Kiyohara gently patted Kurenai on the shoulder and placed a reassuring kiss on her forehead.
"I'll go out for a while. Get some rest."
Kurenai was wrapped in a silk nightgown, her slightly wavy black hair cascading over her fair shoulders. There was still a trace of worry in her ruby-like eyes.
She opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something, but when she looked into Kiyohara's eyes, which had already turned a pale blue, she ultimately only gave a gentle nod.
"Come back soon."
Kiyohara's figure suddenly vanished from the room.
Deep within the Forest of Death.
Kiyohara stood beside a massive tree.
He raised his hand and allowed his consciousness to sink into the depths of his mental world.
The urn belonging to Jōgan Kiyohara was quietly suspended in midair. The light that had once covered its surface had already dimmed to the point where it was almost impossible to see, and fine cracks had even begun to appear along its edges.
Kiyohara released the restrictions he had maintained all this time.
Crack.
The lid of the urn automatically slid open.
Jōgan Kiyohara's spiritual form slowly emerged from within. The tall, slender white figure was much more indistinct than the last time they had met.
The only thing that remained perfectly clear was the pair of peculiar eyes within his eye sockets. His pupils were pale blue, while the whites of his eyes were pitch-black.
Jōgan Kiyohara lowered his head and looked at the fingertips that were slowly turning into specks of light. He then raised his head and met Kiyohara's own pale blue eyes.
"Why have you kept me sealed away this whole time?"
Jōgan Kiyohara asked in confusion.
"There were some things I had to deal with."
Kiyohara gave a deliberately vague answer.
"Fine."
Jōgan Kiyohara did not press him any further.
"You really surprised me."
Jōgan Kiyohara spoke again.
"Your progress has been far faster than I expected."
"I was just lucky."
Kiyohara replied calmly.
"I absorbed part of the chakra from the Golden Tenseigan, and my awakening progressed by a huge amount in an instant."
"Luck is also a part of strength."
Jōgan Kiyohara shook his head, his gaze lingering on Kiyohara's eyes for a moment.
"What does the Tenseigan feel like?"
"It feels great. My ability to see through things, my long-distance vision, my perception, and all the basic abilities of the Byakugan have improved tremendously. There is also no difficulty at all when switching between it and the Sharingan."
Kiyohara paused before adding,
"Moreover, I feel as though I can summon something through a summoning technique. It should be Hamura's stone statue on the moon."
"That is only natural. The purity of your bloodline has probably already surpassed that of those so-called main-branch clan members on the moon."
A ball of light floated out from Jōgan Kiyohara's spiritual form.
"My time is running out. You need to hurry and fulfill the last remaining will."
As soon as Jōgan Kiyohara finished speaking, the ball of light entered Kiyohara's body.
At that instant, Kiyohara felt an enormous surge of spiritual energy pour into the depths of his consciousness.
His mind went completely blank. The only sensation he could perceive was the tremendous increase in his spiritual energy.
Kiyohara's consciousness expanded rapidly like a balloon being forcibly inflated, and the range of his perception quickly spread outward.
After a while, Kiyohara also felt his talents in the seven major chakra natures, Fire, Water, Wind, Lightning, Earth, Yin, and Yang, all improve another level beyond their previous foundations.
If Kiyohara had previously needed to expend three parts of his strength to achieve a certain effect when using Fire Release, he might now only need two parts, or perhaps even one.
"Your affinity for all seven chakra natures is complete as well?"
Kiyohara opened his eyes and looked toward the spiritual form in front of him, which now only remained from the waist up.
"Of course."
Jōgan Kiyohara nodded.
"But compared with that, the Jōgan is the real centerpiece. Give it a try."
Hearing this, Kiyohara formed a series of hand seals and created a Shadow Clone.
Poof.
A Shadow Clone appeared opposite Kiyohara.
The clone then began using the Flying Thunder God Technique.
Within the originally empty air, Kiyohara suddenly noticed that there were now countless spatial ripples that he had never been able to see before.
They resembled the ripples that spread across the surface of a body of water after a stone was thrown into it.
The next moment, the Shadow Clone used the Flying Thunder God Technique and instantly teleported into the distance.
At precisely that moment, Kiyohara clearly sensed the changes taking place in his eyes.
His pale blue pupils became an even clearer icy blue, while the whites surrounding his pupils were dyed with a layer of deep black that spread at a speed visible to the naked eye.
