Kiyohara's Sharingan spun at high speed.
He also stopped hiding the tomoe and directly revealed the three-tomoe form.
Against an enemy like Pakura, claiming his eyes evolved because he was desperate to protect his comrades was a perfectly believable excuse.
Then he saw the chakra inside the fireballs begin to shift in subtle ways. The Scorch Release chakra grew more unstable, more violent.
That meant the moment these fireballs touched anything, they wouldn't just dry it out—they would also detonate in a fierce explosion.
"So she's getting serious…" Kiyohara murmured, his right hand slowly closing around the hilt of his ninja sword.
The instant his grip tightened, fine chakra patterns surfaced across the blade as he poured Wind-nature chakra into its edge.
"Body Flicker."
The scorched earth beneath his feet burst. His figure vanished from where he stood, leaving only a blurred afterimage and a ring-shaped shockwave spreading through the air.
So fast!
Pakura's pupils snapped tight.
That speed—wasn't even his limit!
Her dynamic vision caught his line of movement: he crossed fifty meters and appeared right in front of her in an instant.
No time to think. Battle instinct moved before thought.
Pakura slammed her feet into the ground and arched backward.
At the same time, two compressed Scorch Release fireballs formed beneath her and exploded the moment they touched the earth.
Boom!
The recoil hurled her up into the air, as if an invisible palm had tossed her.
A blistering pressure wave spread outward, and she used that momentum to slip past Kiyohara's slash.
His blade swept just beneath her throat.
Wind chakra clinging to the edge sliced through the superheated air, carving a clean vacuum trail behind it.
Pakura even felt a sting along the skin of her neck.
"She's airborne…" Kiyohara's first strike missed. He stopped at the spot where she'd been standing and looked up.
Pakura had risen seven or eight meters off the ground. Her hands flew through seals in front of her chest.
They were hand signs Kiyohara had never seen—clearly a Suna-specific Scorch Release style.
"Scorch Release: Chain-Star Burst!"
Pakura barked, and the eight fireballs around her shot out at once.
Kiyohara sidestepped—one fireball grazed past his right shoulder.
But the instant it passed him, it detonated mid-flight, self-triggered.
BOOOOM!
Orange-red flame and a scorching shockwave erupted outward, turning a five-meter radius into a furnace.
The ground cratered shallowly; blackened dirt sprayed everywhere.
Kiyohara had already started retreating, but the blast edge still caught his left sleeve—fabric ignited instantly, exposing the pitch-black sheen of his hardened skin.
Heat tinted his skin a dark red.
"They can self-detonate…"
Kiyohara was surprised. This was far nastier than simple Scorch Release fireballs.
Even if you dodged the impact, you still had to survive the blast's heat storm—and the detonation timing was entirely under Pakura's control.
More fireballs kept coming without pause.
Kiyohara pushed off and flashed right.
"I can't stay on the defensive…" he thought.
Pakura glided in the air on wind currents like a feather. The corner of her mouth lifted.
It was over.
She could already picture Kiyohara turning into a dried corpse under the chain explosions.
But to her surprise, Kiyohara stopped dodging.
His left hand pressed on the gourd at his waist.
Black sand-iron surged out like a living thing and, the moment it emerged, condensed into dozens of spindle-shaped rounds.
"What is that?!"
A Konoha shinobi watching from afar cried out.
"Sand-iron… but that shape—what is it?"
"It's Kiyohara's Magnet Release—people say it's faster than sound!"
Kurenai had been glued to the fight. Seeing some Suna shinobi trying to sneak a long-range jutsu at Kiyohara from below, she immediately cast genjutsu.
"Demonic Illusion: Tree Binding Death!"
Her illusion seized a Suna shinobi on the spot.
Other Konoha ninja also noticed Suna's little tricks.
Ebisu snapped his wrist and threw shuriken at them.
A Suna shinobi used Wind Release to blow the shuriken away.
"If Kiyohara's already in, then it's my time to shine—Fifth Gate: Gate of Joy, open!"
Might Guy erupted in green steam and charged.
Suna's ninja surged to meet them.
Both sides tacitly moved away from Kiyohara and Pakura's duel.
That heat was lethal to anyone who got too close.
Pakura noticed the wider battle shifting, but she couldn't spare attention.
