"Jinchūriki?"
"Can't be certain, but the chances are high."
That was troublesome.
A Jinchūriki entering the field meant the battle's difficulty jumped an entire tier.
Tailed-beast power wasn't something ordinary shinobi could contest. Even partial transformation was enough to swing a battlefield.
"Can you tell which tailed beast?" someone asked.
Hiashi Hyūga shook his head. "Too far. The chakra signature isn't clear enough yet. But if it's Kumo's Jinchūriki, it can only be the Two-Tails or the Eight-Tails."
"Then the Fourth Raikage really has arrived," Orochimaru said with a slight nod. "Otherwise, they wouldn't mobilize two Jinchūriki at once."
"Do we change the plan?" Hiashi asked. "If it really is a Jinchūriki, this ambush might not go smoothly."
"No." Orochimaru shook his head. "They're already here."
…
Meanwhile—
"Looks like it started," Kiyohara said as his Sharingan slowly rotated, the distant scene sharpening.
A fully developed three-tomoe Sharingan could see even viruses drifting in the air. Even at two tomoe, Kiyohara could see far into the distance.
"I don't see anything," Kakashi blurted, stunned. Why isn't my Sharingan picking it up?
"Maybe my bloodline's purer," Kiyohara tossed out casually.
Kakashi immediately thought, That… makes sense. He'd inherited Obito's eye—how could it compare to someone with true Uchiha blood running through his veins?
"Should we go?" Kakashi asked.
"Not yet." Kiyohara shook his head. "There are still Kumo units out there. The best time for us to strike is after their reinforcements enter."
Taking advantage of the pause, Kiyohara used his Sharingan to study Kumo's swordsmanship and ninjutsu.
"Kumo-style kenjutsu…" he murmured, watching a Kumo jōnin slash his blade and send an arc of electricity flying.
It was probably their regional specialty—like how Uchiha sword styles often layered Fire Release over their cuts, just like Shisui.
But what Kiyohara cared about most was… Lightning Release Chakra Mode.
His own Lightning Release: Lightning Feet was essentially a leg-enhancement technique already.
"We can move." Once Kiyohara saw Kumo's support group commit, he signaled Kurenai and the others.
They sprinted across the snow, weaving through drifts until Kiyohara brought them to a closer overlook.
"So many…" Kurenai breathed.
A burst of smoke exploded on the canyon's eastern side, followed by a chain of blasts. Almost simultaneously, flames flashed on the western side.
"Three of them are coming this way," Kiyohara said, right hand resting on his sword hilt.
At some point his Sharingan had already activated—two tomoe turning steadily.
Three Kumo special jōnin were racing up the ridge, likely having detected the observation point and moving to eliminate it.
"Got it."
Both girls nodded at once. Kurenai began forming seals. Rin pulled kunai and shuriken from her pouch.
Kakashi drew a kunai too.
The three Kumo shinobi closed fast. The leader was a burly brute with a face full of meat and a feral grin.
"So it is Konoha rats… Three little brats, and you dare spy—"
His words cut off. His pupils shrank.
Kiyohara took one step—
And shot forward like an arrow.
The snow cratered under his foot. The spray of snowflakes was still hanging in the air when Kiyohara was already in the brute's face.
His blade traced a clean arc.
Too fast.
The man didn't even have time to draw—he could only arch backward on instinct as the blade skimmed past his nose, the pressure slicing his cheeks with stinging wind.
He didn't even get a chance to feel relieved.
Kiyohara's left palm pressed into his chest.
"Wind Release: Gale Palm!"
Wind chakra detonated. The brute flew like he'd been hit by a sledgehammer, snapping two dead trees before stopping. His ribcage shattered—dead on the spot.
The remaining two Kumo shinobi went pale and split apart instantly, forming seals.
"Lightning Release: Electromagnetic Murder!"
"Lightning Release: Lightning Ball!"
Blue lightning snakes raced along the snow toward Kiyohara, while the other spat a fist-sized lightning sphere to block his lateral dodges.
