Chapter 159: Is the Sharingan a Talent or a Return to Ancestral Nature?
The experiment had failed.
Yin attribute chakra could provoke intense negative emotions, but it could not steer those emotions into sadness with any precision. Even worse, his observations showed no new chakra being produced in the process.
Kenichi let out a slow breath, looked at the dead subject on the table, and quietly removed the brain.
He cut open the amygdala to examine it and, just like before, found a tiny piece of flesh embedded inside. The amygdala also displayed the same obvious mutation reaction as the previous subject.
That only reinforced his conclusion.
The formation of the Sharingan was directly tied to the amygdala.
"So what are the actual conditions for the Sharingan to evolve?" Kenichi murmured. "And how do I use Yin attribute chakra to specifically trigger sadness? Does it really have to be sadness for the Sharingan to change?"
To eliminate the chance of error, he still dissected the rest of the brain. After a careful examination, he found nothing else worth alarming him.
There was also nothing in Shin's brain that matched the previous subject's other strange tissue components. Shin had some unusual structures, but nothing consistent with the earlier case.
Still, Kenichi recorded everything.
Then he called the supplies over to clean up, take the corpse away, and preserve it properly. Even as a corpse, it could still be used later to improve the Impure World Reincarnation.
"This is annoying," Kenichi muttered, scratching his head. "What exactly are the conditions for these Uchiha to awaken the Sharingan?"
At this point, he was forced to admit something unpleasant.
Extreme emotional stimulation alone might not be effective.
Both subjects had died from the stimulation, yet neither awakened. It made him wonder if awakening, and even the number of tomoe, depended on talent.
The idea was not impossible.
Itachi had awakened the Mangekyo Sharingan at a young age. Shisui had awakened it as well.
Kenichi's interest rose. He stood up quickly and grabbed his experiment log, flipping through it again.
Talent was hard to measure, but it was real.
Someone could study like everyone else, never get tutoring, never stand out in class, and still take first place in the entire grade every time. Another person could be terrible at textbooks but become a monster in games, rise to the top of the national server, and get recruited for tryouts.
Different fields, different instincts, different ceilings.
That was talent, even if you could not hold it in your hand.
"If I could get some of Shisui's tissue, I could do a full comparison," Kenichi said, irritation creeping in. "Why didn't I think to draw a vial of blood from him before he left Konoha?"
He froze.
Then his eyes lit up.
"No. I don't have Shisui's tissue here… but I do have someone else's eyes."
He slammed his fist into his palm as the memory hit him.
That night, during the Nine Tails rampage, he had dug out the three tomoe Sharingan Obito had given Kakashi. After that, he had placed another three tomoe Sharingan back into Kakashi's eye socket.
Obito had once been mocked as a failure, but he had still become a Mangekyo user. His Mangekyo had evolved under intense emotional stimulation.
Kenichi could not say for sure how much of that was influenced by Madara's training or the White Zetsu material grafted into Obito's body, but it was still a valuable comparison sample.
So he retrieved the Sharingan that had been preserved for a long time.
Kenichi held Obito's eye in his hand and studied it in silence.
This eye could use Kamui and absorb targets.
At first, Kenichi had thought the target was being sucked directly to some unknown place. Later, he learned the truth. It was being pulled into Kamui's space.
He had even considered tossing a thermobaric bomb inside, but he still did not know how to properly open the kaleidoscope, so he had not tested it.
"Scraping off a little should be fine," Kenichi muttered.
He carefully scraped off a tiny amount of debris from the preserved eye, then placed the eye back. It looked the same as before.
No visible damage.
With the sample secured, Kenichi left several shadow clones behind to watch the remaining Uchiha prisoners, then departed his own lab.
He intended to compare Obito's Mangekyo genetics with the genetics of ordinary Uchiha prisoners. To extract and separate chakra properly, he needed the equipment in his teacher's laboratory.
His own lab had research tools, but his teacher's facility was far more complete when it came to genetic work.
The moment Kenichi entered, he saw a blonde girl sleeping on the sofa.
He recognized that body instantly.
His teacher, Orochimaru.
"The teacher is actually back?" Kenichi was genuinely surprised.
He moved carefully past the sofa, went straight into the laboratory, placed the scraped debris into a specialized test tube, and added a prepared solution.
Then he placed the sample into the separation and extraction device.
He processed the blood from two other Uchiha in the same way, running them through the same pipeline.
Now all that was left was to wait for the instrument to finish, and then compare the results.
With that done, Kenichi stepped out and closed the lab door.
"Teacher is different today," he thought, glancing at Orochimaru, still asleep on the sofa.
Normally, his teacher was alert enough to wake the instant someone entered. Any competent shinobi had to be. Otherwise, sleeping would become a very embarrassing way to lose your head.
Under normal conditions, Kenichi could not have approached his teacher without being noticed. The moment he got close, Orochimaru would sense him.
