A Ninja's Mind Is Her Castle

<p><i>Author's note: This is just an incomplete snippet--I don't actually have the originality to make this into a full story. The full summary is in my profile--feel free to write your own story out of it, if you've got the writing skills.</i></p>
<p><i>This idea is based on a concept from </i>Time Braid<i> (story 5193644 on this site), which is in turn based on </i>Chunin Exam Day<i> (story 3929411 on this site).</i></p>
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<p>"Well, what are we doing today, Kurenai-sensei?" Kiba grinned as Team Eight stood in a training ground. "Learning some ninjutsu or genjutsu, or just training some old stuff?"</p>
<p>"Actually, Kiba," Kurenai replied, "I was considering a counter to genjutsu that might be of some use to all of you."</p>
<p>"A genjutsu counter?" Kiba scratched his head, as his teammates looked on silently. "Why would we need that? I mean, we're all basically immune to genjutsu already, aren't we, with Hinata's eyes, Shino's bugs, and Akamaru 'n' me's nose?" Akamaru yipped in enthusiastic assent.</p>
<p>"Well," Kurenai admonished, "it's always good to have multiple layers of protection. You never know when some wily enemy will think to include smell in his illusion, and there are always rumors of genjutsu that can foil even the White Eyes... But, even beyond that, a lot of genjutsu counters are good practice even outside of combat."</p>
<p>"Oh, no! Mental exercises?" Kiba groaned.</p>
<p>Hinata chuckled faintly at her teammate's frustration. "I'm sure it can't be too tiresome, Kiba-kun..."</p>
<p>"That's the spirit, Hinata!" Kurenai smiled warmly. "Really, this procedure is so simple that civilians were the ones who developed its foundation, and some of them still use a version of it today. It's called <i>basho no houhou</i>--the method of places. Basically, you just organize your mind as if it were your own personal house or palace or castle, with every item in a place that makes sense for it to be in, near other related items. You might have a whole wing for information on the Village, and just a single room dedicated to your taijutsu knowledge. To recall something, you visualize moving to the relevant room and finding the object that contains the memory."</p>
<p>"It seems to me," observed Shino, "that such organization would only make it simpler for an enemy to find something in my mind."</p>
<p>"Well, it depends on the type of attack," Kurenai explained. "True, an enemy with lots of time, who's already broken your outer defenses, will find it easy to rifle through everything you've got on Leaf if you're using this counter--but this method is meant to strengthen your *outer* defenses at the cost of your *inner* ones, for the most part. While a civilian can only set up her rooms and corridors, a ninja can bind a little of her chakra within her mind to create locked and armored dors, or hidden passages. Some legends," she added, "say that the greatest masters of this art could create elaborate traps and alter spatial relationships within their minds, and even transfer copies of their knowledge to subordinate entities for long-term safekeeping."</p>
<p>"There are *legends* about some obscure genjutsu counter?" Kiba sounded skeptical.</p>
<p>"Well, as I said," continued Kurenai, "this method has other uses beyond defense against genjutsu, even if the legends are discounted. Keeping your mind organized in a logical manner improves your speed of thinking and recalling, though it can make you a little less prone to leaps of intuition. It can also be used to lock certain memories away for a time--to undo the mental trauma of an experience, for example, or to become a spy who doesn't even know he's a spy."</p>
<p>"If it's so useful, then," Hinata inquired, "why isn't it more common?"</p>
<p>"The civilian version is actually fairly well-known in some circles--some of the more eloquent politicians of the Daimyou's court, for example. Unfortunately, the chakra-reinforced version of the exercise can be dangerous," Kurenai conceded. "There are several recorded instances where spies who'd locked away large parts of their memories lost those experiences permanently--they accidentally lost the key to the door behind which they'd hidden those memories. There are some medical techniques that can reverse this process, and the Yamanaka probably could do the same, given enough time--but it's tricky to pull off. Other times, the locked memories were unlocked accidentally at inopportune moments due to sloppy application of the technique, resulting in temporary--or permanent--confusion.</p>
<p>"Still--" Kurenai smiled widely-- "it's really an incredibly useful procedure, when applied with caution. It could even be considered fun, since you get the opportunity to take stock of nearly everything you know, and arrange it like furniture in your mind!"</p>
