Chapter 8

I waited until a few others had approached the three program leaders before I nervously rose to my feet and approached. This odd-looking Orochimaru man seemed the safest bet since he was the only one I had yet to meet. Matsuri did the same as me, but not in a weird way that made it seem like she was following me. As he requested to be called, the doctor stood against the wall beside one of the doors to the training rooms, and his serpentine grin widened when our eyes locked.

He spoke as I approached, "You must be Hinata. It's a pleasure to meet you."

A few other participants heard him and gave us inquisitive looks, making me anxious. Madara threatened that if anyone found out about my relationship with him or Masumi, he'd murder my younger sister, Hanabi. The doctor's amused smile told me he knew of this and was trying to gauge my reaction.

I clasped my hands together to stop myself from fidgeting with my fingers, a bad habit I've had since childhood, "What group am I in?"

He beamed down at me as though it'd been a test, and I passed, pausing only momentarily to look at the papers on his clipboard, "Group B. At eight o'clock, your group will line up near the mental strength training side of the room."

Something about his aura and character made me want to shiver like I was in a snowstorm in a bathing suit, but I held it together and returned to my seat to wait for eight o'clock.

So I'm in Group B.

My vision zoned out on the table, and the chatter from the other participants dulled slightly as I internally fought to control my nerves. We'll line up on the mental strength training side of the room, so it's safe to assume our first lessons will be on that subject. Madara will be leading that training, and that fact did nothing to calm me down.

"Hello? Can you hear me?"

Someone's warm hand touched my arm, and I nearly jumped out of my skin as my trance was broken. My bed neighbor, Naruto, was looking at me with a curious expression now that he was finally awake. Most others around us also looked at me, and I sat up straighter. Have they been trying to get my attention the whole time?

I put a hand to my chest in surprise, and the blonde young man let out a small laugh, "I thought we lost you for a minute there! Your name's Hinata, right? What group are you in?"

My face warmed slightly, and I tried to keep from making eye contact with the friendly man, "Group B."

A few others around us perked up, and Ino spoke with a pretty smile, "Hey, us too! Let's all be friends, alright?"

When eight o'clock arrived, we were successfully lined up on the right side of the room. Madara raised his hands to silence the room, distracting me from my thoughts, "As I said, the people you've been sorted with will be your peers for the length of The Program, so do what you can to get along. With no further ado, let's begin your first day of training. Good luck!"

We were then led by Madara himself through the steel door and down a hallway lined with even more doors before opening up to a large, completely empty room with the same gray walls and white linoleum floors as upstairs in the house.

"Follow me so I can pair you up. Quietly, now."

We did as told, and I could tell I wasn't the only one who suddenly had a terrible feeling in their gut. The doors we were walking past each had a small rectangular window, just big enough to look inside. Each one had two chairs with odd wires hooked up to them, but I couldn't get a better look at any of them because of the pace we were moving at.

For lack of a better word, we gathered in a crowd before our teacher and waited for him to pair us up for whatever training exercise he had planned for us.

"I have chosen pairs very carefully based on the information you provided with your applications. Most of you will be in pairs of one male and one female, but a few will be both males due to our gender imbalance."

There were a few murmurs, and I, too, would've started freaking out if I had anyone around that I felt comfortable enough to talk to.

He raised a hand to silence the group, suddenly sounding like an annoyed parent despite the seriousness of his words, "I don't want to hear a single complaint from any of you about who your partner is or what we'll be doing. You each signed multiple forms and did not take advantage of my offer to release you from your contracts yesterday afternoon. If you have an issue with how I do things, you're welcome to come to me about it, " his dark eyes narrowed dangerously, "but I can guarantee you won't like what I have to say."

As if his threatening aura had never appeared, Madara began reading the names of pairs with a professional smile, "Matsuri Ohara and Gaara Subaku. Karin Haruno and Suigetsu Hozuki. Ino Yamanaka and Sai Uchiha-" The blond girl in question barely muffled her squeal of excitement. Still, her pink-haired best friend was petrified as she stared at Madara, "Sakura Haruno and Sasuke Uchiha. Hinata Hyuga and Naruto Uzumaki-"

He continued with the rest of the pairs, but I stopped listening as my heart sank nervously into my stomach. The confident and friendly blonde wasn't the worst person I could be paired with, per se, but they couldn't have chosen someone with a more opposite personality than me.

