Over the next few days, Kiyohara searched together with Kakashi for traces of those captured medical shinobi.
However, the Mist ANBU were extremely cautious, always staying one step ahead of them.
Every time they found a temporary campsite, the residual warmth had not yet faded, and the traces of confinement were clearly visible—yet the people themselves were already gone.
This constant near-miss was especially draining on one's willpower. The bloodshot veins in Kakashi's eyes grew more pronounced by the day, and the stretches of silence he fell into became longer and longer.
Until one evening several days later, when the situation suddenly took an abrupt turn.
At the edge of a secluded mountain ravine, Kakashi intercepted a lone Mist ANBU operative.
After a brief exchange of blows, Kakashi successfully captured the Mist ANBU and forced information out of him.
Seven miles to the northeast, there was a hidden base.
"What do you think?"
Kakashi flicked the blood droplets off his kunai and looked toward Kiyohara beside him.
Kiyohara surveyed the surrounding vegetation that had been destroyed and the traces of battle, his brows knitting slightly.
For the past few days, it had been like throwing stones into the sea, no response at all. Yet today, it was as if someone had deliberately handed them a clue.
Kiyohara couldn't shake the feeling that Madara had begun to move.
He guessed that the sealing of the Three-Tails was nearly complete, and all that remained was for every actor to take their place on the stage.
"It's too smooth, Kakashi," Kiyohara said quietly. "It feels like… bait on a fishing hook."
"I know," Kakashi nodded.
But no matter what, he still had to go and take a look.
To be honest, Kakashi himself couldn't understand why the enemy had kept those medical shinobi captive for so long.
If it were for interrogation, it would have been finished long ago.
Being able to hold them for such a long time clearly meant there was another purpose at play.
"I'm going to check it out, Kiyohara," Kakashi said, leaving only those words as he prepared to depart.
Yet at that very moment, an eight-man Kirigakure ANBU squad, clearly lying in ambush along the only viable path suddenly revealed themselves and intercepted Kiyohara.
"Wind Release: Wind Cutter Technique!"
After forming seals, a blade of wind emerged from Kiyohara's left hand and slashed toward the Mist ANBU.
One of them was killed on the spot.
"Kakashi, I'll stay here for now. You go on ahead," Kiyohara said.
His chakra reserves were far greater than Kakashi's. Even if he expended some here, it didn't matter. With the "Power of the White Snake," Kiyohara's chakra recovery speed was already faster than that of ordinary shinobi.
Moreover, there was something important he needed to wait for.
That was… the "Last Will."
Kiyohara planned to wait until the "Last Will System" arrived, giving himself an extra layer of insurance before heading over.
Hearing this, Kakashi's mismatched eyes, one black, one red fixed on Kiyohara for a moment.
"…Be careful."
Leaving only those two words behind, he vanished into the dense forest, rapidly disappearing from sight.
Kiyohara withdrew his gaze and faced the encircling Mist ANBU, his eyes turning cold.
"Looks like you're not the main force," he said flatly.
Kiyohara could clearly sense that the remaining Kirigakure shinobis were not particularly strong.
At least, to him, they posed no real threat.
After converting refined chakra into magnetic force, iron sand surged violently from the gourd on Kiyohara's back, transforming into countless sharp needles and blades that gleamed with a cold metallic luster beneath the afterglow of the setting sun.
"Hold him here. The sealing is about to be completed, we can't allow any mistakes," the leading Mist ANBU said, forming hand seals as he released a roaring water dragon.
The water dragon collided with the iron sand in midair, detonating into a thunderous blast of sound.
Following that exchange, the Mist ANBU behind him unleashed their own water-release ninjutsu, attacking Kiyohara in unison.
For a moment, water techniques filled the sky, surging toward Kiyohara from all directions.
Kiyohara drew his shinobi blade, black iron sand clinging to it and extending its edge.
"Leaf Style: Willow!"
Kiyohara swung his blade, and it was as if dozens—no, hundreds of swords were slashing simultaneously through the air.
The dizzying barrage of blades instantly threw the Mist ANBU into disarray.
After all, they had never seen this technique before and had no countermeasures prepared.
At this stage, whether Maruboshi Kosuke even knew this move was still uncertain.
And shinobi battles were, at their core, battles of information.
Seizing this opening, Kiyohara detonated repulsive force beneath his feet and flashed instantly before one of the Kirigakure ANBU.
