Chapter 206: The Mirror Eye's Evolution, A New Dōjutsu
"I get the feeling you're just enjoying the show," Kakashi grumbled, before picking up a stone slab and starting his own ascent.
As expected of the brains of the operation, Kakashi's approach was a stark contrast to Guy's clumsy enthusiasm. He quickly found the slab's center of gravity, placed it securely on the spire's tip, and then, with a light leap, landed perfectly on top. He stabilized himself for a moment before slowly sitting down.
Guy, who had somehow already picked himself up, watched Kakashi's every move. A look of understanding dawned on him. "I see! As expected of the brilliant Kakashi!" He turned to Genichi. "Genichi, can I get another one of those slabs?"
Genichi thought for a moment. "Use this instead." A wooden stump rose from the ground. Genichi made a grasping motion, and his massive Sword of Kusanagi materialized in his hand. With a few swift cuts, he shaved several round, flat wooden discs from the stump.
"This will be much easier! This time, I'll succeed for sure!" Guy grabbed a wooden disc, his spirit burning with passion, and charged up the spire again.
With Kakashi's example to follow, Guy managed to place the disc with far more stability. However, the wood was much lighter than the stone. A gust of wind was all it took to make it wobble. The moment Guy sat down, he began to sway precariously.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa—!"
He struggled for a few moments, but the fall was inevitable. He once again experienced the joys of freefall, creating a second man-shaped crater in the ground.
Nearby, Kakashi also lost his balance. But unlike Guy, he managed to right himself in mid-air and land gracefully on his feet, though his own stone slab shattered on impact.
"The difficulty is no joke…" Kakashi muttered, looking up at the spire with a newly sober expression. It wasn't just the wind; the real challenge was maintaining one's own internal balance.
He started climbing again, and Guy, ever passionate, charged right back up with him.
Genichi watched with a smile as they repeatedly sat down only to fall off again. When he saw them both finally achieve a stable seated position, he called out, "If you can stay up there for an hour or two without falling, you'll have succeeded!"
"What?!" Guy yelped.
The shock was enough to break his concentration. He lost his balance, flailing his arms wildly before crashing to the ground a third time.
For someone as hyperactive as Guy, this is going to be incredibly difficult training, Genichi thought. But if he succeeds… Honestly, even he couldn't predict the outcome. But he was certain that even if Guy never mastered Sage Mode, this training in stillness and balance would be immensely beneficial for him.
"You two keep at it. I'm heading out," Genichi said with a chuckle. He waved his hand, and a gust of wind swept past, causing the wooden spires to sway gently. Amidst Guy's startled cries, Genichi turned and left.
In his last ten-year time-skip, neither Shizune nor Ina had managed to master Sage Mode. Madara had once scoffed that it wasn't difficult to master, but that was far from the truth, especially for those without massive chakra reserves. Furthermore, refined chakra control didn't automatically translate to mastery over natural energy.
It's more like a trial of the mind and spirit, Genichi concluded. Beyond physical aptitude, willpower was the most critical factor—and that was the hardest thing to train.
Should I take a page out of Orochimaru's book? he mused. Develop a senjutsu curse mark to help Tsunade and the others learn Sage Mode?
He had yet to fully grasp the secret of converting spiritual energy into physical energy, but he was already adept at converting one form of physical energy to another. Combined with his Wood Release and his ever-deepening Sage transformation, he could already replicate Orochimaru's method of revival through curse marks left on others. With a little more time, he was confident he could do it even better—perhaps even achieving a proactive resurrection, similar to the Otsutsuki's Karma seal.
It would be another trump card, another layer of insurance.
It's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it, he decided. When it comes to survival, Orochimaru is the one to learn from.
A month passed. On March 18th of the 53rd year of Konoha, it was once again time for his tedious, yet essential, power-up. After finishing his morning Sage transformation training, Genichi activated the panel in his mind.
Ten years passed in the blink of an eye.
When he opened his eyes, they instinctively shifted into the Mirror Eye. The three tomoe spun at an impossible speed, coalescing in an instant into a new, magnificent pattern.
Genichi could feel the profound change in his eyes. A wave of joy washed over him. "Finally," he breathed. "The evolution is complete."
Three years of real-time, thirty years of accumulated effort from his ability. The change had finally occurred, as natural as water carving a path through stone. He created an ice mirror and looked at his reflection.
His eyes were still the color of brilliant blue sapphires, but the tomoe were gone. In their place was the pattern of an ice flower—an eight-petaled bloom, with each petal shaped like a four-sided kunai. The color of the pattern was a deeper, more transparent shade of blue, like the depths of the ocean or the vastness of the sky.
The Mangekyō Mirror Eye.
That was the name he chose for it, a parallel to the Mangekyō Sharingan. He closed his eyes, focusing inward to perceive his new dōjutsu. A smile spread across his face. "Just like the Mangekyō Sharingan, it has two primary techniques. But… no third power like Susanoo."
He wasn't disappointed. In terms of pure visual prowess, his newly evolved Mangekyō Mirror Eye already surpassed the Mangekyō Sharingan he possessed. More importantly, while the Mangekyō Sharingan was an endpoint, Genichi had an instinctual feeling that this was not the limit for his Mirror Eye. It could still grow stronger.
He stood up and walked into the living room, his gaze locking onto a teacup on the table two meters away. He raised his right hand and reached forward. Space rippled like the surface of a pond. His hand vanished, reappearing directly above the teacup, which he grasped firmly. He pulled his hand back through the ripple, the teacup now resting in his palm.
"Good. Very good," he said, a wide grin on his face. He used the same technique to place the cup back, then returned to his meditation room.
