Why hasn't Anbu withdrawn yet? Most people already pulled back.
After Kiyohara and Uzuki Yugao exchanged the code phrase, he relaxed a little—but didn't drop his guard.
In wartime, any "unexpected" thing had to be treated as a threat.
"During the retreat, some teammates sensed there was still intense fighting here—and it was a lone unit," Yugao replied briskly. "I volunteered to come check and provide extraction."
Under her mask, her eyes flicked over the blood on Kiyohara's cheek and his battered state, then to the wrecked field littered with corpses. Her heart jolted.
"You… you've been fighting alone this whole time?"
"Yeah. It's about time to go." Kiyohara nodded. "But before I leave, I want to give their Mist commander a present."
Yugao followed his gaze and could faintly make out silhouettes gathering on a distant rise—along with a cluster of chakra that wasn't weak.
Her brows knitted beneath the mask. "That's too dangerous! They're reorganizing their line—if you go in, you'll get surrounded!"
"Which is why it has to be something they won't see coming."
Kiyohara bared his teeth in a grin. With the blood on his face, it gave him a faintly feral look.
He didn't waste any more words. His hands began forming seals, forcing his already-thin reserves of chakra into motion again.
Yugao wanted to argue—but the resolve in his eyes made the warning die in her throat. Instead, she tightened her grip on the sword at her back and took up position at his side as a guard.
Your body's at its limit.
A voice only Kiyohara could hear echoed in his chest.
He knew it was Steel-Release Kiyohara.
"Once I fire this jutsu, I'm leaving. Please—help me refine a bit more chakra," Kiyohara murmured inwardly.
Thankfully, after inheriting Yang-affinity twice, his body was far tougher than an average ninja's.
Yang was tied to vitality.
And early on, he'd also inherited some raw physical energy from Rogue Kiyohara.
In simple terms: his body could still squeeze out chakra for now.
As long as he didn't run himself completely dry, he wouldn't die.
And the damage from this kind of overdraw? Kiyohara could ask Rin to patch him up later.
Rin's Chakra Scalpel (Mystical Palm Technique) put her in the upper tier of med-nin.
"…Fine," Steel-Release Kiyohara said. "If you insist."
"And once you complete my second wish, it should get a lot better," he added.
Kiyohara hadn't fully inherited everything yet.
"After this mission," Kiyohara agreed.
To Yugao, that whole exchange looked like Kiyohara spacing out for a split second.
Then he pulled out another soldier pill.
After swallowing so many, his skin flushed red—then started turning an unhealthy pale.
"Magnet Release: Sand Iron—Assemble!"
Every last scrap of sand iron he had—plus all the explosive tags he'd looted off corpses but hadn't even sorted yet (roughly more than 150)—came out at once.
Black sand iron writhed like a living thing, tightly wrapping each explosive tag at the core, layering and layering, forming a growing black sphere.
Still not enough.
He continued shaping the outermost layer into a thick insulating shell—then molded the whole thing into a streamlined spindle with a sharp "nose."
The huge spindle floated in front of him.
"…What is that?" Yugao had never seen Magnet Release used with explosive tags like this.
"Magnet Release: Electromagnetic Acceleration—Explosive Tag Cannon."
HUM—BOOM!
Under a magnetic coil's acceleration, the spindle-shaped sand-iron bomb became a black meteor that flashed once and vanished.
It dragged a blue electromagnetic tail and flew in an almost perfectly straight line—ignoring scattered Water Style jutsu trying to intercept—then slammed straight into the Mist command point.
At the command point, Momochi Zabuza's sense of foreboding spiked into a scream.
He snapped his head up. Something was wrong—he couldn't name it—
Then the sensor ninja shouted to Tōno-yama that Kiyohara was about to launch a long-range technique.
Only then did Zabuza realize the source:
Kiyohara—two kilometers away, in the forest.
Tōno-yama only had time to see a black streak swelling in his vision.
The last thing reflected in his pupils was Zabuza turning and running.
He tried to speak—
Too late.
BOOOOOOM!
A blast bigger than anything before erupted at the Mist side-wing command point, throwing up a mushroom cloud and a horrifying shockwave.
The destructive power was enough to obliterate a bridge the size of Kannabi.
The hillside became a crater tens of meters wide.
When the dust cleared, Tōno-yama was gone.
All that remained was a smear of blood and a few scorched scraps of clothing.
Zabuza had fled out to a hundred meters at the last instant, but shrapnel still tore into his left shoulder—blood pouring down.
What the hell kind of jutsu is that?!
For the first time, Zabuza understood why Mei came back and couldn't stop talking about Kiyohara.
If it were him, he wouldn't be able to forget the man who nearly killed him, either.
"So that's Magnet Release… you can deliver explosive tags all the way here and detonate them…"
On the main battlefield, Orochimaru and Jiraiya both turned toward the explosion.
"Heh-heh… that actually takes some pressure off us," Orochimaru chuckled, clearly pleased.
With the Mist side-wing command system smashed—and the commander likely dead—the impact on the whole battle was obvious.
Jiraiya rubbed his chin, baffled—he hadn't been watching that direction at all. He only knew some technique had wiped out the enemy command.
Kiyohara… I'm more and more curious how far you'll go.
Orochimaru's thought was almost affectionate.
Kiyohara let out a long breath.
He had only a sliver of chakra left.
