If one looked closely at their appearances, they would discover that they were the Sage of Six Paths' two sons: Indra and Asura.
Looks like they don't have any consciousness.
Kiyohara thought to himself.
All this time, what reincarnated was chakra, not the soul.
So this chakra could at most influence the host. It did not mean the host truly was that person.
Otherwise, when Uchiha Madara was revived, there would have been two Indras alive at the same time.
But Indra did not have two portions of chakra.
Kiyohara reached out and placed one hand on each child's head.
"I believe in both of you."
Kiyohara spoke calmly.
Naruto's eyes widened at once, and the light in them grew brighter than ever.
"Yeah!"
Sasuke lowered his head and silently accepted the weight of that hand on top of him.
Kiyohara withdrew both hands and stood up.
He glanced at the sky. The sun had already started sinking westward, stretching the shadows across the training ground. In the distance, several Anbu in dark-blue ninja uniforms were changing shifts at the training field.
"Naruto, Sasuke, do me a favor."
Kiyohara took a sealing scroll from his ninja pouch.
"Take this to Konan. Tell her I asked her to check the seal's condition."
"Konan-nee?"
Naruto took the cloth pouch and tilted his head.
"You mean that blue-haired sister who barely talks?"
"That one."
Kiyohara nodded.
"She'll know what to do."
Kiyohara said.
Inside was simply Konan's salary for the month.
Kiyohara had noticed that after Konan came here, she seemed to be a little short on money.
"Got it."
Naruto stuffed the sealing scroll into his clothes, turned, and ran off. After a few steps, he suddenly slammed on the brakes and turned back to shout at Sasuke.
"Hurry up!"
Sasuke followed at an unhurried pace, keeping a distance of two steps behind Naruto. His expression was still cold, but he was clearly moving a little faster than before.
The two children gradually disappeared behind the trees at the edge of the training ground. Only Naruto's highly recognizable voice could still be heard from far away.
"Sasuke, you run way too slow! You'll never become a ninja like that!"
"You're the one who won't become a ninja."
"I'm the man who's going to become Hokage!"
Kiyohara watched the direction they had left in.
Just now, he had felt the Indra chakra inside Sasuke responding to the Asura chakra in his own body.
Kiyohara guessed it was because the Asura chakra inside Naruto was still too young, so it did not produce much resonance.
Meanwhile, the Asura chakra inside Kiyohara had already matured completely. It could even overwhelm Indra's chakra, which was why that reaction happened.
Kiyohara turned and walked over to Hinata.
The little girl was still standing under the shade of the tree. The leaf on her forehead had already been removed, but her posture remained neat and proper. Her two little hands were folded in front of her, and she stood completely still, waiting for him to come back.
"Hinata, that's enough training for today."
Kiyohara crouched down and said.
"You did very well. After you go home, remember to refine chakra once before sleeping every day. You don't need to do it for too long. Half an hour is enough."
Hinata nodded slightly.
"Kiyohara-sensei… um…"
Hinata's voice was as thin as a mosquito's hum.
"Hm?"
"Those two children just now…"
"Naruto and Sasuke."
"Yes… their dreams… are amazing."
Hinata lowered her head, her fingers clasped together in front of her.
"I don't even know what my dream is…"
Kiyohara looked at her and curved his lips slightly.
"It's fine if you don't have one. You're still little. There's no rush. When you grow up, you'll slowly figure it out."
Hinata raised her head. Her pure-white eyes met Kiyohara's dark ones.
The afterglow of the setting sun fell across Kiyohara's face, coating his features with a soft golden edge.
Hinata suddenly felt that Kiyohara-sensei was even gentler than she had imagined.
She nodded hard, and a faint smile appeared on her little face.
By the time night fell, Kiyohara brought Hinata back to the Hyūga main family estate.
Hinata's mother was already waiting at the entrance.
Today, she wore a white robe that outlined her slender waist.
When she saw Kiyohara walking out of the night while holding Hinata's hand, she hurried forward to greet him.
