Some things were earned through experience. Some were carved into the blood. And some… were simply stacked, talent layered on talent, until the gap between "possible" and "impossible" stopped being a question of effort and became a matter of time.
"I only received two Books of Last Words," the rogue Kiyohara said, his voice quiet in a way that made the words feel heavier. "I'd just reached jōnin-level strength. Then I got careless, stepped into an explosive tag trap… and died."
"I see…" Kiyohara replied, but the real response happened inside him.
So the Book of Last Words wasn't a sentimental keepsake. It was a time anchor, an address stamped onto a life at the moment it ended. If he died, would he be packaged the same way? Turned into a "relic," delivered to another version of himself somewhere in the branching haze of possibility?
The thought should have been grotesque. Instead, it was terrifyingly practical.
And now he understood why this rogue version of him had been so eager to explain everything the instant he appeared. Even if it was "future him" cooperating with "present him," it still came down to exchange. No one, especially not a shinobi, offered help without a reason.
He wanted his wish fulfilled.
That realization made Kiyohara's pulse pick up, not with fear, but with a sharp, dangerous kind of excitement. If one future self could add a full layer of talent… what if there were two? Three? More?
In his head, the numbers kept escalating, and with them, the image of the impossible becoming routine. In theory, if the stacking didn't lose too much along the way, he'd reach a point where even the Ōtsutsuki could be shattered, three punches, clean and final, like a cruel joke told with a straight face.
He forced himself to calm down. Daydreaming didn't keep you alive.
Even Hachimon Tonkou ("Eight Gates"), after opening the Gate of Death, was only said to raise power dozens of times over a Kage. Legendary. Terrifying. Still within the limits of a single life paying its entire price at once.
This was different. This wasn't one life burning brightly. This was many lives being distilled.
The only uncertainty was loss. These were dead futures, after all, versions of him that had already ended. Maybe the weaker futures left behind less. Maybe only a truly stronger version of himself could pass down anything close to what he'd gained.
Kiyohara looked at the fading figure and made himself ask the question that mattered. "So… what's your wish?"
"Two," the rogue Kiyohara said, after a brief pause. "The first is simple. Go do what you want to do right now."
It was so straightforward that Kiyohara blinked.
"What I want to do?" he repeated, as if the answer weren't already lodged in his chest.
Of course he wanted strength, enough to stop waking up with survival as the only plan. Enough that every step didn't feel like it might be his last. And if he ever gained power like a superhuman… then he wouldn't just survive. He could finally live.
"First," Kiyohara said, raising a finger, "get stronger. Second… I want Ichiraku Ramen. Right now. The most loaded bowl they'll give me."
He tried to make it sound casual, but the hunger beneath it wasn't only physical. Sometimes, wanting something small was the only way to prove you still belonged to the world.
"Ichiraku…" The rogue Kiyohara's voice softened, carrying a note of longing he didn't try to hide. "It's been a long time since I tasted it."
Kiyohara caught that tone, and understood it immediately.
It wasn't about noodles.
Maybe the rogue version of him wanted to see what the younger him cared about, to confirm whether the heart had always been this simple. Because grown up, he'd lived something like a protagonist's life.
Only his script had been written by Mori.
A rogue ninja didn't have a righteous path to take missions. A bounty didn't expire. Unless he was willing to spend his life as a nobody, he would eventually have to step back into the shinobi world, and the moment he did, the hunt would start again.
When pursuit squads had nearly crushed him, when even molding chakra felt like trying to breathe through a wound, he'd come close, close enough that he could still taste the shame, of selling blood just to keep moving.
Kiyohara frowned. "You were jōnin-level and still couldn't eat ramen?"
"It's not the same," the rogue Kiyohara said, shaking his head. "After I became a rogue, I couldn't even get through Konoha's gates."
Konoha was full of hidden monsters. A commoner jōnin couldn't come and go as he pleased, much less a wanted one.
"…Right." Kiyohara nodded slowly. A bowl of Ichiraku was only a few dozen ryō. The price was never money. The price was the word home.
His gaze returned to the translucent figure. Compared to when he'd first appeared, the rogue Kiyohara already looked dimmer, thinner, like a message being erased line by line.
"And your second wish?" Kiyohara asked, urgency creeping in despite his effort to stay steady.
"Become a chūnin," the rogue Kiyohara said. "Legitimately."
He looked Kiyohara over, then let out a breath that sounded like quiet bitterness.
"I wanted to say 'become a jōnin,' but I won't last that long. I'm not really a soul right now… more like an imprint. When my time runs out, I'll disappear."
If he'd had more time, maybe he would've searched for a vessel, anything to cling to the world a little longer.
