"You… you're not caught in my genjutsu?"
The Iwa chūnin kept checking with his senses—he had definitely injected Yin Release chakra into Kiyohara and triggered the illusion.
So how was he standing there like nothing happened?
Instantly broken?
No, that didn't make sense. He hadn't seen Kiyohara do any obvious counter, and his chakra flow was perfectly calm.
"There's a lot you don't understand," Rogue Kiyohara said, smiling as he controlled Kiyohara's body.
In the next instant, he pulled a kunai from the tool pouch and rushed the chūnin.
He moved so fast that before the Iwa shinobi could react, he was already crashing to the ground. A bloodline opened across his throat as he stared up at Kiyohara.
Even dying, he couldn't understand how someone in a genin flak jacket had one-shot a chūnin.
A jōnin fishing for kills in disguise?
He didn't get to think much more. Blood loss turned his vision black, and he went still.
Body Flicker.
"So fast… That Body Flicker…" Kurenai watched Kiyohara all but vanish and reappear, knowing it was just speed so high it turned into an optical illusion.
"Kurenai, use what genjutsu you have left to lock down the other chūnin," Kiyohara said.
Back in control of his body, he crouched and dragged the corpse into the bushes. The blood smell hadn't spread far yet—they needed to remove the other chūnin on guard. Once he was down, even if the two genin noticed something, they'd be much easier to deal with.
"Got it."
Kurenai nodded, slipping along with him.
Because they'd dealt with the first chūnin so quickly, the second hadn't reacted at all. By the time he realized something was wrong, he was staring at a dark-haired woman with curled bangs casting a genjutsu.
"Demonic Illusion: Hell Viewing Technique!"
Hands flashing through seals, Kurenai unleashed her signature jutsu.
"Aaaahhh!"
The scar-faced Iwa chūnin screamed, staring in terror at the illusion in front of him.
He saw his own comrade die right before his eyes—and he couldn't do anything. Couldn't stop it, couldn't change it. The day he lost his closest friend, the day his bonds were torn away—that was the deepest pain of his life.
"He's caught," Kurenai exhaled.
Hell Viewing drags out a person's deepest fears, shattering their reason and freezing them in place.
While the chūnin stood there trembling, Kiyohara's shuriken was already in flight.
Schk.
It punched through his neck, spraying blood.
When you kill a man, he dies.
If Kiyohara didn't kill them, they would kill him. These people were planning to cut through Grass straight into the Land of Fire—in other words, invaders.
So when he moved, he didn't hesitate. After so long in the shinobi world, he was getting used to the air here.
"Enemy attack! Enemy attack! Both Captains are dead!"
The remaining two genin finally spotted Kiyohara and Kurenai.
"Earth Release: Earth Flow Spears!"
One of them flew through hand seals; the ground rose up into a long, mud-like spear and fired at Kiyohara.
On the right, the other did the same.
Two earthen spears shot toward him.
"Lightning Release: Electromagnetic Murder!"
Kiyohara flashed through seals; a band of pale blue lightning exploded just above the ground in front of him.
Crackle!
The lightning easily unraveled both earth spears.
"Damn it, he's a Lightning Release ninja," Ōtanikawa's face darkened.
Chakra natures countered one another.
And Earth loses to Lightning.
They were at a natural disadvantage.
"Demonic—"
Kurenai was already seizing the moment, ready to release another illusion.
"Retreat!" Ōtanikawa barked to his partner.
The two of them bolted into the bamboo and sprinted away without looking back.
"Kurenai, don't chase," Kiyohara said, stopping her mid-seal.
"We're just letting them go?" she asked, puzzled.
Kiyohara clearly still had chakra to spare. Why hadn't he taken the shot—and why stop her?
"Our job is to draw Iwa's attention, not wipe them out," he said.
Even if they killed another one or two, it wouldn't change the strategic picture here. Better to let them run and report—more Iwa shinobi would focus on them, which meant the mission would be a success.
With Rogue Kiyohara around, he wasn't afraid of ambushes. He was starting to fully appreciate just how busted Dan Katō's Spirit Transformation Technique really was. The enemy couldn't even see where the soul came from, or how it entered the body it was about to kill. Top-tier intel gathering and assassination rolled into one.
The only weakness was that when Dan's spirit left his body, his real body was defenseless.
Kiyohara didn't have that issue.
Rogue Kiyohara could drift as he pleased without putting Kiyohara's flesh at risk.
"I see," Kurenai nodded.
So that was it. As expected of the captain—he hadn't gone blood-red in the fight, and knew when to stop.
"Alright, time to split the loo—uh, I mean, tally the supplies," Kiyohara said.
This was an outpost, so they kept some rations here. Those, they couldn't take—sealing scroll capacity was limited; you couldn't pack everything.
But ninja tools and armor didn't take much space and could be stored up.
Soon, Genma, still outside, saw the two Iwa genin sprinting off in the opposite direction and out of his kill zone.
"Come on out, Genma," Kiyohara called as he lifted his shirt and took a sealing scroll from inside. "I only had you watch that route in case we didn't finish off the chūnin and they bolted. Two genin running away is fine."
He started sealing items into the scroll.
"Don't be shy—take some," Kiyohara said.
"Uh…"
Only then did Genma realize Kiyohara had basically planned to leave the chūnin to him if things went south.
"Kiyohara, you brought a sealing scroll?" Kurenai asked, surprised.
Most ninja didn't carry them routinely; a standard tool pouch was enough for day-to-day missions. A sealing scroll added bulk. With chainmail liners and flak vests designed for light movement, nobody wanted to strap on extra weight like the old Warring States armor.
"If I don't bring a sealing scroll, isn't all this going to waste?" Kiyohara said, as if it were obvious.
He still had a pile of debt on his back—seven hundred thousand ryō total: a hundred thousand already in Tsunade's hands, and most of the remaining six hundred spent on herbs. What little was left had gone into essential tools, gear for brewing forbidden meds… and this sealing scroll.
~~~
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