The Creeping Madness That Comes After Fear

Today, Ren was out in her courtyard, trying to stick her feet onto a tree. She was attempting the Tree Walking Exercise. It was similar to the Leaf Concentration Practice but harder. Unlike with the Leaf Concentration Practice where you stick the leaf to your forehead, you need to stick your feet onto the tree for the Tree Walking Exercise. In other words, you are sticking yourself to the object and not sticking the object to yourself.

Ren looked at the tree in front of her. It was neither too tall nor too small; it was just at the right height for her first try. She already knew from the Naruto series and the books she read that she must not put in too much or too little chakra at her feet.

Too much would push you away from the tree and too little would cause you to lose your footing and slip. The amount of chakra inputted must be precise.

She would not copy what Sasuke or Naruto had done in the series. Running up the tree and hoping they could somehow grasp the technique was just plain stupid. It was here that Sakura showcased her smarts and perfect chakra control, which did not really help with their upcoming fight with Zabuza. However, she digressed.

Ren lifted her right foot and placed it onto the tree. She channeled her chakra to the bottom of her foot and adjusted the amount accordingly. When she no longer felt that she was slipping and that any more chakra used would send her flying, she knew that she found the right amount of chakra needed to stick to the tree.

She continued to supply her chakra to her foot in a steady stream to make sure that the chakra stream would not be cut off and make her slip from the tree. Then, she put her other foot on the tree and repeated the same steps. With her careful calculations, she was able to firmly stick to the tree without falling off and getting unnecessary bruises like Naruto did in the series.

She removed her right foot and stepped forward. Making sure it was planted there, she did the same with her left foot. Slowly, she made her way to the top of the tree and she even stood upside down on a tree branch.

Standing upside down the branch of the tree proved too much for her as her view was disoriented, causing her to fall.

The fall was short, but it made Ren close her eyes shut and her heart beating wildly. When her small body made impact with the ground and making a loud thud, she did not register the physical pain. Instead, all that she could hear and feel was the rapid beating of her heart against her chest.

Her heart constricted and all of a sudden, it became difficult for her to breathe. She clutched her chest and gasped for air. Her head was ringing and her stomach churned.

A string of memories resurfaced in her mind as she fought the urge to throw up.

"Did you think that being the best in the whole grade and stealing my spotlight would make mom and dad love you? Come on, wake up and face the reality. You are just a burden that was passed to MY parents to make our lives difficult. Isn't it clear that you are an unwanted child?!"

"Why did you get ahead of yourself and took the No.1 spot?! You're just making your sister look dumb and bad in her academics!"

"Look at her face. She's always expressionless and now she's all smiles just because she's a little better at studying than us. Why is she acting all smug for? Disgusting."

"Just leave her be. That's all she's ever good for anyways. I feel sorry for her sister that she had to put up with her."

"Arrogance wouldn't bring you anywhere."

The happiness that she expressed because her efforts finally bore fruit was frowned upon as arrogance. Her hardwork and the smile it illicited was viewed as conceit. Her results was deemed as undermining her sibling.

She endured enough years of being worthless. If she was an eyesore and as useless as they said she was, she might as well 'help' them by removing herself from their sight.

She had enough.

She stood atop the tall apartment building where she had lived and looked down. Everything seemed so tiny and insignificant from high above, and soon, she would be one of them.

No, wasn't she already insignificant and worthless in the eyes of others?

It did not matter.

"Oh? Are you going to kill yourself? That's great! Thanks! You're finally doing something worthwhile!" Her sister finally revealed a genuine smile to her. "Hope you have a fun time on hell!" She waved.

"Ahaha...hahaha... You're welcome. I'm glad I can finally do something right." Her laugh was hollow.

At that time, she jumped off the building, carrying the pain of being cast away and the relief that she was finally free.

As she relived the memory, her eyes grew irritated and tears trickled down her face. Her breathing was still agitated and she felt her chakra slowly draining.

"Ren-kun!" Emi, a jōnin skilled in chakra sensing, sensed the disturbance in Ren's chakra. She body flickered out from the house and stopped right next to her son.

Ren could barely make out her new mother's voice.

"It...hurts..." One of Ren's hands was clutching her head, the other was clawing at her eyes.