Failing to truly earn the jōnin title, then defecting in the end… it had always been a thorn in him. Even now, he had jōnin-level strength, but not the rank.
"Alright," Kiyohara said.
He could feel time pressing down on them. So he didn't hesitate. He headed straight for Ichiraku Ramen.
"Teuchi-san! One deluxe bowl, give me everything. Extra toppings, all of it!"
"Yo, Kiyohara," Teuchi greeted with a warm smile, hands already moving. "Back early today, huh?"
Teuchi had watched him grow up. The kid had lost his parents young, but he'd never let it crush him, he'd learned to stand on his own before he should've had to.
"Couldn't stop thinking about your ramen," Kiyohara said, smiling back.
When the bowl arrived, he pressed his palms together lightly. "Itadakimasu."
Then he ate like he meant it, fast, honest, without pretense. Steam curled against his face, broth rich on his tongue, the simple heat spreading through his stomach like something he'd forgotten he was allowed to feel.
Above him, the rogue Kiyohara drifted from the urn and hovered in silence. He didn't speak. He just watched, watched Kiyohara eat, watched the street, watched the lights and the familiar corners of Konoha as if trying to memorize them before they were taken away again.
Only Kiyohara could see him in this state, so no one stared, no one questioned. The moment stayed intact.
Soon, the bowl was empty. Kiyohara tipped it up and drank the broth down to the last drop.
The noodles mattered, sure. But the soup, that was the essence.
The instant the first wish was fulfilled, a small sphere of light drifted from the rogue Kiyohara and sank into Kiyohara's body.
Kiyohara's breath caught.
He felt it immediately, something foreign and familiar merging into him at once, settling behind his eyes, threading into bone-deep instinct.
Talent.
His perception sharpened as if a film had been peeled away. His grasp of Fuuton and Raiton deepened in a blink, concepts that had been unclear before snapping into place with clean certainty.
Like returning to an old problem after growing up: what once felt impossible suddenly looked obvious.
And then, along with that clarity, a jutsu arrived.
Fuuton: Dai Toppa ("Great Breakthrough").
Kiyohara had never known it before, but knowledge surged into his mind all at once, breath control, chakra shaping, the way the flow should bite and expand. His head felt swollen with it, heavy, as if his brain had been forced to make room too quickly.
He set the ryō down on the counter. "Teuchi-san, thanks."
Then he moved fast, returning to his shabby place on the edge of Konoha. The moment he was inside, he raised his hands and formed the seals, Dog, Horse, Rooster, guiding chakra through his coils as the new instinct demanded.
"Fuuton: Dai Toppa ("Great Breakthrough")!"
His breath blasted outward, packed with Wind Release chakra. In an instant, it became a violent gale that ripped across the courtyard. Dust and grit snapped up from the ground. A small stone stool skidded, flipped, and slammed into the wall with a hard bang, close enough to cracking it that Kiyohara could feel the impact in his teeth.
He stared, then let out a slow breath as he felt how sharply his chakra had dropped.
"This power…" he murmured, satisfied despite the drain.
A jutsu's destructive force rose with chakra reserves and understanding. In the hands of an elite shinobi, "Great Breakthrough" could flatten a stretch of forest.
"It consumes a lot," Kiyohara admitted.
For a civilian-born ninja, low chakra was a wall that never went away. But after the light merged into him, he could feel it, his spiritual energy had increased, and with it, his chakra had climbed as well, even if only by a noticeable step.
"So you inherited part of my talent," the rogue Kiyohara said, voice even, "and one jutsu."
There was something faintly rueful beneath it. In his own timeline, the two Books of Last Words he'd received had only given him two E-rank jutsu, and nothing else.
"What are your chakra natures?" Kiyohara asked.
The future had endless branches. Another version of him might not match. But chakra, fundamental, intimate, felt like something that might stay consistent. And if it did, there might be more he could learn. More techniques. More chances to survive.
"Wind. Lightning," the rogue Kiyohara answered.
Kiyohara nodded. "Same. Wind and Lightning."
So their divergence wasn't extreme, at least not in the foundation.
He rubbed his chin, thinking. "But if I'm going to become chūnin… I'll have to complete the Kannabi Bridge mission…"
That wasn't a small obstacle. It was the kind of mission where a single mistake didn't cost pride, it cost lives.
"Don't be afraid," the rogue Kiyohara said, steady despite the way his outline continued to fade. "When it matters, I'll step in."
He explained that, for a limited time, he could possess Kiyohara, take over his body and fight in his place if necessary.
But doing so would accelerate his disappearance.
Kiyohara's eyes widened. "…You can do that?"
End of Chapter