Each pair was sent to an individual room with a promise of instruction to follow. Naruto and I sat in silence on the odd-looking chairs. He seemed to feel just as awkward as me but wasn't as good at masking it. He strikes me as the type of person uncomfortable with silence if he's not alone.

The door to our room clicked, and we glanced at each other. Naruto rose to check our silent suspicions, and sure enough, the door was locked tight. A small screen was on the wall to the right of the door, and it suddenly powered on.

A recording of instructions began to play, "Welcome to your first day of Mental Acuity Training, or M.A.T! Today, you'll be working with each other so we can get a better idea of what each person needs when it comes to their training."

The bad feeling in my gut worsened as the video cut to a diagram of the odd-looking chairs.

"You'll find two helmets in the cabinet below this screen, one for each of you. Please follow these instructions to install them to your M.A.T. seats."

I retrieved the helmets from the cabinet that'd been referenced, wordlessly handing one to Naruto, who was quickly losing the excited sparkle in his eyes. We installed them to the seats by hooking multiple wires into drives. The helmets were white and looked very similar to motorcycle helmets. It was solid until about the eye line, where a darkly tinted visor ran until just above the mouth.

"Please put the helmet on and sit firmly in your seat."

Naruto suddenly laughed awkwardly as we both followed directions, "This is kinda weird, right?"

I opened my mouth to respond, only for the female voice of the instruction video to cut me off by sounding directly in my ears, most likely from speakers in the helmet, "You each will feel a slight pinch on the back of your neck. Do not be alarmed. Your training is about to begin."

"Ach!" A gasp of pain slipped past my lips as a sharp pain erupted in my neck. That was absolutely not just a slight pinch! It felt like I was being stabbed!

My vision was suddenly black; I was no longer conscious of my body, like I was in a living dream or something. I could feel the leather seat underneath me, but that was the extent of my physical awareness.

The instructor's voice continued, this time sounding in my head as though it were my own thoughts.

"You've successfully entered what we at The Program call "cerebral reverie". You and your partner will be able to see and hear what the other is experiencing. Everything that happens here is being recorded for further examination."

My mind reeled, and I tried to get even the most minor parts of my body to move, but I couldn't even tighten my fingers on the arm of the chair. My eyes searched the dark frantically, only for Naruto's voice suddenly appearing in the back of my mind. It was like he was talking to himself, and I was eavesdropping.

"What kind of sci-fi horror movie shit…!"

There was a pause, and the blackness around me suddenly flashed a quick image of me.

" Hinata? I think…I think I can hear you!"

I was starting to understand what was happening. Naruto pictured my face when he most likely heard me thinking about hearing him, and that's why the image flashed before me.

"Yeah! Yeah, I think that's what's happening!"

The instructor's voice cut off our odd conversation, "Starting in just a moment, you will take turns being shown a scene that will feel real, and we want you to react as though it is. You will be shown the same scenario, so try to understand your partner's reaction. This exercise aims to quickly help you understand the type of person you'll be working with for the coming weeks."

It was silent for a moment before I could feel a sudden panic that wasn't my own, so it must've been coming from Naruto. Flashes of images started playing before my eyes, clouded and muddy at first, before slowly clearing up until it was as though I was watching a movie in first person point of view.

Two people I didn't recognize were standing before him. The male one looked like an older version of him, and the female one had bright red hair and pale skin. I suddenly knew they were his parents, most likely because of the mind link. He was very distressed as they stood before him with still, smiling faces, and when he looked down, he had a knife in his hands. He has to kill someone: one of his parents or himself.

He started crying and looked down at the knife in his hands, "It's not fair! I never got to…I never…I can't do this! I won't!"

His panic rose in his chest, and he swiftly turned the knife to himself and wrenched it into his own stomach. What surprised me was the slightest hint of pain that both he and I felt at the spot where he'd stabbed.

In an instant, our vision was black once more. I could tell Naruto was still in a panic; I could feel his heart beating quickly in his chest as though it were my own. He isn't okay right now; I know that because I can feel what he's feeling.

Fear flooded me as words started scrolling through my vision like they were being typed onto a document on a computer.

"Who are the two people you care about the most?"

My father and sister suddenly stood before me, and tears immediately rose in my eyes. I didn't need to look down to realize a knife was in my hands. Their faces didn't have photo-still expressions like Naruto's parents had, and I wondered why, but I couldn't focus on that when my sister was crying as though she was scared that I would choose to stab her.

