The topic of naming jutsu ended right there.
The main body and the clone had identical brains. Even shadow clones could not cure a chronic case of naming paralysis. Still, the important part was that Graybone's ability to drain chakra and life force had been greatly suppressed.
Blood-and-flesh sigils wrapped the skeleton completely, like dense lines of crimson scripture carved across pale gray bone. Layer upon layer of chakra-blocking formulas turned Graybone into a lonely quarantine zone, no longer able to absorb even the smallest trace of energy.
Those root-like bony branches still tried to wrest life force from the flesh, but passive siphoning could never compete with the Eight Gates, a technique born to burn life itself from the very beginning.
And with Konome Taketori openly tilting the scales as the "owner," Graybone could not even steal a thread of vitality. In the end, it could only remain starving, sinking into deep silence.
After all those layers of weakening, the patterns on Graybone's surface were still growing, but even with Konome's Byakugan it was hard to observe the exact rate.
By rough estimate, its growth speed had been reduced by at least a hundredfold. If she could ensure she never used Graybone again, then even by the day she died of old age, the Dead Bone Pulse would still fail to fully evolve into Graybone.
Naturally, she would no longer need to worry whether her body could bear the next stage, the All-Killing Ash Bones.
It could be said that her bloodline illness had been cured through sheer imagination and ruthless experimentation.
But it still was not enough.
Konome Taketori looked inward at the silent bones and felt no satisfaction. Her methods were multiplying, but her strongest, most fundamental power was still the Byakugan and the Dead Bone Pulse.
To abandon Shikotsumyaku now would be like cutting off an arm. More importantly, letting that death-born power go unused was simply wasteful.
So Reverse Eight Gates could not stall. She also had to cultivate an "Sage Body," or something equivalent, to support the cost of Graybone's evolution. And her chakra reserves were still a constant choke point. Samehada could cover it for now, but that was only treating symptoms, not the disease.
External tools would never be as reliable as power that belonged to her.
She had beaten Kisame Hoshigaki, a shinobi who could fight Killer B, with ease for one reason. He relied too much on Samehada.
If she also drowned herself in the false strength Samehada provided, then one day she would be defeated the same way.
That ending was unacceptable.
"Where's your three-tomoe Sharingan?" the main body asked.
"Right here!"
Hearing the question, the Yang Release clone pulled out the bottle she had just taken from the research division and gave it a shake.
Glug, glug.
The slightly viscous solution made a strange sound.
Suspended in clear saline, the crimson three-tomoe Sharingan floated near the surface. Dense bloodshot veins webbed the sclera, the kind of sight that could make anyone with trypophobia break out in chills.
Konome Taketori took the glass bottle without fear and poured the eyeballs into her palm.
Soft purple-red vessels and nerves dangled limply. Wet and heavy, the eyeballs were dull and lifeless. Even the rotating tomoe looked sluggish.
Tss.
A thin slit opened automatically in each of Konome's palms. Strands of fleshy sprouts and blood-vessels extended from inside, tangling with the Sharingan's veins and arteries, stitching them together bit by bit.
Grrrk.
Wet friction echoed through the cave. The two crimson eyeballs, as if designed for this very structure, sank slowly into the fleshy hollows prepared for them.
The green glow of the Mystical Palm Technique lit the cave. The triangle-and-incircle seal above Konome's brow began to rotate, left and right, like a slow-turning mechanism.
Click, click, click.
The three Gates of Life, bound by chakra chains, unsealed little by little, releasing a pure spring of vitality.
Under the combined control of Yang Release chakra and Byakugan ocular power, that life force flowed along her meridians into her palms, fully linking and fusing the Sharingan to her palm meridian network.
Whoosh.
The Sharingan embedded in her palms flared with light.
Living purple chakra surged through the connected pathways. The three tomoe accelerated, while crimson Yin-nature ocular power converted endlessly within.
In only two minutes, the plug-and-play Sharingan had been perfectly grafted into Konome's hands.
"How does it feel?" the Yang clone stepped closer, brimming with curiosity as she watched the main body close her eyes and sense.