"Hokage-sama."
Hinata's mother bowed slightly.
"Did Hinata trouble you today?"
"No."
Kiyohara said, lowering his gaze to Hinata.
"She did very well. She's more serious than most children her age."
Hinata's cheeks turned faintly red.
She let go of Kiyohara's hand, walked to her mother's side, then turned around and bowed deeply to Kiyohara.
"Thank you… Kiyohara-sensei."
Hinata said.
Hinata's mother's eyes widened slightly as she looked at her.
This child was usually very shy. The fact that she could now speak normally with Kiyohara meant she had already begun opening her heart.
And it had only been one afternoon.
She lifted her head, looked at Kiyohara, and curved her lips into a gentle smile.
"Thank you, Hokage-sama. Hinata seems a little more cheerful than usual."
"She'll keep getting better. Hinata has excellent talent. She only needs time."
Hinata's mother quietly thought that Kiyohara truly had a powerful charm. Then she took Hinata's hand and turned toward the interior of the estate.
Kiyohara stood at the entrance and watched the small pale-purple figure disappear into the depths of the corridor. Then he turned and walked back along Konoha's streets.
After walking for a few minutes, Kiyohara noticed someone ahead also walking in his direction.
It was Nohara Rin.
Kiyohara recognized her face.
Today, Rin wore a white medical ninja coat.
The sleeves of the coat were rolled up to her elbows, and several faint red marks remained on her arms from wearing rubber gloves for too long.
In her hands, she held a thick folder. On its cover was a red label with the words "Confidential."
"Rin."
Kiyohara walked up to her.
"It's so late. You still haven't gone home?"
"I just came out of the laboratory."
Rin spoke.
"Kiyohara-kun, I have good news for you."
"The medical ninjutsu for limb regeneration is finally complete. In about thirty minutes, the experimental mouse regrew a complete limb."
Rin took a breath, then shoved the folder into Kiyohara's hands.
When he opened it, the pages were packed with experimental data and chakra pathway diagrams.
"Theoretically, as long as the caster's Yang Release chakra is large enough and precise enough, this technique can adapt to any ninja's constitution."
"The only limitation is that the caster must perform it during the golden window after the limb is severed. If the wound has been healed for too long, the effect will be affected."
Kiyohara flipped through the thick experiment report, paused at the conclusion section on one of the pages, then raised his head.
"Rin, well done."
The corners of Rin's lips curved upward.
"It was Kiyohara-kun who inspired me. I only completed the later work. Otherwise, this technique's progress would have been delayed by at least several years."
Kiyohara closed the folder and handed it back to Rin.
"This technique will fundamentally change the medical ninjutsu system. What name do you think suits it?"
Kiyohara asked.
For ninja, the most important body parts were their hands.
If their hands could be healed, many ninja would not need to retire.
Losing one's eyes or legs did not necessarily mean one could no longer be a ninja.
But losing both hands basically meant being cut off from the path of a ninja.
"Then… I want to call it Yang Release: Limb Regeneration Technique."
"Yang Release: Limb Regeneration Technique?"
Kiyohara stroked his chin.
"That name works."
Kiyohara felt the name was very fitting.
"What about Tsunade-sensei?"
"She's still in the office. She's writing the final version of the technique's explanation and teaching outline. Lady Tsunade said she wants to compile this technique into a book, so top-tier medical ninja can all learn it."
Kiyohara nodded.
Although Tsunade was lazy most of the time, she was never careless when it came to medical ninjutsu.
The fact that she was personally writing the teaching outline for Yang Release: Limb Regeneration Technique showed that she had already acknowledged the value of this technique.
Unfortunately, the threshold for the technique was rather high. Ordinary medical ninja would never be able to learn it.
Kiyohara closed the folder again and handed it back to Rin.
"Limb regeneration… Once this technique is made public, the entire ninja world's medical system will be shaken."
Kiyohara spoke.
