In the future, Dust Release is basically a lost art in Iwagakure.
The only person who can still use it is Onoki's clone, Onoki Kū.
In this era, though, only Onoki himself can use Dust Release.
I wonder if my Sharingan can see through Dust Release, Kiyohara thought.
The Sharingan can only copy ordinary ninjutsu. It cannot copy bloodline limits, and naturally it would have an even harder time copying a kekkei tōta built from three chakra natures.
But Kiyohara could feel that the ocular power of his Sharingan far surpassed that of the overwhelming majority of Uchiha.
Even if he couldn't copy Dust Release outright, he should at least be able to gain some insight into how three chakra natures fuse together, which would speed up his own development of it.
And the power of Dust Release was enough to break matter down to the atomic level.
Among techniques below Six Paths tier, it was basically the ultimate offensive method.
Even S-rank techniques like Wind Release: Rasenshuriken and Deidara's C4 Garuda only destroy on the level of cells or nanoscopic structures.
Kitsuchi's body went limp and dropped to the ground—first to his knees, then his shoulder, then the rest of him collapsed flat, like an empty shell with its soul gone.
Kiyohara looked down at him.
"On second thought, I'll keep Kitsuchi alive and see what kind of price Iwagakure is willing to pay."
Kiyohara shook his head.
The value of the Tsuchikage's son as a prisoner was obviously enormous.
Especially since Kitsuchi was this talented. In the eyes of Iwagakure's shinobi, he had every chance of becoming the Fourth Tsuchikage.
After all, nobody could have predicted that the Third Tsuchikage, Onoki, would live for so absurdly long, only stepping down much later and handing the title to the younger Kurotsuchi.
Just as Kiyohara pulled out sealing tags inscribed with sealing formulas from his ninja pouch, he heard the sound of rushing wind behind him.
Several figures landed behind him.
It was Natsu Hyuga, along with a few other Hyuga clan shinobi.
They all stared at the scene in front of them in shock.
Kitsuchi lay on the ground, his left arm twisted at an extreme angle, blood soaking half his body and staining the rocks beneath him red.
And Kiyohara stood there, preparing to seal him.
"K-Kiyohara-kun…"
Natsu's voice came out dry.
She rubbed her eyes instinctively, making sure she wasn't seeing things.
The man on the ground… was that Kitsuchi?
The Tsuchikage's son from Iwagakure?
He lost… just like that?
Kiyohara turned and looked at her.
His face was as handsome and calm as ever, as if he had merely swatted a rat.
Natsu stood there, staring at his back.
Back then, Kiyohara hadn't been nearly this strong.
And it had only been a few years.
Natsu lowered her eyes and clenched her fist.
Was this really the gap between a genius and an ordinary person?
In the distance, Rin Nohara, Kurenai Yuhi, and Kakashi also arrived.
Rin immediately noticed Kitsuchi lying on the ground, along with that grotesquely twisted left arm.
Her steps slowed.
As a medical ninja, she had seen far too many injuries to be shaken by blood.
But the state of Kitsuchi's arm…
That had been broken purely by brute force.
How much strength would that take?
Her eyes instinctively shifted to Kiyohara.
He stood there with a few flecks of blood on his clothes.
Sensing her gaze, he turned his head slightly and gave her a small nod.
"You okay?"
Rin hurried over and looked him up and down.
"I'm fine."
Kiyohara shook his head.
"His Fist Rock couldn't even break my defense."
Only then did Rin relax, though her eyes still couldn't help drifting back to Kitsuchi's arm.
"…That fracture is really severe."
She said softly.
"Yeah."
Kiyohara nodded.
As long as it wasn't fatal, all that mattered was keeping Kitsuchi alive.
"Treat him in a bit. Just don't let him die."
Kiyohara said.
Kakashi walked over, glanced down at Kitsuchi, then at Kiyohara.
"Keeping him alive is useful?"
"Yeah."
Kiyohara nodded.
"The Tsuchikage's son is worth a lot of intelligence."
"The Iwagakure ninja around here are yours to handle."
Kiyohara said.
All he had done just now was take out the leader first—capture Kitsuchi, the head of this Iwagakure group.
There were still plenty of Iwagakure ninja rushing toward them.
Natsu froze for a second, then nodded quickly.
"Y-Yes!"
She took a deep breath, forced down the shock in her chest, then turned to the Hyuga shinobi behind her.
"Do as Kiyohara-kun said. Spread out and clean up the remaining enemies."
