The days that followed slipped into an unexpected calm.
During the day, Konome Taketori used Root's resources to research ways to advance the Sharingan. At night, she drew chakra from the Senju Tree, feeding it across the link to power her main body's jutsu development.
There was no clear path for advancing the Sharingan.
Without Uchiha test subjects, she had no way to confirm what kind of special chakra structure the Uchiha brain produced. In the end, she could only attempt the crudest method: brute-forcing it with an ocean of life force.
The experiment failed.
The Senju Tree's vitality was like a boundless sea, and the Sharingan couldn't absorb it at all.
The difference in scale was too great.
Even if one element countered another, an ant still couldn't swallow an elephant.
A normal three-tomoe Sharingan couldn't suppress that vast power, let alone absorb it and evolve. If she hadn't reacted quickly, the three-tomoe pair implanted into that flesh mass would have been eroded and ruined by Hashirama cells instead.
If you wanted to push a three-tomoe into Mangekyō, only a monster like Naruto Uzumaki had any real hope.
And even then, raising him to Mangekyō level would probably cost him thirty years of his life. With that kind of effort, you might as well train Sage Mode instead. The cost-performance was simply higher than some so-called Mangekyō path.
Danzō's dream of a Mangekyō army was doomed to collapse.
Konome Taketori didn't care.
An investor's dream going bankrupt had nothing to do with the hired hand. She wasn't even planning to walk the route of evolving the Sharingan into Mangekyō, then Rinnegan, and so on.
The image of Uchiha Obito, forced to flee like a cornered beast after Kamui was countered, was still vivid in her mind.
The more rigid a jutsu was, the easier it was to expose a flaw.
Once the intel was understood, those "mysterious" dōjutsu became laughably clumsy.
Compared to leaning on ocular powers whose origins were murky at best, she wanted to understand the knowledge behind them and reproduce them in her own way.
So while studying Sharingan evolution, she also spent time dismantling the imprint of Kotoamatsukami inside her mind, trying to cast it using an ordinary three-tomoe Sharingan.
In theory, if Izanagi could be replicated, then Kotoamatsukami shouldn't be impossible.
But reality was far more complicated than she'd imagined.
Kotoamatsukami was extraordinarily complex. Even with the Byakugan's terrifying observation and analysis, she only managed to roughly grasp its triggering mechanism.
To put the conclusion first:
The effects of Kotoamatsukami were not the same in the left and right eye.
The left eye in the Uchiha's hands could permanently alter a person's will. The one in Danzō's possession could only modify will temporarily. It could be dispelled, and its cooldown was short, nowhere near the absurd "ten-plus years" kind of interval.
But that didn't mean Danzō's Kotoamatsukami was weaker than the one Uchiha Itachi used.
A permanent Kotoamatsukami had an absurdly long cooldown. You might only cast it a few times in your entire life.
Danzō's, however, cooled down quickly. It could repeatedly reshape the target's subconscious, adjust commands in real time, and be used with a freedom and flexibility the "permanent" version lacked.
After long-term analysis, Konome Taketori's understanding of its will-alteration mechanism became fairly clear.
At its core, Kotoamatsukami worked like this: the caster issued a precise command, and the dōjutsu temporarily inserted that command into the target's subconscious.
During the process, the target would not know what command had been planted. They wouldn't even realize they were under a dōjutsu.
But their subconscious would already be altered.
And every thought and action produced from that altered subconscious would feel like it came from themselves.
For example:
If Itachi used Kotoamatsukami to implant the command "protect Konoha" into Uchiha Sasuke…
Sasuke wouldn't know he'd been given that command. But he would naturally think of Naruto, of Sakura, of the good in Konoha, and then he would "arrive" at the thought of protecting Konoha on his own.
Even if Kotoamatsukami was later undone, those thoughts would still exist in his mind.
And because those thoughts felt self-generated, aligned with his own logic and emotions, there was still a chance they could persuade him later and lead him to act on "protect Konoha."
This was a dōjutsu that touched the soul, the conscious mind, the subconscious, and more. Not only was the process complicated, many of its key steps lay outside the conventional framework of ninjutsu entirely.
Existing Yin Release knowledge could not explain its operational logic.
If she could truly research it thoroughly in the future, Konome Taketori could formalize its rules and knowledge under her own name, establishing a foundational theory for soul and mind-based techniques, advanced enough to rival Orochimaru's "Yang gives rise to Yin" hypothesis.
For now, Kotoamatsukami development had only reached this stage.
Casting it with a three-tomoe Sharingan was still a long road away, let alone releasing it directly through chakra alone.
Its difficulty wasn't much less than Reverse Eight Gates.
Compared to her daytime research, the nightly process of drawing chakra was far simpler.
Samehada devoured and digested.
Konome Taketori acted as a conduit and conversion hub, transmitting chakra to her main body while monitoring the development of Reverse Eight Gates in real time.
According to her main body, progress was ideal and unbelievably fast. Exhaustion had made her too lazy to explain the hard parts. She only told Konome Taketori to transmit chakra every day and not let it break.
That alone was enough to make Konome Taketori excited. Whenever she had time, she ran to the basement and let Samehada draw more chakra.
