Kiyohara could feel something wriggling and spreading beneath his skin.
He lowered his head and looked at the back of his right hand. Black patterns surfaced from under the skin, crisscrossing like veins.
They crawled up his arm, passed his elbow, reached his shoulder, and finally converged at his neck.
The lines flared a flame-like crimson—then cooled rapidly into a pure, matte black.
Curse Mark: Stage One!
"So this is the power of the Earth Curse Mark…?" Kiyohara murmured.
He could clearly sense his chakra reserves rising. His chakra had already been several times that of a typical jōnin—now it climbed even higher.
His muscles changed too.
The fibers grew denser, his bones gave off faint crackling sounds, even his five senses sharpened dramatically.
And he could feel it—his chakra itself had changed, infused with something foreign.
Kiyohara knew what it was…
Natural energy from the earth and the air.
At its core, the Curse Mark was a crude imitation of senjutsu—so of course it drew on natural energy.
But unlike true Sage Mode, this natural energy wasn't something he actively absorbed and balanced.
It was being passively injected through the Curse Mark as a "container."
It mixed into his chakra—but didn't fuse perfectly, like oil floating on water: coexisting for now, yet clearly separate.
"The Curse Mark is Orochimaru's clumsy imitation of senjutsu," Anbu Kiyohara's voice sounded directly inside his mind.
"It can give you power, but not real senjutsu perception or control. And if you use it long-term, your body will gradually be eroded—you'll go berserk, and eventually lose yourself."
"For a short fight, it's enough."
Kiyohara clenched his fist; his knuckles snapped with crisp pops.
He just couldn't stay cursed-sealed for too long.
And once he reached Curse Mark: Stage Two, the symptoms would ease.
More importantly, even though he couldn't actively manipulate that natural energy, it made his awareness of the surroundings insanely sharp—
air currents, soil moisture, even the faint crunch of dry leaves far away where Tsunade's group had retreated—everything was crystal clear.
His sensing ability had spiked.
Then Kiyohara's nostrils twitched.
My sense of smell got stronger too…
Kiyohara frowned.
A heightened sense of smell had downsides—like the blood stench everywhere right now.
The metallic reek of blood, the rot of corpses, damp earth, scorched fire… all of it mashed together. A normal person would've been puking already.
In Curse Mark Stage One, that experience became even more vivid.
In less than a second, Kiyohara finished transforming.
Oyashiro En stood in the Chinoike Clan, the slit pupil of his Ketsuryūgan fixed on the black markings spreading over Kiyohara's body.
"What is that technique?" he asked, suspicion in his voice.
"It's not a bloodline limit… and not ninjutsu-taijutsu either…"
But instinct didn't give him time to think.
"No matter what you do, it's meaningless before the power of the Chinoike Clan!"
En formed seals. The Chinoike Clan boiled again.
The shredded remains of the eight blood dragons Kiyohara had destroyed didn't vanish—instead they melted into thicker gore and flowed back into the pond.
Then eight massive blood blisters swelled on the surface, each one forming a new dragon inside.
But this time, En changed tactics.
"Fuse!"
He roared. The eight newly formed dragons didn't lunge at Kiyohara—instead they coiled around each other.
Gore and iron, guided by chakra, restructured themselves.
Eight barrel-thick blood dragons merged into one.
A colossal blood dragon—over three meters thick and more than twenty meters long.
It was no longer a simple liquid shape. Its surface was plated with black scales condensed from iron—each scale the size of a palm, edges sharp as blades.
Even the dragon's head had distinct features now: eyes made of dark red slurry locked onto Kiyohara, and a gaping maw filled with dense, spike-like blood fangs.
"Ketsuryūgan: Blood Dragon Ascension!"
En's face turned noticeably paler—this clearly cost a lot.
"This strike hits like eight blood dragons focusing on one point!" En barked. "Even your defense can't possibly withstand it!"
That was his answer to Kiyohara's durability.
If scattered attacks couldn't break him—then concentrate everything into a single piercing blow.
The moment En finished speaking, the giant blood dragon surged toward Kiyohara.
Its speed didn't match its size at all. The massive body snapped through the pond and became a blood-red afterimage rushing in.
The air rippled visibly under the pressure. The shockwave carved deep furrows into the ground as it passed.
Before, Kiyohara would've had to tank it—or barely dodge.
But now…
"Too slow," Kiyohara murmured.
With the Curse Mark's boosted perception and dynamic vision, the dragon's "lightning-fast" movement looked like slow motion.
And in his eyes, a third tomoe pressed into existence.
No one else was here now—Kiyohara no longer needed to hide his three-tomoe Sharingan.