Last time, those sand-iron rounds had grazed her.
If they were a little more accurate—if they hit a vital point—she'd be in real danger.
Head, heart—every shinobi's weak points, and she was no exception.
"Explode!"
Pakura directly detonated the fireballs around Kiyohara.
At that moment, Kiyohara raised his right hand, fingers spread.
"Magnet Release: Electromagnetic Rounds."
Shk—shk—shk—shk—shk!
A shrill tearing whistle ripped through the air, like a hundred steel needles scraping glass—painfully sharp to every eardrum present.
Behind each round, a clear white shock-trail streamed.
Supersonic.
The word hit every observer's mind at once.
The sand-iron rounds were moving faster than sound could travel.
They reached the targets before the scream reached anyone's ears—by the time the whistle arrived, the rounds had already punched into the fireballs.
At that speed, each fireball collapsed silently like a punctured balloon, scattering into high-temperature turbulence.
Pakura's expression changed. He'd just broken her Scorch Release fireballs head-on.
"How… is that possible…"
She'd seen Magnet Release before.
The Fourth Kazekage, Rasa, was famous for using Magnet Release to control sand-iron—and she'd fought him.
But no Magnet Release she'd seen moved with this speed or this precision.
Sharingan.
It had to be the Sharingan's predictive vision combined with Magnet Release's control—creating a technique this monstrous.
And then, the remaining sand-iron rounds were already on her.
Pakura's hands flashed through seals.
"Scorch Release: Heat Barrier Wall!"
Scorching chakra burst out around her and formed a translucent orange-red shield in the air—her defensive Scorch Release, using heat to melt or vaporize anything that approached.
Bam! Bam!
Dents appeared. Cracks spread.
Crack—
The barrier was pierced.
The rounds had melted heavily and slowed dramatically, but the remaining kinetic force was still deadly.
Pakura twisted in midair. A round scraped her ribs.
Molten sand-iron splashed onto her uniform, burning straight through and leaving a seared mark on her skin.
What shocked her more was Kiyohara's sheer level.
If he had more rounds—or even slightly faster ones—she might already be dead.
"So this is Konoha's new generation…"
Pakura lifted her head to glare at him.
Kiyohara stood calmly, sand-iron rounds already re-forming and floating around him.
His expression was flat. The red three-tomoe Sharingan stood out starkly through the heat-warped air, as if that terrifying attack had been nothing more than a casual gesture.
Humiliation.
As Suna's "Hero," the strongest Scorch Release user in the village—being pushed this far by a Konoha brat was a disgrace she'd never tasted before.
Her face flushed with anger.
Kiyohara, meanwhile, was evaluating her.
"Scorch Release really is nasty…"
Without Steel Release hardening his body—without Wind Release to disperse the heat—those blasts would've been enough to cripple him.
Even now, the skin he had exposed stung sharply from prolonged heat exposure.
He had to end this fast.
The longer it dragged on, the hotter the battlefield became—and the more it favored Pakura.
Kiyohara moved.
Pakura had barely straightened up when he was already in her face.
His sword flashed again—this time a horizontal slash aimed at her abdomen.
Pale yellow wind streamed along the blade.
Pakura didn't dodge.
Or rather—she couldn't fully dodge.
Kiyohara was too fast.
She could only arch backward and lift her right arm.
At her elbow, a chakra point snapped open.
A surge of Scorch Release chakra erupted, forming an orange-red flame stream behind her elbow.
She struck into the slash with a counterattack, hurling a high-temperature shock with her elbow!
Scorch Release: Flame Elbow!
A close-range technique she'd developed by blending Scorch Release into taijutsu—concentrating it at the elbow and releasing it on impact to amplify power and burn anything that touched her.
Clang!
Kiyohara's blade hit her elbow.
At the same time, searing pressure surged toward him.
Kiyohara's foot blackened, faint arcs dancing around it.
Magnet Release: Electromagnetic Kick!
He kicked.
BOOM!
A clean, brutal hit.
Pakura shot away like a snapped kite, crashing into the ground dozens of meters away.
The scorched earth cratered. Dust roared up.
But she wasn't seriously injured.
At the instant of impact she'd condensed chakra over her side, forming a dense protective layer—reducing the internal damage to something she could endure.
