"Kiyohara-kun, you're really diligent. You only just got back from the front lines, and you've already started training again."
"I'm used to it."
Kiyohara walked over and sat beneath a nearby tree.
"What about you? Weren't you at the medical unit today?"
Rin followed him over and sat down beside him.
"I'm off today."
She opened the notebook in her hands.
"I happened to have some free time, so I wanted to organize everything I've learned lately."
Kiyohara glanced at the notebook. The handwriting inside was neat and graceful.
"You've written a lot?"
"Mm."
Rin nodded and opened it for him to see.
The pages were densely packed with notes on the principles behind different techniques and the key points of chakra control.
"These are all things Kiyohara-kun taught me, plus some of my own ideas."
Rin looked up at him.
"I was afraid I'd forget, so I wrote them down."
Looking at the notes, even Kiyohara had to admire how much effort Rin had put into them.
"When it comes to medical ninjutsu, there probably aren't many people who can compare to you anymore, Rin."
Rin really was a genius in this area. She learned incredibly fast.
Or rather, anyone capable of mastering the Mystical Palm Technique was never going to be mediocre.
For an ordinary medical ninja, the Mystical Palm Technique was practically unreachable.
"I still can't compare to Kiyohara-kun."
Rin shook her head.
She had never once felt complacent or proud. Every time she looked at Kiyohara, it felt like looking up at a mountain.
The two of them chatted for a while.
Most of the time, Kiyohara simply listened while Rin talked, only occasionally cutting in with a comment.
His own training in Water Release medical techniques had only reached the basics he learned in Sunagakure, and after that, he had handed most of it over to Rin to research herself.
Now Kiyohara realized Rin had developed quite a lot of her own ideas, which meant he could absorb that knowledge in turn.
The sun gradually sank lower.
By the time they'd talked long enough for their throats to go dry, Kiyohara took out a canteen and handed it to Rin.
"Thanks."
Rin thanked him, then took a drink.
"Oh, right."
Rin suddenly remembered something and took out two rice balls wrapped in cloth from the bag beside her.
"I made rice balls. Do you want to try one, Kiyohara-kun?"
She handed one to him.
Kiyohara took it and unwrapped the cloth.
The rice ball was triangular, wrapped with a layer of seaweed. The rice was packed tightly, and he could see a plum filling peeking out from inside.
He took a bite.
The texture of the rice was good, with the tartness of pickled plum and a bit of sweetness mixed in.
"Not bad."
Kiyohara said.
He'd eaten plenty of rice balls before. They were a standard ration among shinobi.
Rin's really did taste good.
Hearing his praise, she picked up one herself and began eating it in small bites.
Kiyohara watched her.
Rin's pink tongue lightly brushed across her lips, picking up a grain of rice that had accidentally stuck there.
She noticed his gaze and looked up.
"What is it?"
"Nothing."
Kiyohara looked away.
"I was just thinking you'd definitely make a good wife someday. A very good wife and mother."
"K-Kiyohara-kun, what are you saying…"
Rin hadn't expected him to say something like that.
Wasn't it a little early to talk about that?
Or maybe that was the kind of woman Kiyohara-kun liked?
Rin couldn't help letting her thoughts run wild.
…
A few more days passed, and Kiyohara spent that time gathering intelligence on Karatachi Yagura.
He wasn't just using Konoha's channels. He was also active in the black market, collecting information there.
With the Flying Thunder God Technique, Kiyohara's mobility had increased dramatically.
Eventually, he got what he needed.
Karatachi Yagura had recently been active near the Land of Waves, a tiny island nation with barely any ninja of its own, a poor economy, and an impoverished population.
It was one of the smallest countries around, located on islands south of the Land of Fire.
"That fast?"
Hyuga Kiyohara's spirit floated out from Kiyohara's body and hovered beside him.
Even he sounded impressed by Kiyohara's information-gathering ability.
"Yeah. If you ask around through enough channels, it goes quickly."
Kiyohara nodded.
Yagura was one of Kirigakure's strong fighters, but he wasn't a jinchuriki in this timeline, which meant his movements weren't especially hard to trace.
"When are we leaving?"
Hyuga Kiyohara asked curiously.
