Over the next few days, Kiyohara searched alongside Kakashi for traces of the captured med-ninja.
But the Mist Anbu were extremely cautious—always one step ahead.
Whenever they found a temporary camp, the embers were still warm and the signs of imprisonment were obvious… yet the captives were already gone.
That kind of near-miss torture wore people down. The bloodshot veins in Kakashi's eye grew worse, and the stretches of silence between his words became longer and longer.
Then, one evening several days later, things took a sudden turn.
At the edge of a hidden ravine, Kakashi intercepted a lone Mist Anbu.
After a brief clash, Kakashi successfully captured him and forced information out of his mouth:
Ten km to the northeast, there was a secret base.
"What do you think?" Kakashi flicked the blood droplets off his kunai and looked at Kiyohara beside him.
Kiyohara scanned the broken vegetation and the traces of battle around them, his brows tightening.
For days it had felt like searching the sea with a needle—yet today, it was as if someone had simply handed them the thread.
He couldn't shake the feeling that Uchiha Madara had begun moving.
Kiyohara suspected the preparations for sealing the Three-Tails were nearly complete. All that was left was for the "actors" to take their places.
"It's too smooth, Kakashi. Feels like… bait on a fishing hook," Kiyohara said.
"I know." Kakashi nodded. "But I still have to go see."
Honestly, Kakashi didn't understand why the enemy had kept the medical-nin hostage for so long.
If it were interrogation, they would've finished long ago.
Keeping them alive this long clearly meant they had another purpose.
"I'm going to check it out, Kiyohara."
With that, Kakashi moved to leave.
But at that moment, an eight-man Mist Anbu squad—clearly already lying in wait along the route—suddenly appeared and intercepted Kiyohara.
"Wind Release: Wind Cutter!"
After forming seals, a wind blade formed on Kiyohara's left hand and slashed out. One Mist Anbu went down on the spot.
"Kakashi, I'll stay here. You go on ahead," Kiyohara said.
His chakra reserves were far larger than Kakashi's. Spending some here didn't matter—and with "White Snake Power," his chakra recovery was faster than most.
Besides, there was something important he needed to wait for.
The "Willbook" was due.
Kiyohara planned to wait until it arrived—one more layer of insurance—before heading in.
Kakashi stared at him for a moment with both eyes—one black, one red.
"…Be careful," he said at last.
He left only those two words behind, then vanished into the dense forest, rapidly disappearing.
Kiyohara withdrew his gaze. Facing the encircling Mist Anbu, his eyes turned cold.
"So you're not the main force," he said.
He could tell the remaining Mist Anbu weren't that strong.
At least… not a threat to him.
He refined chakra into magnetic force. Iron sand surged out of his gourd, forming countless needles and blades that glinted with cold metallic sheen in the sunset.
"Hold him. The sealing is almost complete—nothing can go wrong," the squad leader barked, hands flashing through seals as a water dragon erupted forward.
Water dragon and iron sand crashed midair, exploding into a wave of sound.
The Mist Anbu behind him followed up, each launching their own Water Release techniques.
In an instant, water ninjutsu filled the air, a flood of attacks pouring down to smother Kiyohara.
Kiyohara drew his blade. Black iron sand crawled up it, extending the cutting edge.
"Konoha Style: Willow!"
He swung.
The air seemed to bloom with dozens—hundreds—of overlapping sword shadows, as if countless blades were slashing at once.
The Mist Anbu panicked immediately.
They'd never seen anything like it. They had no counter.
At this point in time, it wasn't even certain Maruboshi Kosuke could perform this move yet.
And in the ninja world, combat was always an information war.
Kiyohara seized the opening. Repulsion flared beneath his feet and he flashed in front of one Mist Anbu.
Shk—!
A flower of blood burst.
The others jolted.
The closest Mist Anbu slashed down at him.
Kiyohara raised the back of his hand—already hardening—and took the blow head-on.
Bang! Sparks erupted in a spray.
Kiyohara answered with a backhand cut. In the enemy's horrified gaze, his throat opened.
"Five left."
Before the body even hit the ground, Kiyohara drove a fist forward.
Boom!
One punch.
He punched straight through the next Mist Anbu's chest.
Organs ruptured in an instant, collapsing inward along broken ribs and spine.
WHAM! The corpse spun and flew backward.
The remaining Anbu were stunned by how savage he was.
They'd heard fragments of intel about "Magnet Release Kiyohara."
Every village collected notes on standout talents from others.
Kiyohara's name was on those lists now.