She rolled five or six times to bleed off the force.
When she rose to one knee, her uniform was coated in black ash. The pale skin of her exposed back had several fresh cuts—scratched by rocks during the tumble.
Her orange-green hair was loose, strands stuck to her forehead with sweat.
Her breathing was sharp, chest heaving, eyes blazing with rage.
The "Hero" of Suna—treated like a ball and kicked across the battlefield by a Konoha upstart.
If word reached Suna, her prestige would crater.
Kiyohara didn't care what she thought—and he didn't give her time to breathe.
He flickered again, closing the distance.
Then he punched straight at her.
"What?!"
Pakura's pupils shrank.
This lunatic—
Her mind screamed, but her body moved.
She dumped Scorch Release chakra out across her body.
But Kiyohara's fist was already in her stomach.
Tsss—
White steam burst at the point of contact—moisture flashing off instantly.
Even with steel-hard skin, his fist reddened as the temperature spiked.
But just as it neared the point of melting, wind chakra erupted from his left palm.
Wind Release: Gale Palm!
A violent airflow formed a thin insulating layer between fist and heat, ripping away temperature fast.
His fist cooled in an instant.
And his left hand didn't stop.
He switched to both fists—straddled Pakura, pinned her down, and started hammering.
Bam-bam-bam-bam!
Every time Scorch Release chakra surged up from her body, Kiyohara smashed through it with another punch.
The impacts shook the ground hard enough that others started noticing.
Suna shinobi stared, dumbfounded.
Their hero—pinned under Kiyohara and beaten into the dirt.
Pakura fought back desperately, flooding Scorch Release chakra out—enough to burn Kiyohara's hands.
Steel Release and Earth Spear weren't perfect against extreme heat.
But Kiyohara's injuries were still far lighter than hers.
Under the White Snake Power, his burns were already slowly regenerating.
Forced into a corner, Pakura opened her mouth and spat a massive Scorch Release fireball.
It detonated immediately around her.
BOOM!
Kiyohara retreated fast, exiting the blast radius.
He shook out his arms; charred dead skin peeled away, revealing fresh new skin beneath.
"Suna's 'Hero'—is this all you've got?" Kiyohara said flatly.
She really was tough.
Each time she'd guarded herself with Scorch Release chakra at the last instant—otherwise, a single clean punch would've dropped her on the spot.
As the smoke cleared, Pakura stood again—messy, battered.
There were even visible fist marks on her.
And yet, there were no burn scars on her body.
Kiyohara couldn't help but marvel at the nature of kekkei genkai.
Scorch Release had fundamentally altered Pakura's body—down to DNA.
Even if her descendants never awakened Scorch Release, the trait could pass on as a latent gene.
In other words: superhuman, mutant-level biology.
Scorch Release likely granted some degree of fire resistance—or heat absorption—up to a threshold.
Otherwise, the fireballs she kept around herself would've dried her out first.
Her "cool" outfit—bare, pale back, slender arms, long legs—was proof.
Most Suna shinobi covered up as much as possible to resist desert heat; they didn't have skin this fair.
Hearing Kiyohara's words, frost spread across Pakura's face.
"Konoha brat. Don't get cocky."
She spoke coldly.
"That was just the appetizer. The real fight starts now."
"Oh yeah?" Kiyohara's lips curved.
"Then it'd be rude not to return the favor. You're being so enthusiastic—I should show some appreciation too."
Before the last word fell—
Kiyohara vanished.
Not vanished—just moved so fast the afterimage didn't even stick to the retina.
Pakura pushed her senses to the limit and caught the trajectory.
Everyone saw Kiyohara "disappear," saw a ring of dust burst from the scorched ground—
Then, in the next second, Kiyohara was already twenty meters away, hovering in midair.
He was suspended.
No foothold. Black sand-iron continuously drifted out of his gourd.
"This is my gift to you."
Kiyohara formed seals, inhaled, and spat out a fireball.
Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!
The sand-iron around him immediately began circling the fireball, reacting to it.
Magnet Release altered the field—heating the fireball further.
In an instant, the orange fireball turned blazing white.
When it swelled to the edge of instability, Kiyohara blew it forward and launched it.
The fireball streaked toward Pakura.
Pakura's instincts screamed danger.