"Right now."
Kiyohara looked back toward Konoha.
Tsunade had gone to the casino today and probably wouldn't be back until nightfall.
As long as he returned early enough, no one would notice he'd left.
As things stood now, Kiyohara didn't consider Yagura a match for him.
Without the Three-Tails' massive chakra reserves supporting him, a lot of Yagura's techniques wouldn't be able to reach their original strength.
"Let's go."
In the next instant, Kiyohara vanished from where he stood.
…
The Land of Waves.
Thick mist blanketed the entire island.
Kiyohara stood on a reef at the edge of the coast, waves crashing against the rock beneath his feet, a vast wall of white mist stretching before him.
He had never been to the Land of Waves before, but he had been to the Land of Rivers.
The southern coastline of the Land of Rivers connected to the southern coastline of the Land of Fire. Once he reached that area, the rest of the journey was quick.
Byakugan!
Kiyohara closed his eyes, then opened them again, his pupils now glowing pale white.
Along the way, he had been using the Byakugan's x-ray vision and long-distance sight to observe the outside world.
After searching for two hours, just as Kiyohara was wondering whether he should come back tomorrow instead, he finally found traces.
At the island's northwestern corner, in a hidden cove, there was a Kirigakure fleet.
Five ships. Around thirty ninja.
And on the largest ship, one chakra signature stood out as exceptionally powerful.
It felt young, but the chakra itself was unnaturally steady, carrying a calmness that didn't match the age.
Karatachi Yagura.
Kiyohara withdrew the Byakugan, put on his mask, and vanished again.
…
The cove.
Kirigakure's ships were moored at the shore, the flags on the masts fluttering faintly in the wind.
On the largest ship stood a shinobi who looked almost childlike.
Karatachi Yagura had a boyish face, but beneath his left eye was a scar that looked almost like a stitched seam, and strapped to his back was a rod-like weapon.
At that moment, he was looking out at the distant sea.
The Land of Waves was poor—so poor that Yagura had begun wondering whether Kirigakure should simply buy the place outright.
In an island nation like this, controlling the sea routes meant controlling the country's wealth, politics, and people.
And given its geography, stationing Kirigakure ninja here would also let them pressure Konoha and ease their logistical burden.
"Lord Yagura."
A Kirigakure shinobi emerged from the ship's hold and dropped to one knee.
"The scouting team reports no abnormalities in the surrounding waters."
Yagura gave a faint nod.
"Well done."
He turned, about to say something else, when his expression suddenly tightened.
Because at some point, there was now someone else standing on the deck.
Only then did the Kirigakure shinobi around him react. They all drew weapons and surrounded Kiyohara.
"Who are you?!"
"Protect Lord Yagura!"
"Don't let him get away!"
Kiyohara looked at Yagura.
In the next moment, his black eyes turned crimson.
Three tomoe slowly spun.
Yagura's pupils contracted slightly.
"An Uchiha…!"
He immediately averted his gaze, not daring to meet Kiyohara's eyes.
"Who are you?"
With that hurried glance, Yagura had already recognized Kiyohara as an Uchiha.
But because of the mask, he had no idea which Uchiha he was.
"You all, stand down."
"Lord Yagura!"
"Stand down."
The Kirigakure shinobi hesitated, but in the end they retreated to the ship's railing, though none of them lowered their weapons.
Yagura looked at Kiyohara.
"You came to kill me?"
"No, no, no."
Kiyohara shook his head.
"I'm just here to take one thing."
"What thing?"
"One of your eyes."
Yagura's brows drew together.
"What do you mean?"
"Exactly what I said."
Kiyohara raised his right hand.
A flowing layer of Water Release wrapped itself around it.
"You can choose to hand it over yourself."
He paused.
"Or I can help."
"Interesting."
Yagura felt like the man in front of him was a lunatic, casually saying something that outrageous.
He immediately pulled out the rod-shaped weapon from his back. Its tip had a hooked end, and it was decorated with green flowers, a weapon meant to amplify Water Release techniques.
Kiyohara looked at it and thought it was a rather odd-looking weapon.
Unfortunately, the weirder the weapon, the faster the death.
Yagura charged straight at him.
