Roshi smashed another shark apart with a punch.
But in the very next instant, three more lunged at him.
The lava was still melting them, but it was getting slower and slower.
Roshi knew he couldn't drag this out any longer.
He took a deep breath, and from deeper within, all of the tailed beast chakra surged out at once.
Boom!
A terrifying wave of heat exploded outward from his body.
Roshi began to change.
Behind him, four tails made of molten lava slowly emerged, swaying in the water.
At the same time, the phantom image of the Four-Tails appeared behind him as well.
Partial tailed beast transformation!
"Lava Release: Flower-Fruit Mountain!"
He slammed both fists into the ground.
Rumble!
The entire seabed began to tremble and crack apart.
Fissures spread from beneath Roshi's feet in every direction, and blazing red magma poured out from them.
More and more magma gushed out, growing hotter and hotter, like a volcano in the middle of an eruption.
The seawater began to boil and evaporate under the extreme heat.
White steam shot skyward, blanketing the entire basin.
Kiyohara stood on the surface of the water, watching the scene unfold.
He could feel the seawater beneath his feet disappearing at high speed.
Roshi's Lava Release was evaporating the inland sea Kiyohara had created.
The steam grew thicker and thicker, and visibility dropped lower and lower.
Through the haze, he could vaguely make out Roshi's silhouette shifting inside the steam, the four lava tails swaying behind him.
Then he saw the magma.
It kept pouring out of the cracks, more and more, hotter and hotter.
The sea of magma Roshi had created was spreading outward with him at its center.
Wherever the magma passed, the water evaporated instantly, exposing a scorched, cracked riverbed.
The stretch of water under Kiyohara's feet kept shrinking.
Steam blotted out the sky.
And in the middle of that sea of magma, Roshi raised his head and looked at Kiyohara.
His eyes had turned a pure crimson, and within his pupils, the shadow of the Four-Tails could faintly be seen.
"Brat."
His voice was low and heavy, like flowing magma.
"This ends here."
He raised both hands.
All four lava tails behind him lifted at the same time, chakra surging violently.
"Lava Release: Scorching Armoured Fist!"
Both fists smashed into the ground.
Boom!
With Roshi at the center, the entire basin floor collapsed completely.
A temporary volcano rose out of the fissures, its crater spewing blazing magma.
This was no ordinary lava flow. It erupted into the air like a real volcanic explosion.
The columns of magma soared dozens of meters high, covering the entire basin.
Then they surged toward Kiyohara.
Like a wall of molten rock dozens of meters tall.
Wherever it passed, the air ignited, stone melted, and everything turned to ash.
Kiyohara stood where he was and looked up at the oncoming lava wave.
In the next instant, the diamond-shaped violet mark on his forehead blazed to life.
Strength of a Hundred Seal: Release!
The enormous reserve of chakra he had accumulated over time—greater even than Tsunade's—surged out of the seal and flooded his body in an instant.
Kiyohara directly mixed that chakra with the natural energy inside the curse mark, refining even more senjutsu chakra.
"Sage Art: Water Release: Great Exploding Water Colliding Wave!"
BOOM!!!
With Kiyohara at the center, an overwhelming volume of water erupted into existence again.
A giant crack opened high in the sky, and an immense torrent poured out from it.
There was so much water—so vast, so boundless—that it looked as if the entire sky had begun to pour downward.
A waterfall.
This technique was already specialized in generating massive water flow. Now, with Kiyohara's chakra reserves—at least more than ten times that of an elite jonin—and the added power of senjutsu, the amount of water it produced had reached a whole new level.
Even if Kisame Hoshigaki himself came here and used the same move, he still wouldn't be able to create as much water as Kiyohara did.
Everyone on the battlefield stopped moving.
The shinobi all looked up, staring at the torrent pouring down from the sky.
Even Tagitsuhime stopped moving. She raised her head, and that shocking sight was reflected in her golden slit pupils.
"What… is that…"
someone muttered.
"The sea… the sea is falling from the sky…"
Rumble, rumble, rumble.
The heavenly waterfall slammed into the basin.
It collided head-on with Roshi's lava wave.
Water and fire clashed in their most primal form.
Hiss!
Steam exploded outward.
A white blast of vapor shot into the sky, blotting out the heavens.
The temperature of that blast was terrifying. Trees standing too close were instantly scorched black.
But what came in greater quantity was water.
The waterfall kept pouring down without end.
Under the impact of the water, Roshi's lava wave began to cool and harden.