As a Scorch Release user, she was extremely sensitive to heat—she felt the temperature spike violently the moment he "did something" to it.
She obeyed that primal alarm and fled.
At the same time, she shouted for her Suna comrades to run too.
BOOOOOOM!
A deafening blast. A flash so bright it could blind for a moment—turning a hundred-meter area into daylight.
Every shinobi in the vicinity reflexively shut their eyes or turned away.
Then the impact hit.
The earth was smashed down like an invisible hammer—cratering and cracking; scorched soil and debris were lifted and hurled, mushroom-clouding upward.
The heat was so extreme the entire battlefield froze in shock.
Some Suna shinobi who couldn't escape in time were instantly desiccated into dry corpses, their body water boiled away.
Pakura barely made it out.
When the white glare faded and she saw the carnage, she couldn't even speak.
A Fire Release like that was beyond anything she'd understood as "Fire Release."
Was it A-rank? S-rank?
The Uchiha didn't even have Fire Release of this level—otherwise she wouldn't rely almost exclusively on Scorch Release.
For her, Scorch Release was Fire Release's superior replacement.
"Damn it…"
Pakura's consciousness wavered. She forced her body to move, trying to retreat.
But Kiyohara wasn't letting her go.
Time to let Kiyohara rank up.
"Why the rush?"
Friend, please stay.
Kiyohara caught up and patted Pakura on the shoulder.
She tried to move again—
And met the crimson glare of his eyes.
In her exhausted state, she couldn't resist Sharingan genjutsu at all.
She collapsed unconscious.
"…That was Fire Release?" Kurenai stared at Kiyohara, red eyes wide, mouth hanging open.
That explosion felt like ten-plus fireballs detonating at once.
How much chakra would a technique like that even cost?
"Kiyohara's jutsu is insane!"
Might Guy kicked a Suna shinobi away and looked over.
With Pakura captured, Suna's forces crumbled, retreating under their commanders.
"Heh. That's Kiyohara's strength," Kurenai said, nodding hard.
Good. That's her teammate.
Guy nodded with heartfelt conviction.
Kiyohara being a taijutsu prodigy was one thing—his ninjutsu was terrifying too.
"Kiyohara—your eyes changed again," Kurenai said as she came up beside him, noticing the tomoe shift.
"It just happened when I got excited," Kiyohara replied, using the excuse he'd prepared.
"Let's go."
Kiyohara watched the Suna retreat, slung Pakura over his shoulder, and headed back.
Capturing Pakura was a massive accomplishment.
He was pretty sure that if he submitted an application to become an Anbu squad leader, the higher-ups would approve.
How many Anbu had someone as strong as him?
Even canon Kakashi—who would eventually become Sixth Squad's captain—was nowhere near Kiyohara at this point.
"Yesss!"
"We won!"
Konoha shinobi cheered, immediately chasing down the fleeing Suna like a pack of wolves.
The commotion drew Jiraiya.
When he rushed in, all he saw was wreckage, severed limbs, shredded gore—
And a huge crater.
And Kiyohara, carrying a woman on his shoulder, walking through the cheers.
…A woman?
Jiraiya narrowed his eyes. Something was off.
He looked closer and his eyes went wide.
Wasn't that Pakura?!
Wait—why is Pakura over Kiyohara's shoulder?!
He grabbed a nearby Konoha shinobi for an explanation and quickly understood what happened.
It was all Kiyohara.
Kiyohara had beaten Pakura and captured her alive.
"Good."
Jiraiya nodded approvingly.
Capturing Pakura would crush Suna's morale.
It was a classic move.
Suna pushed her as "the Hero" not only for her strength, but because they needed a star for political propaganda—something to stabilize the village.
A symbol like that inspired other shinobi to hold onto their "ninja way."
Even the Fourth Kazekage, Rasa, didn't carry a "hero" title.
"Kiyohara, kid—well done. Tsunade's gonna be proud."
Jiraiya strode forward. At 191 cm, he towered over most shinobi and came right up to Kiyohara.
"Jiraiya-sama," Kiyohara greeted with a nod.
"Was that your jutsu?" Jiraiya asked, curious.
"How is your Fire Release so strong?"
After all—even he only got results like that when he mixed his Fire Release with senjutsu chakra.
~~~
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