The next morning.
Pakura found Konan in the Anbu archives.
Konan was holding a scroll containing an Anbu mission assignment.
Hearing Pakura's footsteps, she raised her eyes.
"Is something the matter?"
Pakura walked over and stopped in front of her.
"I have something I would like to ask you."
Pakura paused for a moment before continuing.
"You have been by Lord Kiyohara's side for quite some time, haven't you?"
Konan placed the scroll across her knees. Her gaze remained on Pakura's face for several seconds, as though she were wondering why Pakura had suddenly decided to ask such a question.
Then she gave a slight nod.
"I suppose you could say that. It has not been an especially long time, but it has not been a short time either."
"Then you must understand him quite well."
Pakura took a deep breath.
"Lord Kiyohara, what does he usually like? I mean, when reporting a mission to him, what kind of subordinate does he appreciate the most?"
She hesitated before asking the next question.
"And if someone wanted to give him a gift as a token of gratitude, what kind of thing would he like?"
Konan's expression did not change, but the fingers holding the edge of the scroll tightened slightly.
She suddenly remembered the time Kiyohara had pinned her against the wall in the corridors of Amegakure and kissed her. She also remembered some of the things he had done with certain women.
"He's a bastard."
Konan's voice remained as cold as ever, but there was now a hint of resentment mixed into it.
Pakura froze for a moment.
"If you're asking about his preferences, then all I can say is..."
A mischievous thought suddenly occurred to Konan.
"He likes watching women wear beautiful clothes for him. The prettier, the better. The more unique, the better."
Pakura blinked.
She had imagined that Kiyohara might like rare shinobi tools, precious scrolls, or perhaps some particularly valuable tea leaves.
But beautiful clothes?
What kind of hobby was that?
"For example... what?"
Konan turned her head slightly.
"Black stockings. He likes women wearing black stockings."
After saying this, she unfolded the scroll again, lowered her head, and continued reading as though nothing unusual had happened.
When Pakura finally left the Anbu archives, the expression on her face could only be described as one of someone desperately trying to process new information.
She lowered her head as she walked along the path at the edge of the training grounds, repeatedly replaying Konan's words in her mind.
Black stockings.
Beautiful clothes.
Lord Kiyohara is a bastard.
She had originally thought that Kiyohara would be the kind of powerful man who placed strength above everything else. As far as his requirements for his subordinates were concerned, she had assumed that loyalty and ability would be all that mattered.
Yet Konan's words seemed to have opened an entirely different door.
Pakura lowered her head and looked at the clothes she was wearing.
The standard Anbu vest.
Loose, dark-colored trousers.
She had never paid much attention to this sort of thing. Back when she was in Suna, she had been a hero who had earned numerous military achievements. The way other female shinobi dressed had never had anything to do with her.
Whether she had been a missing-nin or had now come to Konoha, she had never really bothered dressing herself up.
She raised a hand and gently touched her face, a conflicted look appearing in her eyes.
Several days passed.
On the rooftop of the Hokage Tower, Kiyohara stood alone.
The iron door leading to the rooftop was pushed open, and the hinges gave an unpleasant metallic squeal.
Yugao hurried over in her high heels.
"Hokage-sama."
She stopped behind Kiyohara and lowered her voice.
"The Anbu discovered some unusual traces around the outskirts of the village. Several large trees were broken cleanly in half at the waist, and extremely faint chakra fluctuations remained around the broken sections. The sensory team said that the nature of that chakra is extremely strange. It does not seem like ordinary destruction."
Kiyohara slipped the Flying Thunder God kunai back into his sleeve and turned around.
"Mark the exact locations on the map. Have the patrols increase their coverage around the outskirts. There's no need to worry about anything else."
Yugao was slightly taken aback, but she quickly nodded.
"Yes."
She turned around and left the rooftop.
Kiyohara once again turned his gaze toward the distance.