The blazing magma turned black layer by layer, hardened layer by layer, and finally became black volcanic rock.
The sea of magma began to recede visibly under the flood.
Roshi stood in the middle of it, eyes wide.
Both his hands were trembling.
The lava covering his body churned violently.
His chakra was being consumed at a frantic rate.
And yet the water from the sky kept coming, endlessly.
How is this possible…?
The thought flashed through his mind.
Inside him, the voice of Son Goku, the Four-Tails, rang out, unable to hide its shock.
"This brat's chakra… is kind of ridiculous…"
The Four-Tails frowned.
Across his long millennium of life, he had seen countless shinobi.
Naturally, he knew of the Senju and the Uzumaki clans—but even among them, very few had chakra reserves as monstrous as Kiyohara's.
Could this person be… Indra's reincarnation?
The Four-Tails only knew that Indra's soul reincarnated continuously within the Uchiha bloodline. He didn't know who the current reincarnation actually was.
All the tailed beasts had been waiting for the moment promised by the Sage of Six Paths—
"The time when the blue-eyed brat who calls the names of the nine beasts with a smile will change the world."
But Kiyohara's eyes were black. No matter how he looked at them, they didn't fit the "blue-eyed" part at all.
Could it be Minato Namikaze of Konoha?
The Four-Tails suddenly thought of another famous blue-eyed shinobi—the Yellow Flash.
"Lend me more chakra, now!"
Roshi had no idea why the Four-Tails had gone quiet all of a sudden, so he immediately demanded more chakra.
Unfortunately, the sea of magma was extinguished completely.
The endless waterfall swallowed the entire basin, swallowed the cooled magma rock, and swallowed Roshi as well.
He was dragged down into the depths.
He rolled and struggled underwater, trying to force his way back to the surface.
But the current was too violent, too overwhelming. He couldn't control his body at all.
Then pain exploded through his right arm.
He looked down.
His right arm was gone.
It had been severed cleanly at the elbow. Dark red blood and the Four-Tails' crimson chakra poured from the wound.
When…?
Roshi thought blankly.
Was it during that collision just now?
Fresh chakra from the Four-Tails flowed again from the seal, restoring some clarity to his mind.
He looked at Kiyohara, who was standing on the water's surface, then immediately turned and fled, swimming toward the distance.
As he retreated, he used a clone technique and sent his clone to notify the remaining Iwa shinobi to withdraw.
Roshi felt the intense pain pulsing from the severed wound.
He truly couldn't understand how Kiyohara's chakra reserves could be this massive.
Or was senjutsu really that miraculous?
Did it truly multiply the power of any technique several times over?
Standing on the water, Kiyohara watched Roshi flee farther and farther away.
After a moment's thought, he chose not to pursue him.
Roshi still hadn't used a Tailed Beast Bomb.
Taking one of his arms was enough to make him stay quiet for a while.
And even if Roshi came back later for revenge, Kiyohara figured he'd be stronger by then anyway.
At that point, beating him would only be easier than it was now.
With that thought, the markings formed by the Strength of a Hundred Seal and the curse mark gradually receded from Kiyohara's body, returning to normal.
The dark green chakra cloak on his skin also slowly faded away.
The combined effect of senjutsu and the curse mark had turned out even better than Kiyohara had expected.
I wonder if bloodline compatibility is part of it, Kiyohara thought.
Night, toad, white snake, Uchiha, Steel Release, Storm Release… there were simply too many bloodlines mixed within him.
And because he had inherited them, it felt as though he had been born with them all naturally.
Those bloodlines were continuously blending together, continuously adapting to one another.
What they would become in the end, even Kiyohara didn't know.
Because even a normal Otsutsuki didn't have as many bloodlines as he did.
…
In the distance, at the edge of the basin, several Iwa shinobi stood there.
They had come as reinforcements.
But now, all they could do was stand still and stare.
The waterfall descending from the sky had already stopped.
In its place was an enormous lake.
The water was clear and shimmered in the light.
And at the center of that lake, there was only one figure.
That Konoha boy was standing by the water's edge, bending down to pull something out of the water.
From the severed end of that object, crimson chakra was still leaking out.
It was Roshi's severed arm.
"…What is he doing?"
one of the Iwa shinobi muttered.
No one answered.
They just watched as the boy took out a specially made container from a sealing scroll, placed the severed arm inside, sealed it shut, and tucked it away.
