Kakashi looked as if something inside him had finally snapped loose.
Father... you were right.
If you can't protect your comrades, then you're worse than trash.
He leaped back a step and threw out a rapid series of hand seals. Azure lightning burst to life in his palm, shrieking like a thousand birds being crushed together. The sound tore through the cave until the air itself seemed to vibrate.
From behind him, Kiyohara watched the entire process with narrowed eyes, studying every detail of how Kakashi compressed and shaped the chakra.
So this is Chidori...
If he could learn a technique like that, he could use it all the way into the future. Kiyohara stared hard at the pulsing blue arcs, trying to carve every movement into memory. If he had the Sharingan, he could probably copy it on the spot.
Unfortunately, he didn't.
Kakashi's fingers tightened. In his heart, there was only one thought left.
I will avenge Obito.
His transplanted left eye flew open. Inside the socket, the newly implanted Sharingan spun, two tomoe revolving in a blood-red iris. In that instant, the greatest flaw in Chidori vanished.
The Sharingan let him see everything. Huoguang's sword path, the shifting of his shoulders, the minute contraction of muscle before a strike - all of it slowed into crystal clarity.
Even the violent speed of the Chidori in his own hand became something he could track and control.
Kiyohara understood at once.
The technique had always been made for eyes like those. Without visual prowess on that level, it was too fast, too narrow, too reckless. With the Sharingan, however, it became complete.
Huoguang's expression darkened.
That brat's speed...
His original plan was simple: cut Kakashi down before the attack could land. If the blade reached Kakashi's neck first, the chakra gathered in that hand would scatter, and the danger would disappear with it.
Then Kiyohara moved.
A shuriken spun from his hand, wrapped in a flowing layer of Wind Release chakra. It sliced through the air with a sharp howl, far faster and deadlier than an ordinary throw.
"Kiyohara..."
Kakashi never turned around, but he knew. No one else present liked to pour Wind Release chakra into their shuriken like that. Kiyohara was one of the very few insane enough to make a habit of it.
A strange warmth passed through Kakashi's chest.
He had never expected the guy he'd barely cared about at first to save his life again and again.
Huoguang noticed it too. His eyes flicked toward the incoming shuriken, and his face twisted.
Damn it!
Kakashi was already too fast. Dodging now would be impossible. The only winning move should have been to kill Kakashi first.
But if he committed to that strike, the shuriken would take him in turn.
In the end, Huoguang chose survival. He twisted his body and took the shuriken in the arm, avoiding a fatal wound, then forced his blade down toward Kakashi with everything he had.
Too late.
With a wet, violent sound, Chidori tore straight through his chest. The sword bound to his wrist shattered beneath the blue lightning. In the same breath, Kiyohara's shuriken punched through Huoguang's forehead.
That was the end of him.
The man who had radiated killing intent a second ago dropped as cold and silent as an extinguished flame.
Kakashi stood there panting, shoulders heaving. That one strike had all but emptied him out. If he forced out another Chidori now, he would probably collapse on the spot.
Even so, he dragged himself to Rin's side and looked toward the boulder crushing Obito.
Kiyohara, meanwhile, went straight to work.
Loot first. Mourning later.
According to the rogue ninja Kiyohara's scouting, more and more Iwagakure shinobi were converging on the area. If he didn't search the body now, there might not be another chance.
He crouched beside Huoguang's corpse and rifled through the man's things with efficient hands.
Then his fingers hit metal.
"Holy hell... chakra metal?"
Kiyohara pulled out the broken blades and his eyes widened.
Chakra metal was rare - genuinely rare. In theory, chakra could be infused into almost anything. Even a pencil, in the hands of the right shinobi, could become a murder weapon. But the efficiency of that infusion varied wildly depending on the material.
Chakra metal was different. It conducted chakra beautifully and amplified the result.
Kiyohara looked at the shattered blade tied to Huoguang's wrist, then at the intact one that remained.
This stuff could be reforged.
His mind started calculating immediately. If he gathered the fragments and melted them down, they could probably be turned into a proper short blade. Something compact, something reliable, something he could actually use.
The rogue ninja Kiyohara gave him a quick answer inside his head.
"If you remelt it, it should be enough for a knife."
Huoguang's weapons had no true hilts. They were more like specialized wrist-bound blades than conventional swords. Reforging them into something practical made far more sense.
"Though it'll cost you a lot to pay someone to rework it," the rogue ninja Kiyohara added.