A textbook combo. Against an ordinary shinobi, it would've forced a deadly choice.
Kiyohara merely watched the lightning close in—
And at the moment it should have struck, his body dissolved into scattered leaves.
Leaf Body Flicker.
When?!
The two Kumo shinobi scrambled to find him.
In that split second of hesitation, Kurenai finished her seals.
"Wind Release: Minor Practice Air Bullet!"
She inhaled sharply and fired several semi-transparent wind spheres. Inside each, wind blades spun at high speed, slicing through falling snow as they tore toward the left-side enemy.
Over the past twenty-plus days, Kurenai had trained the Wind Release Kiyohara taught her—upgrading from Lesser Minor Practice Air Bullet to the full Minor Practice Air Bullet, and also learning Great Breakthrough.
The man tried to dodge, but the cutting area was too wide. One blade carved his arm—blood instantly staining his sleeve.
At the same time, Rin threw three shuriken in a triangular pattern, sealing the other enemy's escape angles. Her throwing form was solid—no matter where he dodged, he'd catch steel.
The right-side Kumo shinobi slammed his palms down.
"Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall!"
A slab of earth rose with a boom, stopping the shuriken.
Kiyohara seized the opening.
His palm turned pitch-black as he clenched a fist.
Boom!
One punch shattered the earth wall, exposing the enemy's stunned face.
What the hell… is this human?
He one-punched my Earth Release?!
The Kumo shinobi's eyes bulged.
Konoha produced another Tsunade-type monster?
He didn't get time to process it.
Kiyohara formed Fire seals and exhaled—
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu!"
A fireball over four meters wide roared out. The heat flash-vaporized nearby snow into white steam.
The fire swallowed the shinobi behind the broken wall.
Thud.
The wall melted and collapsed, revealing a charred corpse.
The last Kumo shinobi broke completely—he turned to flee.
Kiyohara didn't allow it.
"Magnet Release: Iron Sand Bind."
The gourd at his waist opened. Black iron sand poured out like a river, forming dozens of chains midair. They caught the fleeing shinobi in an instant—wrapping limbs and throat.
"Ghk—!"
The chains tightened, dragging him down, constricting harder and harder until his eyes bulged—strangled to death by iron.
Rattle, rattle…
Kiyohara gestured, and the iron sand flowed neatly back into the gourd.
If you looked closely, the dust-fine grains were darker than before—he'd coated them with a layer of Steel Release.
"Kiyohara—Minato-sensei's side looks like they're in trouble!" Rin suddenly pointed into the canyon.
Kiyohara turned. Sure enough, Kumo shinobi who'd been scattered were now rapidly regrouping—at least twenty had surrounded Minato's position.
Worse, four of them were jōnin with clearly stronger chakra signatures.
Elite jōnin.
"Prepare to support." Kiyohara's voice tightened.
"Kurenai—use genjutsu to create chaos. Rin—handle medical support. Kakashi and I cut in from the front."
"Understood!"
When they arrived, Kiyohara and Kurenai formed seals at the same time.
"Kurenai—use Wind. I'll use Fire," Kiyohara said.
Kurenai nodded and launched her strongest Wind Release.
Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!
A violently rotating gale blasted forward.
Kiyohara followed immediately—
Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu!
A massive fireball formed—over five meters across—wrapped in countless razor wind blades, turning into a roaring, cutting inferno that swept into the Kumo crowd besieging Minato!
"Water Release: Water Formation Wall!"
Three Kumo jōnin reacted instantly, forming seals together. A surging water wall erupted to block the combined technique.
BOOM!
The fire-tornado slammed into the wall. The water was instantly vaporized into scalding steam.
The steam forced its way through gaps, flipping several Kumo chūnin in the back line as they screamed.
Kiyohara immediately used Magnet Release and Leaf Flicker to accelerate—one step and he cleared over ten meters, slicing two chūnin's throats cleanly.
A Kumo special jōnin saw Kiyohara's back and flashed a vicious grin, lightning flaring around his kunai as he hurled it at Kiyohara's spine.