"He…"
Another Iwa shinobi swallowed nervously.
"He's collecting… the Four-Tails' chakra?"
"Retreat…"
someone suddenly said.
"What?"
"Retreat!"
That person's voice shot up in pitch, unable to hide the fear in it.
"That Konoha shinobi… is way beyond anything we can handle!"
"But Lord Roshi…"
"Lord Roshi lost! Do you want to go die too?!"
No one argued.
Because all of them had seen the smoke flare rising into the sky in the distance.
It was the signal to retreat.
Roshi's order.
The surviving shinobi stared one last time at the boy calmly storing away the severed arm.
Then, one by one, they turned and ran.
While fleeing, one of them couldn't help looking back.
"That Konoha shinobi…"
an Iwa ninja muttered.
"He's the one who killed the Third Mizukage?"
"That's him."
"…Monster."
None of them looked back again.
They ran for their lives.
…
Back on the battlefield, the Iwa shinobi had finally reached their breaking point.
Roshi's defeat and retreat became the last straw.
"Retreat!"
"Fall back!"
Iwa's formation collapsed completely.
Their shinobi fled in all directions, leaving corpses and wounded behind.
Konoha's forces chased them for a while, then finally stopped once it was clear the enemy had fully broken.
"We won!"
someone shouted.
"We won!"
Cheers rose one after another.
The wounded lay covered by Katsuyu's slugs, their injuries healing rapidly.
The shinobi who had survived embraced each other, clapped each other on the shoulders, and laughed with the relief of having made it through alive.
Tagitsuhime returned to human form and stood at the edge of the battlefield with her arms crossed, watching Konoha's shinobi cheer.
A slight smile curved her lips.
"This is interesting."
Tagitsuhime didn't remember Ryuchi Cave senjutsu being this powerful.
And this definitely wasn't the kind of power a beginner should have been able to use.
Looks like this Kiyohara really is worthy of the White Snake Sage's attention.
He truly has the makings of a dragon.
The next moment, her body dissolved into a puff of white smoke and vanished.
Katsuyu's slugs began to withdraw as well.
The little slugs crawled off the wounded, gathered together, and fused back into one giant slug.
"Lady Tsunade, the wounded have stabilized."
Katsuyu's voice was soft as ever.
"Thank you for your help, Lady Katsuyu."
Tsunade's relieved voice came from inside the tent.
Katsuyu nodded, then vanished in a burst of white smoke.
The cheering on the battlefield continued.
But every now and then, everyone's gaze drifted toward the same direction.
A figure was walking in from afar.
It was Kiyohara.
He wore only the black chainmail shirt, with a few bloodstains and scorch marks on the hem.
Konoha's shinobi looked at him with stunned expressions.
Someone suddenly remembered what they had seen just now.
That waterfall from the sky.
That lake created in an instant.
That seemingly endless chakra…
"Captain Kiyohara…"
someone murmured.
"Can a human even do that?"
No one answered.
Because everyone was thinking the exact same thing.
Kiyohara walked to the edge of the battlefield and stopped.
His gaze swept over the wounded shinobi, the recovering injured, and the comrades who were still cheering.
Then he gave a slight nod.
"You all did well."
Kiyohara said.
His voice wasn't loud, but every person there heard it clearly.
After a brief silence, the battlefield erupted into even louder cheers.
"Captain Kiyohara!"
"Long live Captain Kiyohara!"
"Long live Konoha!"
Kiyohara nodded slightly.
"Kiyohara!"
Kurenai and Rin Nohara also ran over.
The commotion from afar had truly been enormous.
Even though Kiyohara had lured Roshi away, everyone had still been able to see the technique he unleashed.
It had looked as though he had artificially created an entire lake—and poured it down from the sky, no less. Many shinobi had never seen anything like that in their lives.
"What jutsu did you just use?"
Kakashi came over as well, curious.
Roshi had obviously used Lava Release, so that Water Release technique could only have come from Kiyohara.
"Water Release: Great Exploding Water Colliding Wave."
Kiyohara replied.
This technique was the upgraded form of Water Release: Exploding Water Colliding Wave. Only Kisame Hoshigaki and Tobirama Senju had really used it; few other Water Release users ever did.
Because it consumed an enormous amount of chakra.
When Kisame used it, he could turn a dry wasteland into a lake.
Kiyohara, on the other hand, could make one several times larger than Kisame's.
"So, Kiyohara, did you beat him?"
Rin asked.
"Of course."
