Kiyohara shut off the tap, dried himself quickly with a towel, and pulled on a fresh set of ninja clothes.
When he opened the door, he found Kurenai Yuhi standing right outside the gate, while Genma Shiranui leaned against the frame with a senbon tucked in his mouth.
"Kurenai, Genma, what are you two doing here?" Kiyohara asked, genuinely surprised.
Kurenai blinked those signature crimson eyes of hers and said, "I heard you're taking part in the Chunin Selection today. Genma and I happened to be free, so we came to see just how much you've really been hiding."
Genma shifted the senbon to the other side of his mouth and muttered, "Yeah. Minato-sensei praised you so much it was almost embarrassing. We all want to see whether you're really that good."
"Then let's go together," Kiyohara said. "No point arriving late."
The three of them set off toward the selection hall together.
There were more and more people on the streets as they went, many of them ninjas or staff connected to the same event. The atmosphere was quieter than usual, but there was a restrained tension in the air, the kind that only appeared when the village was still at war and every promotion mattered more than ever.
As they walked, Kiyohara took the chance to ask the question that had been sitting in the back of his mind.
About the Last Will.
"You said before that while you were still alive, you received another 'last will' from a different possible future, didn't you?" he asked inwardly.
"That's right," the rogue ninja Kiyohara replied from within the urn.
His voice carried a trace of memory.
"The first time it happened, I was escorting some materials for Orochimaru when we were ambushed by another village's ninja. I was heavily wounded and fled. It was then that another version of myself appeared in my consciousness."
"What kind of future self?" Kiyohara asked.
"A cultist," the rogue ninja Kiyohara said flatly. "Call him Believer Kiyohara. He followed some evil god and had gone completely off the rails. His final wish was simple. He wanted to experience true pain once more."
Kiyohara fell silent.
"And you fulfilled it?"
"I did. By torturing myself."
The rogue ninja Kiyohara sounded as if he did not want to remember the details.
"In the end, it was useless. There was no increase in combat ability at all. At best, it strengthened my spiritual energy a little."
Kiyohara narrowed his eyes.
So that was how it worked. Just because a future self left behind a will did not mean the reward would always be useful. It was random, unstable, and heavily dependent on what kind of person that future version had become.
Which meant that, in theory, there could also be versions of him who possessed a bloodline limit.
He asked the question directly.
"Then does that mean I might someday receive a last will from a future version of myself who has a bloodline limit?"
This was what he cared about most.
If the Last Will truly anchored itself to the existence of "Kiyohara" across possibility branches, then any Kiyohara born into different circumstances, or shaped by a different history, might become a source of power for him.
The rogue ninja Kiyohara was quiet for a while before answering.
"In theory... yes."
His tone was not certain.
"But I never figured out the mechanism. Based on my own experience, the two wills I received appeared about a month apart. I don't know whether that's a pattern or a coincidence."
"It could come soon, or it could take a very long time," he continued. "And after I received the second one, I never got a third before I died. Probably because I hadn't fulfilled the second will yet."
"So only one active will can exist at a time," Kiyohara murmured.
"Probably."
The rogue ninja Kiyohara paused again, then added, "And even if you do receive one, what you inherit is random. It might be combat experience. It might be a deeper understanding of one chakra nature. It might be part of that person's chakra. What I inherited back then was mostly fragmented skills from the version of me that died."
"As for bloodline limits..." He sounded almost reluctant. "I've never personally encountered a future version with one. So I don't know whether that kind of inheritance can be passed down by will, or how much of it would survive the transfer."
Kiyohara digested that quietly.
So the Last Will was not some all-powerful miracle.
It was more like a blind treasure chest tossed across timelines.
What came out depended entirely on luck.
Still, even this was enough to change his life. Without the legacy of the rogue ninja Kiyohara, his name might already have been carved into Konoha's memorial stone after Kannabi Bridge. At best, Kakashi would stop by once in a while to sweep the grave, and that would be the end of him.
"I understand," Kiyohara said at last.
No matter what, experience from another future self was still priceless.
Then he asked the question that mattered even more.
"What happens after I fulfill your last wish?"
"From what I've observed, I should lose consciousness completely," the rogue ninja Kiyohara said. "I'll sink into the urn and never come out again. Then the urn itself will keep dissipating until it disappears."
Kiyohara's eyes moved slightly.
"And now?" he asked.
"The urn in my mind is already much fainter than before," the rogue ninja Kiyohara admitted. "I don't know if there's any way to slow it down."
Faced with a future self who clearly understood only part of the system, Kiyohara had no choice but to piece the answer together on his own.
After all, the rogue ninja Kiyohara had died too soon. He had barely scratched the surface of the thing before stepping into an explosive-tag trap and blowing himself into a cautionary tale.
