"Why hasn't the ANBU evacuated yet? Command ordered a full rout."
After exchanging the proper tactical sign/countersign with Yūgao Uzuki, Kiyohara relaxed slightly, though he did not completely lower his guard. During wartime, one must remain paranoid against any unexpected anomalies.
"During the retreat, a Sensor ninja in my caravan detected intense, hyper-lethal combat still occurring in this sector. It was a lone force holding off multiple squads... I applied to break formation and provide support on my own initiative," Yūgao spoke concisely, her voice clipped and professional.
The eyes behind her blank porcelain mask quickly scanned Kiyohara's blood-stained cheeks and his smoking, tattered flak jacket. She then looked out at the surrounding clearing, which was absolutely decimated—craters, scorched earth, and a horrific carpet of dismembered Kirigakure corpses. Her heart was deeply, profoundly shaken.
"You... have you been fighting alone this entire time?" she asked, awe bleeding into her voice.
"Yeah. But it's about time to leave," Kiyohara nodded, wiping the sweat from his chin. "However, before we evacuate, I want to send a proper farewell gift to the Hidden Mist tactical commander over there."
Yūgao followed Kiyohara's gaze. Through the thinning mist, she could vaguely see figures gathered on a distant, elevated ridge. Even without a Byakugan, she could feel the dense, powerful mass of chakra signatures clustered there.
Her brow furrowed sharply behind the mask. "It's too dangerous! Their entire flank defensive line is regrouping around that point; if you engage, you'll be surrounded by hundreds of fresh reinforcements!"
"That's exactly why I need to do something they won't expect," Kiyohara grinned, revealing white teeth.
Combined with the drying blood smeared across his face, he looked genuinely, terrifyingly crazed.
He said no more. He closed his eyes and began to form hand seals. The meager dregs of chakra remaining in his coils were violently mobilized once again.
Yūgao wanted to grab his arm and physically drag him away, but seeing the absolute, cold determination in his black eyes, the words died in her throat. Instead, she gripped the hilt of the sword strapped to her back and stood guard vigilantly by his side.
'Your biological body is reaching its breaking point,' a voice that only Kiyohara could hear rang out in his mind. It was the Iwa Spirit.
'I know. I'll fall back immediately after casting this final jutsu. Please, help me refine just a fraction more chakra,' Kiyohara pleaded internally.
Fortunately, after inheriting the Yang Release mutation twice over, his cellular structure had become vastly tougher than an average ninja's. Yang Release is fundamentally linked to biological vitality.
Simply put, despite his agonizing fatigue, Kiyohara's current body was still physically capable of surviving a final, forced chakra refinement. As long as his coils didn't run completely dry and trigger cardiac arrest, his life wouldn't be in immediate danger.
And as for the micro-tears in his muscle fibers caused by this overexertion, he could just ask Rin to heal him later. As an apprentice to the Medical Saint Tsunade, Rin's Mystical Palm Technique was already among the best in her generation.
'Alright,' the Iwa Spirit nodded reluctantly. Since his past self insisted on this suicidal stunt, he had no choice but to comply. 'After you complete my second dying wish and fully integrate my bloodline, your baseline stamina should be much better equipped for this.'
'That will have to wait until after this campaign,' Kiyohara replied.
During his brief mental communication with the Spirit, from Yūgao's perspective, he had only paused for a split second.
Immediately after, Kiyohara reached into his pouch and dry-swallowed another concentrated military soldier pill. Taking the highly toxic stimulants consecutively caused his skin to flush violently red before turning an unnatural, sickly pale color.
"Magnet Release: Iron Sand Gathering!"
The remaining iron sand in his thermos—along with all the un-detonated explosive tags he had just frantically scavenged from the corpses—were violently pulled into the air by magnetic force.
There were roughly one hundred and fifty high-yield tags.
The pitch-black iron sand writhed in the air like a living, mechanical symbiote. It tightly wrapped the explosive tags in its center, compressing them, before layering more and more sand over the core to form an increasingly massive, dense black sphere.
But that wasn't enough!
Kiyohara continued to violently manipulate the magnetic field, shaping a thick, ultra-dense insulation layer of compressed iron on the outermost shell of the sphere. Finally, he used the magnetic pressure to mold the entire mass into a perfectly streamlined, aerodynamic spindle with a razor-sharp tip!
The massive, heavy black spindle hovered ominously in the air in front of him, vibrating with contained kinetic energy.
"This is—?!" Yūgao had never seen anyone utilize Magnet Release and explosive tags like this. It defied all standard ninjutsu doctrine!
