The trial chamber wasn't real. It was a memory composite, woven from the recollections of hundreds of shinobi — a circular arena with marble floors from a feudal archive, lanterns hanging like fireflies from the ceiling of a Konoha meditation hall, and a mist that carried whispers only the guilty could hear.
Sōgen stood at the center.
His eyes — Mangekyō and Third — glowed softly. To his left sat Renji, arms crossed, back straight, chakra sharpened like a blade. To his right, the silent memory of a dead merchant drifted in static form, pulsing with dream resonance.
Before him, eight shinobi — all active Network users — stood in a semi-circle. Each bore a unique soul signature, and each had triggered Ghostscript anomalies in the last three days.
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🧪 The Purpose
The Memory Trial was not to punish. It was to filter.
To determine who remained tethered to identity — and who had begun drifting.
> "You'll each walk into your own memory," Sōgen announced. "If it accepts you, you return whole. If it breaks… we will decide what remains."
He gestured. The mist shifted. Eight glowing portals opened.
One by one, the shinobi stepped through.
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🧠 Mindwalk 1: The Healer
A kunoichi known as [Blossom-Rune] entered a re-creation of a field hospital during the Third War.
She was tending wounds — but the patients had no faces. Each time she tried to heal one, a whisper would interrupt:
> "What if this didn't happen?"
As she patched memory after memory, the reality around her bent. The color faded. Time looped.
Until she finally screamed:
> "This IS who I am!"
And the scene stabilized. She emerged. Stable.
Verdict: Retained Identity.
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🧠 Mindwalk 2: The Sensor
A jonin with enhanced perception was next. His trial was subtle:
> A simple dinner with his family. But every minute, something changed. His daughter blinked backward. His rice became sand. His words were no longer his own.
He adapted. He laughed it off. He didn't question it.
Until his daughter said:
> "Do you even remember her real name?"
He hesitated.
The scene shattered.
He reemerged… eyes hollow.
Verdict: Drifted Identity. Recommended containment or glyph therapy.
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📜 Back in the Chamber
Renji whispered:
> "Half of them are ghosts wearing skin."
Sōgen nodded grimly.
> "They're blending with memories not their own. We've reached cognitive saturation."
> "So fix it," Renji snapped.
> "I'm trying," Sōgen said. "But you can't un-remember the dead once they've become useful."
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💡 Unexpected Trial — The Merchant Echo
As the last shinobi entered their mindwalk, the static figure of the merchant — the original After-Thought Node — stepped into the center unprompted.
His form began to stabilize. His voice sharpened.
> "I have a proposition," he said.
> "Let us form a council of remembered minds. Let us choose who may pass between layers. Let the dead become your filter, not your burden."
The room fell silent.
> "We remember best what you forget. Let us help you remember who you are."
Sōgen stepped forward. His chakra flared slightly.
> "What's the price?"
> The merchant smiled. "A seat. In the Citadel. For one living mind."
Renji growled.
> "You want to elect someone alive to represent the living in the world of the dead?"
> "Someone who's already dreaming," the merchant replied. "You, perhaps?"
Renji's silence was thunderous.
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🔮 Echo Sōgen Intervenes
Without warning, a rupture tore across the chamber.
A copy of Sōgen stepped out of the mist — Echo Sōgen, now fully-formed, chakra-signature identical but radiating a more serene, colder demeanor.
> "No," Echo said. "The Citadel doesn't need a living voice." "It needs a keeper."
> "Someone who won't fear being forgotten."
He turned to the real Sōgen.
> "You made me to hold your pain. Let me contain your legacy."
For a moment, no one moved.
Then, the Third Eye flared. Sōgen held up a single hand.
> "Not yet."
He turned to the eight trial subjects.
> "This is only the first court. More will come. And before the end, we must all ask — what makes us us, once our thoughts no longer belong to us alone?"
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⚖️ Chapter End: Verdicts
Three minds returned whole. Two were partially fragmented. One was absorbed by their Ghostscript, becoming a living jutsu shell. One returned… older. Wiser. But no longer loyal. And one never returned at all.
Their trial chamber now floats, sealed, within the Citadel. It's said it whispers only when someone forgets who they truly are.
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