But no matter how words described it, some things you only understood when you faced it yourself.
Clang-clang-clang! His blade hammered against theirs, sparks exploding again and again.
The four remaining Anbu didn't dare hold back. They attacked together, synchronized.
And Kiyohara—just one sword—parried all four.
Shk!
At one moment, his extended black blade shattered as it collided with a katana—breaking into streaks of black light that riddled an Anbu who didn't react in time, turning him into a sieve.
"Damn this kid…"
Even in the "Bloody Mist," they'd never seen a fighting style this bizarre.
Their mission was to stall the enemy.
But if the enemy was too strong, stalling became meaningless.
The best option was to retreat, regroup, and bring more people to deal with him.
One Anbu turned to flee—
Kiyohara dissolved into drifting leaves and vanished into the trees.
"Where'd he go?!" someone cried in panic.
Their sensory-type Anbu had already been killed—punched straight through.
Only one remaining sensor tried to locate Kiyohara. He sensed the position and started to report—
Then he felt sudden cold at his neck.
Every hair on his body stood up. Terror shot up his spine.
"I'm right behind you, aren't I?"
Kiyohara's voice was calm.
A large hand clamped down on the man's throat.
Crack.
His head tilted. He went limp.
Two other Anbu tried to run.
Kiyohara pulled out shuriken—premium pieces he'd won from Uchiha Tekka.
Whk—!
He threw them.
The shuriken, trailing copper wire, sliced through the air and caught up instantly. The force punched straight through their torsos.
Kiyohara hooked his finger.
The shuriken curved back. The wire snapped taut, yanking them backward.
Shk—! Flesh tore. They collapsed, barely breathing.
"Haa… I really have gotten stronger," Kiyohara murmured, looking at the scene.
Blood coated the ground, tree trunks, leaves, and bushes.
He crouched and began looting quickly.
Next time, try to keep the bodies intact, he thought, a little pained—he'd damaged a lot of decent armor.
He finished and popped a soldier pill into his mouth.
"By the timing… it should be soon."
He waited quietly for the "Willbook" to arrive.
A short while later, the familiar voice sounded right on cue.
[Please receive your last will and urn. Properly bury the remains.]
The synthetic, mechanical voice echoed in his mind.
And in his mental space, a new ashes box appeared.
Kiyohara immediately moved behind a more concealed rock and focused inward.
Next to the Steel Release Kiyohara's urn, there was now another—antique-looking, marked with the red flame-fan crest.
"A flame fan…?"
He froze.
That was the Uchiha clan crest.
The flame fan looked like a paddle at first glance, but it was a fan—symbolizing those who wield fire.
So Uchiha were not only born with strong Yin affinity, they also had a high chance of possessing Fire nature.
Their Fire Release was famous across the world.
Sure enough, the lid clicked open.
A spirit floated out—wearing Uchiha gray robes, youthful face shadowed with lingering melancholy.
His eyes were closed at first. Then his lids lifted.
A three-tomoe Sharingan—crimson and eerie.
"Looks like I've got plenty of neighbors," Uchiha Kiyohara said, glancing at the row of ashes boxes beside him.
Each box meant Kiyohara had inherited another future.
"Lucky me," Kiyohara said.
This was the snowball effect. As long as he survived the weak early stage, his strength would roll bigger and bigger.
Aside from a few dangerous plot nodes, his long-term survival odds were actually high.
"So… I'm the Uchiha version of you?" Kiyohara tested.
"Yes." The spirit nodded.
"Even with the Sharingan… I still couldn't save the person I wanted to save."
There was regret in his voice.
"Who were you trying to save?" Kiyohara asked.
"Not a character from any plot. Just a nobody," Uchiha Kiyohara sighed.
He'd become an Uchiha—an "of love" clan.
If anything, the Uchiha were even more emotionally intense than the Senju.
But emotions that rich could spiral out of control and turn extreme.
After becoming Uchiha, he'd been affected by that tide too.
And still… he couldn't save the one person he wanted.
"So your wish is for me to save them?" Kiyohara asked.
"No." Uchiha Kiyohara shook his head.
"My wish is for you to master medical ninjutsu. Only if you can heal with your own hands can you prevent tragedies like that."
His tone carried unmistakable bitterness.
"But I don't have Yang nature. I only have Lightning, Fire, and Yin."
Kiyohara's eyes lit up.
Fire—exactly what he was missing.
And the other two would further enhance his Lightning and Yin aptitudes.