Leaving aside the Sage Body, the main body had now gathered the full kit of Kaguya Ōtsutsuki's bloodline abilities. The Byakugan and Dead Bone Pulse could link into "Body Manipulation." The Sharingan might cause a new mutation in that chain.
"It feels… like nothing new is happening."
Konome pushed more chakra and life force into the three-tomoe in her palms, expecting surprise.
But even when the ocular power overflowed, she found nothing special.
"The Sharingan really can absorb chakra and life force and convert them into ocular power, but the efficiency is ridiculously low." Konome clenched her palm around the Sharingan. Byakugan power and Sharingan power met and rippled against each other.
"For the Byakugan, ocular power to chakra conversion is close to one-to-one. For the Sharingan, the ratio is ten-to-one. It takes ten units of chakra to convert into one unit of Sharingan ocular power. The cost is insane. Keeping the Sharingan active long-term is basically the same as continuously casting Wind Release: Rotation."
Compared to chakra, converting life force was slightly more efficient.
"About fifteen portions of life force become one portion of Sharingan ocular power."
"Hold on," the Yang clone said, rolling her eyes while doing the math. "Which one is more efficient? I'm lost."
"Life force is more efficient."
Konome tried moving the Sharingan's ocular power and found it stiff, nothing like the Byakugan, which responded as naturally as her own fingers.
"Our chakra quality is about three to four times that of an ordinary person. Even then, we still need ten portions to get one portion of ocular power. For a normal person, it would take at least thirty portions of chakra to get one."
"Life force quality between us and ordinary people shouldn't differ much. Thirty versus fifteen. Life force converts better."
"That's still awful," the Yang clone muttered.
With Byakugan, she could keep it open all day, because her chakra core synthesized chakra faster than Byakugan could consume it.
With the Sharingan pushed to full output, she might last an hour at best. The gap was not just "thirty times." It was a gulf.
No wonder Kakashi always looked half-dead. Three tomoe alone was that expensive. If he ever used Mangekyō, the cost would be unthinkable.
Konome agreed the efficiency was disgracefully low, but it was unavoidable. The Uchiha Sharingan was not truly "hot-swappable."
According to the Second Hokage's research notes preserved in Root, the essence of the Sharingan was this. When an Uchiha's brain experienced intense emotion, it generated a special kind of chakra.
That unique Yin chakra crossed through the eyes and interfaced with the outside world, ultimately projecting a distinct pattern into the pupil.
That was why the Sharingan's true name was "the Eye that Reflects the Heart."
Even from the single tomoe stage, it was already the Eye that Reflects the Heart.
The three tomoe were the most basic form, representing three talents, three powers every shinobi pursued deep down.
Taijutsu talent: dynamic vision, neural reaction, predictive movement.
Genjutsu talent: hypnosis, genjutsu counter, seeing through disguises.
Ninjutsu talent: sensing chakra flow, copying jutsu, seeing weak points in techniques.
Three tomoe encompassed nin, tai, and gen. Once awakened, even an ordinary Uchiha could leap from mediocrity into an all-rounder prototype.
And chakra supply was not even optional.
The Sharingan's nature produced Yin from Yang. If your chakra was sufficient, good. If it wasn't, the eyes would forcibly squeeze life force into ocular power and chakra anyway, naturally pushing you into a "burn your life" state.
Bloodline sickness followed the same logic everywhere.
To evolve from three tomoe to Mangekyō, the Uchiha brain needed to generate that special chakra again. The Eye that Reflects the Heart would paint a new pattern, birthing bizarre ocular techniques.
Obito, who wanted to escape reality, obtained Kamui intangibility.
Kakashi, who wanted to banish the Three-Tails sealed inside Rin, obtained a more offensive, long-range Kamui.
Under pressure from the world, craving control, Itachi gained Tsukuyomi.
And when his best friend died and rage could not be extinguished, he gained the undying black flames of Amaterasu.
In the end, the strange patterns were only the surface. The Yin chakra produced inside the brain was what truly mattered.