"Magnet Release: Electromagnetic Accelerated Exploding Tag Cannon!"
HUM—BOOM!
The massive, spindle-shaped warhead, accelerated instantly by a series of invisible magnetic field coils projected from Kiyohara's hands, turned into a fleeting, supersonic black meteor.
Trailing a blinding, deep blue electromagnetic exhaust flame, the projectile followed a flawless, linear trajectory. It completely ignored the scattered Water Release jutsu that panicked Mist ninja tried to throw in its path, tearing through their defenses to smash violently into the distant Hidden Mist command ridge!
At the distant command post, the ominous, suffocating premonition in Zabuza Momochi's heart suddenly surged to its absolute peak.
He jerked his head up. His battle-honed instincts screamed that something apocalyptic was happening, but he couldn't pinpoint the exact vector.
It was only when the Sensor ninja beside him frantically reported that the Konoha boy was apparently charging a massive, long-range jutsu that Zabuza knew exactly where the source of his terror was coming from.
It was Kiyohara, stationed in the bloody clearing two kilometers away!
Commander Yama Higashino only had time to see a blinding blue light rapidly enlarging before his eyes. The last conscious thing reflected in his pupils was the sight of his elite subordinate, Zabuza Momochi, abandoning him and running away as fast as physically possible.
Yama opened his mouth to shout an order, but it was already too late.
KRA-BOOM!
A deafening roar, violently louder than any previous explosion on the flank, echoed across the battlefield. It was accompanied immediately by a massive, churning mushroom cloud of fire and debris reaching for the sky. A terrifying, supersonic shockwave erupted outward, completely obliterating the Hidden Mist command post!
The concentrated, insulated yield of one hundred and fifty explosive tags was enough to vaporize a reinforced bridge on the scale of Kannabi.
A massive, smoking crater tens of meters in diameter was blasted into the high slope.
After the smoke and dust finally cleared, Yama Higashino's figure had completely vanished.
Only a charred pool of blood and a few fragments of a molten flak jacket remained in the epicenter.
Zabuza managed to dive behind a thick boulder a hundred meters away at the absolute last microsecond, but his left shoulder was still shredded by supersonic iron shrapnel from the explosion, and thick blood was flowing freely down his arm.
'What the hell kind of ninjutsu is this?!' Zabuza gritted his teeth in agony.
He could finally empathize with why Senior Terumī had been obsessively muttering about Kiyohara ever since she returned from the Whirlpool Ruins. If it were him, he wouldn't be able to just forget the demon who had casually almost taken his life from two kilometers away.
'Is this really Magnet Release?! To think it can physically transport a payload of explosive tags all the way over here to detonate...'
On the main beachhead battlefield.
Orochimaru and Jiraiya turned their heads simultaneously, looking toward the distant eastern flank as the mushroom cloud rose above the canopy.
"Heh heh... well now, it seems the tactical pressure on our flank can be lightened quite a bit," Orochimaru chuckled, his raspy tone carrying a hint of dark, genuine pleasure.
The Hidden Mist's secondary command structure had been completely vaporized, and the regional commander was confirmed KIA. The resulting logistical chaos on the enemy's advance was obvious.
Jiraiya rubbed his chin, deeply impressed. He hadn't been paying attention to that specific grid coordinate and had no idea what had happened. He only knew that some kind of high-yield artillery strike had just wiped out the enemy's staging ground.
'Kiyohara... I am looking forward more and more to seeing exactly how far your madness can go,' Orochimaru thought to himself, his slitted eyes gleaming.
Back at the clearing.
Kiyohara let out a long, ragged breath. He dropped to one knee.
He only had fumes of chakra left now. This was only possible thanks to the Iwa Spirit constantly hijacking his biology to aggressively digest the soldier pills and convert the toxic nutrients into raw energy.
Fortunately, his spiritual energy was incredibly dense, allowing him to force the mixture with his rapidly recovering physical energy to refine new chakra drops.
However, Kiyohara could feel a sharp, agonizing cramping pain in his stomach, as if his internal organs were violently churning.
"Let's go," Kiyohara ordered, standing back up on shaking legs.
With their commander dead, the Hidden Mist infantry on the flank would be paralyzed by the sudden lack of orders. The immediate pursuit pressure was gone. Kurenai, Genma, and the rest of the caravan should have easily reached the safety of the secondary defense line by now.
It was time to end this operation.
Kiyohara carefully secured the massive, high-capacity Sealing Scroll at his waist.
