Reverse thinking, Sharingan, awaken!

He lay face down on the cold ground.

The cold mountain wind could not dispel the searing agony inside his body.

He had failed.

Uesugi Sasuke's chest heaved violently, every breath tugging at the tearing ache throughout his body.

His seemingly perfect theory had been smashed to pieces by reality.

His elation and confidence vanished without a trace, like the receding tide.

In their place came pain that sank into his bones, and a blank bewilderment.

Why?

He could not understand.

Why would powers so similar in nature produce such violent rejection?

Where had he gone wrong?

Was it the theory, or the method?

He had thought he had found a shortcut that transcended this world's system.

Instead, reality had delivered the loudest, most agonizing slap to his face.

Humiliation.

A humiliation deeper than being called a fool by Kuwajima, deeper than watching Zenitsu unconsciously execute Thunderclap and Flash, engulfed him.

Because this time, he had lost to the very "mind" he took such pride in.

A long time passed.

With trembling arms, he barely managed to prop up his upper body.

He lowered his head and looked at his legs, which were still twitching faintly.

Then he slowly opened his right hand.

His palm was empty.

Yet he felt as though he could still sense Chidori's violent, pure lightning flickering there.

That was power that belonged entirely to him.

And the Breathing Style...

Had he made the problem too complicated again?

He had been trying to "fuse" them all along.

Trying to forcefully mash two powers together.

But what if...

They did not need to fuse at all?

What if the Breathing Style's role was merely... support?

The thought split the fog in his mind in an instant, like a bolt of lightning on a pitch-black, rainy night.

He struggled to his feet and dragged his battered body step by step toward the nearby waterfall.

The icy pool submerged his body, its bone-piercing chill clearing his pain-addled mind considerably.

He sat on a cold rock and let the waterfall wash over his body.

He began to review what had happened.

His mistake had not been his direction, but his priorities.

Why should he make a higher form of energy like chakra accommodate a "technique" like the Breathing Style, which squeezed out the body's potential?

It was like decorating a worthless rock with gold.

Utterly foolish.

The Breathing Style did not generate energy.

It was merely a switch, a "switch" that overclocked the machine that was the body to its limits.

And the "fuel" inside his body was chakra.

So what he needed to do was not use the Breathing Style to drive his blood and activate his cells.

He needed to use the rhythm of the Breathing Style to control his own energy.

Use this world's "switch" to ignite the volcano inside him called "chakra."

Not make chakra adapt to the Breathing Style.

But make the Breathing Style the... trigger for his ninjutsu!

Once the idea emerged, he could no longer suppress it.

Sasuke abruptly rose from the water.

The humiliation of failure and the frustration of helplessness all transformed at that moment into an almost maddened elation.

He had found it.

He had found the unique path that truly belonged to him alone.

He walked beneath the tree, picked up the broken half of the wooden sword, and gripped it tightly.

An unprecedented light surged in his dark eyes.

First Form, Thunderclap and Flash.

If the body did not have enough fuel...

Then let me feed it a greater fire.

He assumed the sword-drawing stance again.

His state of mind had changed completely.

There was no more bewildered imitation, nor obsessive deconstruction.

Instead, there was a creator's scrutiny from above.

He closed his eyes and began adjusting his breathing.

Short and forceful.

But he no longer tried to sense such nebulous things as "surging blood" or "cell activation."

For him, breathing was simply the pure, rhythmic act of inhaling and exhaling.

A necessary step in launching a program.

Next, he began mobilizing the chakra inside his body.

At his will, pure lightning release chakra began gathering in his right arm.

This time, he did not let the chakra permeate his muscles.

Instead, he compressed it rapidly within his chakra pathways in time with his breathing.

Out-in!

Out-in!

Each breath was like a heavy hammer, smashing the rushing chakra toward his palm.

Bzz... crackle!

The lightning in his hand was unlike any he had produced before.

It was no longer wildly spilling arcs of electricity.

Instead, it was highly condensed, pure energy that seemed to have taken physical form.

The piercing birdsong grew clearer and sharper too, as though it could pierce the soul.

He could not even feel any numbness.

All that power was perfectly restrained within his control.

Now.

Sasuke's eyes snapped open, absolute reason and confidence reflected in his dark pupils.

He did not call out the technique's name.

Because this was no longer Thunderclap and Flash.

This was his own technique.

His figure vanished.

There was no flash of lightning, no afterimage.

In just an instant, he crossed more than ten meters and appeared before a boulder as tall as a person.

His right hand remained in a thrusting position, buried deep inside the rock.

Crack... crack, crack...

With his palm at their center, spiderweb cracks instantly spread across the entire boulder.

Boom!

The boulder shattered with a crash, sending fragments flying everywhere.

He slowly withdrew his hand, the lightning in his palm quietly dissipating without a trace of wasted energy.

The time needed to execute the technique had been reduced by at least half.

Its power, meanwhile, had more than doubled.

Most importantly, the strain on his body was almost negligible.

He had succeeded.

His mouth spread into a cold, exhilarated smile.

Just then.

Without warning, that cold mechanical voice sounded in his mind.

[Ding!]

[Detected that the host has successfully achieved a preliminary fusion of two power systems, broken through the barrier between worlds, and met a hidden condition.]

[Distributing special reward...]

[Congratulations, host. Unlocked: One-Tomoe Sharingan!]

The instant the voice finished speaking.

An indescribable heat erupted in his right eye.

It was not pain.

Instead, it was an awakening and transformation of power that seemed to come from the depths of his soul.

"Ugh!"

Sasuke grunted and instinctively covered his right eye.

A warm liquid seeped between his fingers and dripped to the ground.

It was blood.

He staggered to the edge of the pool beneath the waterfall and looked down.

The clear surface reflected his face.

His right eye was no longer black.

It was a bloody scarlet.

At the center of that blood-red pupil, a black, comma-shaped tomoe slowly rotated with a strange rhythm.

Sharingan!

He stared fixedly at his reflection in the water, his heart pounding uncontrollably.

This was the power of the Uchiha Clan.

He slowly raised his head and looked at the world around him.

The entire world had changed.

The splashing waterfall was no longer a blurry curtain of water.

He could clearly see the trajectory of every individual droplet through the air.

He could make out every fine vein on the leaves swaying in the wind.

Every beat of the wings of insects flying in the distance was slowed infinitely in his eyes.

The world had never been so clear.

Never so... slow.

He raised his left hand and waved it before his eyes.

Every detail of its movement, the pull of muscles, the creases of skin, was visible with perfect clarity.

This was dynamic vision.

This was Chidori's perfect partner.

With it, Chidori's fatal flaw would cease to exist.

An unprecedented sense of strength and confidence filled his heart.

Breathing Style, chakra, Sharingan.

What terrifying power would the three produce together?

He could hardly wait to find a demon to try it on.