<p>At this, Kiba gave a slight shudder. "Moving furniture... ugh."</p>
<p>Kurenai paid him no mind. "So, let's get started. We'll just be meditating without chakra for now, until you've gotten the hang of it--and then, if you'd like, you can try locking soething away, and I'll try to worm it out of you..."</p>
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<p>Kiba moaned and groaned but eventually managed to wrench his mind into something vaguely resembling a kennel, with dogs representing items--though this only increased the difficulty of locking them away. Shino took to the technique like a duck to water: his mind took the form of a maze of tunnels and chambers, and his mental image was a hive of ants, which could collapse tunnels in an eye-blink, and used a multi-key system to remember the locations of those blocked passageways. Hinata took some time to wrap her head around the idea of building a structure out of her mind, and struggled with her first attempt--a replica of the Hyuuga compound--but eventually settled on the Academy to be her "memory palace".</p>
<p>"It's very interesting to see the different ways in which you've organized your minds," Kurenai observed, when, after several meditation sessions, her students had explained their methods. "I've been using this method for some time, but I never even imagined making thoughts into dogs! It gives Kiba an interesting second layer of protection, I think--even after the invader penetrates his outer defenses, the location keys that he steals won't be as valid as they'd be for a standard mindscape, since the items of memory can run away of their own accord.</p>
<p>"However--" her voice grew stern-- "Kiba, be *very* careful not to put much chakra into your ‘thought dogs'. I get the distinct impression that, if given too free a rein, they'd overwhelm and splinter your mind. The strength of the dogs' enclosures depends on a comparison of your willpower with the power of the dogs' primitive sub-minds--so, if you put too much chakra into them, they'll break out, run rampant and fight among each other, leading to a scrambled mind for you." Kiba blanched and nodded.</p>
<p>"Shino's method is, I think, a little safer, but also dangerous in a very different way," Kurenai continued her assessment. "Normally, when the invader breaks through your outer defenses, that process is represented as his interrogating your mental image for the locations of, and keys to, all your memories. Shino, however, has given himself a sort of distributed self-image--so he's effectively impossible to interrogate mentally unless he surrenders willingly, and no items can ever be taken from behind locked doors (or, in Shino's case, caved-in passages), since the invader can't find out where those locked doors even are without the information from that interrogation.</p>
<p>"However, this also has a downside: if Shino doesn't surrender, the invader will have no option but to attempt to beat down the barriers by force, which would make Shino's original locations and keys near-useless with the distortion, and would leave Shino unable to recall the information afterwards, even if the interrogator found it himself. On the other hand, though, that sort of brute-force invasion of the mind takes much longer than standard methods, which might leave some hope of rescue, depending on the situation."</p>
<p>Shino gave a solemn nod. "Noted."</p>
<p>"And Hinata," Kurenai concluded, "has gone with the standard format, where each memory is an item in a room. No particular strengths or weaknesses--tried and true!"</p>
<p>"What does *your* memory palace look like, Kurenai-sensei?" Hinata inquired.</p>
<p>"Well," the older kunoichi blushed slightly, "I must confess I've got a soft sport for those legends I was talking about before. My memories are hidden in a large but plain-looking house at the end of an almost-invisible path in an extremely dense forest. I've been experimenting with imitating some the rather amazing feats detailed in the legends--manipulating space, drawing seals on the soul, and so on--but I haven't had too much success. I *have* had one or two close calls with putting too much chakra into it, though! Very scary--I actually had to go to the hospital and get a Yamanaka to fix the damage I'd done to myself, once, when I forgot my own address!"</p>
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<p>After two weeks of meditation and careful probing with genjutsu, Kurenai felt confident enough in her students' abilities to let them practice unsupervised--though she left them with a stern admonition against locking away memories frivolously. Still, Hinata found herself wondering about certain things as she flopped onto her bed, exhausted after a day of taijutsu training and another two hours of punishment at Neji's hands. <i>I... wonder...</i></p>