Kiyohara clicked his tongue.
Of course it would.
Money controlled everything in a ninja's growth. Training cost money. Weapons cost money. Medicine cost money. Scrolls cost money. Even being talented meant little if you didn't have the resources to support it.
Ordinary ninjas suffered in every direction. No bloodline, no private inheritance, no endless family support, no custom tools.
And yet the village still expected them to crawl upward through sheer willpower.
Good thing I have the habit of checking bodies, Kiyohara thought.
He moved even faster.
A better sealing scroll, he decided, needed to be on his shopping list. The current one slowed down his earning speed. In wartime, spoils were the greatest source of extra money for a ninja like him. If he relied purely on mission pay, how many years would it take him to clear his debt?
Almost casually, he stripped Huoguang of everything useful. Blades. The remaining weapon fragments. Kunai. Shuriken. Explosive tags. Anything with value went straight into the sealing scroll.
At that moment, Kurenai suddenly spoke from behind him.
"Kiyohara, there's movement outside."
Even she had picked it up now.
"I know."
Kiyohara sealed the last of the loot and got to his feet. His expression turned serious as he looked over at Kakashi.
"Speak quickly. We have to withdraw."
There was no point pretending anymore. Unless someone here knew powerful Earth Release or could crack open the Eight Gates, there was no way to move that boulder without putting Obito through even more agony.
Kakashi said nothing.
Obito's breathing was growing weaker. His face had gone pale, and cold sweat ran down his temple. Only half his body was visible beneath the crushing weight of the stone, and even without looking closely, everyone knew the other half was beyond saving.
Then Obito forced himself to speak.
"Kakashi... take Rin and get out of here. Enemy reinforcements are coming."
His voice sounded strained, and pain was starting to show through no matter how hard he fought it down. The shock had worn off. His body had begun to fully realize what it had lost, and the pain was catching up all at once.
Especially lower down.
Obito's expression twitched, almost breaking.
Then the cave shook again.
Outside, an Iwagakure unit had arrived. Hand seals flashed, and an Earth Release technique slammed into the ground.
Rumble.
The earth cracked open with a deafening roar, dust exploding upward as the terrain split. Stone groaned. Debris spilled. The entire area felt like it might collapse another time.
Kakashi clenched his fists so hard his knuckles turned white.
He looked at Obito once - only once - and that single glance was so raw it almost hurt to watch.
There was no choice.
He grabbed Rin. The others moved with him.
"Obito..." Kakashi's voice came out hoarse.
Obito's visible eye softened.
"Kakashi... I'm entrusting Rin to you."
Those were his final words.
Then the collapsing rubble gave way. Obito's body, already half-buried, slipped deeper into the crack torn open by Earth Release. Stones thundered down after him, burying everything.
The cave swallowed him.
Silence followed.
A dreadful, final kind of silence.
Kiyohara stood there for half a heartbeat, staring at the place where Obito had vanished. In the distance, more enemy movement echoed through the forest beyond the cave. The mission wasn't over. Survival wasn't guaranteed. The bridge still had to be destroyed.
And yet, right then, none of that erased the sight burned into his eyes.
Obito disappearing beneath the rubble.
Another tragedy unfolding exactly the way it was supposed to.
Fate, Kiyohara thought coldly, really was a disgusting thing.
He had changed things already. He had interfered, saved people, shifted battles, twisted small outcomes. But the larger current was still there, pulling everything toward its appointed shape.
Kakashi lost his eye.
Obito awakened the Sharingan.
Obito was buried beneath a boulder.
The pieces kept falling into place no matter how much Kiyohara struggled upstream.
Not enough, he realized.
He still wasn't strong enough to change the truly important moments. The will, the timelines, the future selves, the knowledge - all of it was valuable, but at this stage, the storm he could stir was still too small.
Kiyohara's jaw tightened.
Then I'll get stronger faster.
That was all there was to it.
He couldn't afford to become sentimental, not now. Not when enemy reinforcements were still closing in, not when Minato had not yet arrived, not when the bridge still stood.
Somewhere far away, on the frontline, Minato Namikaze's expression changed.
Every specially made kunai inscribed with the Flying Thunder God mark existed as a coordinate in his mind. He could feel each one. And now, from the direction of Kannabi Bridge, one of those coordinates had become wrong.
Not gone. But wrong. Something had happened over there.
His eyes sharpened instantly. He had to go.
The fastest man in the world moved at once.
Even so, as always, he was already one step too late.