During the slaughter, he had discovered that several of the elite Mist ANBU also carried logistical sealing scrolls. He had stripped them all, hanging them from his belt after aggressively sealing their contents.
Excluding the necessary tactical expenditure of explosive tags, copper wire, and shuriken during his traps, Kiyohara had made an absolutely astronomical profit overall.
He did a rough mental calculation based on black market rates: the looted weapons, medical supplies, and encoded scrolls could be fenced for at least 1.2 million Ryo.
This was a life-changing sum of money for a Chunin. It was equivalent to the payout for several dozen ordinary A-Rank assassination missions.
Months ago, Kiyohara had scraped together every penny he had and only managed to secure a shady loan of 70,000 Ryo. Now, just a single, brutal rearguard action had earned him a fortune.
Besides the cash, there was another massive tactical victory.
He could now freely choose to "legitimize" several ninjutsu related to the Hidden Mist Village, or some more common elemental jutsu he had inherited from the Urn. He could simply use the flawless excuse that he had "looted several enemy ninjutsu scrolls during the chaos of the battle and studied them."
In fact, there were quite a few highly studious, pragmatic ninja who operated exactly like that. For example, Kiyohara currently carried several blank scrolls with him precisely to transcribe enemy techniques in the field.
'Unfortunately, opportunities like this don't come every day,' Kiyohara shook his head inwardly.
This time, it could be said that the stars had aligned perfectly. The Mist had attacked in overwhelming force, meaning the battlefield was rich with targets. And because the true powerhouses were stalled on the beach by the Sannin, Kiyohara had the freedom to roam the flanks, specifically picking out the weaker squads to slaughter without interference.
Soon, Kiyohara finished a final sweep of his immediate surroundings. He set off on the inland retreat path alongside Yūgao Uzuki.
As the blood-red sun was about to set behind the western mountains, Kiyohara and the masked Yūgao successfully arrived at the heavily fortified secondary defense line.
Along the way, Hyuga scouts utilizing the Byakugan had already spotted the two of them approaching the perimeter. After going through the grueling process of exchanging verbal secret codes and verifying their identities to prevent transformation infiltration, the two successfully entered the bustling, overcrowded camp.
"Kiyohara! Are you okay?!"
The moment Kiyohara walked through the gates, he saw Kurenai pacing anxiously in the mud. She immediately ran up to him, grabbing his arm.
"I'm fine," Kiyohara nodded tiredly.
On the way back, he had found a hidden spot to vomit and deal with the agonizing digestive issues caused by the overclocked metabolism. Now, there was only the dull ache of physical overexertion, giving him a constant feeling of lightheadedness.
"You've really rendered an unbelievable service this time," Genma walked over, his expression utterly serious. "I saw that the Intelligence Division from the Yamanaka Clan recorded a massive, separate dossier detailing your specific actions on the flank."
This time, Genma's tone didn't have the slightest hint of a rival being afraid of his friend becoming too successful. There was only pure, unadulterated awe.
My god, holding the flank and slaughtering so many elites alone... if that's not a war hero, what the hell is?
"It was mostly luck. The vanguard squads were relatively weak, and I managed to scavenge a lot of explosive tags to set traps," Kiyohara shook his head humbly.
It was the truth. He ran the exact microsecond he encountered someone with a stronger chakra signature, directly using his supersonic speed to create tactical distance. As for the remaining weak ones, they simply couldn't outrun his magnetic field, so their only fate was death.
On a battlefield, explosive tags and a slit throat cause the exact same lethal damage to a Jonin as they do to a Genin. Even an elite Kage, if ambushed without their defenses raised, can be sent to the Pure Land by a rusty kunai.
"Someone is calling for you, Kiyohara," Tekka Uchiha said as he walked over from a distance.
Tekka had heard the whispered rumors about Kiyohara's slaughter from the returning Hyuga scouts. The tiny bit of arrogant displeasure he had felt about losing to Kiyohara months ago had completely, entirely vanished.
When someone is roughly on the exact same skill level as oneself, it can cause negative emotions like jealousy and rivalry. But when someone is so incomprehensibly far ahead of you that they exist in a different league entirely, you can only look up to them in silence.
"Who is calling for me?" Kiyohara asked curiously.
"It seems to be the Village High Command," Tekka pointed toward the massive, heavily guarded central command tent.
Hearing this, Kiyohara told Kurenai and Genma to wait for him by the medical tents, promising he would be right back.
When Kiyohara lifted the heavy canvas curtain and stepped inside the command tent, he realized the summoner was actually Orochimaru!