"Understood."
The Hyuga ninja answered and vanished in a blur.
One member of the main house didn't respond immediately—Hyuga Nobuhiko.
He gave Kiyohara one look before leaving.
"Water Release: Water Tornado!"
Rin formed hand seals and unleashed a large-scale Water Release technique.
"Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall!"
The Iwagakure ninja naturally responded with the earth techniques they specialized in.
With several of them combining their Earth Release, a massive wall of earth rose from the ground and directly blocked the dragon-like water tornado.
"Genjutsu: Sound Bind!"
The syllables spilling from Kurenai's lips spread outward, carrying invisible Yin Release chakra with them.
Several ninja trying to maintain the earth wall froze up, and the wall softened.
Seeing the opening, the Hyuga rushed in at once.
The battlefield instantly descended into chaos.
"Eight Trigrams Vacuum Wall Palm!"
Two Hyuga shinobi struck together, blasting out chakra shockwaves from their palms that dealt doubled damage to the target.
"Gentle Fist Art: Eight Trigrams Thirty-Two Palms!"
"Gentle Step Twin Lion Fists!"
The Hyuga clan shinobi all entered the fight.
Meanwhile, Kiyohara stayed at the back and finished sealing Kitsuchi.
He looked down over the field.
The shinobi he had brought were more than enough to handle these enemies.
In the distance, Kakashi was cutting down a few stragglers trying to escape.
As for the outpost farther away, Kiyohara swept it with his senses and noticed quite a few Iwagakure ninja already on their way to reinforce.
"Let's withdraw."
Kiyohara said after watching a bit and seeing that most of the Iwagakure ninja on this side had already been killed.
If they kept fighting, the Iwagakure reinforcements would arrive.
Kitsuchi's body was now covered in multiple sealing tags placed by Kiyohara, his chakra flow completely frozen.
Then Kiyohara hoisted Kitsuchi over one shoulder, preparing to take him back.
"Yes!"
Natsu let out a long breath.
A branch family member could only use Gentle Fist Art: Eight Trigrams Thirty-Two Palms at most, and even that demanded a lot of stamina.
It required delivering thirty-two strikes in the shortest possible time without pause, with each hit landing on a chakra point and driving Gentle Fist chakra into the body to cause internal injury.
"Good."
Kiyohara gave a small nod.
At the same time, he was observing the taijutsu of the Hyuga clan members.
Unfortunately, a lot of Gentle Fist required the support of the Byakugan to really function.
Outsiders could learn Gentle Fist, of course, but the power would be nowhere near what the Hyuga could produce.
On the surface, Gentle Fist looked a little abstract. Sometimes it almost felt like it would make more sense to replace the palm with a blade and invent something like "Gentle Blade Art: Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Blades."
That would actually be highly effective against enemies with hardening techniques.
Against someone like Kiyohara, with Steel Release or Earth Release hardening, it could strike directly at the internal organs.
Though Kiyohara suspected his own internal organs were extremely durable now too.
Lightning Chakra Mode strengthened cells throughout the whole body, including internal organs.
And on top of that, he had inherited the Yotsuki bloodline.
"Withdraw!"
One of the Hyuga shouted.
The whole group began pulling back.
Rin and Kurenai quickly followed behind Kiyohara.
Kakashi remained behind for a moment longer, finishing up a few loose ends.
That was the task Kiyohara had assigned him—looting the battlefield afterward.
After all, Kiyohara was now an Anbu squad captain, and Kakashi was his number one subordinate. He still had at least that much authority.
Naturally, once it was all over, Kiyohara planned to share part of the spoils with Kakashi.
…
The prisoner camp had been set up in a natural depression west of the camp, with three-meter-high earthen walls reinforced by Earth Release and sensing seals wrapped along the top.
When Kiyohara entered carrying Kitsuchi over his shoulder, Shikaku Nara was standing outside the tent talking with several intelligence division shinobi.
He heard the footsteps and looked up, his gaze landing on the blood-soaked man over Kiyohara's shoulder, his left arm twisted grotesquely and his whole body covered in sealing tags.
Shikaku's eyes widened immediately.
The more he looked, the more that man resembled… Kitsuchi.
Wasn't that Onoki's son?
Shikaku hurried over, circled Kiyohara once, repeatedly inspecting the blood-smeared face, then glanced down at the Iwagakure jonin vest Kitsuchi wore.
"This is…"
Shikaku already had a guess, but still didn't quite dare believe it.