And he had no intention of letting En live.
With both boosts stacked, he could see every scale, every thread of blood binding it, every droplet dripping from the fangs—he could even see the chakra nodes En used to control it.
He had time to plan.
Tank it?
No need.
The dragon's core was En's chakra and iron control—like a puppet on strings. Break the core node, and no matter how huge the body was, it would collapse.
Kiyohara pushed off—
the ground exploded under his feet.
And he charged straight at the blood dragon.
At the instant they were about to collide, Kiyohara tilted his body, tapped his feet lightly on the dragon's scales, and slid along its body like a feather skimming water.
The dragon's head swept past his back, the wind pressure shredding what little remained of his shirt.
But that was all.
Kiyohara was already sprinting up the dragon's spine, each step creating ripples across its surface—never sinking into the viscous gore.
His target was the node at the back of its neck—the densest chakra point, the control core.
"What?!" En's pupils shrank.
He had never seen anyone answer the True Blood Dragon like this.
The speed. The balance. The sheer nerve.
Before he could adjust, Kiyohara reached the node.
His hand slipped into his ninja pouch.
A "flying awl" needle—polished from Executioner's Blade fragments—long and spike-shaped.
"Magnet Release: Flying Awl."
He pinched it between two fingers and poured Magnet Release chakra into it.
Shoom!
The awl fired.
With Curse Mark power boosting him, it broke the sound barrier the instant it left his fingers. A cone-shaped sonic bloom burst behind it, while the awl itself became a thin black line flashing by.
Thk.
A soft piercing sound.
Then the entire blood dragon froze.
That enormous body of gore and iron began to shudder violently. Scales peeled away, dissolving back into thick slurry.
The moment the core node was pierced, En's control was forcibly severed.
Next, the flying awl arced in midair, turned, and—without losing momentum—shot toward En.
En's face warped.
He slashed both hands up. Three blood walls rose from the pond to block.
The first wall was pierced effortlessly—iron was absorbed into the awl, and it sped up instead.
The second wall was just as useless.
By the time the third rose, En was already retreating hard.
But the awl clung to him like a shadow. Under Magnet Release control, it curved around the wall and kept coming.
"Damn it!"
En clenched his fist. More bloodshot veins surfaced around the Ketsuryūgan.
He released a layer of blood mist. Inside that mist, the awl's speed clearly dropped, its trajectory wobbling.
But in that same instant—while the blood dragon collapsed and En split focus between walls and mist—
Kiyohara had already slipped past the dragon's wreckage and closed in from the side.
Less than ten meters.
In Curse Mark Stage One, ten meters was one step.
Repulsive force detonated under his foot. Kiyohara vanished.
En's vision flickered—and Kiyohara was at his side.
The ninjatō flashed out again, coated in deep black steel sheen, cutting toward En's throat.
No room to dodge.
En's eyes sharpened with ruthlessness. He didn't retreat—he leaned into the blade.
At the same time, he formed seals. The remaining blood in the pond surged over his body, forming a thick blood armor.
Shhk!
The blade struck the armor—cutting only halfway before sticking.
The hardness was beyond expectation. The surface even writhed, trying to wrap the blade and corrode the metal.
"Useless!" En snarled.
"Even chakra metal can't possibly—"
He stopped mid-sentence.
Because Kiyohara let go of the sword.
Then he raised his left hand, palm aimed at En's forehead.
Their distance was under half a meter.
At that range, dodging was nearly impossible for any shinobi.
"You—"
En tried to pull back, but the Chinoike Clan beneath his feet suddenly became thick and binding.
Not his doing—Kiyohara's.
Magnet Release: Sand-Iron Binding.
At some point, fine sand-iron grains had already mixed into the pond. Now, under Kiyohara's control, they locked En's feet in place.
Only for an instant.
But it was enough.
The flying awl—previously slowed by the blood walls—suddenly accelerated.
Thk.
That soft piercing sound again.
En's body jolted.
A black awl was buried dead center in his forehead, only the tail end trembling outside.
Shock spread across his face. The slit pupil in his Ketsuryūgan began to lose focus.
But the Chinoike Clan clan's vitality exceeded normal human limits.
Even with his brain pierced, En didn't die immediately.
A wet, gargling sound scraped out of his throat. His hands trembled, trying to form seals. Blood surged toward the forehead wound, attempting to repair it.
"Not… over yet…" he rasped, voice like a broken bellows.
Kiyohara's gaze went cold.
He couldn't let him recover.
The sword was still stuck in the blood armor—pulling it free would take time.