The kunai hit the flak jacket—
And in that same instant, Kiyohara snapped his head around like he had eyes in the back of his skull.
Two-tomoe Sharingan turning.
"Sharingan… genjutsu!"
The attacker froze—pupils gone slack, body refusing to obey.
Kiyohara had trained specifically to prevent battlefield backstabs.
He looked at the man's dull, entranced face and said calmly:
"You want to dance too?"
Before the words finished, Kiyohara slapped three explosive tags onto the man's chest, then drove a chakra-loaded kick into his abdomen.
The special jōnin shot backward like a launched stone, crashing straight into seven or eight Kumo shinobi who were forming up for a combined ninjutsu.
"Th-that—!"
"Watch out, he's tagged—!"
BOOOOM!
A towering explosion erupted. The shockwave sprayed rocks and mangled limbs outward.
The blast killed the genjutsu-locked special jōnin and left that entire Kumo unit either dead or crippled—formation shattered.
Kiyohara didn't even look at the result. He flipped his wrist, his blade flashing as he bisected another chūnin who lunged from the side, fury written across his face—man and sword cut in two.
Hiashi, who had just used Rotation to deflect a storm of shuriken, glimpsed Kiyohara cutting through enemies like he was harvesting wheat—and couldn't suppress a jolt.
The Uchiha… truly produced something terrifying again.
A complex emotion flickered through him: awe at Kiyohara's talent and battlefield brilliance, and a bitter sigh that the Hyūga's younger generation lacked someone this dazzling.
The main house had promising youths—but none who shone like this in real war.
And then, as Hiashi's attention wavered—
New figures arrived.
At the front: a mountain of muscle, dark-skinned, arms knotted with power, wrapped in crackling blue lightning—
The Fourth Raikage, A.
Beside him: Killer B in sunglasses, apparently muttering rap lyrics even now.
And also Yugito Nii—the Two-Tails Jinchūriki Kiyohara had just faced—her blond braid swaying in the wind.
"The Fourth Raikage—and Jinchūriki!" a Konoha shinobi shouted.
"Yellow Flash… been a while," the Raikage rumbled, spotting Minato.
He and B had fought Minato many times.
"Didn't expect you to ambush us."
A's brow furrowed.
This was Byakugan's terror: because Konoha had the Hyūga, they so often seized the intelligence initiative.
"You're Raikage now…" Minato said, studying A.
The last time they fought, the Third Raikage had been in charge—before dying under the siege of ten thousand Iwa shinobi.
"That's right. I'm Raikage now." A clearly had no interest in reminiscing.
Blue lightning fully engulfed him. His hair stood on end with static. The snow under him melted and flashed to steam.
In the next moment, his original spot was only a cracked crater and exploding slush—
He became a blue flash and charged straight at Orochimaru.
Minato was a nightmare to pin down; A decided to erase Orochimaru first.
"Lariat!"
His elbow, packed with monstrous Lightning chakra, tore through the air and smashed toward Orochimaru's head.
The speed was beyond what ordinary jōnin vision could track.
Orochimaru's golden slit pupils tightened. He barely managed to tilt his head—
BAM!
A heavy impact.
Orochimaru's upper body was sent flying like he'd been hit by a warhammer, punching through three massive boulders before embedding deep into the fourth.
"Orochimaru-sama!" several Konoha shinobi gasped.
But the next second, the "Orochimaru" stuck in the rock shriveled and grayed—drying like shed snakeskin.
The real Orochimaru slid out wetly from the skin's mouth, unharmed, dripping with slime as he landed lightly.
He stared at A.
"What speed."
His experiments lacked bodies this powerful.
Almost simultaneously, Killer B moved too.
He didn't fully transform, but dark-red tailed-beast chakra cloaked him.
"Yo! Minato—lemme test ya, yeah~!"
B whooped, drawing multiple swords and whipping them around like a dance.
Minato flickered—and a Rasengan bloomed in his palm, slamming into B's tailed-beast cloak.
