'And another thing - you can't use that technique again.' Minato Namikaze's voice was calm, but there was no room to argue with the judgment in it. 'The jutsu you just used focuses all its force into a single point. Its penetrating power is excellent, and its speed is astonishing. But because you move too fast, your eyes can't keep up with the enemy's response. If someone counters at the right moment, you'll run straight into your own death.'
Kakashi said nothing. He had known that flaw existed from the start. Knowing it and solving it, however, were two entirely different matters.
He wasn't the heir of some bloodline clan. He had no famous dōjutsu, no inherited pair of eyes that could pierce through motion and read what others missed. No matter how talented he was, ordinary vision was still ordinary vision. How could a naked eye compare with a ninja born with ocular powers?
'Before we split up,' Minato said, looking from one face to the next, 'I'll say it one more time. For a ninja, teamwork comes first.'
With that, he told everyone to move out and led them deeper into the Land of Grass. Night had already fallen. They would rest here once, then go their separate ways at dawn.
The camp went up quickly. Tents were pitched, rations were opened, and for a while the only sound in the darkness was the quiet, repetitive chewing of dry military food.
Kiyohara sat with his head lowered, outwardly silent, inwardly anything but. So that's how it's done, he thought, replaying Kakashi's chakra flow in his mind. That was the release pattern for Lightning Release at high speed. Even while everyone else settled in for the night, he was still studying, still stealing whatever scraps of insight he could from the people around him.
He really was at the age where he couldn't sleep because he was worrying about how weak he still was.
That thought made him glance sideways toward Obito. Earlier, Minato had quietly pulled Obito aside and told him the truth about Kakashi's father - why Kakashi had become so obsessed with rules, why he'd wrapped himself in that cold shell. Obito had finally understood a little of Kakashi's pain.
And then, after learning all that, he had gone right to sleep.
Kiyohara couldn't help shaking his head. How do you even manage that at this age?
He swallowed the last of his dry ration, slipped away to a slightly more secluded patch of ground, and began preparing to train. Minato's perception covered a huge area, and there were no enemies nearby. Since there was no immediate danger of exposing their position, Kiyohara chose to spend his chakra rather than let the night go to waste.
'Lightning Release: Earth Walk.'
He formed the seals, refined the chakra, and sent it into the ground. Thin blue arcs of electricity spread over a patch of earth in front of him, crackling like restless snakes. The jutsu still wasn't perfect, but it was steady enough to hold shape now.
Behind him, the translucent spirit of the rogue Kiyohara watched with his arms folded. 'Not bad. Once you've completely absorbed the talent I left behind, you'll improve even faster.'
Kiyohara had to admit it. Before all of this, he had only ever been average - a little careful, a little lucky, nothing more. But after merging with part of his future self's aptitude and receiving close, relentless guidance on top of it, that mediocrity was starting to sharpen into something dangerous.
He let the lightning fade and turned to look more closely at the spirit hovering beside him. 'You're getting more transparent.'
The rogue Kiyohara didn't answer right away.
Kiyohara frowned. He really did need this man to hold on until he earned his promotion to Chunin. Only then could that second dying wish be fulfilled, allowing the rest of the talent to merge into him. If the spirit dissipated too early, that whole line of future profit would vanish on the spot.
'If you're going to disappear,' Kiyohara said with complete sincerity, 'try to do it slowly.'
'...'
The rogue Kiyohara turned and glared at him. 'You really are exactly the same as me.'
Back when he had been alive, he too had spoken almost those exact words to one of his own future remnants. Some things apparently transcended timelines.
After a moment, the spirit shook his head. 'Relax. We have enough time. I'll last until then.'
Having already died once, the rogue Kiyohara had let go of a lot. He could still feel regret, but not panic. That calmness, more than anything, made him feel like an older version of Kiyohara rather than some strange illusion born from a cursed urn.
'So you've been sneaking out here to train.'
A soft voice drifted from behind him. Kiyohara turned and found Kurenai Yuhi standing there in the dark, her ruby-red eyes reflecting the weak firelight from camp. The red of her gaze was beautiful enough to make people forget how dangerous a genjutsu specialist could be.
'Kurenai,' he said. 'Have you ever seen Konoha at four in the morning?'
She blinked. 'Four in the morning?'
The surprise on her face was real. To her, getting up before dawn for training was something you only did when a mission demanded it. She had never once dragged herself out of bed at four just to get stronger.
'That's right,' Kiyohara said with a solemn nod. 'Since you haven't seen it, I can only make up for it by secretly working harder at eight in the evening.'
Kurenai stared at him for a beat, then covered her mouth, half amused and half impressed. The explanation sounded ridiculous, but the effort behind it was not. He really was working harder than most people she knew.
For a moment she just looked at him - at the handsome profile lit by stuttering blue arcs of lightning, at the quiet concentration in his face, at the seriousness hidden under all that dry humor - and felt her heart skip in a way she didn't quite understand.