"I can't die that young," Kiyohara thought. "If nothing else, I have to survive long enough to see the Boruto era."
If he made it that far, then no matter how ridiculous the ninja world became, at least he'd have seen everything worth seeing.
Of course, if he could choose, he'd rather keep living forever than turn into ashes in someone else's urn and become a kindly dead senior to another timeline.
The rogue ninja Kiyohara fell silent and retreated deeper into the urn again, conserving what little remained of his existence.
Kiyohara raised his head.
They had already reached the examination venue.
"The Chunin Selection hall is just up ahead. There are a lot of people already," Kurenai said as she looked forward.
Kiyohara nodded.
Fortunately, this was wartime. The process had been drastically simplified compared to the elaborate Chunin Exams of later years. No written tests, no drawn-out team rounds, no ridiculous psychological traps. Just direct evaluation through practical combat.
Kurenai had gone through this process last year and had advanced successfully.
"That really takes me back," Genma said, removing the senbon from his mouth for once.
His expression was unexpectedly nostalgic.
"What is there to miss?" Kurenai said, shaking her head.
The building ahead had been temporarily designated as the selection venue. Since Konoha was short on manpower, all recommended genin had either proven themselves on the battlefield or been judged by jonin captains to have genuine chunin potential.
In other words, nobody here was a complete fraud.
"Let's go inside first," Kiyohara said.
More than a dozen genin had already gathered within. The atmosphere was taut and wary. After all, everyone here was a competitor. The number of promotion slots was limited. If one person made it through, someone else might not.
A cheerful atmosphere was never going to happen under those conditions.
"Then Genma and I will head to the stands," Kurenai said softly.
Her voice was clear and pleasant, but her eyes lingered on Kiyohara for just a moment longer than usual.
"Go ahead," Kiyohara said with a smile. "And buy me something to eat while you're at it. You wouldn't mind paying for my performance today, would you?"
Kurenai stared at him.
Kiyohara continued smoothly, "Let's see. Three bags of potato chips, two bowls of red bean soup with rice cakes, and maybe three skewers of meatballs too."
Kurenai's ruby eyes widened.
This shameless man.
"You..." she said, nearly choking on the words. "You're treating this like I'm here to stock your pantry."
Kiyohara looked innocent.
"You came all this way to support me. Surely that includes logistical support."
Genma snorted.
Kurenai clenched her fists.
For some reason, she always felt one step behind whenever she dealt with Kiyohara. If it were Asuma, he'd either laugh foolishly or try to show off. But Kiyohara always twisted the conversation somewhere she didn't expect, and by the time she realized it, he'd already gained the upper hand.
Even so, she didn't leave immediately.
Instead she said, "Then you'd better give a performance worth the price."
Kiyohara smiled. "I always do."
Kurenai huffed and went off with Genma toward the viewing area.
Kiyohara watched them go, then shifted his attention back to the room.
The genin gathered here each carried themselves differently.
Some were tense enough to snap.
Some deliberately pretended to be relaxed.
Some were still hiding their strength.
Kiyohara could see at a glance that none of them were simple.
That was only natural. Anyone who had been selected to come here in wartime was either capable, lucky, or both.
The rogue ninja Kiyohara's voice drifted faintly out from the urn again.
"Remember. Even if they're genin, don't underestimate them. A battlefield recommendation means each of them has at least one sharp fang."
"I know," Kiyohara answered inwardly.
He wasn't arrogant enough to think he'd already won.
Not after Kannabi Bridge.
Not after seeing firsthand how quickly people died in the ninja world.
But he also wasn't the same person who had received that mission order and nearly despaired on the spot.
He had fought. He had survived. He had learned. He had looted. He had borrowed from the future and gambled with his life and somehow come back with both still in hand.
Today, all he had to do was take one more step.
Become a chunin.
His fingers brushed lightly against the ninja pouch at his waist. Inside were the familiar tools he trusted most. Shuriken. Copper wire. Scrolls. Odds and ends that others might not even notice. The sort of things that turned battles when used correctly.
His style wasn't flashy.
He wasn't a prodigy with a bloodline limit.
He didn't have a tailed beast sealed inside him.
He didn't have a clan to back him.
But he had his own way of surviving.
And in the ninja world, surviving long enough was a kind of genius in itself.
A staff ninja soon appeared and called for the candidates to get ready.
The noise inside the room quieted at once.
Kiyohara exhaled slowly.
The chunin assessment was beginning.
And somewhere inside his mind, at the bottom of that fading urn, the rogue ninja Kiyohara lay silent, waiting for the moment his unfinished wish would finally be fulfilled.