All across the canyon, Konoha and Kumo collided again—kunai clashing, jutsu detonating, screams ripping through the snowstorm.
Kurenai and Kakashi were locked against several Kumo fighters.
Rin's hand also glowed pale blue—forming a chakra blade—as she fought alongside them.
Kiyohara glanced at Rin first, confirming the tailed beast wouldn't flare out of control—then looked to A, trading blows with Minato.
His Sharingan jittered like a trembling red wireframe, tracking chakra flow at high speed.
Lightning Release Chakra Mode…
Got it.
Kiyohara's lips lifted slightly.
Sharingan couldn't copy bloodline limits or secret clan arts.
But Lightning Release Chakra Mode wasn't in that category.
As Kiyohara "stole" the technique, a blond kunoichi lunged at him with a short blade.
Clang!
Kiyohara's sword flicked up, catching her strike.
Samui… he recognized her immediately from her straight, shoulder-length pale-blond hair.
Even though she was supposedly younger than Kakashi right now, her figure was… impossible to ignore—bigger than many adult kunoichi.
All Kiyohara could say was: gifted.
"So you're the one who killed Toroi," Samui snapped, wrenching her blade free and slashing again.
Kiyohara raised an eyebrow.
Her strength didn't match the aggressive pressure she carried.
He blocked casually—his raw force nearly knocked her short blade out of her hand.
As Kiyohara moved to capture her, a chakra mass burning with blue flame flew toward him.
Mouse Hairball!
Kiyohara swung iron sand up into an Iron Sand Wall, blocking the fireball.
Yugito.
Kiyohara frowned.
Samui tried to retreat, pulling away from Kiyohara—
Kiyohara reached out and grabbed her, one arm locking around her tight, strong waist.
"What?!" Samui's blue eyes flashed with shame and fury.
She'd never been pulled in like this during combat—especially not by a male enemy.
She could feel the strength in his arm—and the unnatural heat of his body through the cold.
Kiyohara flicked his gaze to the distance where Minato and Orochimaru were fighting A and B.
Kumo had a tradition: every Raikage had a partner.
Once an "A" became the candidate, he chose someone worthy of inheriting the "B" name—someone who amplified the Raikage's peak output and also served as his guard.
The infamous "AB Combo."
In the databook, Minato repeatedly clashed with B, and they recognized each other's power.
Which likely meant Minato's output still wasn't enough to put B down cleanly.
With the Eight-Tails behind him, B was far tankier than Minato.
And Minato, in the end, had only one real finisher—Rasengan.
Unless it struck a vital point, killing B in tailed-beast chakra mode was hard.
If the Two-Tails Jinchūriki weren't here, Kiyohara calculated, Minato and Orochimaru together could probably keep AB on the back foot.
B could "lock his HP," but that didn't mean he controlled the fight. Being a turtle that just absorbs punishment was still a style of fighting.
So…
In a flash of decision, Kiyohara's torso turned pitch-black.
Then magnetic force surged.
His black hair lifted and writhed as if it were flame.
Under the pull of his magnetic field, he reinforced his torso beneath his clothes with Steel Release.
His feet slowly rose off the ground.
In full view of everyone—A, B, the Hyūga brothers, Yugito, Kakashi, Kurenai, Rin, even the freshly "reborn" Orochimaru—
Kiyohara lifted into the sky with Samui in his grasp.
"He… he's flying?!"
"That's… Magnet Release? He can fly with Magnet Release?!"
"Captain Kiyohara!"
Shouts exploded across the battlefield.
Flight was absurdly rare in the shinobi world—outside specific summons or niche secret arts, almost no one had it.
This single move shattered both sides' understanding.
And even Orochimaru hadn't mastered flight.
"Bastard—put Samui down!" Killer B barked, agitated.
Yugito stared, furious and alarmed—Samui was a junior she valued, and now she was being taken.
"B, focus on what's in front of you. I'll handle him."
Yugito's tailed-beast cloak swelled. Her chakra tails increased to two and a half. Her speed spiked as she blasted back the Konoha shinobi entangling her and shot after Kiyohara's departing path.
