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After the day's matches ended, Sasuke and the others excitedly began trying to practice the Total Concentration Breathing method in the courtyard.
Kaito returned to his room and continued sorting through the design blueprints he had drawn earlier.
Eventually he set down his brush, walked over to the suspended balcony on the far side of the room, and sank into the sofa to think.
He was pondering the problem of awakening the Rinnegan.
What he had told Sasuke earlier was not entirely a lie.
Throughout all of recorded history, only Madara had ever evolved the Sharingan all the way to the Rinnegan on his own.
Others, Kaguya obtained entirely new eyes after eating the God Tree's fruit, and the Sage of Six Paths simply inherited his mother's power.
Even setting the Sage aside, Madara's own process was essentially irreproducible.
Madara's eyes had already reached the Eternal Mangekyō stage, and he had then absorbed Senju Hashirama's cells and chakra.
Those two men had been the reincarnations of Indra and Asura respectively.
Even according to Madara himself, that method had taken an agonizingly long time.
In the current generation, Sasuke and Naruto were Indra's and Asura's transmigrants. They could attempt the same path, but success was far from guaranteed.
Moreover, Sasuke's eyes had not yet reached the required level.
Kaito's own eyes were only a hair's breadth away from the Eternal Mangekyō, yet he absolutely could not use the Indra-Asura method.
So he decided to approach it from an entirely different angle.
According to shinobi chakra theory:
Spiritual energy = Yin
Physical energy = Yang
The ultimate mastery of Yin-Yang Release can create all things.
The essence of the Sharingan is the manifestation and accumulation of pure Yin-attribute chakra—spiritual power.
The Uchiha bloodline allows vast quantities of spiritual energy to pool in the eyes, activating the unique structure of the optic nerves and brain. That is how the Sharingan is born.
Dōjutsu are nothing more than the caster's spiritual power released through the eyes to interfere with reality.
Kaito himself possessed no chakra—his soul was untainted by the God Tree's power—but that only meant he could not combine spiritual and physical energy into chakra.
As an onmyōji, his raw spiritual energy was monstrously powerful.
That was precisely why he could awaken the Sharingan without being a shinobi or possessing chakra.
Once he understood the Sharingan's true nature, deducing the origin of the Rinnegan became simple:
When Yin reaches its absolute extreme, the pole reverses and Yang is born—that moment of reversal is the trigger for the Rinnegan.
He now knew the principle.
The difficulty lay in reaching that realm.
As an onmyōji, Kaito had studied techniques involving all five elements and both Yin and Yang.
They were different from the elemental ninjutsu shinobi normally used, but bore a striking resemblance to the sealing arts passed down by the Uzumaki clan.
To achieve "Yin gives birth to Yang," Kaito would have to focus exclusively on cultivating Yin-attribute energies and pure spiritual power.
In onmyōji theory, however, "spiritual power" and "Yin energy" were related but not identical.
Everything in the universe contained Yin and Yang: heaven and earth, sun and moon, day and night, heat and cold.
In spellcraft there were countless additional sources: the resentful energy of ghosts was Yin, the vital blood-energy of the living was Yang, and so on.
Right now Kaito's mastery was still at the stage of "Yin-Yang Opposition."
He could only use a technique of the same attribute as the energy he channeled.
The supreme goal—"Yin-Yang Conversion"—would allow him to freely transform any energy into any other, giving him limitless versatility.
More importantly, once he reached that realm, the Rinnegan would awaken naturally.
That realm was not impossibly far away for him.
Ever since he began cultivating the Taizan Fukun Ritual he had obtained from Seimei, progress had become a simple matter of steady, patient grinding.
So Kaito already knew his own path clearly.
What occupied his thoughts now was Sasuke.
Kaito's ambitions had never been tied to the mortal world.
Yet for the clan he was born into and the few family members he had left, he still harbored ordinary human feelings.
The Uchiha of today had taken root in the Yellow Springs and secured an unshakable position, but that was the afterlife.
In the living world, aside from the unspeakable Itachi, only he and Sasuke remained.
And since Kaito himself was a special case, Sasuke was effectively the last Uchiha who could stand in the shinobi world.
Kaito did not particularly care about "reviving the clan's glory" in the conventional sense, but Izuna, Chiri, and many other Uchiha souls in the underworld placed great hopes on Sasuke. They wished for him to restore the clan's name.
Kaito's solution was brutally straightforward:
1. Make Sasuke as strong as possible.
2. Make Sasuke produce as many descendants as possible.
Numbers + strength = mission accomplished.
Sasuke's current power was respectable: excellent kenjutsu and a Mangekyō Sharingan put him roughly on par with the current Kage.
But to Kaito, that was nowhere near enough.
That was why he had specially organized and brought back the Total Concentration Breathing method from the Demon Slayer world—to give Sasuke a solid foundation and, in the future, enrich the entire clan's heritage.
If possible, he also wanted to help Sasuke awaken the Rinnegan.
Only then could he truly rest easy.
With Sasuke's personality—honest to a fault and terrible at schemes—the only reliable way forward was overwhelming, absolute strength.
Thinking of this, Kaito let out a small sigh.
He had no illusions that another genius strategist like Izuna would ever appear in the clan again.
History showed there had only ever been one Izuna.
Just as there had only ever been one Tobirama among the Senju.
Even though Izuna had achieved a form of immortality in the underworld, once the Yellow Springs was fully stabilized, Lord Enma would never allow any of His subordinates to interfere in the living world.
That was an iron rule Enma had to enforce to securely sit upon the throne of Lord of the Dead.
So, short of somehow combining Indra's and Asura's chakra, Kaito could see no reliable way to grant Sasuke the Rinnegan.
If Sasuke tried to follow Kaito's own onmyōji path, success was possible in theory, but the probability was microscopically small and would take decades—if not centuries.
Kaito tapped the armrest of the sofa with one finger, shook his head, and stood up. He walked into the adjoining bathroom.
He decided to wait until Sasuke at least reached the Eternal Mangekyō stage before worrying further.
Ever since his journey to the other world, he had existed mostly as a soul and had not truly slept in a very long time.
Although his spiritual power was vast, now that his soul had fully returned to his body, he could feel exhaustion settling deep into his bones.
It was time for a proper night's sleep.