That was only because Steel-Release Kiyohara had been accelerating digestion, turning nutrients into energy, refining chakra.
But his stomach churned painfully, like it was twisting.
"Let's go."
Most of Mist's attention had been pulled toward him; pressure on the retreat should drop now.
Yūhi Kurenai and Genma were probably already safe at the second line.
Time to end this.
Kiyohara stood, tightened the sealing scroll at his waist.
He noticed several Mist shinobi had sealing scrolls too—so he looped them onto his belt, stuffing his haul inside.
After subtracting the necessary spending—explosive tags, copper wire, shuriken—he'd still made a killing.
A rough estimate: at least 1.2 million ryō worth.
That was a fortune—equal to the payout of multiple standard A-rank missions.
Back when he'd sold everything and borrowed money, he'd only scraped together 700,000 ryō.
Now a single battle had earned him this.
And that wasn't even the biggest benefit.
He could "whitewash" some jutsu—especially common ones or ones associated with Mist—by claiming he'd picked up enemy scrolls in this battle and learned them.
Plenty of ninja did that.
Kiyohara himself carried scrolls around so he could grow stronger in every spare minute of war.
This kind of chance wasn't daily.
Kiyohara shook his head.
This had been perfect timing and placement: Mist had sent a lot of ninja into the side wing, while most heavy hitters were tied up with Orochimaru.
So he'd exploited the gap and butchered the weak.
As time passed, more Mist shinobi started peeling away from the main line and flooding into Kiyohara's sector.
He finished counting his gains, and he and Uzuki Yugao started their withdrawal route together.
By the time the sun neared the ridgeline, Kiyohara and masked Yugao returned to the second defensive line.
On the way, Byakugan scouts had already spotted them.
After exchanging codes and going through identity checks, they were allowed inside.
"You okay, Kiyohara?"
Kurenai had still been pacing the camp. She sprinted to him the moment he arrived.
"I'm fine." Kiyohara nodded.
On the way back he'd ducked somewhere hidden to deal with the digestion issue.
Now it was mostly the post-overdraft pain—his steps felt floaty, unsteady.
"You really pulled off something huge," Genma came over. "The Yamanaka guys recorded a ton about you."
This time he wasn't worried about "a buddy driving a luxury car."
Only pure admiration.
Damn—one guy killed that many enemies. If that's not a hero, what is?
"Luck. They were mostly weak, and I found a lot of explosive tags," Kiyohara shook his head.
If someone strong showed up, he ran. He just used speed to kite.
If they were weak and couldn't outrun him, then they died.
Explosive tags and a quick throat-cut still worked in war.
Even someone as strong as Pakura—if she got caught off-guard—could end up in the Pure Land from a single shuriken.
"Someone's looking for you, Kiyohara."
Uchiha Tekka called as he walked by.
He'd heard things about Kiyohara, and any lingering frustration from losing to him had vanished.
When someone is close to you, you feel envy.
When someone is leagues ahead, you can only look up.
"Who?"
Kiyohara asked.
"Looks like village higher-ups," Tekka said, pointing.
Kiyohara told Kurenai and Genma to wait a moment—he'd be right back.
When he lifted the tent flap—
It was Orochimaru.
"Orochimaru-sama… weren't you—"
"Heh-heh. By the time you withdrew, our side was nearly wrapped up too," Orochimaru said. "Mist's control over the tailed beast isn't stable yet. It went berserk and killed quite a few of their own."
"I see." Kiyohara nodded.
A tailed beast was both calamity and weapon—a double-edged sword.
Controlling one properly demanded a strong sealing system.
The Uzumaki were destroyed in part because their sealing arts were too feared.
Every village had methods—Cloud had the Iron Armor Seal; Leaf had the Four Symbols; others had their own systems—but the quality varied.
A young Jinchūriki like the Six-Tails' host couldn't fully control it yet.
That was why Leaf still hadn't deployed the Nine-Tails—too risky. It stayed as a "nuclear deterrent" inside the village.
"Your potential is higher than I expected," Orochimaru said, licking his lips.
Kiyohara's solo kill count meant one thing: huge chakra reserves.
And battle sense. Otherwise he couldn't have danced that long.
"Interested in becoming my assistant?"
Orochimaru asked.
"I have some research. Delegating would lighten my load."
"Don't worry—it won't be hard," he added, those snake eyes watching Kiyohara steadily.
"It would be my honor, Orochimaru-sama," Kiyohara answered immediately.
Being Orochimaru's assistant let him borrow Orochimaru's "tiger skin"—it meant he wasn't just a helpless civilian no one backed.
In the shinobi world, influence and affiliations mattered.
Look closely at the Hokage line—connections ran deep.
Second Hokage was the First's brother.
Third was the Second's student.
Fourth was the Third's grandstudent.
Fifth was the Third's student and the First's granddaughter.
Sixth (Kakashi) was the Fourth's student.
Naruto? The ultimate insider—connected to almost all of them.
His early suffering was partly because those connections were kept secret until later.
"Heh-heh… wonderful, Kiyohara-kun."
Orochimaru looked genuinely surprised that Kiyohara agreed so quickly.
"Consider this a small advance," he said, handing over a scroll.
Kiyohara opened it:
Wind Style: Wind Cutter.
After forming seals, you could release razor wind with one hand.
Sharper than Gale Palm, more focused cutting force.