And En's armor was thickening, trying to squeeze the awl back out.
So—
Kiyohara inhaled, chest swelling as fire chakra gathered in his lungs and throat.
Fire Release: Great Dragon Fire Technique!
Three fire dragons burst from his mouth.
They slammed into the Chinoike Clan—yet the expected violent evaporation didn't happen.
Hiss…
The flames didn't instantly dry the blood. Instead, they spread across the surface and kept burning.
Fire clung to the blood and seared it—but couldn't rapidly consume the pond's total volume.
Kiyohara's Sharingan caught the anomaly immediately.
Deep in the Chinoike Clan, a special chakra current circulated.
A self-sustaining system—dispersing heat across the whole pond, while drawing moisture from underground and absorbing water vapor from the air to replenish what evaporated.
"I see…"
Kiyohara understood.
En dared to use a Chinoike Clan at this scale in a dry region because he'd already tapped an underground stream—mixing blood and water to create far more "bloodwater."
Kiyohara's gaze dropped to a point about three meters beneath En's feet.
There was a fist-sized chakra mass pulsing—stabilizing the entire pond.
Destroy that, and the pond would lose its supply and rapidly evaporate under flame.
But En realized Kiyohara had spotted it.
"Don't you dare!"
The awl in his forehead had already been pushed halfway out by blood. The wound was healing fast.
His face was paper-white—massive drain—but the Ketsuryūgan's vitality kept him in the fight.
The pond surged. Eight blood pillars rose again—but this time they didn't become dragons.
They condensed into eight enormous blood spears and stabbed toward Kiyohara.
At the same time, En retreated, widening distance while forming seals for something stronger.
No more delays.
Kiyohara wasn't wasting time.
That Great Dragon Fire had been a test—seeing what Stage One did for his output.
The boost was real, but not huge.
Which made sense: it was only Stage One, not Stage Two—and he wasn't actively feeding natural energy into it.
Next—
blue-white lightning gathered in Kiyohara's palm, electric arcs screaming.
But this time, he didn't stop there.
He tried mixing cursed-seal chakra—chakra saturated with natural energy—into Chidori's lightning chakra.
It was dangerous.
Mixing natural energy with chakra required exquisite balance. A slight mistake could collapse the technique—or backlash into his own body.
But Anbu Kiyohara was possessing him right now, and that familiarity with cursed-seal power gave him room to attempt it.
"Stabilize the natural energy ratio for me," Kiyohara said inside his mind.
"Got it," Anbu Kiyohara replied.
A calm guiding intent flowed through him.
Natural energy was led gently into the lightning chakra.
At first, the two energies repelled each other. Chidori's arcs went wild, cracking with explosive snaps.
But under Anbu Kiyohara's fine control, the natural energy was "tamed."
It didn't fuse perfectly—instead it wrapped around the lightning like a shell, forming a stable structure.
Chidori's color began to shift.
From blue-white, to deep blue, and then—
to a pure, ominous black.
Black lightning danced in Kiyohara's palm. The screeching hum dropped into a heavier, more dangerous tone.
"This is…" Even Kiyohara was surprised.
He could feel it—this black Chidori carried far more destructive power than anything he'd used before.
But it still wasn't enough.
En had already retreated to the edge of the pond. Eight blood spears were about to reach him.
Kiyohara needed range.
Chidori Sharp Spear.
A shape-transformation technique Kakashi created in the original—one Kiyohara already knew.
The black Chidori stretched and reshaped.
Lightning chakra elongated into a straight line, extending farther and farther—
Shhk!
"Sage Art: Lightning Release: Chidori Sharp Spear!" Kiyohara murmured, naming the technique on the spot.
A beam-like black lightning lance shot from his palm, piercing straight through the incoming blood spears.
En's face twisted. He threw up blood wall after blood wall.
This time, it didn't matter.
Kiyohara wasn't adapting anymore.
He was ending it.
The black spear punched through layers of blood walls like a hot knife through butter—then punched into the chakra mass beneath the pond.
A tiny pop, like a bubble bursting.
And then the whole Chinoike Clan system collapsed.
Without the core, the chakra circulation broke.
Blood separated. Water evaporated. Iron precipitated and sank.
The viscous pond thinned rapidly, becoming nothing more than ordinary bloodwater soaking into the ground.
And after destroying the core, the Chidori spear still retained half its chakra.
Kiyohara flicked his hand.
The black lightning curved—locking onto En.
For the first time, fear appeared on En's face.
His greatest foundation—the Chinoike Clan—was broken.
His forehead wound wasn't fully healed. His chakra was over half spent.