With one blur of motion, the weapon was already in front of Kiyohara.
The Kirigakure shinobi behind him couldn't even keep up with Yagura's position and silently marveled at his speed.
Lord Yagura could very well become Kirigakure's Fourth Mizukage!
No wonder he had ordered them to fall back—he was worried about hitting his own men.
"Everyone, get farther back."
one of the Kirigakure shinobi called out.
"Move!"
The others retreated even farther.
At the front, Kiyohara tilted his head slightly and avoided Yagura's strike.
Too slow.
Kiyohara countered with a casual backhand.
Clang!
A heavy impact rang out.
Yagura was knocked back three steps, each one leaving a deep print in the wooden deck.
He lowered his eyes to his weapon. A fine crack had appeared in it.
"That kind of strength…"
He looked up at Kiyohara.
The man had only used the back of his hand, yet he had cracked the weapon.
Yagura's brows furrowed deeply as he searched his memory for Uchiha who could be that strong.
Kiyohara?
Shisui?
Fugaku?
Or someone else in the clan?
He didn't think on it for long.
Kirigakure and Konoha were enemies. It was only natural for Konoha to send an assassin after him.
In the next instant, Yagura leapt directly onto the sea.
In an environment like this, Water Release users had a huge advantage.
Kiyohara flashed forward and drove his right fist straight at him.
"Water Release: Water Mirror Technique!"
Yagura swept out an oval mirror of water.
This technique reflected the enemy in front of it, then created a perfect duplicate from the mirror—one that could use the same ninjutsu with the same power.
Kiyohara looked with interest at the second version of himself climbing out of the mirror.
"The Water Mirror Technique…"
Kiyohara didn't dodge.
He simply punched it.
Bang!
The water copy of Kiyohara shattered instantly.
"So it can't copy me perfectly after all."
Kiyohara shook his hand once.
Even just by covering it in flowing Water Release, his hand had become as sharp as a blade.
Yagura frowned.
What was that?
It was the first time he had ever encountered something like this.
Under normal circumstances, even jinchuriki could be copied by that technique.
So why had it done nothing to Kiyohara?
Was this guy not human?
Yagura couldn't understand how Kiyohara had gotten around the technique.
Honestly, even Kiyohara found it a little surprising.
He guessed it was because he carried too many bloodlines within him.
Every technique had limits, and Kiyohara figured this was simply the limit of the Water Mirror Technique.
But he didn't stop moving. He kept pressing Yagura.
Yagura had no time to evade, so he barely managed to raise his left arm in defense.
Bang!
Yagura shot backward like a cannonball, skipping across the surface of the sea like a stone.
He tumbled more than a hundred meters before finally stopping.
"Hah…"
Half-submerged in the water, he slowly floated back up.
Yagura gathered chakra to the soles of his feet and stood again on the sea, breathing hard.
His left arm throbbed with pain. Even through his armor, that punch had jolted the bone underneath.
"People rely on their senses and perception to understand the world, but they're also bound by them. And yet senses and perception are vague things to begin with. Reality itself may be nothing more than a reflection in water, a flower in a mirror."
Kiyohara said calmly.
He had decided to end this quickly.
If Yagura's strongest technique was ineffective against him, then Yagura had no advantage left.
At first, Kiyohara had thought Yagura's copied water body would at least last a while.
Instead, it had been embarrassingly fragile.
"What exactly did you do…?"
Yagura looked up.
Kiyohara was already standing in front of him.
In those crimson eyes, three tomoe turned slowly.
Sharingan genjutsu.
Yagura's consciousness blurred for a single instant.
He realized he couldn't move his body anymore.
He was frozen in the exact same posture, forced to watch as Kiyohara's hand reached toward him.
Yagura struggled desperately, but found that the only part of him he could still move was his mouth.
Just as he tried to say something, Kiyohara's fingers were already right in front of his face.
Wet crunch.
An eyeball fell.
A surge of pain tore through Yagura.
Blood slid down his cheek and dripped onto the sea, where the waves carried it away.
Then Kiyohara's Sharingan spun again.
A strand of ocular power slipped into Yagura's body.
That power would slowly dissipate, but it would last long enough.
"Goodbye."