Deep underground, a familiar chakra fluctuation was rapidly approaching.
That mole had come again.
From between the cracks in the stone slabs beneath Kiyohara's feet, a mass of black material silently seeped out.
The substance looked like a pool of living ink. It wriggled and gathered itself on the stone floor before eventually taking the shape of a face that was half black and half white.
Black Zetsu.
He emerged from underground, exposing only his upper body. His yellow eyes were filled with urgency.
"That was pretty quick."
Kiyohara spoke casually.
He had expected Black Zetsu to take a little longer.
"It's not about that."
Black Zetsu shook his head.
Kiyohara lowered his eyes to look at him, one eyebrow lifting slightly.
Ever since Black Zetsu had been turned to his side, he had been acting as a spy within the Akatsuki. Every so often, he would secretly infiltrate Konoha and report information to him.
Normally, whenever Black Zetsu came to Konoha, his expression was fairly relaxed. After all, his thousand years of experience living undercover had long since made him accustomed to acting as a spy.
Now, he was simply performing another version of the ultimate undercover operation, except that this time he had become one of Kiyohara's people.
"Speak."
Kiyohara said.
Black Zetsu took a deep breath.
"Madara has already set his sights on you. He has sent someone to test your strength. They should arrive this afternoon."
"I know."
Black Zetsu's yellow eyes suddenly widened.
"You know?"
"I sensed some chakra approaching this place at high speed several days ago."
Black Zetsu opened and closed his mouth.
For perhaps the first time, his usually eloquent mouth was unable to come up with anything to say.
He had originally thought he was bringing Kiyohara intelligence that would catch him by surprise. Instead, Kiyohara had known about it long ago and had even guessed most of the details correctly.
"They have already sent the Second Tsuchikage, Mu. He is a user of Dust Release, a Kekkei Tota. During the great wars of the shinobi world, Mu's strength was among the very best of the Five Kages. They're having Mu go first, so I suppose this is essentially a test of your abilities."
Black Zetsu added another sentence.
"I almost got discovered."
Kiyohara nodded.
"Be careful yourself. Mu's Dust Release can disintegrate anything, and he also possesses the ability to become invisible. It is extremely difficult to detect his movements with either the naked eye or sensory abilities."
Black Zetsu was worried that Kiyohara might accidentally suffer a setback.
After all, even Madara would not dare to take a Dust Release technique head-on with his physical body.
As far as Black Zetsu was concerned, Kiyohara was the person he had encountered during his thousand years of existence who had the greatest chance of reviving his mother.
Naturally, he did not want anything to happen to Kiyohara.
"Understood."
Kiyohara turned away from the rooftop and began walking toward the stairwell.
After taking several steps, he stopped and added without looking back,
"When can you give me the information about the Four-Tails and Five-Tails jinchuriki?"
"Soon. The movements of those two are more concealed than we expected, but we already have people operating inside Iwa. At the latest, you'll have the information within a week."
"Fine."
After coming down from the rooftop, Kiyohara did not immediately take action, nor did he make any preparations for a defensive line.
Instead, just like any other day, he walked along Konoha's main street toward the center of the village.
The shops on both sides of the street had only just begun opening for business. The owner of Ichiraku Ramen was pulling up the shutters when he saw Kiyohara passing by, and he immediately bowed respectfully.
Kiyohara gave him a slight nod.
There was nothing unusual along the way.
But Kiyohara knew that the man had already entered the outskirts of the village.
Ever since his sensory abilities had been enhanced by the fusion of chakra from multiple Tailed Beasts, the range of his perception had long since surpassed the limits of ordinary sensory-type shinobi.
He could feel an extremely faint chakra fluctuation moving in the same direction as him, gradually heading toward the outskirts of the village.
The degree of concealment was actually even greater than the Zetsu's Mayfly Technique.
White Zetsu's underground infiltration still left behind a faint trace of chakra, but this chakra fluctuation had almost completely merged with the surrounding air.