The world before his eyes completely changed.
He could see the flow of space.
Those spatial nodes that had previously been invisible and intangible now appeared within the Jōgan's field of vision as countless thin, silver-white lines densely covering the entire world.
They resembled an enormous spiderweb, connecting everything in existence together.
When the Shadow Clone activated the Flying Thunder God Technique, those silver-white spatial lines began to bend and stretch violently. In the end, they converged at the location where the Shadow Clone was about to land.
Kiyohara could clearly capture the trajectory of the Flying Thunder God Technique. From the point of departure to the destination, every distortion in the space between the two points was completely visible to him.
The Shadow Clone teleported to a large tree thirty meters away. Its feet landed on a branch, shaking several leaves loose and sending them fluttering toward the ground.
Kiyohara withdrew his gaze.
The blackness surrounding his pupils slowly faded away. His icy-blue pupils returned to pale blue, and then finally returned to their ordinary black color.
He raised his hand and stared at his palm.
"So this is what it feels like to see through space-time ninjutsu."
Kiyohara murmured.
"How much can you see?"
Jōgan Kiyohara asked.
"Everything."
Kiyohara raised his head.
"I can see the entire spatial trajectory of the Flying Thunder God Technique. From the starting point to the destination, I can capture every change in every spatial node. If this were an actual battle, the instant an enemy activated a space-time ninjutsu, I would be able to determine where they were going to appear."
"That's good."
A faint smile appeared on Jōgan Kiyohara's face.
"The space-time ninjutsu of the Ōtsutsuki Clan is more complicated than the Flying Thunder God Technique, but their essence is the same. With the Jōgan in your possession, you will have a much greater chance of victory when facing them."
"Indeed."
Kiyohara nodded.
This time, he had inherited quite a considerable amount from this first will.
The enormous increase in his spiritual energy had expanded the range of his perception to an unprecedented degree. The improvement in his affinity for the seven chakra natures had also given Kiyohara much finer control over chakra.
And obtaining the Jōgan had given him an even more decisive trump card when facing the Ōtsutsuki Clan.
He created another Shadow Clone and once again activated the Flying Thunder God Technique.
This time, he simultaneously activated the Jōgan and completely captured the entire process of the spatial distortion.
The silver-white spatial lines began contracting at the instant the Shadow Clone activated the technique.
A vortex-like depression formed with the Shadow Clone at its center. Then, the spatial node at the other end was forcibly pulled toward the center of the vortex.
The two nodes overlapped at that instant.
The Shadow Clone's body disappeared into the vortex and reappeared at the other end.
He could see everything clearly.
A faint smile appeared on Kiyohara's face.
He even wanted to see what it would look like when Obito used Kamui.
Kiyohara then dispelled the Shadow Clone and deactivated the Jōgan.
Afterward, he turned around and began walking toward the direction of Konoha.
…
At the same time.
Within the Land of Fire, there was a manor hidden deep within the mountains, completely unknown to the outside world.
The manor's walls were constructed from blue-gray stone bricks, with vines crawling all over them. From the outside, it looked no different from an ordinary noble family's private estate.
However, if a shinobi with exceptionally powerful sensory abilities happened to pass by, they would discover that a huge laboratory was hidden deep beneath the manor.
Inside were all kinds of equipment that went far beyond the conventional understanding of the shinobi world.
The owner of the manor was a middle-aged man named Jigen.
At this moment, he was sitting on the balcony on the second floor of the manor, holding a wineglass in his hand. The red wine inside shimmered with a deep crimson radiance beneath the moonlight.
Of course, the one controlling Jigen's body was none other than Ōtsutsuki Isshiki.
His recent days had not been pleasant.
A thousand years ago, he had descended upon this planet as a member of the Ōtsutsuki Clan. His original plan had been to transform all the life on this world into a "Chakra Fruit" and complete the harvest assigned to his clan.
However, his partner, Kaguya, had betrayed him at the critical moment.
She had launched a surprise attack from behind and nearly killed him.
He had managed to escape with his life by sheer luck, parasitizing the human known as Jigen and relying on this body to barely survive for a thousand years.
Throughout those thousand years, he had accumulated strength every single day, waiting for the moment when he could finally recover.
Originally, everything had been proceeding according to plan.
The descendant known as Uchiha Madara had stirred up turmoil throughout the shinobi world. His successor, Uchiha Obito, had inherited Madara's will and created the Akatsuki, gathering the Tailed Beasts.