Emi activated her Sharingan and looked at Ren's chakra system. She saw that her son's chakra kept on depleting and the source of it all was Ren's eyes.

Ren had awakened the Sharingan.

All of the chakra was directed towards her son's eyes in order to keep the Sharingan active.

Why and how did her son suddenly activated the Sharingan?!

Emi was sure that Ren was just doing the Tree Climbing Exercise and nothing more.

However, her questioning would come later. Right now she needed Ren to stop unconsciously channeling his chakra to his eyes. If she let it be, in the worst case scenario, Ren could die because of chakra exhaustion as his chakra reserves were still small.

"Ren-kun, open your eyes." Emi grabbed her son's hand that was clawing at his eyes.

Ren fought through the irritation and pain her eyes were experiencing and opened them. Her sight was blurry before she gained clarity that her previous eyes didn't have.

The one tomoe Sharingan revealed itself to Emi.

"Listen to Kaa-san." She gently held both of Ren's hands and stared at her son's Sharingan with her own pair of Sharingan. "Focus and cut off the chakra connection to your eyes."

Ren did as her mother instructed and closed her eyes. She navigated through the throbbing headache and managed to severe the chakra supply to her eyes. Her red eyes returned back to its normal black color.

She panted and greedily sucked in the air that her lungs very much needed after her episode of hyperventilating.

"Let's go inside." Emi picked up Ren and walked back inside the house. She put her three-year-old son onto his bed and tucked him in. She just stayed by the bedside, her Sharingan now faded back to normal.

"...Kaa-san, I'm sorry for troubling you." Ren spoke after a period of silence.

Emi stared at her son for a few moments before she opened her mouth. "Just get some rest and sleep, Ren-kun." She caressed her son's head until his breathing steadied and he fell asleep.

She sighed.

"Ren-kun, Kaa-san wished you didn't awaken the Sharingan so early."

Her son had already garnered attention from the clan elders when he showed them his maturity and intellect. And now that he had activated the Sharingan at the mere age of 3, the elders would no doubt pressure him with ridiculous expectations and cultivate him to become their desired prodigy and genius.

As a member of the clan, it was her responsibility to report such an important matter to the elders. Hiding the matter was not an option, not when she was a part of the main branch.

Emi was proud that her son had the Sharingan at such an early age, but that fact also worried her.

What made her son experience such emotional pain enough to awaken the Sharingan?

Emi stayed by Ren the whole day. She had to because Ren kept on having nightmares and drenched in sweat. Her son's Sharingan would involuntarily activate as well and she needed to calm him down so he didn't deplete all of his chakra.

Seeing Ren in such a state, Emi decided that she would question her son until she found out what caused him such anguish. If she couldn't, she was willing to get the Yamanaka involved.

She let out another sigh.

The next day.

Ren woke up with her head still assaulted by dizziness. However, compared to yesterday, her physical state was much better after a whole day of sleeping. Her emotional state however, was not as good.

Her indifference had doubled. Her memories had reared its ugly head and swallowed her yesterday, reminding her of her lowly place.

When her mother had brought breakfast to her, she just stared at the food with empty eyes. The smell of the warm thick soup did not even enter her mind. Still, she ate the food, tasteless as it was on her tongue.

"Ren-kun, you should rest for today. There is no need for training, and Kaa-san has a business to attend to so I can't watch over you." Emi said.

Ren turned to look at her mother. "No. I will go and train."

Emi furrowed her eyebrows. "Ren-kun, you are still recovering. You don't have to push yourself."

"I am fine, Kaa-sama." Ren changed her tone. "My eyes were in pain. I awakened the Sharingan, didn't I?" Taking Emi's silence as confirmation, she continued. "Then it is much more imperative for me to train now."

Rest? If she rested now, she would be thrown away. If even her best in the Before was not enough, what was to say if she slacked off right now?

Even if her current mother worried about her right now, that did not mean her attitude would stay the same if Ren was to fail. She was, after all, still part of the Uchiha Clan.

Now that she even had the Sharingan, the clan would place more eyes on her, and monitor her every progress.

If she relaxed, she would be abandoned.

Ren did not want that.

"...After I return from my business later, Ren-kun will provide Kaa-san with an explanation." Emi said in a stern voice; it was an order, not a request.

Ren did not reply and Emi went out of her room.