If Kiyohara's sensory abilities had not been enhanced repeatedly, even he might not have been able to detect it.
An ability to conceal oneself to this degree had only belonged to one person throughout the entire history of the shinobi world.
The Second Tsuchikage.
Mu.
Kiyohara did not turn his head, and his footsteps remained steady, but the corners of his mouth curled upward slightly.
Did he come here to deliver Dust Release to him?
Kiyohara continued walking at an unhurried pace. His route gradually diverged from the main street as he passed around two sparse patches of woodland, eventually arriving at the deserted forest wasteland outside Konoha.
The area was far away from residential buildings. There were only a few old trees bent by the wind, waist-high wild grass, and stones of various sizes scattered across the ground.
Kiyohara stopped.
He turned around and faced the empty wilderness.
"You've been following me for so long. Aren't you tired?"
Kiyohara spoke calmly.
The wind blew in from the distance, pressing down the wild grass and producing a rustling sound.
There was no response.
Kiyohara smiled.
The next moment, a tremendous surge of chakra erupted from his body.
The density of the chakra far exceeded what an ordinary Kage-level shinobi could imagine. The wild grass within several hundred meters was pressed flat against the ground by an invisible force, while the scattered stones trembled violently across the earth.
Tenseigan Chakra Mode.
Emerald-green chakra surged out of Kiyohara's body, transforming into a layer of radiant chakra flames that enveloped his entire figure.
His pitch-black eyes faded away, replaced by a pair of pale blue pupils that resembled two flawless sapphires.
The air around him began to distort.
Several dozen meters in front of Kiyohara, a blurry outline slowly emerged in the empty field.
At first, the outline wavered like a reflection beneath the surface of water. Then it gradually solidified, changing from transparent to translucent before finally revealing its complete form.
The Second Tsuchikage, Mu.
His entire body was wrapped in bandages, leaving only a pair of cold, sinister eyes exposed.
Outside the bandages, he wore a gray vest. His left arm was covered by a black sleeve, while his right arm was completely exposed, revealing an arm likewise wrapped in bandages.
He wore black trousers on his lower body, along with standard shin guards. A black waist cloth was tied around his right leg.
Two samurai swords were crossed over his back, their handles wrapped with dark red cords.
After Kiyohara had forcibly broken through Mu's invisibility using the Tenseigan, Mu's expression became extremely solemn.
"You are the first person who has been able to see through my invisibility on your own."
Kiyohara stood with his hands behind his back, the emerald-green chakra flames quietly burning around his body.
"So it is the Impure World Reincarnation."
The Second Tsuchikage, Mu, smiled.
Kiyohara already knew about the technique, so he was not surprised. After all, Kiyohara was also a shinobi of Konoha.
At the same time.
Deep beneath the earth.
Madara and Hashirama were standing inside a small room carved out with Earth Release.
The four walls of the room were covered with densely packed barrier formulas. They completely isolated the chakra fluctuations of the two men, leaving behind only an extremely faint sensory channel that connected them to the White Zetsu aboveground.
"This guy's sensory ability is way too ridiculous. He can even detect us like this?"
White Zetsu's main body had been modified by Orochimaru, and its sensory range had doubled compared to when it was alive. Combined with the barrier techniques personally established by Madara, Madara had finally felt confident enough to bring Hashirama here.
"That guy's sensory ability can only be blocked while we are inside the barrier."
Madara spoke.
Hashirama nodded thoughtfully.
He had originally intended to use this opportunity to inform Kiyohara, giving this young junior some time to prepare.
But judging from the current situation, Kiyohara did not need any warning at all.
A genius who had surpassed both him and Madara was rising on this land.
Thinking about this, Hashirama felt both relieved and excited.
Meanwhile, Madara's Sharingan slowly rotated.
"Keep watching."
On the surface, the Second Tsuchikage, Mu, had already recovered his composure from his initial shock.