He now had three unique dōjutsu techniques, one for each of his Mirror Eyes, and one from the transplanted Mangekyō Sharingan, which he had yet to use. Not even Ina knew about it. The more hidden cards, the better.
Next, he assessed his physical changes. "My Sage transformation has deepened significantly. Ten years of effort were not wasted. Every cell in my body now resonates naturally with the world's energy." He tried kneading some chakra. "As I thought. I no longer need to consciously enter Sage Mode. I am now permanently in a Sage state."
From now on, every single one of his attacks would be a senjutsu attack.
"Furthermore, my chakra recovery rate in this state will be phenomenal." He could feel his body's cells immersed in the planet's magnetic field, able to rapidly draw upon its power to regenerate. He was practically a Tailed Beast in his own right.
He gauged his chakra reserves. Back in his sixteenth year, his usable chakra was already on par with a complete Nine-Tails. Now… it was at least four times that. He was about to turn eighteen, nearing the end of his body's rapid growth phase, but the combination of his Kekkei Genkai and Sage transformation continued to elevate his physical prowess. The quality of his very life force had changed.
He then deactivated the Art of Pyo, one of his Nine Secrets, yet his cellular activity remained astonishingly high—a permanent gift of his Sage body. My cellular vitality, my life force… it has completely surpassed the First Hokage's.
With a single thought, he was enveloped in the Nine-Tails' chakra. It was no longer just the Nine-Tails Chakra Mode. After a well-placed Kotoamatsukami, the Yin-Nine-Tails was completely subservient to him. This was the Nine-Tails Sage Fox Mode.
The pattern in his Mangekyō Mirror Eye changed again. A vertical slit appeared in the center of the ice flower, and the entire pattern was bathed in a brilliant gold. Even now, the Nine-Tails provides a significant boost.
He dismissed the mode and looked down at his hands. In the next instant, the skin on his palms split open, revealing a purple, ripple-patterned Rinnegan in each. He had taken these from Nagato in the future. His experiments to cultivate a new Rinnegan had failed, even with ten years of work.
"With the Mangekyō Mirror Eye, my analytical abilities have grown stronger… but these eyes are flawed. They're missing their core essence." He already understood a great deal about the Rinnegan, but he knew he was still missing about thirty percent of the puzzle—and the most critical piece at that. He couldn't just create one from scratch.
After I'm done analyzing these, what should I do with them? He had no intention of keeping them in his hands. He considered giving them to Ina, but quickly dismissed the idea. Her gentle nature wasn't suited to wielding such power. The best candidates were the Uchiha, but…
The Rinnegan in his palms closed. He already had a plan.
Later that day, after returning home, he found Ina and Shizune busy in the kitchen, while Tsunade was in her room training. Leaning against the doorframe, he watched them work. In the future he'd just experienced, Ina had successfully mastered the Strength of a Hundred Seal, but Shizune never did. It wasn't a matter of effort, but of talent. Even he couldn't change that.
Without the Yin Seal or the Strength of a Hundred Seal, Shizune's body would never be strong enough to handle Sage Mode training. Am I supposed to just watch her grow old? he thought, a pang of sadness in his heart. The same was true for Tsunade.
The senjutsu curse mark is absolutely necessary. He was determined to find a path to longevity, and he refused to walk it alone.
That evening at dinner, he turned to Tsunade. "How is the Wood Release research coming along?"
"Almost there," she mumbled through a mouthful of food.
Shizune stifled a giggle. It was always "almost there."
Tsunade shot her a glare, then turned back to Genichi. "That Yin-Yang Release scroll you gave me… have you completed the Truth-Seeking Orbs you mentioned?"
Genichi shook his head. "I'm almost there, too. Fusing all seven nature transformations is proving difficult." He looked at Tsunade. "Are you interested in giving Sage Mode another try?"
She looked up, surprised. "Me? But I can't even sense natural energy." She thought of the mark Orochimaru had left on Anko, and her face twisted in disgust. "You're not talking about that curse mark of Orochimaru's, are you?"
Genichi laughed. "Of course not. His control over senjutsu is far too crude." Orochimaru's method caused uncontrolled mutations, turning its users into monstrous versions of themselves.
"My method is different. It's still a curse mark, but it addresses your specific problem: the inability to sense natural energy. It will act as a conduit, allowing you to perceive and absorb it."
Tsunade listened intently. "So, the curse mark would do the sensing and absorbing for me."
"Exactly," Genichi confirmed. "The rest shouldn't be a problem for you." He had already tested this theory in the future; Tsunade's control over natural energy, once she could access it, was even better than Jiraiya's.
"With the Yin Seal and the Strength of a Hundred Seal, you can store the senjutsu chakra and use it to nourish your cells, allowing you to undergo a safe, gradual Sage transformation."
The Yin Seal, the Strength of a Hundred Seal, and Genichi's custom curse mark—it was a safe path to Sage Mode. It would still take Tsunade fifty or sixty years to reach his level, but if she did, her lifespan would increase dramatically—not just slowing aging, but fundamentally altering it at the cellular level.
"Amazing!" Ina exclaimed.
"But… I still haven't mastered the Yin Seal or the Strength of a Hundred Seal," Shizune said, looking down sadly.
Genichi, who was sitting beside her, leaned in and whispered, "You don't have faith in my ability? I'll have to punish you tonight."
Shizune's face instantly flushed a deep red.
Across the table, Tsunade snorted. That little punk is definitely up to no good.
"Then it's decided," Genichi said, concluding the matter. He still had to perfect the curse mark, but the path was clear.
Tsunade nodded in agreement. She was tired of watching Genichi face the world's greatest threats all by himself, with no one who could truly stand by his side.
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