

As the world around me was sinking in the darkness, I feel a sucking force from somewhere and my vision blurred.

After a moment, I find my self in a strange white space which stretch further than my field of vision. This space has absolutely nothing accept for the ground. There are no clouds in the clear blue sky and not even air to breathe. Good thing that I don't have a body and don't need oxygen.

As I was looking around, I noticed a flicker of blue not far away from my current location. I move towards it as there is nothing else here anyway.

As I arrived, I noticed that it was a mass of blue mist, not unlike chakra. I subconsciously stretched out my hand for it. I have no physical body here in this state, but some of that blue mist moved on it's own and touched my consciousness.

At this moment, it is as if I am able to see everything about it.

It is my chakra. I am able to see a pattern in the arrangement of it's very particles and even perceive the frequency as they move.

All this time I thought that chakra is a strange form of energy and laws of physics don't apply to it. But, now I find that it has dual nature, just like any other matter.

This world is not a supernatural world just because it has chakra and therefore laws of physics don't have the same affect here as in the world I came from, but rather it has the chakra because the physical constants here are different.

I feel like I can separate physical chakra from the spiritual chakra from this mass of chakra with just a thought. I also noticed that there is not just my chakra here. There is air here too, mixed with my chakra.

This mass of chakra along with some air, must have gotten inside my first gate when I was hit with my own rasengan as there is no other way this mass of air would be inside my body, where I currently am. The air must have passed my body because it was mixed with my chakra and from everything I know of the naruto world, I believe, I am inside my mindscape.

In naruto anime, when naruto and sasuke entered their mindscape, they had their bodies, but I don't. I wonder why.

Also, I wonder if I can see inside this mass of air the same way I saw inside my chakra. If I can do this, then I might be able to uncover one of this world's mysteries and find out the relationship between chakra and the other elements.