Kiyohara stared at him. "You got the formula for forbidden drugs from Orochimaru?"
If that was true, then there really was a way to boost his strength in a short amount of time. The Akimichi clan were masters in that field too, except they did not call their concoctions forbidden drugs. They called them clan secret medicines, legal and legitimate.
Take the Three-Colored Pills, for example. The green pill could raise a person's power by a third, while the yellow pill could squeeze out every ounce of the user's potential. As for the final red pill, people said it could unleash strength a hundred times over.
Kiyohara thought that last part was probably exaggerated. If the Akimichi medicines were really that outrageous, their clan would have become the number one power in the ninja world a long time ago. Still, the fact that such claims even existed said enough about just how extraordinary those family formulas were.
Which was why Kiyohara was extremely curious about the forbidden drugs the rogue-nin version of himself knew.
"I picked up a few formulas," Rogue-Nin Kiyohara said.
His tone carried a trace of melancholy. "Most of them are brutal on the body."
He had gained strength far beyond that of an ordinary jonin through those things, but the price was a lifetime of medicine just to suppress the side effects. In the end, the reason he had stepped onto that explosive tag trap at all was because his illness had flared up at the worst possible moment.
"Then tell me about the ones that won't ruin me," Kiyohara said at once.
"Strictly speaking, every secret medicine does harm," the rogue-nin replied. "The only difference is whether the damage is temporary or permanent, and whether the body can recover afterward."
"Explain."
The rogue-nin glanced at him, clearly thinking, As expected of my younger self. Not even a little resistance to taking the crooked road.
Ordinary ninja became stronger through brutal training, one step at a time, walking the orthodox path. But Kiyohara was leaving for Kannabi Bridge in three days. Even if he trained until he coughed blood, all he could do was scrape off a little rust. If he wanted a shortcut, then naturally he had to use unorthodox means.
"Go apply for a loan right now," the rogue-nin said.
Kiyohara blinked. "What do I need a loan for?"
Could those medicines really be that expensive?
"If we don't even know whether we'll survive, what's the point of hanging on to money?" Rogue-Nin Kiyohara shook his head, disappointment plain in his face. "You turn it into something that raises your odds of living. That's the only sensible move."
He had learned that lesson the hard way. Back when he defected, he had run too fast and too far. Orochimaru had not given him any time to turn back and empty out his belongings. By the time he realized what he had left behind, he was already outside Konoha—and everything he owned in the village had been lawfully confiscated.
"Can ninja even get loans that easily?" Kiyohara asked.
He had never tried before. Being a ninja was already a high-risk profession; half the time you could not be sure you would be alive next month. Forget loans—even insurance would not dare touch people like them. Konoha might have refrigerators, television sets, and telephone poles, but in many ways the village still thought in an old-fashioned, stubborn way.
He had even once considered borrowing money from every Uchiha he could find right before the massacre, just so the debt would vanish the moment the clan's accounts were closed for good. Kiyohara had absolute faith in Itachi Uchiha's efficiency. He would only leave Sasuke behind.
"Borrow as much as you can," the rogue-nin urged.
There was almost savage certainty in his voice. "When you're already being sent to the battlefield, why not make a clean all-in play?"
If he died, the debt died with him. If he survived, he could slowly pay it back with future missions. The more Kiyohara thought about it, the more he had to admit the logic was airtight.
Going all in was a kind of wisdom. The problem was that very few people could actually make that choice at the right moment.
After all, no one truly knew how dangerous a mission was. A C-rank assignment could suddenly turn into a B-rank disaster. An A-rank mission might end up easier than expected because the enemy made mistakes or let down their guard. On the surface, the Kannabi Bridge mission looked safe enough that almost anyone would feel confident with Minato Namikaze involved.
And Minato would complete his part. Kiyohara knew that much. The problem was who would be forced to pay the price for that success.
Even the fastest ninja in the world could not protect everyone. And no ordinary person ever believed they would be the one who died, so naturally almost no ninja would go out and borrow a mountain of money before a mission.
Only someone like Kiyohara, someone who knew the plot ahead of time, could exploit that gap in information.
He thought it over for a long moment, then rummaged through his things and dragged out every valuable he possessed. Using all of it as collateral, he managed to borrow six hundred and fifty thousand ryō.
Any higher than that and nobody would have lent to him—not even under the kind of terms that stripped a man bare. The lenders only agreed because Kiyohara's credit in the village was decent, and because fortune happened to lean his way for once.
Even so, in their eyes, a mere genin like him had frighteningly high odds of dying. Combined with the savings he already had, Kiyohara ended up with a total of seven hundred thousand ryō in hand. It was a substantial sum.
The moment he secured the money, Kiyohara moved under the rogue-nin's guidance and began buying medicinal herbs and equipment. In Konoha, the Nara and Akimichi clans had roots sunk deep into the medicinal trade. You could even say the two clans monopolized a large part of it.
The Nara family controlled broad tracts of forest where they raised spirit deer, intelligent creatures whose antlers were prized medicinal ingredients. The Akimichi clan, meanwhile, excelled at all kinds of formulas. In the original story, even Tsunade had borrowed from Akimichi medicinal recipes, which said more than enough about their value.
And since Ino-Shika-Chō were bound together as allies with ties deeper than iron, the Nara and Akimichi clans formed an alliance no one in that line of business could ignore.
"These herbs are outrageously expensive," Kiyohara muttered.
He had only just taken out the loan, and more than half of it was gone before he even had a chance to enjoy the feeling of being rich.
"They're expensive for a reason," Rogue-Nin Kiyohara said. "These drugs keep the side effects to a minimum. If you control the dosage properly, you'll just get occasional headaches for at most three months. After that, you'll be fine."
Those were the good formulas, the sort Orochimaru had only handed over after the rogue-nin had served him for a long time.
For Orochimaru, Sasuke had always been the only treasure that truly mattered. Oddly enough, that was actually good news for Rogue-Nin Kiyohara. It meant Orochimaru would not consider him important enough to personally stab in the back.
The rogue-nin would choose a cold kunai through the chest over Orochimaru's soul-reeking hands any day.
"Three months?" Kiyohara's eyes lit up. "That's acceptable."
This wasn't some vile forbidden drug. This was obviously a miraculous elixir.
"You little brat, what exactly are you buying so many herbs for?"
The voice came from behind him. Kiyohara turned—and instantly felt two dark clouds pressing down over him, curving in a way that made the scene impossible to ignore. He estimated the scale with one glance. Very large.
Then his gaze rose higher and landed on the violet diamond mark at the center of the woman's forehead, then the long golden hair. Her identity became obvious in an instant.
Tsunade.
"Lady Tsunade," Kiyohara greeted respectfully.
Tsunade had already returned to Konoha. With the village staring down a life-or-death crisis, there was no way she could continue standing aside. On the eve of the Third Shinobi War, she had even treated Minato Namikaze after he collapsed at Training Ground Three.
Kato Dan's death had not severed every tie that bound her to the village. That much had long since been made clear.
"I bought them to refine my family's secret medicine," Kiyohara said.
He did not try to make up some excuse about a sick relative or an injured friend. That kind of story would never fool Tsunade anyway. Better to say something ordinary and leave it at that. Ninja generally did not pry too deeply into one another's private matters.
Sure enough, Tsunade did not ask any more about the herbs.
Instead, she looked toward the loan office behind him, curiosity flickering in her eyes. "Kid, I just saw you taking out a loan over there. How did you manage it?"
There was a strange urgency in her tone.
Tsunade had lost money again. Now she desperately needed fresh capital so she could claw it all back in one stunning turnaround.