If Kiyohara was pushing himself this hard, how could she afford to slack off?
'Then I'll train with you for a while.'
She stepped beside him and began practicing her own craft, shaping chakra for genjutsu control while Kiyohara resumed his Lightning Release drills. The two of them trained under the same patch of night sky, each immersed in a different discipline.
Kiyohara didn't waste the chance. His talent for genjutsu was terrible - painfully, insultingly terrible. So he stayed focused on the things where effort still paid. Ninjutsu. Chakra control. Battle basics. Shuriken work.
Still, a thought drifted through his mind as he watched Kurenai out of the corner of his eye. It would be great if some future version of me turned out to be a Kurama Kiyohara... or an Uchiha Kiyohara. If that happened, his biggest weakness in genjutsu might be patched in one go.
The future contained endless possibilities. Right now he just had to survive long enough to cash them out.
***
At daybreak, Minato Namikaze had already dismantled his tent and packed away his things. Morning mist lingered among the trees, turning the borderland pale and dim.
'From this point on, we split into three groups,' Minato said. 'Do your best.' His expression grew more serious as he continued. 'The enemy we met yesterday was only a scouting force. From here onward, we may run into organized groups. Do not lower your guard.'
Kiyohara, Kakashi, and the others all nodded.
Seeing that everyone understood, Minato gave the final order. 'Disperse.'
He himself headed straight for the front lines. Kakashi departed with Rin and Obito, continuing toward Kannabi Bridge. Kiyohara took Kurenai and Genma in another direction, planning to deliberately stir up the Iwagakure alert network and pull enemy attention away from Kakashi's team.
***
By afternoon, the humidity in the bamboo forest was enough to make every breath feel sticky. Sunlight filtered down in broken strips through the dense green canopy, and the air smelled of damp soil and old leaves.
The spirit of the rogue Kiyohara drifted back from scouting ahead. 'This is the place. One or two Chunin at most, plus two Genin. Of the nearby positions, this should be the weakest point.'
'Then this is where we start,' Kiyohara said.
He gave Kurenai and Genma a quick summary. Between the intelligence extracted yesterday and his future self's scouting, the picture was becoming clearer. Iwagakure had scattered small outposts throughout the area so they could support each other if Kannabi Bridge came under threat.
The descriptions from the captured enemy had been vague, though. Everything still had to be verified in person. And if they wanted to attract attention, smashing one of those outposts was the cleanest possible method.
Kurenai wiped a sheen of sweat from her brow. 'Kiyohara... how did you know that from so far away?'
'I sensed it,' he replied without even blinking.
Perception-type ninja. That was the lie he had settled on, and at this point he wore it with perfect confidence.
Kurenai's eyes widened slightly. So he could even distinguish enemy strength at that distance? He really is amazing, she thought. The admiration rose so naturally that she barely noticed it.
'Listen carefully.' Kiyohara lowered his voice. 'This is only a small outpost. We'll use it as practice. Genma, you take position on the route the enemy is most likely to use when retreating. Kurenai, you're with me. We go in from the front, make noise, and force them to react.'
Destroying the outpost would serve two purposes at once. It would drag Iwagakure's attention onto them, and it would also give Kiyohara a chance to collect supplies from the corpses afterward. Given the mountain of debt still hanging over his head, that second point was no small matter.
'Understood,' Genma said around the senbon at the corner of his mouth.
'Got it,' Kurenai answered at once.
Kiyohara was the acting captain here. There was no reason not to follow his command.
The next moment, Kiyohara and Kurenai slipped into the outpost area together.
'Enemy attack!'
The Iwagakure ninja reacted immediately. One of them locked eyes with Kiyohara and cast a genjutsu without hesitation, clearly intending to freeze him in place and end the fight before it began.
Kurenai's expression changed. Genjutsu? Against Kiyohara?
'Don't come any closer, Kurenai,' Kiyohara said at once. 'Watch carefully.'
His gaze remained fixed straight ahead, but his body showed none of the stiffness that should have followed. To an outside observer, it was as if the illusion had simply failed.
Inside, however, Kiyohara was already calling out to the rogue spirit.
The principle of genjutsu was simple enough in theory: interfere with the target's nervous system through chakra and manipulate their senses. To break it, you normally had to disrupt your own chakra flow and throw the illusion off balance.
But that raised a fascinating question.
What did an enemy's genjutsu on Kiyohara's body have to do with the rogue Kiyohara possessing part of that body from the inside?
The answer, apparently, was not much at all.
A portion of the rogue ninja's spirit directly overrode the stiffness induced by the illusion and moved Kiyohara's limbs anyway. It wasn't that the genjutsu hadn't landed - it was that there was another 'self' in the same body, one the enemy hadn't accounted for.
So Kiyohara walked forward under genjutsu as if nothing had happened.
The Iwagakure ninja's face changed instantly. Shock flooded his expression. This brat... why isn't the illusion working?
And that single instant of disbelief was exactly the opening Kiyohara had been waiting for.