Gen Takuya didn't return to his old place.
Instead, he went back to a brand-new house—one with a courtyard.
He'd bought it after becoming captain of the Sealing Unit. With that title attached to his name, even the housing price bracket he qualified for was practically the lowest tier.
The position came with a generous salary, and on top of that, the village issued him research funding. It forced him to reduce how often he took missions.
Because why had he been taking missions in the first place?
To earn money for fuinjutsu research.
Now he had a stable income and official funding. If he still ran out constantly to do missions, anyone with half a brain would realize something was off.
And since he was spending more time in the village now, he could no longer use the excuse of "never being home." If he wanted his life to look normal, he needed a proper residence.
This house had been chosen carefully—far from the Hokage Building, and with no particularly strong shinobi living nearby.
Yes.
He was worried that someone might notice whenever he used Summoning to leave.
After returning, Gen Takuya didn't rest. He went straight to the Sealing Unit.
"Captain, you're here?"
The guard on duty didn't look surprised in the slightest.
For the Sealing Unit, their new captain showing up in the middle of the night was practically routine. In their eyes, the man was obsessed with fuinjutsu to an almost frightening degree.
The initial hostility they'd felt toward this "parachuted-in" captain had long since faded.
Of course, the real reason was simpler—
His sealing skills completely crushed everyone in the unit.
"Hm. Not sleepy this time?" Gen Takuya glanced at him and smiled.
"Heh… how would I dare~" The guard scratched his head, silently grumbling. Everyone knew you might show up at night. Who would risk slacking off then?
"Alright. I'm going in." Gen Takuya didn't bother chatting. He wasn't the Third Hokage—he couldn't naturally talk a few words with anyone.
"Yes!"
After Gen Takuya disappeared inside, the guard's face lit up.
Everyone knew the captain wouldn't come out once he started researching.
Which meant—
Now he could slack off and no one would catch him.
Gen Takuya knew the man would be lazy the moment he left.
He didn't care.
He wasn't trying to enforce some iron discipline.
He walked to the sealing sphere that controlled the barrier surrounding the village and checked its records.
There were summoning traces at this hour, but not many.
Among them, he found his own.
"So there's still a trace…" Gen Takuya narrowed his eyes. "If I want truly trace-free movement…"
Then the only solution was to modify the barrier itself—create a hidden "backdoor" known only to him.
With that thought, he erased his own record, split several Shadow Clones, and began fuinjutsu research.
He was using the Sealing Unit's official research funding to develop the sealing methods he personally needed—openly, shamelessly, without the slightest guilt.
As for what he'd report later?
Easy.
His previous research produced plenty of "side products." He could toss out a few as official成果 and nobody would question it.
He could even hand less important seals to his subordinates and let them polish them up.
Right now, he wasn't researching anything brand new.
It was a continuation of older work.
Back then, his main focus had been a sealing method for cutting off Tailed Beast chakra. This other project hadn't been the priority, so it was only half-finished.
The sealing combination he was developing now had three core functions:
Memory imprinting.
Memory sealing.
And using implanted memory as a template to construct an illusion.
Memory manipulation was absolutely possible in the shinobi world.
The Yamanaka clan's secret techniques could do it. Certain specialized genjutsu, combined with other methods, could do it as well.
And then there was the Rinnegan's Human Path.
Either way, it could be done.
Gen Takuya's goal was simple: replicate it through fuinjutsu.
As for memory sealing, that was even more straightforward—Minato himself had used a memory-sealing technique in the Dragon Vein film.
And the illusion construction?
Gen Takuya had recently gone out of his way to study genjutsu texts. Once you had a clear memory as a template, creating a dreamlike illusion around it wasn't particularly difficult.
After fully digesting the barrier-type seals Minato had given him, the progress on this combined seal shot forward.
In a way, Minato had unintentionally helped him immensely.
Otherwise, this project would've taken years more.
Now…
If he accelerated the pace, he could finish it within the year.
And when that happened, he could simulate the experiences he needed—using memory as a blueprint.
This entire combined seal existed for one purpose.
The Sharingan.
Because the Sharingan required intense emotion to awaken.
It was born from love, and ignited through loss—when the brain received a violent shock, chakra surged into the eyes, and the eyeballs mutated, creating the dōjutsu.
In reality, Gen Takuya couldn't think of anyone he truly cared about.
He doubted he ever would.
That was something he had accepted long ago—one of the reasons he'd chosen to research this fuinjutsu method in the first place.
As for theories about "spiritual power being enough to awaken the eye"…
Theories were still theories.
He could test them, sure—but he would never mistake guesswork for fact.
Truthfully, Gen Takuya did believe his spiritual power was strong enough.
And yet the Sharingan still refused to awaken.
Based on his analysis of how Uchiha awakened in the original story, the thing he lacked was simple—
Emotion.
Not even necessarily loss.
Uchiha Obito awakened his second tomoe without losing anyone—purely through love.
And when he did lose someone, it was even worse: he jumped straight from two tomoe to the Mangekyō.
Gen Takuya didn't pay much attention to the Boruto era, but even he'd seen clips—someone awakening the Mangekyō through love alone.
Honestly?
That was almost insulting.
What did that make the Uchiha of Naruto's era?
But whether it was Naruto's era or Boruto's, it didn't matter.
None of it applied to Gen Takuya.
His emotions were thin. Dry.
There was no one he could love.
And no one he could hate to the bone.
Other than the brief surge of excitement when he obtained the Chimera Technique, his mood had been stable—almost unnaturally so.
So if he wanted to awaken the Sharingan with his own emotions…
He might as well wash his face and go to bed.
Maybe he'd have better luck in a dream.
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