The terrain of the Land of Rain is completely dominated by jagged hills and suffocating, flooded swamps. With the freezing rain constant year-round, tracking a target through the mud is mathematically nearly impossible for standard Hunter-Nin.
But Orochimaru possessed his own, highly classified methods.
After traveling silently for about two hours, the Sannin suddenly stopped.
He unhinged his jaw slightly and stuck out his pale tongue. It was unnaturally long, deeply forked, and vibrated rapidly in the wet air like a serpent tasting the environment.
Orochimaru kept his eyes closed.
"I can perceive microscopic biological particles in the air through my tongue and chemically analyze their origin. This is a sensory ninjutsu I developed in recent days," he hissed softly, retracting his tongue.
"Three kilometers ahead. There are massive signs of combat. The scent of blood and marrow is fresh... no more than six hours old."
Combined with his own baseline chakra sensory abilities, Orochimaru opened his golden eyes.
"He should be resting just ahead."
The four shinobi instantly picked up the pace, blurring through the trees.
Twenty minutes later, they arrived at a patch of violently destroyed woodland.
The wreckage of three massive merchant carriages was scattered in the deep mud. The reinforced iron-clad cabins had been literally torn open by bare hands, and the cargo inside had been completely looted.
There were six corpses strewn across the ground. They were all veteran caravan guards who had died miserable, brutal deaths—some had their ribcages physically punched through, while others had their cervical spines crushed into powder.
Kiyohara squatted down to clinically examine the wounds.
The edges of the pulverized flesh were neat, implying the opponent had used some kind of high-density blunt-force weapon. Or rather... high-density limbs.
"Look here," Kurenai pointed to a trail of massive footprints pressed deep into the mud. "The tracks are incredibly deep. This means the target is either biologically very heavy, or they are currently carrying something with massive mass."
"The stolen metal ores," Genma analyzed, adjusting his senbon. "He won't be able to Body Flicker far while hauling thousands of pounds of raw iron."
Orochimaru used his tongue technique again. After a moment, he pointed a pale finger toward the northeast. "That way. Exactly five kilometers from our current position... he has completely stopped moving. He might be sleeping, or perhaps he is actively biologically absorbing the metal."
Kiyohara gripped his Tachi hilt, his heart rate remaining cold and steady.
Finally, he was about to face the target.
Kiyohara felt his luck was actually quite phenomenal.
The Iwa Spirit's dying wish required him to use his own Steel Release to successfully defeat another living Steel Release user in combat. This wasn't actually that difficult under these specific operational conditions.
Steel Release was conceptually very similar to Earth Release: Earth Spear. Because Orochimaru didn't possess the Byakugan, the Sannin couldn't microscopically see the unique flow of chakra inside Kiyohara's coils. As long as Kiyohara camouflaged his steel armor by simultaneously weaving the seals for Earth Spear, Orochimaru would simply assume the boy was using advanced Earth Release.
With the tactical backup of Orochimaru, Kurenai, and Genma to prevent any escape, Kiyohara felt this assassination was an absolute certainty.
"The tactical plan is this," Orochimaru hissed.
"Kiyohara. You will take the lead in the vanguard attack. I want to observe the physical confrontation between Magnet Release and biological hardening. Kurenai, use auditory Genjutsu to disrupt his neural reflexes. Genma, provide lethal support from the perimeter to prevent any chance of retreat. I... will oversee the situation from the canopy."
This arrangement was clearly designed by Orochimaru to clinically observe Kiyohara's raw combat strength, while simultaneously testing the newly formed squad's teamwork. Otherwise, it was certain that Orochimaru could have executed the rogue ninja alone in under ten seconds.
But in that scenario, the teenagers would only be able to watch idly. When it came to cultivating his personal subordinates, Orochimaru was never stingy with providing lethal, live-combat guidance.
Kiyohara nodded. "Understood."
The four set off again, this time suppressing their chakra signatures entirely.
The heavy, freezing rain became their best cover; the roaring sound of the monsoon masked their footsteps, and the thick curtain of water blurred all visual lines of sight.
An hour later, they located the target.
It was a crude, temporary camp built into a shallow hollow within a sheer mountain wall. The small campfire had already been extinguished by the rain, but the embers were still glowing dull red.