Isshiki only needed to wait patiently.
As long as these descendants followed the script he had secretly arranged, moving forward step by step, he could emerge at the final moment and reap the fruits of victory.
However, that Konoha shinobi named Kiyohara had become an unexpected variable that he could no longer afford to ignore.
The Fourth Hokage.
The man who had brought the Nine-Tails incident to an end.
The architect behind the agreement concerning Kumo's military base.
The mastermind operating behind the scenes of the Kiri coup.
Isshiki had been watching Kiyohara all this time, observing how he pushed Konoha toward the summit of the shinobi world.
The more he watched, the more alarmed he became.
That young man was growing far too quickly.
He was progressing so rapidly that Isshiki had no choice but to adjust his plans.
He had ordered Amado to accelerate his research into artificial humans, preparing additional trump cards in advance for the possibility of a future confrontation.
And besides the artificial humans, he also possessed a true trump card.
The remains of Ōtsutsuki Shibai.
That ancient powerhouse of the Ōtsutsuki Clan, the legendary existence who had supposedly transcended the universe itself.
He possessed numerous "Shinjutsu."
As long as Isshiki could successfully transplant those cells, he would possess the capital necessary to contend with any powerful enemy.
Jigen raised his wineglass, preparing to take a sip.
However, his fingers suddenly froze.
A peculiar chakra fluctuation had come from the distant direction of Konoha.
It was so faint that it was almost impossible to detect.
But to Jigen, it instantly caused a storm to erupt within his heart.
His hand instinctively tightened.
Crack.
The wineglass shattered in Isshiki's palm.
The dark-red wine flowed down his wrist, dripping onto the white robe of the monk and spreading into a large, dark stain.
But the usually elegant Isshiki did not react. He no longer had the leisure to care about such trivial matters.
This feeling was unmistakable.
The eye that could see through all things in existence. That legendary dōjutsu inherited through the bloodline of the Ōtsutsuki Clan.
The Jōgan!
He had once read records concerning the Jōgan in the clan's ancient texts.
It was an extremely rare mutated dōjutsu, an existence that was considered legendary even among the Ōtsutsuki Clan.
According to the legends, it was the Eye of Destiny and the Eye of Hope.
Those who possessed the Jōgan could see through the essence of everything in the world, including the flow of time and space.
For the Ōtsutsuki Clan, who were naturally proficient in space-time ninjutsu, the very existence of the Jōgan was a natural counter to their abilities.
Yet now, that fluctuation had truly and unmistakably come from the direction of Konoha.
Jigen slowly opened his hand, allowing the fragments of broken glass in his palm to fall to the ground.
He took out a handkerchief from inside his white robe and calmly wiped the wine stains from his wrist, his expression once again returning to its usual elegance.
Losing his composure would be almost the same as losing his elegance itself.
Isshiki would never allow himself to make such a spectacle of himself.
However, deep within his eyes, there was still a considerable amount of wariness.
He knew exactly what the fluctuation of the Jōgan meant.
Someone in Konoha had definitely awakened the Jōgan.
At that moment, the sound of footsteps came from behind.
A man wearing glasses and a white lab coat walked in. It was his chief researcher, Amado Sanzu.
"Jigen-sama, what happened?"
Amado's gaze fell upon the broken glass at Jigen's feet, and his brows furrowed slightly.
He had followed Jigen for so many years, yet he had never seen this lord lose his composure like this.
"Nothing."
Jigen waved his hand.
"My hand simply slipped."
Amado clearly did not believe him.
However, after following Jigen for so many years, he had long since learned which matters he should ask about and which matters he should leave alone.
He merely pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, bent down, picked up the broken pieces of glass from the floor, and wiped away the spilled wine with a cloth.
He then poured Jigen another glass of red wine and placed it on the table.
Jigen did not touch the newly poured wine.
He leaned against the back of his chair and gazed into the night sky.
Then he spoke.
"Amado."
"I'm here."
"Double the pace of the artificial human research. Report whatever funding you need directly to me. I will take care of it. Also…"
Jigen paused for a moment.
"Unseal Ōtsutsuki Shibai's cells. I will personally participate in this transplantation experiment."
Amado suppressed the surprise in his eyes, nodded, turned around, and left.
The Jōgan or the current Konoha, or even that Kiyohara.