Having fulfilled the wish, Kiyohara had no intention of lingering.
As for Yagura, he planned to leave him alive for now.
Obito would most likely choose to control Yagura again through genjutsu.
The ocular power Kiyohara had just implanted was his countermeasure.
He wanted Obito to believe Yagura had been hypnotized by him, when in reality Yagura had already been controlled by Kiyohara first.
Just like how Kabuto had acted as a spy around Sasori. Sasori thought Kabuto was his spy, when in fact Kabuto was Orochimaru's spy placed right beside him.
A spy within a spy. Pure shinobi-world espionage.
In the blink of an eye, Kiyohara vanished.
Only Yagura remained, kneeling on one knee on the sea, blood still seeping from the empty hole where his left eye had been.
Only then did the Kirigakure shinobi dare to approach.
"Lord Yagura!"
"Medical squad! Call the medical squad!"
Yagura let them support him, but his eyes never left the direction Kiyohara had vanished toward.
"That man…"
he muttered quietly.
"Who was he…?"
Deep down, Yagura already had a guess.
He had a strong feeling it was Kiyohara—but no proof.
Because "Shisui of the Body Flicker" was also known for that kind of speed and genjutsu.
…
In an empty valley, Kiyohara came to a stop.
Hyuga Kiyohara's spirit floated out and hovered at his side.
"Efficient."
Hyuga Kiyohara nodded.
Kiyohara had completed his final wish quickly and cleanly.
Without the Three-Tails, Yagura's strength had been severely reduced.
Techniques like Coral Palm and Wild Sea Spray were no longer available to him.
"So does that count as a completed wish?"
Kiyohara asked, following the usual process.
"It does."
Hyuga Kiyohara nodded.
Destroying one of Yagura's eyes had only ever been his way of repaying the loss of one of his own Byakugan.
"Thank you, my past self."
Hyuga Kiyohara's body began to glow.
The light grew brighter and brighter until it broke apart into countless particles and streamed into Kiyohara.
Kiyohara closed his eyes.
The points of light sank into his body.
He could feel the Byakugan inside him changing.
Its purity was increasing.
The most immediate effect of that higher purity was that Kiyohara's vision became even clearer and broader.
He could see farther, see through thicker matter, and perceive subtler chakra movements.
Then he felt his chakra surge upward.
In the end, it stabilized at 20 Kakashis' worth of chakra.
He also inherited a few more Gentle Fist techniques, such as Gentle Step Twin Lion Fists, which gathered a massive amount of chakra in both hands and shaped it into two ferocious lion heads.
"In terms of chakra reserves, I've got more than enough stamina now."
Kiyohara thought.
It still wasn't at the ridiculous monster level of the late-war era, but with the Strength of a Hundred Seal on top of this, he was already ahead of the vast majority of shinobi.
"Chakra reserves are only one side of it. Output matters too."
Kiyohara rubbed his chin.
Later in the war, even some fighters who would look like complete fodder to his current self had "infinite chakra" after being reanimated with Edo Tensei.
Their chakra reserves were technically infinite, but that didn't mean their output had no limit.
An Edo Tensei body was immortal. A living shinobi who over-refined chakra down to zero would die from exhaustion.
But an immortal Edo Tensei body had no such problem.
Even if it refined chakra and output it constantly for twenty-four hours straight, nothing would happen.
However, its instantaneous chakra output was still fixed. The amount it could refine at one time remained the same. A jutsu that required more chakra than the shinobi had in life still couldn't be used after death.
The clearest example was Edo Tensei Minato saying he didn't have enough chakra. Just to move two Truth-Seeking Orbs to the Hokage Monument and create an opening for Eighth Gate Guy, he completely burned himself out and blacked out for a while.
Even Edo Tensei Hashirama couldn't use Sage Art: Wood Release: True Several Thousand Hands, because the precision of his reanimated body was inferior to Madara's and his total usable chakra wasn't enough.
"I should head back."
Kiyohara used the Flying Thunder God Technique and returned toward Konoha at high speed.
Because his chakra reserves had increased, he was actually faster now than when he came.
Next came the final war.
And after that, the next generation would begin entering the world with their first cries.
~~~
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