Kiyohara nodded.
If the fight had continued as a straight battle of chakra attrition, he still wouldn't have been able to outlast Roshi.
But Kiyohara still had the Sharingan as a trump card.
If Roshi let his guard down even once, Kiyohara could use Sharingan genjutsu to interfere with him, which would dramatically raise his odds of winning.
"Alright, I'm going to see Sensei."
After chatting with them briefly, Kiyohara headed toward the tent.
He had already noticed that the number of Katsuyu slugs had increased.
The only explanation was that Tsunade had summoned more.
Not long after, Kiyohara found Tsunade.
She stood there with her arms crossed, those golden-brown eyes fixed on him.
"Sensei, the Four-Tails jinchuriki escaped badly wounded. I severed one of his arms, so he probably won't be recovering from that."
Kiyohara said.
A jinchuriki's healing ability was frightening, but even they couldn't simply regrow lost limbs.
In fact, even in the current ninja world, restoring severed limbs was extremely rare.
Kiyohara didn't think Roshi had any way to regenerate an arm either.
More importantly, the Four-Tails chakra he had obtained could now be used to synthesize the Ten-Tails.
Because creating the Ten-Tails didn't require the complete tailed beasts—only a portion of chakra from each of the nine.
"If he escaped, then he escaped. You're not hurt, are you?"
Tsunade circled him twice, checking him over.
"I'm fine. I just used up a lot of chakra."
Kiyohara shook his head.
He would have to start storing chakra in the Strength of a Hundred Seal again.
Still, he recovered quickly. By tomorrow, he'd probably be close to full again.
Right now, what he cared about more was Hyuga Kiyohara's final wish.
Compared with defeating a Yagura whose whereabouts were unknown, fusing Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm with Daytime Tiger was clearly the easier one to start with.
"That's good."
Tsunade reached out and rubbed his forehead.
The Four-Tails jinchuriki had come charging in to rescue the Tsuchikage's son, only to get driven back by Konoha's forces.
That would be a devastating blow to Iwa's morale.
Tsunade could already picture Onoki's face turning green with rage.
The thought made her smile.
"Alright. Don't get careless."
"I know, Sensei."
Kiyohara nodded.
After he left the tent, Konoha's shinobi were already cleaning up the aftermath.
The huge lake a few kilometers away was also gradually fading, leaving behind only some of the water Kiyohara had diverted from the streams.
"Keep teaching me Gentle Fist."
Kiyohara said once he reached an empty area.
The moment the words left his mouth, Hyuga Kiyohara's spirit floated out.
With Hyuga Kiyohara partially possessing him, Kiyohara's speed in learning Gentle Fist became extremely fast.
"Mm. Today I'll teach you Gentle Fist Art: Eight Trigrams Thirty-Two Palms."
Hyuga Kiyohara said.
This palm technique also progressed step by step—from Two Palms, to Four, Eight, Sixteen, Thirty-Two, and then Sixty-Four.
Members of the branch family could only learn up to Thirty-Two Palms.
"Alright."
Kiyohara nodded and began training again.
He learned quickly. He had already mastered Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm, in fact.
He simply planned to learn all the inherited Gentle Fist techniques first, so he could deepen his overall understanding of the style.
With enough talent, Gentle Fist could actually be pushed further and further on one's own.
Neji Hyuga had deduced Sixty-Four Palms from Thirty-Two, and then went on to create Eight Trigrams One Hundred Twenty-Eight Palms himself. His talent had been extraordinary.
…
Elsewhere—
"Obito, I heard Kiyohara defeated another jinchuriki again. Say, wouldn't it be better if Kiyohara were the one playing 'Madara' instead?"
White Zetsu said to Obito with a grin.
White Zetsu's intelligence network was flexible enough that he had learned the news immediately.
"Hmph."
Obito let out a cold snort.
Madara's plan was for him to masquerade as "Madara," gather the nine tailed beasts, and obtain the Ten-Tails.
But up to now, he still hadn't even made contact with a single jinchuriki.
"Right now, I need to take control of Kirigakure first. Only then will I have time to deal with the tailed beasts."
Obito said.
He intended to use Kirigakure as the breeding ground for Akatsuki's rise.
The ideological divide between Nagato and Yahiko had already grown larger and larger—so large that Nagato might eventually be swayed to Obito's side.
On that point, Obito genuinely admired Black Zetsu.
He had no idea how Black Zetsu's mouth was so absurdly good at manipulating people.
~~~
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