After all, he was a Tsuchikage who had experienced the First Shinobi War. He had gone through countless battles to the death and encountered all kinds of opponents throughout his life.
The young man standing before him was extremely powerful, but Mu possessed absolute confidence in his own Dust Release as well.
"Since you already know who I am, there is no need for us to waste time with unnecessary words."
The Second Tsuchikage slowly raised both hands. His bandage-covered fingers began forming hand seals in front of his chest.
"Earth Release: Fist Rock Technique!"
The ground violently shook in an instant.
Countless pieces of stone rose from the earth and gathered in front of Mu. At a speed visible to the naked eye, they rapidly condensed into a gigantic rock giant.
The giant stood ten meters tall and was composed entirely of solid rock. Every step it took left a deep depression in the ground.
"Your understanding of Earth Release techniques really is superior to Onoki's."
Kiyohara nodded slightly.
The Second Tsuchikage, Mu, did not waste any more time talking. With a single wave of his hand, the enormous rock giant raised its massive fist and slammed it toward Kiyohara.
The weight behind that punch was enough to smash an entire street into ruins.
Kiyohara merely raised his eyes.
Power surged from those pale blue Tenseigan.
Repulsion.
An invisible force exploded outward with Kiyohara at its center.
The ten-meter-tall rock giant, weighing more than a thousand jin, began to collapse the instant it came into contact with the repulsive force. The destruction started from its fist and rapidly spread throughout its entire body.
The rocks shattered into dust, and the dust was swept backward by the repulsive force, violently surging toward the Second Tsuchikage.
Mu's pupils contracted sharply.
He pushed off the ground and used Earth Release: Ultra-Light-Weight Rock Technique to reduce the weight of his body. His entire figure shot into the air, narrowly avoiding the stream of dust that had been sent flying back toward him.
He floated in midair and looked down at the ground.
The wasteland was already covered in shattered rocks.
His rock giant had been reduced to countless fragments by a single attack.
What kind of dojutsu was this?
Mu suppressed the shock surging through his heart and formed another series of hand seals.
"Earth Release: Great Earth Spear!"
The ground beneath Kiyohara suddenly split apart.
A gigantic hand made entirely of earth violently emerged from the crack. It was several times thicker than the fist of the rock giant. Its five fingers closed together like five massive stone pillars, grabbing Kiyohara and trapping his entire body within its palm.
"Got him."
The Second Tsuchikage did not dare to relax. A brilliant white light suddenly appeared in the palm of his right hand.
"Dust Release: Detachment of the Primitive World Technique: Pillar!"
A cylindrical white barrier formed in his palm.
A thick white beam of light shot forward and struck the enormous earthen hand tightly gripping Kiyohara.
The beam pierced through earth, rock, and every other material in its path, reducing everything within its area of impact to an atomic state.
When the white light finally faded, most of the gigantic earthen hand had disappeared. Only charred remnants remained, falling from above.
The Second Tsuchikage floated in the air, his brows furrowing even more deeply.
Something was wrong.
How could Kiyohara possibly have been defeated so easily?
There had to be something he had overlooked.
There had to be something...
"Impossible!"
Pfft!
Suddenly, a hand pierced through his chest from behind.
Mu turned around in shock.
Kiyohara had appeared behind him at some unknown point. His pale blue eyes stared coldly at him.
"When did you..."
Before the Second Tsuchikage, Mu, could finish speaking, Kiyohara grabbed him with both hands and violently pulled them apart.
Mu's body was torn in half and thrown toward the ground.
Countless tiny pieces of paper emerged from the void and quickly gathered around the two halves of his remains, stitching them back together.
After only a few breaths, the Second Tsuchikage's body had returned to its original state. He once again stood on the ground, but his cold eyes were now filled with wariness.
"Your speed has exceeded the limits of my perception."