None of them could be allowed to stand in his way.
A thousand years of patience and a thousand years of planning absolutely could not end in failure at the final moment.
"Kiyohara…"
Jigen quietly repeated that name.
"Then let us see who will be the one laughing in the end."
…
Deep within the Forest of Death.
Kiyohara practiced switching between the Jōgan and the Tenseigan several more times.
After confirming that the two dōjutsu could be switched between seamlessly during battle, he finally suppressed all traces of his chakra and turned toward Konoha.
When Kiyohara returned to Kurenai's house, he found her curled up on the bed.
She was still wearing the same silk nightgown with thin shoulder straps, although she had draped a light blanket over herself.
Her slightly wavy black hair was scattered messily across the pillow, and she was holding an opened scroll in her hands. However, it was obvious that her attention was not actually on the scroll.
Her ruby-like eyes remained fixed on the door.
It was not until Kiyohara pushed the door open and entered that her eyelashes trembled slightly.
She lowered the scroll and stood up from the edge of the bed.
The blanket slipped from her shoulders, revealing her fair neck and shoulders.
She walked over to Kiyohara and raised her head to look at him. The resentment and grievance in her eyes were almost overflowing.
"Why did you leave?"
There was a hint of hurt in Kurenai's voice.
Her red eyes looked at Kiyohara like a cat that had been left home alone by its owner for an entire day.
"I had something to take care of, so I went out for a while."
Kiyohara leaned against the doorframe and looked down at her.
There were faint red marks around Kurenai's eyes, making it obvious that she had been crying for some time.
One of the straps of her silk nightgown had slipped slightly from her shoulder, revealing a small patch of smooth skin beneath her collarbone. She had not even bothered to pull it back into place.
There was still some lingering worry on her face, mixed with resentment and grievance.
Kiyohara suddenly reached out and pulled Kurenai into his arms.
His other hand supported the back of her head, gently pressing her face against his chest.
Kurenai's body stiffened for a moment before relaxing completely.
She buried her face against Kiyohara's chest and grabbed the edge of his robe with both hands.
"You jerk. You just left without saying where you were going or when you would come back."
"My fault."
Kiyohara admitted it without hesitation.
"I only had something to take care of, so I went out for a while."
Kurenai blinked her tear-blurred eyes and carefully examined Kiyohara.
It was still the same face.
His features had not changed.
Yet there was an indescribable difference between his brows and eyes.
The difference between the way he had looked earlier, trembling all over in unbearable pain, and the calm, almost indifferent expression he wore now left her momentarily unsure whether she should be angry or relieved.
Kiyohara raised his thumb and gently wiped away the tear stains on her cheek.
Then he lowered his head and kissed her lips.
Kurenai let out a muffled sound of surprise.
The hand that had been gripping his robe loosened, then slowly rose until her arms wrapped around Kiyohara's neck.
Kiyohara leaned closer and kissed her again.
The resentful and aggrieved expression that had been on Kurenai's face finally disappeared.
A faint blush replaced it instead.
"Don't do that again next time."
"Okay."
Kiyohara replied.
Then he bent down and effortlessly lifted her into his arms.
"What are you doing?"
"Continuing, of course. You should have gotten quite a bit of rest just now."
Kiyohara looked down at her.
"So now we'll make up for it."
Kurenai's face immediately became flushed.
Kiyohara placed her back onto the bed, and the silk nightgown spread across the sheets.
He leaned over her, supporting himself with one hand beside her while the other gently held her pointed chin, lifting her face slightly.
The temperature inside the room slowly began to rise.
Outside the window, the night breeze swept through the treetops, producing a soft rustling sound. It mingled with the restrained sounds coming from inside the room, echoing through the quiet night for a long time.
Early the next morning, Kiyohara was awakened by the sound of birds singing outside the window.
He opened his eyes and turned his head to glance at Kurenai, who was still sleeping soundly.
He did not wake her.
Instead, he quietly got out of bed.
After putting on his clothes and washing up, he formed a hand seal.
Flying Thunder God Technique!
Space distorted slightly beside him.
His figure disappeared from the bedroom and reappeared high above a vast desert.
Kiyohara hovered high in the sky over an uninhabited desert in the Land of Wind.
The golden sand stretched endlessly beneath him.
The scorching sun burned overhead, causing the air to twist and distort from the intense heat.