Facing that black lightning lance, he felt death.
"Can we… talk?" En shouted urgently.
He regretted it—regretted coming here, regretted provoking Kiyohara.
He never imagined Kiyohara was this strong.
"You're joking," Kiyohara said coldly.
After wasting this much of Kiyohara's time, "talk" wasn't even on the table.
"No—!"
En roared, trying to cast a last-second survival jutsu.
Too late.
The black Chidori spear sliced through the air and flashed across his waist.
En froze, looking down.
A thin black line appeared across his midsection, from left abdomen to right hip.
Then the cut opened.
Blood erupted.
His upper body slid—separating cleanly from his lower half.
Cut in two at the waist.
"Aaaagh!!!"
A shriek tore through the outpost.
En's upper body crashed into the bloodwater. His hands clawed at the ground, trying to drag his lower body back.
The Ketsuryūgan's vitality kept him from dying immediately. Blood surged from the severed surface, trying to reconnect.
But the senjutsu chakra residue left by the black lightning lance gnawed at his flesh—blocking regeneration.
Each time he tried to repair with chakra, black arcs snapped and shredded the newborn tissue.
"W-why…" En's Ketsuryūgan bulged as he stared at Kiyohara approaching.
"What power is that… it's not a bloodline limit… not normal ninjutsu…"
Kiyohara didn't answer.
He simply stood over En, looking down at the bloodline collector who'd once been so smug.
Now En was half-submerged in bloodwater, twitching violently, his face twisted with pain, rage, and deep terror.
"Answer me!"
En coughed up blood mixed with organ fragments.
Kiyohara kept his distance and watched.
Anbu Kiyohara watched too.
This version of my past self… is way stronger than I ever was, Anbu Kiyohara sighed inwardly.
"His genjutsu doesn't work on me," Kiyohara said calmly. "Without the right counter-techniques, he's a nightmare to deal with."
They spoke as if En wasn't even there.
The disrespect enraged him.
"The Chinoike Clan clan… won't end here…" En forced the words out with the last of his strength.
"My daughter… Chino… will inherit my will… she will—"
His head dropped.
His pupils unfocused.
Oyashiro En—black-market king, collector of countless bloodlines, a man who'd even coveted the Sharingan—died in a nameless medical outpost on the Land of Fire border.
Kiyohara stood in silence for over ten seconds, confirming death.
Then he fired one more jutsu into En's body.
Half the corpse rotted apart.
No reaction.
Only then did the black curse-mark patterns on Kiyohara's skin begin to fade.
Anbu Kiyohara's spirit separated from him again, floating nearby.
As the curse-mark power withdrew, a crushing wave of weakness hit.
Kiyohara could feel it: his body had taken minor damage from forcibly handling natural energy—tiny tears in muscle fibers, a burning pain along his chakra pathways.
"That's the side effect of forcing the Curse Mark," Anbu Kiyohara said.
"Figures," Kiyohara nodded.
Then he looked at Anbu Kiyohara and asked, "So that counts as finishing the first wish?"
"Of course. Honestly, I thought you'd complete the Anbu wish first. Didn't expect you to kill En first," Anbu Kiyohara said, shaking his head.
A cluster of glowing motes rose from his body.
They flowed into Kiyohara.
It felt natural—like water returning to water.
Kiyohara absorbed a portion of Anbu Kiyohara's power.
A flood of knowledge poured into his mind—Anbu infiltration, assassination, counterintelligence techniques, lessons refined through years of service.
Spycraft and counter-spycraft… makes sense, Kiyohara thought as he sifted through the new information.
This would be invaluable.
To complete the second wish, he'd have to join Anbu—so this knowledge would save him enormous time.
Then came another surge of mental energy.
Kiyohara could feel it clearly—his thinking speed increased, memory retrieval became smoother.
And the sudden rise in mental energy pulled his body along with it.
His chakra reserves increased. A bottleneck cracked open.
The chakra he'd spent earlier began to recover steadily.
My chakra is probably higher than an average Uzumaki now, Kiyohara mused, rubbing his chin.
He also felt a boost in his affinity for fire and lightning chakra.
Many Fire Release and Lightning Release techniques suddenly became clearer—if he studied now, he'd learn at half the effort.
Techniques that normally required endless repetition… now needed only a few tries to grasp.
"So this is what stacked talent feels like…"
Kiyohara clenched his fist. Lightning flickered in his palm—denser, more precise, easier to control.
And there was another change: the Curse Mark itself.
Kiyohara raised his right hand and willed it.
On the back of his hand, a black pattern appeared—three slender comma-like marks arranged in a ring.