"However, the risks are also significant. Before it is popularized, classify it as an S-rank Konoha secret. Only medical ninja who receive permission from you, me, or Tsunade-sensei personally are qualified to access it."
"I understand."
Rin nodded and hugged the thick folder back into her arms.
"I'll come find you later."
Kiyohara lifted Rin's chin with his index finger, kissed her once, then left.
By the time Rin raised her head, Kiyohara had already vanished.
"I need to hurry back."
Rin's face flushed faintly as she hugged the documents and hurried away.
After parting with Rin, Kiyohara went to Kushina and Namikaze Minato's home.
When he knocked on the door, Minato was the one who opened it.
Minato was dressed in casual home clothes. His golden hair remained dazzling under the light, but his expression was relaxed.
"Kiyohara? Coming over this late—something urgent?"
Minato stepped aside and let him in.
Kiyohara greeted him and swept his gaze across the living room.
Kushina was sitting cross-legged on the living room carpet. In front of her lay an open little booklet.
"It's about the Nine-Tails. I want to enter your mental space again and take something."
Kiyohara got straight to the point.
"Okay."
Uzumaki Kushina raised her head, closed the booklet in her hands, and set it aside.
"He's much more obedient than before, but he still doesn't like talking to people."
Kushina sat up a little straighter on the floor and unbuttoned the lowest button of her sleepwear.
"But with you, he seems pretty talkative. Every time, you make him so angry he curses up a storm."
The next moment, she closed her eyes.
Kiyohara's consciousness followed Kushina into a dark space.
Cold water covered the ground up to his ankles. In front of him, behind that enormous cage, a pair of savage vertical pupils looked down at him coldly.
"You're here again."
The Nine-Tails' voice shook the water into ripples.
Kiyohara raised his head and met the Nine-Tails' crimson vertical pupils across the thick sealing pillar.
"I want part of your chakra formed into a physical substance."
A low sneer rumbled in the Nine-Tails' throat.
It slowly lowered itself, bringing its huge head close to the gaps in the seal.
"Kid, do you think I can't feel it?"
The Nine-Tails said coldly.
"Not only does the old man's power flow through you, you're also carrying that disgusting blue flame from the Two-Tails, and even the octopus' ink stench is stuck to you."
The Nine-Tails bared its teeth, revealing rows of pale fangs.
Of course, Kiyohara did not actually have any smell on him.
What it meant was that it had sensed the chakra of the Two-Tails and Eight-Tails.
It even sensed the Three-Tails' chakra, as well as its own chakra.
"You think a mere human body can contain the chakra of all nine of us tailed beasts at once? Such arrogant stupidity will get you killed miserably sooner or later."
Kiyohara reminded the Nine-Tails of the Gold and Silver Brothers.
Those two had gained a portion of tailed-beast power by eating its flesh.
But the person before it, this man named Kiyohara, was completely different from those two wastes.
At most, the Gold and Silver Brothers could only contain a small portion of the Nine-Tails' chakra. They could not go any further.
What Kiyohara was trying to do was something not even that old man, the Sage of Six Paths, had done while alive.
Back then, the old Sage had stripped the Ten-Tails' chakra from his body, divided it into nine portions, and created them. He had also specially sealed away the Gedo Statue.
The reason was simple: once separated from the Gedo Statue, there was no body in this world capable of long-term containment of that overwhelming power.
This human descendant before it, no matter how extraordinary his talent, could he really surpass the Sage of Six Paths?
"That remains to be seen."
Kiyohara met the Nine-Tails' mocking gaze.
His body was constantly transforming, step by step breaking away from the concept of an ordinary human.
"When I fully adapt to your power, even I don't know what will happen. But right now, I need your power, cornerstone."
Kiyohara said calmly.
Kushina stood behind him, listening with a confused expression.
She did not understand what Kiyohara and the Nine-Tails were talking about.
Who was that old man?
She had never heard the Nine-Tails explain it.
And she had never heard Kiyohara ask who it was.
"Hmph."