This desert was far from any human settlement, and there was not a single trace of chakra within a radius of several hundred kilometers.
Kiyohara hovered in midair and moved his mind.
Tenseigan Chakra Mode, activate!
A layer of emerald-green chakra surged out from his body and covered his entire form like flames.
The green radiance bore some resemblance to the color of his Snake Sage Mode, but it was purer and more concentrated.
Kiyohara lowered his head and looked at his hands.
He could feel that the power contained within this chakra far surpassed that of an ordinary chakra mode.
Then he raised his right hand.
Countless black chakra beads appeared out of thin air within his palm.
Each of the beads was about the size of a fist and completely pitch-black.
Their nature was somewhat similar to the Truth-Seeking Balls, but they were not exactly the same.
The Truth-Seeking Balls were formed by combining the five elemental chakra natures with Yin and Yang Release. They possessed the ability to turn everything they touched into nothingness.
The beads created through the Tenseigan, on the other hand, were more closely related to pure Tenseigan chakra.
Kiyohara opened his hand.
Under his control, the beads scattered in every direction, drawing countless dense black trails through the air.
With a thought from Kiyohara, all of the beads suddenly stopped in midair.
Then, at a speed even greater than when they had departed, they flew back into his palm.
Kiyohara put away the black chakra beads.
He then extended his palm and aimed it toward a sand dune below.
Attraction!
An invisible gravitational force spread outward from his palm.
The sand covering the dune below began to tremble violently.
Countless grains of sand rose from the ground and gathered toward Kiyohara's palm.
The sand condensed in front of his palm, forming an enormous sphere more than ten meters in diameter.
The gigantic ball of sand floated in midair, blocking out the scorching sun overhead.
Kiyohara waved his hand again.
Repulsion!
The enormous sphere of sand crashed toward the ground at terrifying speed.
The instant the sand sphere struck the earth, the entire desert seemed to tremble.
A massive amount of sand exploded into the sky, forming a gigantic mushroom cloud.
The shockwave spread outward, flattening all the surrounding dunes within a radius of dozens of meters.
When the dust finally began to settle, an enormous crater had appeared on the ground.
"The disturbance isn't small."
Kiyohara withdrew his palm.
"But it is still within a controllable range."
Next was the Spiritual Sphere.
This technique was one of the Tenseigan's unique dōjutsu abilities.
It could inject the beads into an enemy's body and use them to control the target's will and movements. It could even directly read the target's memories and thoughts.
In theory, its scale of control and strength of mental interference were far beyond those of ordinary genjutsu.
It was an extremely domineering ability designed specifically for controlling others.
Unfortunately, there was no living target available for him to test it on at the moment.
Kiyohara thought for a moment before taking several puppets out of a sealing scroll.
All of these puppets had been made by him personally.
He had obtained the complete puppet technique inheritance from Sasori.
Although he rarely used puppet techniques in his daily life, when it came to his mastery of puppetry, he was not inferior to any of the top puppeteers in the shinobi world.
He selected one of the puppets and injected a portion of Tenseigan chakra into its body.
The instant the Tenseigan chakra flowed into the puppet's joints, the lifeless humanoid puppet suddenly trembled.
The wooden components at its joints made soft clicking sounds.
Its previously rigid limbs suddenly became incredibly flexible.
More importantly, Kiyohara had not connected it with chakra strings.
The puppet stood up on its own.
It did not need chakra strings to move.
It could freely act according to Kiyohara's thoughts.
Kiyohara controlled it as it performed various movements throughout the desert, including running, jumping, dodging, and attacking.
Its speed and agility were even greater than when it had been controlled through chakra strings.
Wireless control mode.
Kiyohara rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
He suddenly remembered the puppets belonging to the Ōtsutsuki Clan on the moon.
In the original story, Toneri had used the same method to control those puppets.
The only difference was that he had used the Tenseigan on the moon.
The puppets did not require direct human manipulation to act.
They could even remain active after being sealed.
Kiyohara nodded in satisfaction and resealed the puppet inside the scroll.
With this, even if he had to face the Ōtsutsuki Clan, he no longer had any reason to feel intimidated.
"Still, I should speed things up."
Kiyohara felt that if he truly wanted to ensure that nothing went wrong, he first needed to gather all the Tailed Beasts and find a way to revive Kaguya.
After all, his Jōgan was still incomplete.
He still had to fulfill the last remaining will.
(End of Chapter)