During this period, Samehada barely had time to rest.
It ate, then digested.
Once digestion finished, it fed chakra to Konome Taketori.
Then it went right back to devouring again.
Wood Release chakra was too stable by nature, so each absorption took a long time, like swallowing a belly full of sawdust. If the taste of Hashirama's chakra weren't decent, Samehada would have thrown a tantrum and quit.
You couldn't even blame it.
Samehada's specialty was pure chakra.
The kind produced directly by a human chakra core.
Or the tainted, violent chakra of a tailed beast.
Those were its favorites.
But Konome Taketori's chakra was a fusion of three forces.
One portion was her own chakra, clean and light, like fresh vegetables to keep the palate from getting bored.
One portion was the Three-Tails' chakra, familiar "home-style meat."
And then there was the Nine-Tails' chakra, a top-tier feast it had never tasted before.
To Samehada, this was basically a banquet of the highest order.
After spending so much time together, Samehada's taste had been spoiled by Konome Taketori.
Even if the Three-Tails itself stood in front of it, Samehada wouldn't find it as tempting as a single finger's worth of her chakra.
In plain terms, it had been shaped into Konome Taketori's form.
From now on, betrayal would be difficult.
Aside from pure chakra, Samehada could also absorb chakra after nature transformation, but digestion was slower, and its body might not even withstand it.
Among transformed chakra, it was best at Water Release and Wind Release.
Next came Yin and Yang.
Worst were Fire, Lightning, and Earth.
Water Release needed no explanation. Samehada had grown beside the Three-Tails. Devouring Water Release had become instinct.
Wind Release was "looser" in nature transformation, easier to digest, and Samehada's body was hard enough that it didn't fear the cutting property.
Yin and Yang were easy to absorb and digest too, but Samehada's defense was useless against those natures, so it was best to avoid devouring them directly.
Lightning and Fire were the two it hated most because it couldn't properly defend against them.
Lastly came Earth Release, whose nature was extremely stable. Samehada struggled the most to digest it, only slightly easier than swallowing Wood Release, and the "mouthfeel" wasn't to its liking.
In Samehada's own words: "Too dry… tastes bad."
Back when Konome Taketori and Orochimaru had fought Kisame together, the high-pressure water shot she used had been a Wind and Water combination technique.
It had been perfectly suited to Samehada's appetite, so it swallowed it without even a ripple.
But that was also how Samehada first tasted how delicious Konome Taketori's chakra was and decided to betray Kisame almost immediately.
Lucky or unlucky, it was hard to say. If she'd used Lightning, Fire, or Earth techniques back then, Samehada might have hesitated a little longer.
As the greatest contributor in the Raikōzan battle, Konome Taketori didn't want to abuse Samehada.
To prevent it from developing an aversion, she rewarded it with a small portion of her own chakra every time it finished digesting Wood Release chakra.
With that reward sustaining it, Samehada stayed obediently hardworking even when chewing down that "sawdust."
Time continued to pass in quiet routine.
In the blink of an eye, two weeks were gone.
During that period, she returned to the Hatake clan grounds only once. Might Guy and Hatake Kakashi were still away on missions. She grabbed a few changes of clothes and moved directly into Root.
Reverse Eight Gates had reached a critical stage. She also applied for a longer leave from the Ninja Academy and from Hiruzen Sarutobi.
Her reason was simple.
She was researching an extremely important jutsu. Inspiration was overflowing. She couldn't be disturbed.
At the Academy, there was no issue. Iruka was basically incapable of refusing her. He even reminded her not to overwork and to take care of her health.
Then, under the envious gazes of Naruto, Shikamaru, and the others, she left with ease.
Hiruzen had been happy when he saw her, but when he heard she wanted to continue developing jutsu, something in his expression shifted. In the end, he said nothing, only waved his hand and told her to manage it herself.
Konome Taketori understood his worry. With Orochimaru as the example, he feared she would walk down the wrong path.
In truth, his fear wasn't unfounded.
Orochimaru's Living Corpse Reincarnation was about stealing bodies and preserving the soul.
Her Reverse Eight Gates was about devouring life force and turning it into her own, making the flesh eternal.
Two roads, one Yin and one Yang, yet both selfish and predatory in their own way, utterly incompatible with Hiruzen's old-fashioned thinking.
But incompatible or not, it didn't matter.
Reverse Eight Gates was Konome Taketori's personally carved path to the heavens.
No one was allowed to block it.
Not even her teacher.
The longer she spent around Hiruzen, the more she understood why Orochimaru had diverged from him, why even Danzō, who'd known him for decades, eventually walked a separate road.
His devotion to Konoha was real.
And so was his rigidity.
Konoha had countless powerful techniques, yet he sealed them away in scrolls, leaving them to gather dust.
Instead of researching Hashirama cells, why not summon Senju Hashirama himself?
If they could use Edo Tensei to summon the Second Hokage, there would be no need to send him into battle. Just give him a research space to develop techniques.
Over the years, Konoha's forbidden technique archives could have grown at least two scrolls thicker.
Was it because he couldn't let go of power?
Or because he truly couldn't see these possibilities?
