Laying Down His Burden

With Karin's body data from each stage of her attempt to awaken the Rinnegan right at hand, Shinji could easily spot the problem.

As he pored over the records, the confusion in his eyes deepened.

By rights, with a pair of Rinnegan and a pair of Red Dragon Eyes under his control, his Dojutsu was considerably stronger than Karin's. So when his implanted First Hokage cells fused with his Chakra, the resulting Power of All Things should have been greater than Karin's after her surgery.

"Where exactly did things go wrong?"

Shinji forced himself to calm down and sort through the details.

Awakening the Rinnegan was a prerequisite for resisting the Overlord. If he didn't awaken the Rinnegan himself and had to rely on his Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan to control Karin's Rinnegan through the Susanoo Lamp, he'd have a hard time even becoming the Ten-Tails Jinchuriki.

He couldn't afford to let this step go wrong!

Back in his study, he reviewed his notes and went over every stage of the process.

"My condition was perfectly normal before the surgery. The data was only slightly off for the first day or two afterward. The real problem started on the third day."

Shinji furrowed his brow, recalling what he'd done over the past few days.

But after thinking it over carefully, he couldn't find anything amiss. He'd known all along that this was a critical period for awakening the Rinnegan, so he'd kept a low profile, done nothing rash, and run no experiments on his body.

"Where exactly did Karin and I differ after surgery? This makes no sense!"

Shinji propped up his chin, his face full of confusion.

Suddenly, a flash of insight struck him.

"Could it be...?"

Shinji narrowed his eyes.

If he was looking for a difference, there was