The Nine-Tails finally snorted and set its huge head back down on its crossed forepaws.
"In any case, the jinchūriki in this cage is willing. I won't stop you. If you end up bursting yourself apart, that won't be a bad thing for me either way."
Kiyohara no longer wasted words with it.
He took a step forward. His right hand passed effortlessly through the sealing pillar that was unbreakable to the Nine-Tails, then plunged straight into the fur formed from pure chakra.
It felt like reaching into a mass of scalding liquid flame, but Kiyohara's face showed no expression.
His fingers tightened inward, and his arm suddenly pulled back.
"Roar!"
Along with the Nine-Tails' irritated roar, a mass of orange-red chakra was forcibly ripped from its body by Kiyohara.
At the same time, in the real world, Kiyohara's main body standing in front of Uzumaki Kushina opened his right hand.
A strand of red flesh condensed from pure tailed-beast chakra appeared out of thin air in his palm.
Then Kiyohara withdrew from the mental space.
At the moment he left, he could still hear the Nine-Tails muttering to itself.
"That kid… I'd like to see what kind of thing you'll become in the end."
Kiyohara's consciousness returned to his body. He looked down at the successfully materialized Nine-Tails flesh in his palm and sealed it into a high-grade sealing scroll he carried with him.
"Kushina, Minato, thanks."
Kiyohara nodded to the two of them.
"Don't put it like that. Naruto mentioned you today. He said he definitely wants to create a chance to train with you someday."
Kushina said.
"That guy's dream is to surpass you, the strongest Hokage. Please beat some sense into him in the future."
"No problem."
Kiyohara nodded.
After leaving Namikaze Minato's home, Kiyohara used the Flying Thunder God Technique to arrive at a safe place. Then he took out the sealing scroll from earlier.
He removed the Nine-Tails' flesh and put it into his mouth.
The Nine-Tails' hatred-filled chakra flowed down his throat and rushed into the chakra pathways inside Kiyohara's body.
In that instant, his skin uncontrollably rose with a layer of dark-red bubbles symbolizing Nine-Tails chakra, only to be rapidly suppressed by his own Yang Release power.
"The Nine-Tails' chakra still hits hard."
Kiyohara shook his head.
The Nine-Tails' chakra was too vast, so adapting to it would take far more effort than adapting to an ordinary tailed beast.
Several days later, in the Hokage's office.
Kiyohara sat in the Hokage's chair. Spread across his desk was a map of the ninja world. Beside the markings for the Five Great Nations were dense notes about each tailed beast and jinchūriki.
"It's about time to collect the remaining tailed-beast chakra."
Kiyohara calculated in his mind.
One-Tail Shukaku, whose jinchūriki was Sunagakure's Gaara, though he was still very young.
Four-Tails Son Gokū and Five-Tails Kokuō—both of their jinchūriki were veteran ninja of Iwagakure, their whereabouts uncertain.
Six-Tails Saiken. The last time Kiyohara went to Kirigakure, he had not encountered its jinchūriki, because the Six-Tails' jinchūriki, Utakata, had already defected from Kirigakure.
Seven-Tails Chōmei, whose jinchūriki was Fū of Takigakure.
"The easiest target is still Sunagakure."
Kiyohara's mind flashed with Pakura's face.
Some time had passed since he had saved her at the edge of the desert and brought her back to Konoha.
With this Scorch Release ninja, who had become utterly disappointed in Sunagakure's higher-ups, acting as an insider, making contact with Shukaku would be much simpler than with the other tailed beasts.
Furthermore, after their previous defeat, Sunagakure's diplomatic posture toward Konoha had become extremely soft.
All he needed was a suitable excuse for a visit, and everything would naturally fall into place.
A thought rapidly took shape in his heart.
Another half month passed quietly.
During this time, Kiyohara adapted to the violent Nine-Tails chakra inside his body while also noticing that his eyes were undergoing extremely subtle changes every day.
The feeling that the final thin layer was about to be pierced was getting closer and closer.