Pshhk.
A spray of blood burst forth.
The remaining ANBU were shocked to the core.
One Mist ANBU closest to Kiyohara swung his blade in a desperate strike.
Kiyohara raised the back of his hand, which rapidly hardened, and blocked the blow head-on.
Bang!
A cascade of sparks exploded outward.
With a reverse slash, Kiyohara cut across the man's throat, leaving the Kiri shinobis staring at him as if he had seen a ghost.
"Five left."
Before the corpse could even hit the ground, Kiyohara drove his fist forward.
BOOM!
With just a single punch, he punched straight through the chest of the next Kirigakure ANBU.
In that instant, the internal organs were completely pulverized, collapsing along with the ribs and spine.
Crash!
The corpse spun as it was blasted away.
"!!"
The remaining ANBU never imagined Kiyohara would be this brutal.
They all possessed some intelligence on "Magnet Release Kiyohara."
Every major hidden village collected information on exceptionally talented individuals from rival villages.
Kiyohara's current potential was unmistakably among them.
But no matter how vividly something was described in words, some things could only be truly felt when experienced firsthand—the sheer oppressive force of it.
Clang clang clang clang!
Kiyohara's blade clashed continuously with the Mist ANBU, sparks flying in rapid succession.
His display left the remaining four ANBU not daring to be careless in the slightest, and they attacked him simultaneously.
Yet Kiyohara, armed with only a single blade, managed to hold off all four of them.
Shhk!
At the moment his extended black blade collided with an enemy's saber, the black blade shattered, transforming into several streaks of dark light that riddled the unresponsive Mist ANBU full of holes.
"Damn it… this brat…"
Even in the so-called "Village of the Bloody Mist," these Mist ANBU had never seen such a bizarre fighting style.
Their mission was to stall the enemy.
But when the enemy was this strong, continuing to stall was meaningless.
The best course of action was to regroup with their comrades and gather enough forces to deal with Kiyohara together.
As one Mist ANBU turned to flee, Kiyohara transformed into a drifting leaf and vanished into the forest.
"Where did he go?!" one of them shouted in panic.
The ANBU skilled in sensory techniques had already been punched straight through the heart by Kiyohara earlier.
"He's—"
The last remaining sensory-type ANBU detected Kiyohara's position and was about to report it when a sudden chill brushed against his neck.
Every hair on his body stood on end, terror surging from his tailbone straight to the crown of his head.
"I'm right behind you, aren't I?" Kiyohara's calm voice sounded.
The next instant, a large hand clamped around his neck.
With a sharp crack, the man's head lolled to the side, life extinguished.
Watching the two Mist ANBU who had turned and fled, Kiyohara pulled shuriken from his shinobi pouch.
They were premium shuriken he had won from Uchiha Tekka.
Whoosh!
Kiyohara hurled them out. The shuriken, connected by copper wire, tore through the air and rapidly caught up to the fleeing ANBU.
The force was so great that it pierced straight through their torsos.
With a flick of his fingers, Kiyohara pulled back, the curved wire snapping taut and dragging them back toward him.
Pshhk.
The shuriken ripped through their flesh, and they collapsed to the ground.
Only faint breathing remained—clearly more air going out than coming in.
"Haa… I really have grown stronger," Kiyohara murmured as he looked at the scene before him.
The ground, tree trunks, leaves, and bushes were all stained with the enemy's blood.
Kiyohara crouched down and quickly looted the bodies.
"Next time, try to keep the corpses more intact," he thought ruefully.
He had damaged quite a bit of good armor, which made him feel a little heartbroken.
"Judging by the time, it should still be a while," Kiyohara said.
After finishing looting, he popped a soldier pill into his mouth.
Then he quietly waited for the arrival of the "Last Will Document."
After some time passed, a familiar voice arrived right on schedule.
[Please retrieve your alternate future self's last will and urn. Make sure to properly take care of their remains.]
…
That mechanical, synthesized voice sounded directly within his mind.
And in Kiyohara's consciousness, an additional urn appeared.
Kiyohara immediately found a relatively concealed spot behind a rock and focused inward, observing carefully.
Beside the urn belonging to Steel Release Kiyohara, there was now another one with an ancient and simple design, bearing a red flame-patterned fan crest.
"This is… the flame fan?"
Kiyohara paused slightly.
He remembered that this was the clan emblem of the Uchiha.