"Kitsuchi?"
"Yeah. Went out for a bit, and the big fish jumped into the net on his own."
Kiyohara dropped the man from his shoulder and casually tossed him onto the ground.
Kitsuchi let out a muffled groan, but his eyes were still unfocused.
The Sharingan genjutsu hadn't fully faded yet.
"The Tsuchikage's son…"
Shikaku crouched, brushed some of the blood off Kitsuchi's face, and revealed features that were seven or eight parts similar to what the Third Tsuchikage Onoki must have looked like in his younger years.
He stared at that face for three full seconds, then shot back to his feet and turned to Kiyohara.
"…How did you do that?"
"He tried to crush me with Earth Release: Sandwich Technique first."
Kiyohara brushed dust off his clothes.
"I broke it with sage arts, then finished it in one punch."
"One punch?"
Shikaku instinctively looked at Kitsuchi's twisted left arm.
The forearm bone had completely dislocated at the elbow, a white shard of bone piercing through the flesh, the blood already dried into a dark brown shell.
That was the sort of injury caused by overwhelming brute force, like being hit by a truck.
One punch had brought down the Tsuchikage's son?
And ruined one of his arms in the process?
Shikaku took a deep breath.
As the strategist of the Nara clan, he had seen plenty of strong people and analyzed countless battles.
But even so, right now he felt dizzy.
Kiyohara really did not play by the rules at all.
This was how he completed a reconnaissance mission?
That wasn't how shinobi were supposed to work!
Normally, you took your team out, searched like looking for a needle in the ocean, and if you got lucky, caught a squad leader first and tortured some information out of him.
Then you followed the leads step by step, and only after that did you gradually get to more important figures.
That was how it was supposed to go.
How did Kiyohara just go out and capture the Tsuchikage's son right away?
Shikaku absolutely refused to accept it.
"In any case, he's yours now."
Kiyohara looked at Shikaku.
"How you interrogate him, or what intelligence you exchange him for, is up to you. The Torture and Interrogation Division should have arrived by now, right? They're professionals."
He paused.
"Just make sure you count my war merit generously."
Shikaku froze, then let out an incredulous laugh.
"War merit?"
He shook his head.
"Kiyohara-kun, do you understand what this means?"
He pointed at Kitsuchi on the ground.
"The Tsuchikage's only son. The single direct heir of the Third Tsuchikage Onoki's line."
"Capturing him means grabbing Iwagakure's vital point in your hand."
He paused, a sharp gleam in his eyes.
"This kind of war merit would be enough to let you, once the war ends…"
He left the sentence unfinished, but Kiyohara understood.
A great achievement like this, once the war was over, could be used for all kinds of things.
Winning positions in important departments.
Or even… the Hokage's seat.
Kiyohara raised a brow.
"Well, that sounds pretty good."
He smiled and turned toward the exit.
"Just make sure you count it generously."
When he reached the flap, he stopped and glanced back over his shoulder.
"Oh, right. I want to trade for more forbidden techniques too."
Kiyohara said.
Flying Thunder God felt extremely good in his hands.
And he was eyeing the other forbidden techniques in the Scroll of Seals pretty hard too.
Shikaku watched his back in silence for a long while.
Forbidden techniques?
This kid really did dare to think of anything.
But then again, with the war merit Kiyohara had now… it wasn't impossible to negotiate.
And Flying Thunder God itself counted as a kind of forbidden technique, with an absurdly high barrier to entry.
If it were ever passed on in the future, Shikaku guessed the only way would be to dismantle it into parts so other shinobi could learn something from it.
As for how to break it down, he had no clue.
Shikaku lowered his eyes to Kitsuchi and shook his head.
This time, Kitsuchi had really kicked an iron plate.
…
At the same time, the news was rushed back to Iwagakure as quickly as possible.
The Third Tsuchikage, Onoki, sat in his office with a freshly delivered battle report spread out in front of him.
His hand was trembling slightly.
Kitsuchi had been captured.
His only son had been taken alive by a Konoha shinobi.
That Uchiha called Kiyohara.
Again, Kiyohara.
"…Kitsuchi."
Onoki closed his eyes and clenched the edge of the battle report.
He had only this one son.
His wife had died early, and he had raised Kitsuchi himself.
Taught him ninjutsu. Taught him how to live. Taught him how to inherit Iwagakure's future.
And the Will of Stone unique to Iwagakure.
And now, Kitsuchi was in enemy hands.