One morning, sunlight poured in through the window.
"Mm…"
Kiyohara suddenly opened his eyes.
A pulse abruptly throbbed inside his eyeballs.
It was like a newborn life moving its limbs for the first time, violently striking as if trying to tear through the mother's body.
In an instant, everything in the room—the wood grain on the walls, the fine dust floating in the air—was reflected in his pupils.
But what followed was an extreme pain strong enough to completely crush the will of an ordinary person.
Everything before his eyes began to distort wildly. All colors faded, leaving only a blinding white light.
He instinctively raised his hand to cover his eyes.
"Kiyohara?"
Yūhi Kurenai, who had been sleeping beside him, was instantly awakened by the sudden movement.
She saw Kiyohara bent over, clutching his eyes. Those hands, usually so calm and steady, were now trembling slightly from pain.
Kurenai's sleepiness vanished in an instant, and she hurriedly held onto him.
The thin blanket covering her slipped down. She was wearing only a silk slip dress with thin straps.
Her rounded pale shoulders and delicate collarbones were exposed to the slightly cool morning air, but at that moment, her mind was filled only with confusion and worry.
"Kiyohara, are you okay?"
Kurenai asked.
"I'm fine."
Kiyohara shook his head.
He could feel the inside of his eyes being reconstructed.
A brand-new power was being born from this intense pain.
He let out a long breath.
Then Kiyohara lowered the hand covering his eyes.
Kurenai's mouth opened slightly, and she stared at Kiyohara's eyes in surprise.
Kiyohara's originally dark pupils had, at some point, completely faded away. In their place was a pair of eyes as crystal-clear as blue gemstones.
"Why did your eyes turn blue?"
Kurenai did not understand what was happening.
"My dōjutsu changed."
Kiyohara shook his head.
He discovered that in this state, all of his Byakugan's basic abilities had been strengthened.
X-ray vision, long-distance vision, and even his observational ability had all improved greatly after the Jōgan awakened.
Kiyohara raised his head, and his sight pierced upward through the roof, through the clouds, all the way to the moon.
After watching for a while, Kiyohara withdrew his gaze from the sky and focused again on Kurenai's tear-streaked face.
He raised his hand and gently brushed across Kurenai's cheek, wiping away a cold trace of moisture.
"Sorry for worrying you."
Kiyohara's lips curved slightly.
"My eyes just… evolved a little."
After confirming that Kiyohara was truly fine, her great worry faded, replaced by intense embarrassment and anger.
She suddenly leaned forward and bit down hard on Kiyohara's shoulder.
"Bastard, you scared me to death!"
Kiyohara did not feel any pain. Kurenai had not really been willing to bite hard.
Kiyohara reached out and pulled her into his arms.
Then Kiyohara felt the changes brought by the Jōgan.
After obtaining the Jōgan, he could activate Jōgan Chakra Mode.
His entire body would be shrouded in green chakra. In that mode, he could freely create large numbers of black chakra orbs, cover them with Jōgan chakra, and freely manipulate multiple chakra orbs.
At the same time, Kiyohara vaguely felt that he had formed a contract with something and could summon it at any time.
Just as the Rinnegan could summon the Gedo Statue, Kiyohara felt he could also summon something.
It should be Hamura's stone statue.
Kiyohara thought to himself.
Ōtsutsuki Toneri had relied on the Jōgan to summon a giant Hamura stone statue, which held back the materialized Nine-Tails.
As long as the Jōgan's chakra did not disappear, the statue would not vanish.
Under the Jōgan's control, even if the statue was shattered, it could rapidly restore itself.
However, compared to these abilities, Kiyohara cared more about the fact that he had finally completed the dying wish.
Jōgan Kiyohara was almost gone. He had been staying inside the urn every moment.
Kiyohara had not let him out and had directly cut off his permissions.
He treated every spirit Kiyohara this way, forbidding their ability to perceive the outside world. After all, while playing cards, he did not want anyone watching.
~~~