The gust of wind whipped the lime dust around, blasting Kiyohara's fringe backward, but his masked figure stood firm, completely unaffected.
Then he swung both hands.
More than twenty shuriken shot out with sharp whistles, vanishing into the fog ahead and burying themselves deep in the ground and broken walls.
An instant later, his fingers twitched.
Nearly invisible special copper wires attached to the shuriken snapped taut, weaving through the lime fog into a web no one could see.
At the same time, Kiyohara quickly asked the Magnet Kiyohara at his side:
"Help me pinpoint their exact positions and numbers."
Magnet Kiyohara nodded. That was easy enough.
He floated off, slipping through the dense lime mist.
In just a few breaths, he returned.
"Twelve. Terumi Mei, plus one Kaguya brat. The other ten are ordinary Mist chūnin. Two of them got hit hard by your lime and are out of the fight for now."
"Twelve… Mei and a Kaguya…" Kiyohara's thoughts raced.
We have to thin out the small fry first, then focus on the tricky ones.
"And when it matters, possess me again. I've never fought a Kaguya before," Kiyohara added.
Right now, he and Kakashi were leading this together. Him going in alone wasn't showing off—
It was maximizing their advantage. He was the only one who could move freely in this mess.
"I know," Magnet Kiyohara said, arms crossed.
He didn't mind helping his past self—as long as it led to the wishes being fulfilled.
"Thanks," Kiyohara said, shifting his focus back to the fog.
He told Kakashi and the others he would go in first and that they should wait until the mist and lime thinned out before moving in.
Bright blue lightning exploded from his hands and raced along the taut copper wires.
The current flowed down the lines with no resistance, and the mix of lime dust and moisture made it flare into blinding sparks and a sharp, burnt-alkali stench.
Lightning Release: Lightning Stream!
"Ah!"
"Gah!"
Three short screams rang out from deep in the fog, followed by the sound of three bodies hitting the ground.
"Bastard!" came Masaru's furious shout.
He'd dodged the wires on instinct, but his skin still tingled with numbness.
He hadn't expected the enemy to be this precise in such chaos.
"Mei! Use Wind Release—blow away the fog and lime! Drop the Hiding in Mist Jutsu!" he yelled.
He'd realized that in an environment the enemy had set up for themselves, Hiding in Mist was a hindrance, not an asset.
"Got it."
Mei's voice carried a tight, frustrated anger. Her hands blurred into seals.
But Kiyohara had no intention of letting them regroup.
"Trying to clear it? Too late!"
Chakra burst under his feet, and as Kurenai shouted behind him, Kiyohara vanished with the Konoha Body Flicker.
When the leaves settled, he was already inside the lime-fog zone.
With Magnet Kiyohara guiding him, it was like running a radar sweep on a blacked-out map.
"Where is he?"
"I can't see anything!"
"This is worse than Zabuza's Silent Killing!"
One Mist chūnin growled in panic, slashing wildly with a kunai—and catching nothing.
They couldn't even open their eyes; there was too much lime in the air.
They also didn't dare move much. They had no idea where the wires were; a wrong step could cut them to ribbons.
Using jutsu risked friendly fire.
Meanwhile, that Konoha brat was moving around as if nothing was wrong.
It gave them a disorienting feeling.
Hang on—who's the Mist ninja here?
You're from Konoha—how are you handling Hidden Mist better than us?
It was… completely backwards.
By then, Kiyohara had already locked onto his target—
Kaguya Masaru.
Through the swirling dust, he saw Mei's silhouette.
He had to admit, even in her youth, Mei had a sultry charm other kunoichi lacked.
Right now, her chin was lifted, eyes angry as she scanned the swirling fog.
"Since you set foot here, you'd better be ready to die," Kiyohara said as his voice drifted through the mist.
His presence flickered in every direction.
Each time a Mist shinobi fired off a Water Release toward the sound of his voice, all they hit were falling leaves.
Compared to Kiyohara, who'd come prepared with a mask, they were at a severe disadvantage.
Then his sword slid silently from its sheath.
The fog wouldn't last forever; he had to cull as many as possible while it did.
Talking was just one more way to mislead the enemy—feed them the wrong position.
Once the fog cleared, he and Kakashi could clean up the rest.
"Hmph. I've been waiting."
After Kiyohara had already killed a few more Mist ninja, Masaru finally caught his position.
He spun just as Kiyohara swung.
His right hand's fingers fused together, and pale bone bullets exploded from his fingertips.
Shikotsumyaku: Ten-Finger Drilling Bullets!
Pop-pop-pop-pop!
The wire net was shredded, snapped apart by the flying bone spikes.
Clang!
Sparks burst in the gray-white fog as the remaining bone bullets smashed into Kiyohara's sword, the impact screaming in his ears.
A massive force traveled down the blade, numbing his wrist.
So strong… this is Shikotsumyaku? Kiyohara thought, shaken.
If there were ever a "Kaguya Kiyohara" in some future—would he be able to wield this bloodline too?
If he kept inheriting bloodlines, one after another, would he eventually wield… a "Kekkei Network"?
While he was thinking, Masaru was equally stunned.
His opponent's swordsmanship was far beyond what he'd expected.
"As I thought… you've got some skill," he admitted inwardly.
After that clash, they separated for a heartbeat—then shot at each other again like twin bolts of lightning.
Ding…!
A rapid flurry of impacts thundered through the fog.
Kiyohara's style blended swordsman Kiyohara's decades of hard-earned fundamentals, while Masaru fought like a storm—wild and vicious.
His forearms, elbows, knees, even his shoulder blades could sprout razor-sharp bone spikes at any time.
Attack and defense as one, wide-open forms full of brutal beauty.
Kiyohara slid to the side, avoiding a rib spike, his sword snapping up in a rising cut aimed at Masaru's neck.
Masaru snapped his head back, left ulna erupting into a bone shield.
Schk!
The sword scraped across white bone, leaving only a shallow mark.
"Shikotsumyaku: Ten-Finger Drilling Bullets!"
Masaru seized the instant between Kiyohara's spent force and his next attack.
Both hands leveled, ten fingers firing bone bullets like thrown spears.
At this distance, it was almost impossible to dodge.
At the razor's edge, Kiyohara's body seemed to lose weight, drifting backward in a way that violated all common sense—as if he were a leaf in a gust of wind.
Ten bone bullets roared past his mask and buried themselves deep into the broken wall behind him.
"How is that possible?!"
Masaru's pupils shrank.
That footwork was completely outside his understanding.
That wasn't ninjutsu.
"Almost got me," Kiyohara exhaled.
Naturally, that move was thanks to Magnet Kiyohara.
In possession state, he could drag out 100% of the body's potential, forcefully squeezing extra chakra to perform feats that seemed impossible to outside observers.
No… I really need to get my first bloodline, fast, Kiyohara thought.
Bloodlines added far too much power.
But there were no Suna Anbu here for him to kill.
Once this crisis passed, he planned to apply for reassignment that very night—move quickly to fulfill the wish and inherit Magnet Release.
With that in hand, dealing with other bloodlines would be much easier.
~~~
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