<p>It was the work of a few seconds to fall into the accustomed meditation. She still hadn't quite gotten used to the odd way in which she moved through the Academy of her mindscape--quick as thought in normal life, but slow as a drifting ghost during meditation--but only a minute or two passed before she'd found her way to the cramped, out-of-the-way closet where she kept her memories of the Hyuuga in dull gray file cabinets.</p>
<p>"What are my weaknesses?" Hinata spoke quietly to herself, safe in the recesses of her mind. "In the field, I think of my training sessions and recall the margin by which I've always been beaten by Father, Sister, and Cousin--and I'm stricken by doubt in my own abilities. But, if I can't remember those sessions--will I still suffer from that same doubt?"</p>
<p>She opened a cabinet and removed a file labeled "Training Sessions". "Could I really just... get rid of it?" she wondered aloud. "No--Kurenai-sensei said that removing memories only works when the references are changed, too..." She activated her Byakugan, and gazed at the neatly-labeled chakra strings that linked the "Training Sessions" file to "Gentle Fist", "Father", "Sister", and "Cousin".</p>
<p>"So erasing things is right out. But what if I just... separate it, a little? Just a door, that could be opened and closed as needed." She walked out of the Hyuuga closet, still holding the file and trailing chakra strings, and crossed the hall, where a small expenditure of chakra created a chakra-reinforced door. She tossed the file inside, closed the door, and watched the chakra threads that had been attached to the file waver for a moment before disconnecting and dangling patiently in front of the firmly-shut door.</p>
<p>"There. Now, what does it feel like?" She closed her eyes and cast through her memory. "I'm Hyuuga Hinata. My taijutsu style is Gentle Fist, which allows the user to close her opponent's tenketsu by precise applications of chakra through the hands. I l-learned it from--"</p>
<p>The kunoichi's heart skipped a beat for a moment as her train of thought abruptly derailed. "There were training sessions--but I can't remember them? How do I know they happened?" Panicking, she opened her eyes and yanked open the door before her. The file lay on the floor--the chakra threads representing inter-memory associations reattached themselves it, and she breathed a sigh of relief. "Okay--it's still retrievable. Maybe I need to trust myself more?"</p>
<p>With a thought, a large label was pasted onto the thick door: <i>MEMORY REPOSITORY FOR HURTFUL ITEMS. OPEN ONLY IF RELEVANT.</i> With another thought, a link to "Basho no Houhou" was added directly to the door. "Now, let's try it again..."</p>
<p>She closed her eyes once more. "My name is Hyuuga Hinata. I've used the Gentle Fist style of taijutsu for years. I learned some of it from scrolls, but most of it was--"</p>
<p>She shuddered slightly, and took a deep breath to steady herself as the thread of her thoughts ran into the closed door. "Okay--I don't need to know that right now. I sealed those memories away, because I feel better without them, and I don't need them most of the time."</p>
<p>Hinata opened her eyes, and stared at the foreboding door. "Gods, that's a strange feeling... but, as long as I get used to ignoring it, it shouldn't be a problem! I guess it'll take some time. Well, then, I'd better start as soon as possible!"</p>
<p>With a small smile on her face, she turned around and headed back into the "Hyuuga Clan" room.</p>
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<p>Over the course of the next few days, Hinata expanded her chakra-reinforced Memory Repository, and added more items a little bit at a time--the signs she'd seen of her father's disgust, her sister's disdain, her cousin's resentment. She made sure to keep the door open whenever she was interacting with or discussing any of those three--it was easy to add information to the hidden memories' warning label, <i>REPOSITORY FOR HURTFUL MEMORIES RELATED TO THE HYUUGA</i>. It was a little jarring, sometimes, to use Gentle Fist while lacking the contextual linkages for the taijutsu style--remembering "use this particular twirl-and-palm-thrust combination when the enemy is rushing in", but being unable to visualize the particular situation because it had happened only in a forgotten training session--but those minor hiccups were soon remedied, with Team Eight sparring sessions filling in the gaps.</p>
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<p><i>(Most likely not to be continued.)</i></p>