Yet even while Kenichi waited for the machine to run, Orochimaru still did not stir.
"Too sleepy? That makes no sense…"
Curious, Kenichi walked over and crouched to examine him.
The body was that of a young blonde girl. Long hair spilled across the cheeks, smooth and neat. The features were small and delicate, with long eyelashes and fair skin, convincing enough to fool anyone at a glance.
The sleeping posture was also unusual. Orochimaru lay on his side with his calves curled up, toes pale under the dim laboratory lights. His hands were folded against the sofa, and his breathing was slow and steady.
Kenichi felt awkward.
It was the first time he had watched his teacher sleep this closely, especially without being noticed. Even if it was some kind of test, the situation still made his skin crawl.
Then he noticed the blanket had slipped to the floor.
He picked it up and draped it over Orochimaru, even though shinobi rarely caught colds.
The moment the blanket settled, Orochimaru's eyelashes twitched.
The next second, his eyes opened and fixed on Kenichi.
"Ahem. Teacher," Kenichi said quickly, raising both hands, "I only did that because I saw you were asleep."
"It's you, Kenichi. Yawn…" Orochimaru rubbed his eyes, then sat up, stretched, and yawned again.
Kenichi watched him carefully. Had he really been asleep? Kenichi had half believed this was some strange trust test, the kind people used when they wanted to see who would betray them.
"Why did you suddenly come to my lab?" Orochimaru asked casually, still rubbing his eyes.
Then he pulled out a pair of socks and put them on with complete ease.
Kenichi's lips twitched.
He silently accelerated the chakra circulation through his body, and his three tomoe Sharingan surfaced.
"Hm? I'm not under genjutsu?" Kenichi blurted, honestly surprised. He had assumed this whole scene had to be an illusion. But there was no distortion in his senses at all.
"What are you doing, gathering chakra like that?" Orochimaru's eyes narrowed.
Kenichi immediately waved his hand. "Nothing. I was just worried I might be under a technique."
Since it was not a technique, it meant Orochimaru was truly wearing socks, and they went past the ankle.
Not stockings, but still… strange.
Kenichi could not shake the feeling that his teacher had become oddly unpredictable lately.
"Teacher, I came to borrow your DNA separation and extraction machine," Kenichi said, forcing his expression back into something polite and normal. If Orochimaru wanted to explain what was going on, he would. Kenichi was not eager to ask.
"Then use it. Do you want one for your lab?" Orochimaru yawned again as he stood.
Only then did Kenichi realize the body's height was the same as before, still a bit shorter than him.
It looked like this body had stopped developing, yet the proportions were oddly well balanced, making the disguise even more convincing.
"…How much would it cost to buy one?" Kenichi hesitated.
To be honest, he did not want to. The price would be painful. But the moment he imagined how much easier his work would become, he could not help asking.
His lab was nearly complete, with plenty of empty rooms waiting for instruments. The lab had become essential to him.
Even if the Land of Rice Fields were destroyed one day, he could not allow the lab to fail. If someone dared to ruin it, Kenichi swore he would make them pay.
"That depends on the brand," Orochimaru said, suddenly interested. "If you want something economical, a full set is around eighty million ryo. If you want high end precision, it's over one hundred seventy million ryo."
Then Orochimaru pulled out a sheet of paper and started explaining the differences between the devices he knew.
Kenichi watched his teacher enthusiastically discuss quality and cost effectiveness, and his unease only grew.
Something really was off.
"Then we'll go with a high end one," Kenichi decided, nodding.
The cheaper machines were tempting, but for DNA work, precision and cleanliness mattered. Contamination would cause endless trouble, and high end systems had clear advantages.
During the half day wait for the instrument to finish, Kenichi went on a spending spree and bought a large amount of high precision equipment.
By the time he stopped, he only had thirty million ryo left, which was probably just enough to buy the head of a jonin.
But bounties on jonin were rarely easy.
Once the results came in, Kenichi sat in front of the computer and began comparing them one by one.
Even with the Sharingan, this kind of work devoured time.
"Are you looking at Uchiha genetic information?" Orochimaru asked from behind him, tea in hand, sipping as he watched.
"Yes," Kenichi said, nodding. "I want to see whether the timing of awakening the Sharingan has anything to do with genes."
The Uchiha were descended from the Sage of Six Paths, and a question had been growing in Kenichi's mind.
When he awakened his own Sharingan, and whether he could awaken the Mangekyo Sharingan, might be tied to his genes.
The closer a person was to Otsutsuki blood, the stronger they seemed to become.
So for the Uchiha, if someone's genetic sequence was closer to their ancestor, could that determine whether they could reach the Mangekyo Sharingan?
Kenichi was inclined to believe it could.
Otherwise, if emotional stimulation alone was enough to evolve the Mangekyo, the Uchiha would not have produced only a handful of Mangekyo users across such a long history.
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