Then Madara Uchiha is practically right under my feet, Kiyohara thought.
The original story had always been vague about this part. Maybe Madara had White Zetsu drag Obito into that underground cavern, then fed him a lie about having fallen in by sheer luck. Or maybe Obito had unconsciously triggered a trace of Kamui the moment his Sharingan awakened. Either way, the truth here had always been wrapped in shadow.
"Are you all right, Rin... Kakashi?"
Only half of Obito's body was still visible beneath the slab of rock. He turned his head with his remaining eye, looking toward the others as though he were the one worried about them.
"Obito!"
Kakashi's pupils shrank. He threw himself at the boulder at once, bracing both hands against it and trying to shove it aside. No matter how hard he strained, it did not move even a fraction.
"Don't bother, Kakashi. It's over for me. The entire right side of my body is crushed. I can't feel anything there anymore."
Hearing that, Kakashi's strength seemed to drain out of him all at once. He leaned against the cave wall, guilt flooding his face as he began admitting his mistakes one by one. In his mind, all of this had happened because of him.
Kiyohara stood a short distance behind them and watched in silence.
Was it moving? Sure. The bond between those three was undeniably real. But Kiyohara had never forgotten another truth: in Obito's heart, Kakashi and Rin were the only ones who truly counted. Everyone else could do right by him a hundred times over and still be discarded the moment he turned his back on the world.
That was why Kiyohara had never tried to get close to Obito before this. One, it was unnecessary. Two, it might have made him part of Madara Uchiha's plan, just another name on the list of people Obito needed to lose before he broke.
Minato Namikaze should already be on his way, Kiyohara thought.
Once Minato arrived, they could destroy Kannabi Bridge together and complete the mission. With that accomplishment in hand, Kiyohara should have more than enough merit to be promoted when they returned to Konoha. At that point, he would likely only need an internal review before being advanced directly.
Then his eyes flicked toward the rubble and he paused.
Daishi is dead?
He had nearly forgotten about the Iwagakure jonin in the chaos. But because of the lime powder Kiyohara had used earlier, Daishi had failed to escape in time. His head had been crushed beneath the collapse, while part of his body still jutted grotesquely out from the rocks.
That was too good a chance to waste. Kiyohara stepped over without hesitation and started looting the corpse.
One touch, and the haul was obvious.
Good grief, he actually carried thirty thousand taels on him.
Kiyohara pulled a thick wad of banknotes from Daishi's ninja pouch and confiscated it with perfect righteousness before slipping it into his own pocket. Then he found something even better-a ninjutsu scroll.
When he opened it, he found a C-rank technique inside: Earth Release: Earth Submarine. It let the user turn solid soil and gravel into something fluid enough to swim through underground at high speed.
"Looks like he was still practicing it," Kiyohara murmured. "Shame he hadn't mastered it yet."
If Daishi had truly learned Earth Release: Earth Submarine, he probably would not have died under a pile of falling stone. But his bad luck was Kiyohara's windfall now. Without slowing down, Kiyohara packed away the Iwagakure flak jacket, kunai, shuriken, explosive tags, and everything else worth taking into his sealing scroll.
Meanwhile, Obito had already reached the end of his final instructions.
"Kakashi... I'm giving you my Sharingan. Consider it my jonin promotion gift."
"Obito..."
For a moment, Kakashi could not say anything at all.
Rin wiped at her face, forcibly suppressing her grief, then steadied herself and opened her medical kit. "Come here, Kakashi. I'm starting the operation."
Here it comes, Kiyohara thought. The legendary hot-swappable Sharingan.
The most outrageous thing in the entire ninja world might honestly be the Sharingan. It was practically a universal plug-in. Whether it made sense or not, anybody seemed capable of installing one.
Eye transplantation should have been absurdly difficult. The optic nerve was not something that regenerated. To restore vision, every one of those countless tiny fibers would need to be reconnected correctly. Even in his previous life, that level of precision would have sounded like fantasy-not to mention the later problems of blood supply and immune rejection.
And yet here was Rin Nohara, in a cave, under battlefield conditions, about to perform the procedure with medical ninjutsu and a travel kit. Kiyohara could not help feeling genuine awe. In the ninja world, medicine really could do anything.
Just then, the rogue ninja Kiyohara drifted back from his reconnaissance beyond the cave.
"The Iwagakure are converging on this place," he warned.
"I figured," Kiyohara answered inwardly with a slight nod.
In the original story, Kakashi's group had nearly been wiped out before they could destroy the bridge. The enemy encirclement here had been the whole point. If not for Minato's intervention, they would have died long before completing the mission.
That made Kiyohara suspect this had always been the hidden purpose behind the operation. If Minato had tried to do everything personally, the Iwagakure would have fled on sight and dragged the conflict out across the region. But if a smaller team became bait, the enemy would gather-and then Minato could erase them all in one stroke.
My chakra's almost back to full, Kiyohara thought.
Besides the mission merit, this battlefield had already given him something even more valuable: experience. A lot of what the rogue ninja Kiyohara had taught him before had only been theory until he used it with his own body. Now those lessons were starting to settle into his muscles and nerves.
That was the software. The hardware had improved too. He had inherited part of the rogue ninja Kiyohara's talent, and the forbidden drug had doubled his chakra. With both advancing together, his strength had jumped forward at an astonishing pace.
At this point, he could beat the old version of himself with one hand.
"Wow. You're all tougher than I expected. Still breathing after all that."
Firelight stepped out from another exit in the cave. His injured arm had already been wrapped, and his gaze swept over Kiyohara and the others with frank surprise. Apparently, he had assumed they would all be dead beneath the rubble by now.
Then his eyes settled on Kiyohara.
"And you. You actually used a filthy trick like that on Daishi."
He had also noticed Kiyohara was still busy looting the dead man's gear. The corner of his mouth twitched.
"Hmph. Forget him. I'll kill the white-haired brat first."
There was a different intensity in his gaze now. After a closer look, he realized Kakashi had already transplanted the Sharingan. Greed flashed briefly in his eyes. If a brat like Kakashi could take an Uchiha eye and use it, then why not him too?
Firelight raised the twin blades strapped to his forearms with white bandages, one on each arm. The killing intent in the cave sharpened all at once.
Kakashi stepped forward before anyone else could move.
"Kiyohara, leave him to me."
He crossed in front of Kiyohara and brought up his short sword. His gaze never left Firelight. He wanted revenge for Obito.
The next instant, both of them vanished.
When they reappeared, metal clashed so hard it rang through the cave like a bell. Sparks burst in a dazzling spray.
And then Sakumo Hatake's short sword-the blade Kakashi had inherited from his father, the one that had never once broken in all its years-snapped clean in two.