"Lord Orochimaru. Shouldn't you be on the beachhead—"
"Heh heh. By the time you successfully retreated, Kiyohara-kun, the situation on the beach was actually already concluding," Orochimaru said smoothly, sitting behind a large tactical map. "The Hidden Mist's control over the Six-Tails isn't quite perfected yet. The slug ended up going berserk, broke its operational programming, and slaughtered quite a few Mist infantry instead."
"So that's how it is," Kiyohara finally understood.
A Tailed Beast is an apocalyptic calamity just as much as it is a tactical weapon, which destined it to be a wildly unpredictable double-edged sword. It could strike the enemy's front lines hard, but if control slipped, it could instantly annihilate its own allied formations.
How to efficiently, flawlessly control a Tailed Beast was a billion-Ryo problem every Hidden Village was desperately researching.
To control a Tailed Beast securely, a village inevitably required a transcendent Fūinjutsu (Sealing Jutsu) system. Decades ago, the Land of Whirlpools' Uzumaki Fūinjutsu was simply too powerful and absolute, which aroused the terrifying paranoia of the Great Nations, leading them to eventually gang up and eradicate the Uzumaki entirely.
Currently, the Hidden Cloud Village relied on the Iron Armor Seal, while Konoha possessed the legendary Four Symbols Seal. Other countries possessed crude, inferior methods to seal their beasts.
Because the Mist's sealing methods were flawed, the current Six-Tails Jinchuriki couldn't fully suppress the beast's raging consciousness.
This was also the exact political reason why Konoha had not yet deployed the Nine-Tails—Kushina Uzumaki—onto the battlefield. They couldn't be absolutely certain that the Nine-Tails' apocalyptic power wouldn't go out of control, so she was kept locked deep within the village as a supreme, inactive "nuclear deterrent."
"Your tactical potential is even higher than I originally calculated," Orochimaru licked the corner of his mouth, his slitted eyes gleaming.
The fact that Kiyohara could slaughter so many elites and destroy a command post entirely by himself proved that his baseline chakra capacity and neural reflexes were monstrous. Furthermore, his ruthless combat pragmatism was outstanding; otherwise, he wouldn't have survived the attrition.
"Are you interested in being my personal research assistant?" Orochimaru extended the formal invitation.
He possessed a massive backlog of classified biological research that, if delegated to a competent, amoral mind, could drastically accelerate his progress toward immortality.
"Don't worry. The tasks won't be too physically demanding," Orochimaru added, his snake-like pupils quietly watching Kiyohara's reaction.
"It would be my absolute honor, Lord Orochimaru."
Hearing the offer, Kiyohara accepted immediately, bowing deeply.
Being Orochimaru's direct assistant meant he was officially backed by a Sannin's political influence; he was no longer a vulnerable, expendable civilian orphan with no factional backing whatsoever.
In this dark world, raw power only matters if you have the political connections to wield it. The entire ninja world is an oligarchic society built entirely on deep-rooted, nepotistic personal relationships.
If you look closely at Konoha's history, you will find that the past Hokages all have incredibly deep, mentor-student relationships with each other.
The Second was the First's younger brother. The Third was the Second's direct disciple. The Fourth Hokage (Minato) was the Third's grand-disciple (via Jiraiya). Similarly, the Fifth Hokage (Tsunade) was the Third's disciple and the First's granddaughter.
By the time of the Sixth Hokage (Kakashi), they still hadn't escaped this dynastic vortex; he was the Fourth's direct disciple.
And Naruto, naturally, goes without saying. Except for Tobirama, who didn't interact with him much, absolutely every other Hokage was either directly related to him, mentored him, or owed his father a massive blood debt!
The Crown Prince of Konoha. No one possessed a more terrifying, deeply entrenched network of political connections. And Naruto's tragic early childhood was simply because the Third Hokage actively hid those connections from the world to protect him from assassins.
"Heh heh. Kiyohara-kun, that is just wonderful news," Orochimaru smiled, genuinely pleased that the boy had agreed so pragmatically and readily.
"Consider this a small signing bonus from your new master."
Orochimaru reached into his robes and tossed a sealed ninjutsu scroll onto the desk.
Kiyohara caught it smoothly. He broke the wax seal and unrolled it, realizing instantly that it was the advanced Wind Release jutsu: Wind Release: Wind Cutter Technique.
After forming the seals, the user could release a highly compressed, invisible blade of gale-force wind from a single hand to bisect the enemy. Compared to the basic Gale Palm, the aerodynamic current of this specific jutsu was infinitely sharper, capable of cleanly severing steel and bone alike.
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Give me powerstones.
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