She knew exactly what he was doing—drawing away combat power to reduce pressure here.
But Samui couldn't be lost.
And Yugito's desire to kill Kiyohara only grew hotter.
"Kiyohara!" Kurenai and Rin shouted together, eyes full of worry.
Luring away a powerful Jinchūriki alone was insanely dangerous.
Kakashi forced back a Kumo elite jōnin with Earth Release, looked up at the rapidly shrinking black dot, and felt a hard knot of tension.
But he believed Kiyohara wouldn't do this without a plan.
Orochimaru tilted his head up, tongue sliding across his lips.
"Heh… Not only has he pushed Magnet Release this far—he has the nerve to peel off a Jinchūriki alone… Kiyohara-kun, you keep surprising me. Still, that does reduce the pressure here."
He returned to fighting alongside Minato.
And with Yugito gone, Hiashi finally had breathing room to move and support.
…
High in the air, the wind was razor-cold.
Samui snapped out of her shock instantly. She didn't scream—she fought.
Elbow smashing into Kiyohara's ribs. Knee driving toward his lower abdomen. Wrist twisting to cut his arm with her short blade.
But Kiyohara's arm didn't budge.
Her strikes landed with dull thuds, like hitting solid steel—painful recoil shooting back into her.
"Your body…" Samui grit her teeth, suspicion flashing.
She suddenly dipped her head and bit down hard on Kiyohara's exposed forearm.
She put everything into it—even chakra.
Kink.
A faint sound like metal tapping metal.
Samui's teeth went numb with shock—she nearly felt them crack.
On Kiyohara's arm, there was only a momentary black metallic sheen that vanished in an instant.
Kiyohara glanced down at Samui—cheeks slightly flushed from exertion, hair messy—and said flatly:
"Stop wasting your strength."
He could coat the bitten spot with Steel Release at any moment.
Samui's heart lurched.
What kind of jutsu is this?
His physical defense was unbelievable.
She stopped the pointless physical struggle and switched tactics—trying to gather chakra for a heavy Lightning Release attack, even if it caught her too.
But Kiyohara seemed to read her mind.
The arm around her waist tightened slightly, disrupting her chakra gathering.
At the same time, he flew toward a hidden cave deep in the snowy mountains, far from the main battlefield.
Minutes later, Kiyohara descended at the cave mouth and dragged Samui inside.
The cave wasn't deep, but it blocked the wind. Inside were patches of dried grass and signs of animals.
Kiyohara pressed Samui down onto a relatively flat rock and stood before her, looking down.
Her blond hair was disheveled, a few strands stuck to her sweat-damp temples.
Under her white flak vest, her full curves rose and fell with fast breathing. She glared up at him—cold beauty and stubborn defiance carved into her face.
"How many did you bring this time? Besides the Raikage, Killer B, and Yugito—who are the other top fighters? What's your exact offensive plan?"
Straight to the point.
He intended to get answers before Yugito caught up.
Samui snorted and turned her head away, eyes closed, biting her tongue hard to resist genjutsu.
Kumo shinobi received strict anti-interrogation training.
Kiyohara wasn't surprised.
Ninja were stubborn.
But kunoichi… always had softer places.
He wanted to see just how "tough" she really was—how much she could endure.
Pain could sometimes help resist illusion techniques—but against the Sharingan, that "method" was… ugly and limited.
"Kumo specializes in Lightning Release," Kiyohara said slowly. "You should be familiar with what it feels like."
He forced Samui's eyes open with his fingers and drove his ocular power in.
Sharingan Genjutsu.
"Gah—!"
Samui's body spasmed violently. A strangled groan tore out of her.
Genjutsu could create sensations so real the brain accepted them as truth.
If the illusion made you feel struck by lightning, your brain would believe you were being electrocuted—and your pain would be real.
Lightning simulated by genjutsu hit Samui like a hammer. Tears burst from her eyes, and her muscles convulsed uncontrollably.
~~~
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