Ren grasped her bed sheet tight in frustration, before letting go of it.

Focusing, she kept track of her mother's chakra signal with her sensitive chakra senses. When her mother was finally out of the house, she got out of her bed and washed herself up. She put on the standard black high-collared Uchiha Clan shirt with long sleeves accompanied with white shorts.

She stepped out into her courtyard with her sandals and went to the tree she had fallen off from in her training yesterday.

Utilizing her chakra, she climbed up the tree and onto the branch. She looked down from the top and saw the courtyard's ground. However, that was soon overlapped with the image of the hard concrete she saw when she was atop her apartment building.

Dizziness once again struck her. She clutched her head in her hand while the other hand held onto the tree to prevent her from falling.

Ren let out a mirthless smile. "You want me to fall?"

Now that she was aware of her Sharingan, the amount of chakra used to activate and maintain it was not as taxing as yesterday's. Her Sharingan gleamed with an angry light and she let her arms fall to her sides before she spread them wide. With her head still ringing and the images overlapping, she allowed herself to fall to the ground.

Her body struck the ground and produced a loud sound.

"Ugh..." The pain cleared her head, but it was not enough. Bile rose up to her throat and she vomitted the contents of her breakfast onto the ground.

She wiped the vomit that was stuck at the corner of her mouth with her sleeve.

She went up the tree and repeated her previous act once more. With the Sharingan activated, everything was clearer and it grounded her to the reality of the now, and not the Before.

Her actions of falling of the tree was repeated until her clothes were dirtied beyond recognition. She stopped only when she no longer threw up and when her body screamed in pain.

"Ahahaha...hahaha...hahahahhahaha!"

Her Sharingan spun as she laughed.

She was no longer afraid of falling, and her hidden fear of death was no longer present.

Ren decided to abandon herself in this world before anyone else could. At that moment, she decided her life shall be used for others and any desire to live for herself was extinguished.

In a secret place located in the Uchiha Clan's compound.

"You son awakened his Sharingan?! Are you sure about this?!" A clan elder stood up from his seat.

"Yes." On the other hand, Emi calmly replied as she remained seated in a seiza. "He had repeatedly and unconsciously activated his Sharingan in his sleep."

"Sit down, Obori." A man with short brown hair and onyx-colored eyes ordered. The visible creases under his eyes were as pronounced as ever as he adopted his usual stern look. The man was Uchiha Fugaku, the head of the Uchiha Clan. He turned to look at Emi. "Your son is three years old, if I am not mistaken?"

"Yes, you are right, Fugaku-sama." Emi bowed her head.

Another elder with graying hair spoke up.

"Since his birth, your son has exhibited signs of being more talented than his peers. Now that he had even activated his Sharingan, we can't let his talent go unpolished."

"What measures should we take in regards to this, Fugaku-sama? Even if he is only three years old, we need to start training him faster especially since the war is near." Uchiha Obori stated his opinion.

"...Are you planning to send him to war?" Emi forced down her anger at Obori's words, but her spinning Sharingan was enough to show that she was burning with fury. There was a limit to her sense of duty to the clan and the village.

"Do not misunderstand our words, Emi. We are merely preparing him for the future." The elder with the graying hair, Uchiha Sato, stroke his beard.

"While I do not mind my son undergoing supervised training by the clan, I will not allow him to go to war when he is still underprepared."

"Of course we will not deploy him unless it is the Hokage-sama's will. By then, he should be capable enough to defend himself, no?" Sato responded, effectively calming Emi down.

"Enough." Fugaku spoke, closing his eyes. "Emi, with the impending war, as a jōnin of the Uchiha Clan, you will soon resume your duty and thus cannot fully commit yourself into training your son. Your husband, Uchiha Hiroto, is also currently incapable to supervise your son due to his duties. Therefore, we shall arrange an instructor to train your son. Is there any objection?"

"No, Fugaku-sama." Emi replied. Fugaku's arrangement for Ren was reasonable and for her, she believed that was the best course of action for her prodigious son to take.

"If it is your will, Fugaku-sama." The elders, and the other clan members who had attended the small meeting chorused.

"Meeting adjourned." Fugaku then got up from his seat, his hands in his wide sleeves. Without sparing another glance, he left the room.