When Sasuke first traded his Sharingan for Itachi's, he thought it was simple. He thought he'd figured out everything the Mangekyou does.
Easy, he'd thought, I can make people tell me what they know. Simple, he'd thought, he could force people to hallucinate.
But one day while using his sharingan to manipulate a leaf ninja to find the Nine Tails (Naruto) so they could be fully prepared for the war, Sasuke's genjutsu turned out to be much more real than he'd expected. And out of control.
All he wanted was to create a genjutsu where the man he was interrogating would seem ten times smaller than Sasuke. The goal was to intimidate him into talking but while Sasuke imagined himself growing larger and larger, a random thought popped into his head.
What if he had a pitch black, ominous background while he was intimidating the man? It was supposed to be just a thought but he had a hard time controlling it. Before he knew it, the thought showed up in his genjutsu and the genjutsu felt even more real than ever before.
It became clear the man wouldn't snitch on Naruto so Sasuke stopped the genjutsu and threw him aside. When it was all over, Sasuke decided he needed to clear his thoughts so his thoughts wouldn't become reality again.
Unfortunately, it happened again. Less than a week later, in fact. But this time, it was even worse than the last. He used his genjutsu on yet another leaf shinobi, only this time he was angry.
The thought of beating the guts out of the man was, again, just a thought. Until it wasn't. Sasuke had no idea what the heck was wrong with him but he saw a duplicate of himself beating the man senseless, taking its anger out on him.
Now, Sasuke was a confident person. Especially after deciding revenge on the leaf. He'd had a feeling of grandiose. However, his thoughts getting out of control was a fact that was secretly scaring him.
What if it got worse?
Over the next few weeks, it did. And not only were Sasuke's thoughts getting out of control, so was his genjutsu. He had no idea what Madara thought of it. Maybe he thought Sasuke was a failure?
There were random moments when he would accidentally put one of his teammates under a genjutsu. Even worse was when the genjutsu became reality. Jugo would innocently walk by Sasuke to check on him only to be put in a pool covered in blood.
Sasuke was absolutely confused. Why blood? He didn't know. Why there and then? He had no idea. It just happened on its own. Eventually, Madara had to put Sasuke into a coma-like sleep until he could figure out what to do about it.
After putting Sasuke to sleep, Madara hid his body so no one would wake him until the problem was solved. Madara still considered Sasuke to be an important piece to the war and still wanted him to collect the nine tails.
Sasuke was trapped in a pitch black room with his own imagination. There was no way out. Then, suddenly, his mind imagined a hole in the ground to the right of him. He walked towards it but the closer he walked to it, the further away it moved.
It was up to the Leaf Village shinobi to find where the Akatsuki were hiding so they could kill as many of them off as possible before the war. It had been a while since they all had a mission together so the teams were excited.
They spread out into the forest and soon got a signal that something important was found. They gathered Kiba and Akamaru's noses were stronger than a wolf's and had found Sasuke. Naruto closed his eyes. The group knew this could be the moment they kill Sasuke.
After hearing how powerful Sasuke had become and the fact the Akatsuki liked to stick around them, the teams made a plan. Well, Shikamaru and Kakashi did, to be exact.
Naruto felt as if time had slowed. The reality that Sasuke might die by his own friends' hands hit him for the second time in his life. Naruto felt the betrayal in Sasuke's stead.
The group all felt a mutually down, depressed feeling. Memories of Sasuke flooded through their heads. How did it come to this? Alarm grew stronger as the scent got closer and another scent came to Kiba and Akamaru.
Kiba recognized it as one of Sasuke's teammates. "There's someone else with him. Be on guard." They reached a small cluster of trees and cames face to face with a guy who had sharp teeth, white hair, and an Akatsuki cloak on.
Suigetsu laughed mischievously. "Where is Sasuke?" Asked Kiba. "You don't want to wake him." Naruto felt a surge of anger. "Who says what we want?! Now, tell me; where's Sasuke?!"
Suigetsu laughed mischievously again. "Under me." And then he ran. "Dammit," said Naruto. "Hurry," ordered Kakashi. "Kiba, Shino, Hinata. Follow him." They ran after Suigetsu.
"What do you think he meant by not waking him?" Asked Sakura. "Well, you know Sasuke. He's always had a hard time waking." Naruto said, almost nervously. Sakura wasn't sure if she believed that that was it but walked over to where Suigetsu was standing earlier anyways.
"Well. Let's dig." Said Kakashi. The group nodded and began. It wasn't long until Sasuke's face was revealed. The question was whether to kill him or to capture him. The nation's wanted him dead but the leaf village wanted to take him safely, if possible.
"We can capture him," Shikamaru decided. Tension they didn't know was in the air released after that. "Right!" Said Naruto excitedly. "They dug more until Sasuke's full body was revealed.
Whoever buried him put his body in an air bubble so he could breathe. It was very surprising to find that it was easy to pop the bubble. There weren't any traps attached to it.
"Okay. Let's take him." Kakashi picked Sasuke up and put him on his back. Sasuke slowly opened his eyes.
The hole in the ground stopped moving and Sasuke was finally able to reach it. The hole had a bright, yellow light like the sun coming out of it. Sasuke hoped he wouldn't burn to death if he jumped in it.
There was no other way out of the pitch black place so he closed his eyes, tightened his fists, and jumped. The hole swallowed him up and he opened his eyes. The bright light hurt so he immediately shut them again.
"Be careful. He's awake." Was that... Shikamaru? Sasuke opened his eyes again. This time when he opened them, he closed them again out of horror. Kakashi was carrying him.
He panicked and looked around for a place to escape when the day suddenly became nighttime while the trees' moss turned into red blood. A squirrel was sitting in a pool of its blood, eating itself.
The squirrel chomped on its hand until white muscle tissue showed up. Then, it tore into the softness of the muscle while the blood formed, trying to clot which caused a bloody mess.
"What is this?!" Called out Sakura's voice. "I don't know," said Shikamaru. Sasuke turned his head to Shikamaru's direction. "But I think it has to do with what that guy said about not waking him up."
Sasuke's imagination ran rancid. Flowers turned into colorful faces and grew, grass became taller than them, and water became pink.
Mushrooms grew all around the place and rocks grew arms and mouths, chanting "human, paper, scissors" ominously. The world became an absolute mess. And Sasuke laughed. He thought it was funny.
Life already sucked and now he couldn't control his own mind. It was absolutely hilarious. His mind was driving him insane. The group of Shinobi looked at Sasuke as if he was crazy.
And maybe he was.
But he didn't care. He had to go with the flow now. Life would clearly never work in his favor so, in misery and escapism, he let his imagination engulf him.