The flame fan resembled a ping-pong paddle in shape, yet it was actually a fan, symbolizing those who command fire.
That was why members of the Uchiha clan, upon birth, not only possessed "Yin nature" chakra, but also had a very high probability of possessing "Fire nature" chakra as well.
Their Fire Release ninjutsu was famously renowned throughout the shinobi world.
Sure enough, with a soft click, the lid of the urn opened.
From within floated a spiritual form, dressed in the gray long robe of the Uchiha clan. His face was youthful, yet carried an inescapable melancholy.
His eyes were closed at first, but when the spirit fully manifested, his eyelids lifted, revealing a pair of three-tomoe Sharingan, crimson and eerily mesmerizing.
"Looks like I have quite a few neighbors,"
Uchiha Kiyohara raised his head and glanced at the line of urns beside him, speaking involuntarily.
Each urn represented Kiyohara having accepted a different future.
"Good luck,"
Kiyohara said.
This was the snowball effect, so long as he avoided the initial period of weakness, his strength would continue to grow larger and larger, just like a snowball rolling downhill.
Aside from certain dangerous plot nodes, his chances of survival were actually quite high.
"You're the version of me from the Uchiha clan?"
Kiyohara asked tentatively.
"That's right."
The spirit of Uchiha Kiyohara nodded.
"Even though I possessed the Sharingan, I still couldn't save the person I wanted to save."
Regret was evident in Uchiha Kiyohara's voice.
"Who did you want to save?"
Kiyohara asked.
"Not someone who appears in your storyline, just a nameless passerby."
Uchiha Kiyohara let out a sigh.
He had become a member of the Uchiha clan—the clan of love.
That's right. The Uchiha clan was actually even more affectionate than the Senju clan.
It was just that emotions that were too intense could easily spiral out of control, pushing one toward extremes.
After becoming an Uchiha, he too had been affected by that emotional tide.
Unfortunately, he still failed to save the person he wanted to protect.
"So, your last will is for me to save the person you wanted to save?"
Kiyohara asked.
"No. My last will is for you to master medical ninjutsu. Only by personally mastering medical ninjutsu can tragedies like that be prevented."
As he spoke, there was a clear sense of regret in Uchiha Kiyohara's tone.
"It's a pity that I didn't possess Yang-nature chakra. I only had Lightning, Fire, and Yin chakra natures."
Uchiha Kiyohara said.
The moment Kiyohara heard this, his eyes lit up.
Fire nature, this was precisely the chakra nature he was lacking!
As for the remaining two, they could further strengthen his Lightning and Yin affinities as well.
"I've already mastered medical ninjutsu," Kiyohara replied directly. "Though not particularly profound, I've learned quite a lot from both Rin and Tsunade."
The spirit of Uchiha Kiyohara seemed momentarily stunned, clearly not expecting this version of himself to possess medical ninjutsu.
"You even managed to connect with Tsunade… seems you're far more capable than I was."
Uchiha Kiyohara shook his head and laughed.
He then asked Kiyohara to demonstrate.
Kiyohara swept his gaze around and noticed that one Mist ANBU was still barely clinging to life.
He walked over, placed his hand on the torn flesh of the man's back, and green light bloomed from his palm.
The green glow healed the Mist ANBU.
The Mist ANBU, Kojirō, weakly opened his eyes and glanced at Kiyohara, seemingly confused by Kiyohara's actions.
From his perspective, Kiyohara had suddenly hidden away, then abruptly reappeared—
And immediately began treating him.
"See? I can do it,"
Kiyohara said, ignoring the man's gaze.
Even with his help, death was inevitable.
He was only performing partial healing, nothing more.
"Mm, let me take a look."
Uchiha Kiyohara seemed to be verifying Kiyohara's medical skills.
After a moment, he nodded.
"…You weren't lying. You really do know medical ninjutsu. In that case, you can consider the first will fulfilled."
As he finished speaking, a sphere of light emerged from Uchiha Kiyohara's body.
Seeing this, Kiyohara felt a spark of joy in his heart.
As his abilities became more comprehensive, it was likely that in the future, more wills would be instantly completed upon activation by already meeting the requirements, greatly accelerating the speed at which he obtained inheritances.
While the sphere of light was still hovering, Uchiha Kiyohara continued:
"My second will is for you to defeat Uchiha Itachi, that traitor who slaughtered his own kin and betrayed the clan!"
This wish caused Kiyohara's expression to turn solemn.