The Second Tsuchikage, Mu, spoke in a deep voice.
He had not even been able to capture Kiyohara's movement just now.
No.
Rather than calling it speed, it was more like a direct leap through space.
Kiyohara did not bother explaining anything about space-time ninjutsu.
He descended back to the ground, emerald-green chakra flames quietly burning around his body.
The Second Tsuchikage's heart tightened.
He now understood that Kiyohara had not been serious from the beginning.
If he was still living and had encountered Kiyohara, there would have been only one possible outcome.
Instant death.
Mu understood that ordinary ninjutsu was already useless against the young man before him.
Therefore, he decided to use Dust Release.
At this point, only Dust Release had any chance of causing damage to Kiyohara.
"Dust Release: Detachment of the Primitive World Technique!"
A translucent white cylindrical barrier formed in his palm before shooting forward at tremendous speed toward Kiyohara.
Wherever the barrier passed, the air was decomposed into a vacuum. The ground was carved open into a deep trench, the bottom of which was as smooth as a mirror.
Kiyohara stood where he was.
His left eye remained the Tenseigan, while his right eye transformed into the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan.
The Mangekyo Sharingan rotated rapidly, breaking down every detail of Dust Release before his eyes.
With his talent for all seven chakra natures already at their maximum, Kiyohara understood the essence of Dust Release the instant he finished observing it.
So that was how it worked.
Earth, Wind, and Fire.
Three chakra natures fused together according to a specific ratio.
Kiyohara's figure disappeared from where he stood.
The Dust Release: Detachment of the Primitive World Technique struck the empty wasteland, decomposing a massive hemispherical crater into existence.
The walls of the crater were smooth as a mirror.
The Second Tsuchikage looked around, his expression beneath the bandages becoming increasingly solemn.
At that moment, he saw Kiyohara reappear in an open area a hundred meters away.
Kiyohara held his right palm upward.
A ball of white light was slowly condensing in his palm.
Dust Release!
The Second Tsuchikage's pupils contracted.
"Impossible."
He was the creator of Dust Release.
Throughout the entire shinobi world, only he and his disciple, Onoki, possessed this Kekkei Tota.
Kiyohara had merely watched it once or twice.
And he had already learned it?
Kiyohara pushed the white sphere in his palm forward.
The sphere expanded in midair, transforming into a thick white beam of light that shot directly toward Mu.
Mu hurriedly released his own Dust Release to block it.
The two Dust Release techniques collided in midair.
The power capable of decomposing all things collided and canceled each other out, leaving behind a temporary sphere of vacuum in the air.
"You actually learned it..."
"I should thank you for demonstrating it personally."
Kiyohara spoke calmly.
The Second Tsuchikage felt a storm surge through his heart.
He formed another series of hand seals.
"Splitting Technique!"
Without needing to form any additional seals, his body split into two.
His original body and the split body moved toward opposite sides while brilliant white light simultaneously gathered in both of their hands.
"Dust Release: Detachment of the Primitive World Technique!"
Two cylindrical Dust Release barriers were fired at the same time, attacking Kiyohara from the front and rear and sealing off every possible avenue of escape.
Kiyohara raised an eyebrow.
According to the original story, the Second Tsuchikage, Mu, was unable to use this technique while in his split state.
It seemed that his reanimated body had also been specially modified.
The next moment, Kiyohara released the ocular power of the Tenseigan.
Just as the two Dust Release beams were about to strike him, an even more powerful repulsive force exploded outward from his body.
The two Dust Release beams were forcibly redirected less than half a meter away from Kiyohara.
One was deflected toward the sky, decomposing a gigantic hole in the clouds above.
The other was redirected toward the ground, carving a long and narrow pit into the earth that seemed to have no bottom.
The Second Tsuchikage and his split body were struck directly by the repulsive force.
Both bodies were blasted backward at the same time. They rolled more than a dozen times across the ground before barely managing to stabilize themselves.