What would Konoha do to him?
Interrogate him?
Torture him?
Exchange him for hostages?
Or…
He didn't dare continue the thought.
"Someone."
Onoki spoke.
A figure emerged from the shadows—an Iwagakure Anbu shinobi.
"Notify Roshi. Tell him to leave immediately."
He paused.
"Tell him that no matter what, he must bring Kitsuchi back."
The shinobi froze.
Roshi.
The Four-Tails jinchuriki.
Send out a tailed beast host personally?
"Tsuchikage-sama, this…"
"That is an order."
Onoki cut him off.
"He is my only son."
The Iwagakure shinobi fell silent.
A moment later, he bowed and disappeared back into the shadows.
Only Onoki remained in the office.
He slowly sat back down in his chair and stared at the battle report on his desk, staring at the glaring name written there.
Kiyohara.
…
Inside Konoha's main tent.
Tsunade was reading a medical report. Hearing footsteps, she looked up and saw Kiyohara pushing aside the flap and walking in.
"You're back?"
She put the report down and gave him a quick once-over.
"You're not hurt, are you?"
"No."
Kiyohara walked over and sat down beside her.
"I caught someone."
"Who?"
"Kitsuchi."
Tsunade paused.
"…The Tsuchikage's son?"
"Yeah."
She stared at him for three seconds, then suddenly broke into a bright smile full of pride and satisfaction.
"Good one, brat."
She slapped him hard on the shoulder.
"Well done."
The blow made Kiyohara's shoulder sink a little. When Tsunade was happy, her strength was never exactly gentle.
"That old Tsuchikage is probably losing his mind right now."
Tsunade pulled her hand back and crossed one leg over the other.
"He only has that one son, raised him like a treasure, and now he's in our hands…"
She narrowed her eyes, her smile deepening.
"Iwagakure's going to bleed badly this time."
Kiyohara nodded.
"Shikaku said this much merit would be enough to trade for plenty of things."
"Of course it would."
Tsunade stood and rolled her shoulders.
"We're having a proper feast tonight. I'm cooking personally."
Kiyohara's movements paused slightly.
"…You're cooking, Sensei?"
"What, looking down on me?"
Tsunade raised a brow.
"I'm a medical ninja, aren't I? My knife work is precise, my heat control is strict. Why shouldn't I be able to cook?"
Kiyohara nodded solemnly.
"Of course not. I love everything Sensei makes."
That finally satisfied her.
"Heh."
She lowered her hand, which had almost flicked his forehead.
"I'll go catch some fish."
Kiyohara stood up.
"Fresh ingredients are easier to cook with."
Tsunade looked at him suspiciously.
"You're not trying to run away, are you?"
"How could I?"
Kiyohara smiled.
"It's not every day Sensei cooks. Naturally, I want to get the best ingredients."
He pushed aside the flap and walked out.
Behind him, Tsunade called,
"Don't take too long!"
…
Three miles outside the camp ran a small river.
It wasn't wide, maybe only two or three meters across, but the water was crystal clear, and you could see the pebbles at the bottom and the fish darting around.
When Kiyohara arrived, he saw a familiar figure.
Kurenai was crouched at the riverbank, a wooden bucket in hand, bending over to scoop water into it.
The hem of her skirt had lifted slightly, exposing her pale calves.
Her long hair was loosely tied up, with a few loose strands hanging beside her neck and swaying as she bent down.
Hearing footsteps, she turned around.
The instant she saw Kiyohara, her eyes lit up.
"Kiyohara?"
She stood and brushed the water from her hands.
"What are you doing here?"
"Fishing."
Kiyohara stepped over to her side and glanced at the wooden bucket she was holding.
"Fetching water?"
"Yeah. Water's getting tight in camp, so I came out to get some."
Kurenai set the bucket down and looked at him curiously.
"When you say fishing… don't tell me you're just going to shock the fish with Lightning Release again?"
She remembered the time Kiyohara had electrocuted fish and the corner of her mouth twitched.
"That's too crude."
Kiyohara shook his head.
"I've got another method."
Kurenai became even more curious.
"Another method?"
She looked around.
"But you didn't even bring a fishing rod."
Kiyohara didn't answer.
He walked over to a drooping cherry blossom tree by the river and broke off a thin branch.
The branch was slender, no thicker than a little finger, with a few pale pink blossoms still blooming at the tip.
Then he turned to look at Kurenai.
"The fishing rod… is this cherry blossom branch."
~~~
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