Uchiha Itachi…
As expected, the future of the Uchiha clan could never truly avoid this tragic central figure.
After all, even during the Great Shinobi War, not a single Uchiha was revived through Edo Tensei.
Logically speaking, so many insignificant extras were resurrected, there was no reason not to revive a Uchiha shinobi.
And yet, not a single one was.
If the entire clan had been revived, Itachi would probably have been swarmed so thoroughly that he wouldn't even have been able to see Sasuke.
Those accusations were not something Itachi could have borne.
Fugaku unilaterally acknowledged his son's actions. He was an unfit clan head but that didn't mean the rest of the clan shared his magnanimity.
They had normal lives, normal families—fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, wives…
And all of it had been taken by Itachi.
"No problem. I'll definitely complete this one."
Kiyohara nodded.
Defeating Itachi wasn't particularly difficult.
How old was Itachi right now, anyway?
Once he returned, he could just find an excuse to challenge Itachi to a one-on-one fight.
"Good."
Only then did Uchiha Kiyohara feel at ease.
If the future version of himself refused to accept the last wish, there would be nothing he could do.
In the next instant, the sphere of light flew into Kiyohara's body.
BOOM!
It felt as if some kind of barrier shattered within his mind.
Kiyohara felt a faint burning and soreness in his eyes, followed by an unprecedented clarity.
When he opened his eyes again, the world had changed.
Not in color saturation, but in the speed at which information flooded in, and the level of detail being presented, there had been a qualitative leap.
The slight tremble of distant leaves was clearly visible; he could even predict the amplitude of their next sway.
The fine textures on rock surfaces, the jointed movements of tiny insects crawling through crevices—all appeared as though slowed down and brought into sharp focus.
Even the drifting dust particles in the air left faint, traceable trajectories.
More importantly, his dynamic vision had been drastically enhanced. The hand seals and Water Release techniques used by the Mist ANBU in the earlier battle, viewed now would likely be riddled with openings, their trajectories easily tracked.
It was as if the world's resolution had switched from "360p smooth mode" to "1080p high-definition," making everything far clearer to Kiyohara.
At the same time, the total amount of chakra within his body surged noticeably once more. His chakra pathways seemed to have widened slightly, circulating far more smoothly.
His reaction nerves felt as if they had been reforged, with the delay between neural signals reduced even further.
"So this is… the power of the Sharingan?"
Kiyohara murmured softly, sensing the strange perspective brought by the slowly rotating tomoe within his pupils.
He didn't close it immediately, instead choosing to adapt to this brand-new mode of perception.
Like a child learning to walk for the first time, or primitive humans discovering how to make fire by drilling wood.
Kiyohara felt better than he ever had before.
"I wonder how many tomoe it is."
Kiyohara lifted a kunai and used its metallic surface to reflect his eyes.
A single tomoe was clearly visible, rotating gently.
'One tomoe… looks like I'll need to complete the second last will to fully inherit it.'
Kiyohara thought to himself.
Even so, just this single tomoe had already brought a massive boost to his abilities.
His weakness in genjutsu had once again been reinforced.
And his dynamic vision would allow him to move at even greater speeds.
His accuracy with long-range ninjutsu had also improved significantly.
It could be said that this enhancement was comprehensive in every sense.
"If I were to obtain Senju blood as well, could I directly awaken the Mangekyō?"
Kiyohara pondered inwardly.
Obito had relied on "Hashirama cells" to elevate an ordinary Mangekyō Sharingan to something akin to the "Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan."
He could use Kamui freely, without conditions, for over a decade without fear of blindness.
Kakashi, on the other hand, had used it only a few times before complaining that he could barely see anymore.
The fundamental difference between the two was the "Hashirama cells."
"But for now, I still need to go find Kakashi first."
With that thought, Kiyohara acted.
Pshhk.
He stabbed his blade into the Mist ANBU's back.
Mist ANBU: "?"
He really wanted to type out a question mark, what kind of nonsense was saving him only to kill him immediately afterward?
Unfortunately, he no longer had the strength to ask.
Once the man completely died, Kiyohara rushed forward.
Along the way, he continued adapting to the power of the Sharingan.
"My chakra reserves are more than enough to sustain the Sharingan."
Kiyohara traveled onward with the Sharingan activated, completely free of the kidney-deficient feeling Kakashi often complained about.
(End of Chapter)
TN: Damn, he got op now.