Dust Release was ineffective.
The pincer attack using his split body was also ineffective.
He had completely run out of options.
The Second Tsuchikage, Mu, slowly climbed to his feet, with his split body standing beside him.
Sometimes, when a person was put in an impossible situation, it was genuinely difficult to maintain one's composure.
Damn it.
The Akatsuki had told him that Kiyohara was strong, but who could have known that he would be strong to this extent?
The Second Tsuchikage felt as though he had been thoroughly deceived.
"You still have any other tricks? Go ahead and use them."
Kiyohara's voice came from across the battlefield.
Now that he had learned Dust Release, there was no longer any reason to keep the Second Tsuchikage, Mu, alive.
Seeing this, Mu could only take a deep breath.
His original body and split body simultaneously formed hand seals, extracting all the remaining chakra within their bodies.
Two Dust Release spheres simultaneously lit up in their palms.
Then, the two spheres merged into one, expanding into a gigantic white cube more than thirty meters in diameter.
This was the strongest attack he could unleash in his current condition.
The enormous Dust Release cube surged toward Kiyohara.
Everywhere it passed, the air evaporated, the earth disappeared, and even the light itself seemed to distort.
Kiyohara raised his right hand.
Attraction.
The Tenseigan's ability activated.
The ground beneath Kiyohara, which had already been shaved away by Dust Release, was suddenly lifted as one massive piece.
Hundreds of tons of earth and rock were pulled upward by the gravitational force, forming an enormous earthen shield more than ten meters thick between Kiyohara and the incoming Dust Release.
The Dust Release struck the rock shield.
Layer after layer of the shield was peeled away and decomposed.
But Kiyohara continuously extracted new earth and stone from underground to replenish it.
No matter how much was decomposed, he simply replaced the destroyed material with more.
When the white light finally faded, only one thin layer of the earthen shield remained.
It cracked into two pieces and slid down on either side of Kiyohara.
Kiyohara was completely unharmed.
After releasing that final attack, the Second Tsuchikage's split body transformed into white smoke and disappeared.
His chakra had been completely exhausted, and the technique maintaining the split state could no longer be sustained.
Mu dropped to one knee.
Even an Impure World Reincarnation body needed time to recover after using an excessive amount of chakra in an instant.
Kiyohara walked over to the Second Tsuchikage and looked down at him.
"Your Dust Release is stronger than Onoki's. The fact that you can break through your limits and release Dust Release while in your split state alone is enough to prove that your disciple cannot compare to you."
"You... know Onoki?"
"Something like that."
Kiyohara crouched down.
Black curse-seal patterns appeared in the palm of his right hand, resembling countless tiny snakes crawling beneath his skin.
"Since you cannot die, then experience what it feels like to be sealed."
"Cursed Seal: Binding."
The black patterns spread outward from Kiyohara's palm, wrapping around Mu's body layer after layer.
Kiyohara took a sealing scroll from his clothing and unrolled it flat on the ground.
"Fuinjutsu: Four Symbols Chain!"
Four chakra chains burst out from the scroll and tightly bound the Second Tsuchikage, Mu, before pulling him directly into the scroll.
Kiyohara picked up the scroll, weighed it casually in his hand, and placed it back into his shinobi tool pouch.
This was a fuinjutsu he had developed himself.
Furthermore, an Impure World Reincarnation body was essentially a dead object. In that regard, it was no different from an ordinary object.
Deep underground, Madara stood with his arms folded across his chest and remained silent for a long time.
"He just copied Dust Release with his Sharingan."
Madara's voice was low.
"From seeing it to mastering it, it took him no more than two exchanges."
However, there was one thing Madara could not understand.
What kind of eye was Kiyohara's left eye?
Did the shinobi world really possess an eye like that?
How could it possess dojutsu techniques so similar to his Rinnegan?
It could actually control both repulsive force and attractive force.
(End of Chapter)