Okay, yes, we've grown apart in the last five years, but I would never even dream of killing her. She's my sister. The memory of Madara's terrifying face as he threatened her life crossed my mind, and I scrambled to think of something else, anything else.

"Was that…"

I tried to look away from my sister's distraught face as I cut Naruto off, "Please don't! Please forget you saw that!"

The curiosity he was feeling danced through my brain, but he agreed to stay silent. My attention was drawn back to the scene before me when Dad opened his mouth to speak, "Kill me, Sweetie. Let me take the pain away."

It felt like my heart was being cut from my chest, and I looked down to see the knife was stabbing me, but I was no longer holding it. When I looked up and saw myself, my reflection, horror, and confusion swirled down from the hole in my chest and through my limbs.

The metallic taste of blood was rising up my throat and into my mouth. I looked down at the knife and tried to force it out of my body, but two hands held it firmly onto its hilt.

When I looked back up, Madara held the knife with a wide grin. Terror filled me, and I tried to curl into a defensive ball but couldn't move.

In an instant, like a snap of the fingers, the pain and the scene before me disappeared, and the instructor's voice sounded again in my head, "You've successfully completed the first exercise of your M.A.T program. Congratulations! In a moment, you will feel another pinch. Please count to twenty before attempting to move your body."

Instantly, that sharp pain repeated, and I no longer stood in the darkness. My chest was heaving as I tried to catch my breath, and I could tell immediately that I was crying heavily.

I couldn't focus enough to count like I'd been told and immediately pulled the helmet off my head and shot out of my seat, only for my limbs to not respond correctly. I fell to my hands and knees on the linoleum, coughing as I finally felt air enter my lungs. A ghost of the pain in my chest echoed, and I sat back on my knees to place a hand there and feel for any injuries, finding none.

A sniffling sound came from behind me, and I gasped, suddenly remembering that I wasn't in the room alone. I turned my head to see that Naruto had taken his helmet off and sat it beside his chair. He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and hands covering his face as he obviously tried to deal with the same thing I was experiencing.

I turned away from him again, feeling much different about him than when we first stepped into this room. I could feel everything. Every emotion, every thought, every sensation.

He's not quite as positive a person as he pretends to be; that much is a fact. I could sense how desperately he kept trying to remain positive and think of the good things, but he failed repeatedly. However, the fact that he never gave up his efforts the entire time, all the way to the end, was something to be admired. I'd probably be in worse shape if I hadn't felt his hopeful emotions.

I couldn't tell how long it'd been since we'd entered the room, but when I thought about the blonde young man now, it felt like I'd known him for weeks, or even months, rather than a single day.

Bile rose in my throat as I shakily got to my feet and turned to look at the helmet I'd dropped onto the floor, choking back the bitter taste. What a horrifying and unethical device. Where did Madara even get these types of machines?

Naruto moved to stand, wiping his eyes with one of his arms, and I made a point to avoid his gaze, sensing that he was acting similarly. It was awkward, but not the same kind of awkwardness as before. We were forced to be one hundred percent vulnerable, completely exposed to one another when we were pretty much strangers.

The instructor's voice sounded from the screen again, "In a few short moments, you will be released from this room. Please return to the main room of this training area immediately, and thank you for your participation!"

On cue, the sound of the lock clicking on the door came, and I immediately shot out of the room, feeling like I was suffocating in there. Naruto didn't stop me or speak. I bet he's feeling just as light-headed as I am like I was watching myself from somewhere else instead of controlling my own body.

My hands were sweating, and I kept my eyes on the white floor as I returned to the room. A few others were ahead of me, and when we reached the ample open space, it was like our group had been replaced completely. No one was chatting or being lively. In fact, almost every participant was actively trying to isolate themselves from those around them.

Madara was standing at the head of the room with a tablet in his hands. He watched its screen attentively and only looked up once it was clear we'd all arrived.

"It wasn't what you expected, was it?"

He paused for the usually erupted chatter, but the room remained silent, "Your reactions tell me this exercise has been an overwhelming success. The data from today will be processed overnight, and your training will be modeled from the results."

He took in the room with a satisfied grin, most likely excited that things were going without a hitch for him, "I appreciate your cooperation and look forward to what the next session will bring."