Without that chakra, or if it did not match the Sharingan's original nature, then life force and huge amounts of chakra had to be force-converted. Efficiency would naturally be terrible.
Even control would become extremely difficult.
Danzō's Izanagi could last only one minute.
Obito's could last three.
If he had been ruthless enough to embed several three-tomoe into his arm, the Yang clone would have died on Raiko Drum Mountain.
As for evolving the Sharingan, that was a hundred times harder than controlling it.
A shinobi with average talent could burn their chakra and life dry and still fail to push two tomoe into three.
As for Mangekyō, the Second Hokage's notes were vague.
But Konome believed that even with Hashirama cells as fuel, the chance of evolving into Mangekyō was close to zero.
Eternal Mangekyō and Rinnegan were not even worth imagining.
Kakashi was a special case.
The chakra resonance produced when Obito awakened dragged Kakashi's Mangekyō awake as well. In truth, whether Rin lived or died was irrelevant.
Even if Obito had locked himself in a dark room reading Icha Icha Paradise every day, Kakashi's Mangekyō would still have awakened.
Of course, a different emotional trigger might have produced a different technique.
A Kamui born from Icha Icha Paradise might not have become anything particularly broken.
"So can the Sharingan act as a life-force filter or not?"
Seeing the main body's mood darken, the Yang clone asked the question she cared about most.
For this pair of Sharingan, she had crossed mountains to Raiko Drum Mountain and fought Obito. If it still could not work, then all of it would be for nothing.
Konome's dead-gray pupils flashed. Her mind simulated scenario after scenario, and in the end she could only shake her head.
"No one can know until we test it.
The Sharingan and Hashirama cells each represent the extremes of Yin and Yang. Using pure Yin, formless ocular power to simulate the tangible shell of Yang at its peak is basically exhausting every subtlety of Yin-Yang transformation.
If that still fails… then there really is no other way."
They fell silent, both feeling a headache coming on. But they also understood how absurd the technique they were trying to develop really was.
Across a thousand years of shinobi history, there had been countless geniuses, but only one Hashirama Senju.
And Konome was only one step away from that "God of Shinobi."
If she succeeded, her life force and chakra would grow without limit. Before she ever reached Six Paths, the road ahead would be wide open.
Reverse Eight Gates was her path to divinity.
It could not fail. It had to be completed fast. The longer she delayed, the less time she had to grow, and the more variables the future would throw at her.
Konome's gaze hardened. Her hands formed a cross before her chest.
Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu!
Boom.
Smoke filled the cave.
The Yang clone coughed and waved a hand. A gust of wind cleared the haze, revealing sixty-six silver-haired girls in white robes.
"That many?" The Yang clone's pupils tightened.
No one understood Konome better than herself. The main body's chakra reserves could never be split into that many clones.
There was only one possibility.
Konome's face had gone paper-white. The purple core of her heart thumped violently. The seal on her smooth forehead rotated, releasing green energy from the three Gates of Life.
Burning life to exchange for extra chakra was the only way to support the cost of multiple shadow clones.
Once Reverse Eight Gates was completed, these lost portions of life force could be replenished casually.
With the bloodline sickness no longer threatening her life, she finally dared to use the Eight Gates so recklessly.
"Handle everything outside for me. I'm going into seclusion here."
"Understood."
The Yang clone looked at the shadow clones packed into the cramped cave and could already feel the main body's resolve.
She picked up Samehada, which had lain motionless on the ground the entire time, and slung it over her shoulder as she turned to leave the cave.
Samehada's appetite was enormous. The main body was using all her chakra on multiple shadow clones, with no spare to feed it daily.
The clone would have to find more chakra to cover the development losses on the main body's side. She could not let the main body keep burning life force to develop Reverse Eight Gates. Her body would not hold.
She would return to Root, borrow some chakra from the death-row prisoners in the cells. If that still was not enough, there was also a massive chakra source in the research division's underground facility.
She just did not know whether Samehada could swallow Hashirama's chakra.
It had better be strong enough.
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