By the time they finished hashing out the final details of the newly forged Avengers Alliance, the moon had already begun to dip low in the sky. Exhausted, Kei returned to his quarters and immediately fell into a deep sleep. He didn't even bother tracking down the elders to report that Shinnō was "unable" to cure his eyes; the lie could wait until morning.
The next day, Kei was awake before the sun crested the horizon. Getting dressed quickly, he set his focus entirely on his most critical task: mastering the Body Revitalization Jutsu he had ripped from Shinnō.
Because the knowledge had been directly transplanted into his mind by the system, Kei already understood the fundamental mechanics. He carefully turned the jutsu's flow over in his head, mentally mapping the chakra pathways before making his first actual attempt.
The theory behind the jutsu was beautifully simple. It required flooding the body with a highly concentrated surge of medical chakra, forcing dormant or damaged cells to rapidly divide, heal, and strengthen.
However, because the vast majority of the cells in his optic nerves had withered and died, Kei was forced to proceed with extreme caution. He spent the entire morning executing a single, painstakingly slow cycle of the jutsu.
When he finally exhaled and released the chakra, his dead eyes felt absolutely no different.
He wasn't anxious. He knew cellular regeneration was not an instant miracle; it was like a blacksmith forging a blade. It required striking the cold iron over and over, slowly hammering out the impurities until only pure steel remained.
It was a grueling process that demanded patience.
Just as Kei was preparing to initiate a second cycle, a quiet knock echoed through his quarters. Haru stepped inside.
"How is it going?" she asked, looking at his bandaged face. "Is Shinnō's jutsu actually working?"
"It is too early to tell," Kei replied, grabbing his cane. "I plan to practice the cycle for a few more weeks and monitor the tissue. I won't know if the necrosis is reversing until we conduct a proper medical scan."
Haru nodded. "The construction crews have mostly finished the new facility. You should come take a look and see if anything needs to be changed before we officially move in."
"Lead the way," Kei smiled. "After all, we will be spending a great deal of time there."
Leaving the Hyuga compound, the two walked through the bustling morning streets. Thanks to the massive budget squeezed from the Hokage and the Main House, the new clinic was no longer confined to a cramped storefront in a busy alley. It had been built on a sprawling, dedicated plot of land closer to the edge of the village.
Standing at the front gates, Kei cast his sensory web over the property. The sheer size of the place was staggering.
"Given the scale of this facility," Kei mused, tracing the outline of the three massive buildings with his mind, "I don't think we can call it a simple 'Psychological Clinic' anymore."
The original clinic had been a tiny, single-room affair. This new compound possessed a grand courtyard, heavily reinforced walls, and enough square footage to house a small army.
"What do you want to rename it?" Haru asked.
The corners of Kei's mouth curled into a dark, satisfied smile. "From now on, we will call it the 'Mental Sanatorium'."
Haru gave him a thoughtful look. She suspected he wasn't changing the name merely because the building was bigger. There was a distinct psychological weight to the word. A 'clinic' implied a brief visit for a minor ailment. A 'sanatorium' implied a permanent, isolated stay.
"Let's go inside," Kei said, stepping through the gates.
Haru guided him through the sprawling grounds, acting as his tour guide since she had directly overseen the construction crews. "We planted the heavy canopy trees and the flower gardens throughout the open courtyard, exactly as you requested."
Kei swept his awareness over the perimeter. "The landscaping is fine. However, the outer stone wall needs to be raised by at least ten feet. It must be high enough that no one walking past can easily peer inside."
Haru paused, then dutifully jotted 'raise outer fence' into her notebook.
They moved into the main building, designated as the Consultation Wing. This was where the public would enter, sitting in comfortable waiting rooms before being evaluated. Kei found the layout perfectly suited to his tastes and required no major changes to the architecture.
However, as he mapped the large glass windows lining the hallways, he stopped. "Every single window in this facility must be fitted with heavy, opaque blackout curtains. They must be capable of sealing the rooms completely. We must protect our patients' privacy, after all."
Haru cast a highly suspicious glance at his smiling face, but she didn't argue, simply writing the order down.
Moving deeper into the compound, they entered the Recovery Wing. On paper, this building was meant to house the expensive medical equipment used for treating stubborn mental illnesses. In reality, it was Kei's new, state-of-the-art hidden laboratory—the perfect place to conduct his more gruesome, unlisted experiments.
Since the heavy machinery he had ordered from the black market hadn't arrived yet, the rooms were mostly empty. Kei gave the sturdy foundations a quick nod of approval and kept walking.
Finally, they reached the imposing structure at the very back of the compound: the Inpatient Ward.
The entire above-ground level consisted of bright, comfortable rooms designed for civilians who required long-term therapy. Kei found it completely satisfactory.
But he didn't care about the above-ground rooms. He cared about the subterranean levels.
Walking down a long flight of concrete stairs, Haru unlocked a massive, heavy steel vault door. They stepped into the High-Risk Ward.
The air down here was cold and dim. Haru looked down the long, echoing corridor of identical, heavy doors.
"We followed your blueprints to the letter," Haru said, her voice dropping slightly. "Every single room in this underground sector is forged from reinforced steel alloys. The thinnest sections of the walls are over three feet thick."
"Furthermore, I hired specialized fuinjutsu masters to carve suppression seals directly into the foundation. No standard ninjutsu can breach these walls, from the inside or the outside."
Kei walked forward and ran his hand lovingly over the freezing, heavy steel of the nearest door. Even without testing it, he could feel the immense, suffocating density of the metal. It was beautiful.
Haru stood in the center of the dark hallway, her brow furrowed in deep confusion. "Kei... this design doesn't resemble a hospital at all. It looks exactly like a maximum-security prison. Is this level of extreme lockdown truly necessary?"
"Of course it is," Kei said warmly, turning to face her. "Think about it, Haru. When a civilian patient suffers a mental breakdown, they might throw a chair or break a window. But when a highly trained, traumatized shinobi snaps? They could level an entire city block."
"Therefore, the stronger the rooms, the safer everyone is. It is for their own good," Kei reasoned smoothly. "We wouldn't want them harming innocent people during a violent episode. And we certainly wouldn't want them ruining those beautiful flower gardens you just planted."
Haru pursed her lips. It was a bit of a stretch, and the reasoning felt incredibly hollow, but she couldn't entirely dispute the logic. A crazy ninja was a walking disaster. She was just the assistant, after all. He was the brilliant doctor.
Still, one glaring question remained. She looked down the endless, dark corridor of steel doors.
"But why did we build so many of them?" Haru asked.
According to Kei's blueprints, there were over a hundred of these reinforced cells—vastly outnumbering the regular hospital beds above ground. More than half of the Hokage's entire budget had been poured into this single, subterranean dungeon.
"Where are we possibly going to find over a hundred high-risk, violently insane patients to fill these rooms?"
Kei stood in the shadows of the empty, echoing prison. He turned his sightless, smiling face toward the dark corridor, his voice dropping into a soft, chilling whisper.
"We will find them."