"So this is the Curse Mark power…"
He could sense chakra being stored inside it.
Once it recovered, he could enter cursed-seal mode again.
"Right. The Curse Mark is actually very similar to the Strength of a Hundred Seal," Anbu Kiyohara said. "Except it passively absorbs natural energy for the user."
"I see…" Kiyohara nodded.
That tracked—Sasuke could enter cursed-seal mode whenever he wanted; there was never some special "condition" shown on-screen.
It was likely the requirements were already met in everyday life—so in battle it was ready to draw on instantly.
Kiyohara tested it.
Sure enough, curse-mark patterns spread across his body again.
When he released it, the patterns—and even the mark on his hand—vanished together.
"Your mark disappears too?" Kiyohara asked.
"No," Anbu Kiyohara replied, clicking his tongue in surprise as he showed his own. "Mine stays visible on the skin."
Maybe because Kiyohara had inherited it, his seal could stay hidden—only appearing when he activated it.
"And as your strength grows, the seal's stored power should grow too. Once you complete my second wish, you can try Stage Two," Anbu Kiyohara warned.
"Letting you experience Stage Two early would erode your body too much—especially since you haven't taken the Awakening Pill."
"I know," Kiyohara said, flexing his hand.
Curse Mark Stage Two was the kind of power Sasuke only gained after coming infinitely close to death.
After the Four Black Fogs Formation, a barrier sealed a person in the state they were in when it formed—injured stayed injured, alive stayed alive, but they couldn't die, trapped in a near-death stasis until the barrier was removed.
The Sound Five used that to force Sasuke's body to adapt to the seal's erosion.
That was how they gained Stage Two as well.
"I'm going to check the loot," Kiyohara said, stepping forward.
Post-battle cleanup had become his habit.
First priority: Oyashiro En's body.
Kiyohara crouched and searched his belongings.
A refined ninja pouch—standard kunai, shuriken, smoke bombs… and two custom sealing scrolls.
He opened the first.
The interior space was huge—filled with his "collection" from the Land of Fire.
Most of it was nonsense junk.
Kiyohara tossed the worthless items out and kept anything useful.
The second scroll contained information about "Oyashiro."
A city built on an offshore island—En's secret base.
That was where he kept bloodline shinobi penned up… and forced them to slaughter each other.
"Not bad."
Kiyohara stored both scrolls in his own pouch.
Even just the storage capacity was far better than the sealing scrolls he'd used before.
And that Oyashiro base was somewhere he could visit later—see if there was anything worth taking.
Next: En's eyes.
Kiyohara pulled out a preservation container.
As a medical-nin, he carried these.
And because he always carried sealing scrolls, he kept lots of miscellaneous supplies inside—finally paying off.
With a Chakra Scalpel, he carefully removed both Ketsuryūgan eyes—optic nerves and all—placed them in the container, and poured in nutrient solution.
Bringing these back to study should pay off.
If he couldn't figure them out, he could always go to Orochimaru.
Orochimaru would absolutely pay him for this.
Kiyohara could take the payment… then return as an "assistant," get more intel… a neat double-dip.
Of course, studying them himself would be best.
Then he searched the other Grass shinobi corpses.
More cash. More tools.
Each person didn't carry much, but across a dozen bodies it added up.
Finally, he went to the mud house where the red-haired woman—Uzumaki Karin—had been kept.
Inside, it was heartbreakingly bare:
A torn straw mat. A chipped clay bowl. A few washed-faded clothes in the corner.
The only "valuable" thing was a battered medical notebook on the table, filled with neat handwriting—her notes on herbs and simple treatments.
Kiyohara picked it up and flipped to the last page.
In trembling script, it read:
"Today I healed seventeen people again. So tired. My chakra is almost gone. But they said if I work a little harder, they'll give me a little more food… just hold on a bit longer…"
Kiyohara closed the notebook silently and tucked it into his clothes.
It belonged to Karin.
He would return it to her.
From that entry alone… her life had been brutal.
After finishing the cleanup, Kiyohara burned all the bodies with Fire Release to erase traces.
Then he used Earth Release to churn the ground, burying and disguising the battle marks.
By the time he finished, it was already dark.
He checked the time.
He'd gone past Tsunade's ten-minute limit.
She was probably already heading back.
Kiyohara didn't delay.
With a flicker, he sprinted toward their previous campsite.
At his speed, it wouldn't take long.
…
Five kilometers away, at the temporary camp—
"Kiyohara still isn't back. We're going to find him," Tsunade said.
It was already well past their agreed time.
Something might've happened.
As his teacher, she had to go back.
~~~
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