Konome Taketori couldn't be bothered to untangle Hiruzen's mind.
After she got her leave, she returned straight to Root.
She continued devouring chakra daily, nearly living in the basement.
And Tsubaki-hime came even more often than she did.
Every night, at the same time, she appeared without fail.
Sometimes she stood before the giant tree and spoke to herself.
Sometimes she simply leaned on the glass and fell into deep sleep, only leaving at dawn.
They didn't disturb each other.
In fact, their routine formed a strange kind of silent understanding. When boredom struck, they even exchanged a few words.
When Tsubaki-hime couldn't sleep, she told Konome Taketori stories of the Senju.
Conversation couldn't be one-sided forever. Konome Taketori couldn't talk much about her past life, so she told stories about the Taketori instead.
The extermination.
The counter-kill.
The escape.
She left out the Byakugan and made the story sharper, more thrilling.
When she heard about the Taketori's destruction, Tsubaki-hime's eyes dimmed with grief, as if she'd been stabbed by her own memories.
When Konome Taketori described the peril of killing Mist ANBU with medical techniques alone, the woman who had never fought anyone, who only knew healing jutsu, grew tense enough to clench her fists until her knuckles whitened.
Only when she heard Konome Taketori had reached Konoha safely did her fists finally loosen.
Little by little, the two grew closer.
Tsubaki-hime's stories about the Senju became deeper, more detailed, as if she were finally pouring out the bitterness of years with no one to speak to.
She spoke of how the First and Second Hokage died one after another, and the Senju slipped into decline.
She spoke of wars breaking out, Senju shinobi taking the lead and dying in staggering numbers.
She spoke of the desire to seize the First Hokage's power, and the catastrophe that followed.
In the end, to preserve dignity, the clan head followed Hashirama's instruction: the name "Senju" was buried, and the bloodline fully dissolved into the civilian populace.
And then she dropped a piece of information so explosive it almost made Konome Taketori fall off the glass cylinder.
"The Fourth Hokage, Namikaze Minato, was also a Senju?"
Konome Taketori's eyes went wide, stunned once again by Tsubaki-hime's casual certainty.
"Half," Tsubaki-hime said. "I got along with his mother. I even held him when he was little."
She wore a face that looked barely in her thirties, and yet she spoke as if those decades were nothing. Her expression was calm, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Konome Taketori instinctively wanted to ask her age.
But thinking of the terrifying life force of the Senju and Uzumaki, she swallowed the question.
She might be no younger than Tsunade.
There was no need to say something that would irritate her.
"But I heard he was a civilian genius," Konome Taketori said.
Her memories from the manga were hard to discard. If even Minato was a bloodline shinobi, then this world was far more hopeless than she'd thought.
Tsubaki-hime looked at her with an expression that was difficult to describe.
"Without sufficient chakra, you cannot reach the realm of 'Kage.'"
"Either you develop Yin-Yang secret arts that increase chakra."
"Or you create a kekkei genkai yourself and reshape your chakra 'seed.'"
"Everyone else inherits life force from their parents."
"The first two methods require enormous time to learn and research. Minato hadn't even graduated the Academy when he already had jōnin-level strength."
"How could he possibly be a civilian genius?"
Konome Taketori scratched her scalp, forced to admit the logic.
The more she studied Yin-Yang techniques, the more she understood the gulf between shinobi.
Even with both Hyūga and Taketori blood, her chakra far surpassed her peers, yet she still only sat around the upper end of chūnin-level.
Without devouring tailed-beast chakra, her growth path would probably resemble Minato's, maybe even worse.
That alone should have been suspicious.
Might Guy's chakra came from the Eight Gates, burning life itself.
Orochimaru's chakra came from jutsu development and body modification.
Jiraiya already had decent chakra, and later he connected to Mount Myōboku, one of the Three Great Sage Regions.
So what did Namikaze Minato have?
No bloodline.
No secret art that expanded chakra.
And yet he could spam the Second Hokage's Flying Thunder God like it was a basic attack?
Before, she'd chalked it up to talent.
Now, it looked like there had always been something off.
But if Minato carried Senju blood, then everything suddenly made sense.
The chakra reserves of an incomplete Sage Body.
Training Flying Thunder God with ease.
Becoming Jiraiya's disciple.
Growing up with Uzumaki Kushina, the Nine-Tails jinchūriki, as his childhood companion.
And Uzumaki Naruto, who inherited both Uzumaki and Senju power, with chakra as deep as an abyss.
So many puzzles aligned at once.
"Then Orochimaru competing with Minato for Fourth Hokage…" Konome Taketori's mind raced, uncovering questions she'd ignored before.
"There was some political influence," Tsubaki-hime said, "but it wasn't as dark as you think."
She could tell what Konome Taketori was thinking immediately. After these days together, she no longer treated her like a child.
"The birth of a kekkei genkai requires luck."
"Researching Yin-Yang secret arts inevitably touches human experimentation. Every secret-art clan was born the same way."
"Orochimaru had to remain cruel to grow stronger."
"But a genius like Minato only needed to appear gentle and kind to earn people's love."
"That was the real reason he lost."
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