"I already know medical ninjutsu," Kiyohara replied. "Not extremely advanced, but I learned a lot from Rin and Tsunade."
Uchiha Kiyohara seemed to pause, clearly not expecting that.
"You even got close to Tsunade? Guess you're more capable than I was." He shook his head with a wry smile.
"Show me."
Kiyohara scanned the area and saw one Mist Anbu still barely breathing.
He walked over and placed a hand on the shredded flesh of the man's back. Green light bloomed.
The healing chakra knit tissue together.
The Mist Anbu—Kojirō—weakly opened his eyes, confused by what he was seeing.
From his perspective: Kiyohara suddenly hid… then suddenly reappeared… then started healing him.
"You see? I do know it," Kiyohara said. He didn't bother reacting to the man's stare.
Even with this help, death was guaranteed—this was only partial healing.
"Alright. I'll verify," Uchiha Kiyohara said.
After a moment, he nodded.
"…You didn't lie. You can use medical ninjutsu. That means the first wish is complete."
A light formed within him.
Kiyohara felt a surge of delight.
As his skill set grew more complete, he'd likely run into more futures whose wishes he could "auto-complete" immediately—accelerating inheritance drastically.
While the light hovered, Uchiha Kiyohara added,
"My second wish is for you to defeat Uchiha Itachi— the traitor who slaughtered his own people and betrayed the clan!"
Kiyohara's gaze sharpened.
Itachi… Of course. The Uchiha future couldn't avoid that core tragedy.
Even during the Fourth Ninja War, not a single Uchiha was revived by Edo Tensei.
Logically, so many nobodies were brought back—why not a single Uchiha?
Yet it happened: none.
If the whole clan had been revived, Itachi would've been buried in questions before he ever got near Sasuke.
And those accusations were weight he couldn't carry.
Fugaku might've "approved" his son's actions, but that didn't mean the rest of the clan would.
They had normal lives—families, parents, children, spouses…
And Itachi killed them all.
"No problem. I'll do it," Kiyohara said, nodding.
Defeating Itachi wasn't hard.
How old was Itachi right now?
Once Kiyohara returned, he could find a pretext and challenge him directly.
"Good."
Uchiha Kiyohara finally relaxed.
If the future-self refused, there'd be nothing he could do.
The light then flew into Kiyohara's body.
Boom.
It felt like a barrier in his mind shattered.
His eyes burned slightly—hot, sore—then cleared with an unprecedented sharpness.
When he opened his eyes again, the world had changed.
Not brighter colors—but a flood of information, detail, and processing speed.
He could see the tiniest tremble of distant leaves and predict the arc of their next sway.
He could make out the minute texture of stone, the precise movements of insects' legs.
Even dust motes drifting through air became trackable.
Most importantly—dynamic vision.
The Mist Anbu's hand seals and water techniques from moments ago now felt full of openings and readable paths.
It was like his world had switched from "smooth 360p" to "crisp 1080p."
At the same time, his chakra pool surged noticeably, and his channels felt slightly wider, flowing more smoothly.
His reflexes felt freshly tempered, neural delay reduced.
"So this is… the Sharingan?" Kiyohara murmured, feeling the strange perspective of a tomoe turning in his pupil.
He didn't shut it off—he tried to adapt, savoring the new perception.
Like a child learning to walk.
Like early humans discovering fire.
He felt better than ever.
"How many tomoe?" he muttered, raising a kunai to use the metal as a mirror.
One tomoe rotated in his eye.
"One tomoe… So I'll need to complete the second wish for full inheritance," he thought.
But even one tomoe already brought a huge upgrade.
His genjutsu weakness had improved again.
His dynamic vision would support higher movement speed and better long-range accuracy.
It was a full-spectrum boost.
"If I get a Senju bloodline next… could I jump straight to Mangekyō?" he wondered.
Obito used Hashirama cells to mimic Eternal Mangekyō effects—spamming Kamui for years without going blind.
Kakashi used it a few times and was already complaining his vision was fading.
The gap was Hashirama's cells.
"Anyway—now I need to catch up to Kakashi."
Shk—!
Kiyohara drove his blade into the Mist Anbu's back.
The Anbu's eyes widened in confused disbelief—heal him, then immediately kill him?
Too late. He couldn't even ask.
Once the man finally died, Kiyohara sprinted forward.
Along the way, he continued adjusting to the Sharingan.
"And my chakra pool can actually support the Sharingan," he thought, still running with it active—without Kakashi's constant "chakra anemia" feeling.
~~~
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