A massive man was sitting cross-legged beneath the rock overhang. Several heavy crates of metallic-lustered raw ore were piled haphazardly beside him.
Kano Rō. Roughly thirty years old, with military-cut hair and a hideous, jagged scar running from his brow bone down to his jawline on the right side of his face.
He was completely shirtless. His musculature was terrifyingly solid, and his skin possessed an unnatural, dull metallic sheen under the dim gray light.
At this exact moment, his bare hands were pressed flat against a massive chunk of raw ore. The ore was losing its metallic luster at a visible, chemical rate as the raw elements were rapidly absorbed directly into his biological pores.
Kiyohara made a swift tactical hand signal. Kurenai and Genma instantly dispersed to the left and right flanks.
Orochimaru quietly retreated, melting perfectly into the shadows behind a massive ancient tree. His golden vertical pupils fixed intently on the kill zone.
Kiyohara took a deep, steadying breath and stepped openly out from his hiding place.
The crunch of a boot on gravel alerted Rō.
He snapped his eyes open and coldly sized up the Konoha teenager.
"Konoha Hunter-Nin?" Rō slowly stood up to his full height. He was nearly six-foot-three, with bulging, hyper-dense muscles.
"Did that pathetic Amegakure caravan specifically commission you brats to hunt me?" Rō sneered.
Even though the Land of Rain possessed its own Hidden Village, it didn't mean wealthy civilian merchants couldn't place mercenary commissions with Konoha if they could afford the exorbitant fees.
"I'm simply interested in your biological mutation," Kiyohara said flatly, his right hand resting casually on his sword hilt.
"Interest?" Rō laughed, a deep, booming sound. A terrifying, pitch-black metallic luster rapidly began to spread across his skin like flowing liquid.
"I just came here to make some extra cash off the black market, and yet some Konoha whelp comes looking to commit suicide. Then use your life to satisfy your 'interest'!"
He moved.
He was terrifyingly fast for a man his size. His bare foot violently stomped a deep crater into the bedrock as his massive figure charged toward Kiyohara like a human artillery shell.
Kiyohara didn't arrogantly take the hit head-on; he utilized magnetic repulsion to slide gracefully to the side while his hands blurred through seals.
"Magnet Release—!"
Dense black iron sand surged violently from his thermos, transforming into countless, razor-sharp fine needles in mid-air. The swarm shot ruthlessly toward Rō's face and chest.
Rō neither dodged nor raised his arms to block, arrogantly allowing the supersonic iron needles to strike his bare torso.
CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!
A deafening, dense series of metallic clashing sounds rang out across the canyon.
The iron sand needles sparked violently against Rō's skin but entirely failed to penetrate. His skin had already hardened to a molecular level far exceeding standard military steel.
"You can use Magnet Release too?! Pity... your mass is utterly useless against me!" Rō laughed wildly and threw a devastating, wide haymaker aimed directly at Kiyohara's skull.
Kiyohara raised his Tachi to block.
The chakra-forged blade collided brutally with the metal fist, producing a piercing, ear-splitting grinding sound.
A massive, overwhelming kinetic force surged through the steel, violently shaking Kiyohara back three paces and completely numbing the webbing between his thumb and forefinger.
'What terrifying physical strength,' Kiyohara analyzed instantly.
This Iwa rogue not only possessed the Steel Release mutation but also had significant, brutal skill in heavy Taijutsu.
Rō ruthlessly pressed his advantage, launching a relentless series of follow-up attacks.
His strikes lacked any formal, elegant martial arts style, but every single punch was unimaginably heavy and lethal; a graze would shatter bones, and a direct hit to the chest would instantly liquefy organs.
Kiyohara relied entirely on his supersonic magnetic repulsion to maneuver around the giant, choosing to initiate a war of attrition using his iron sand to continuously harass the man's blind spots.
If Kiyohara were to fully engage his Magnetic Field Rotation technique, he could further enhance his own speed and kinetic strength to match the man. However, Kiyohara intentionally dragged out the fight; he wanted to clinically observe exactly how a veteran utilized Steel Release in live combat, as this biometric data would be invaluable for his own future development.
"Is this running away all you've got, brat?!" Rō mocked, smashing a missed fist directly into the bedrock, sending a shockwave of shattered stone and dust flying. "Your Magnet Release is nothing but a coward's trick!"
Kiyohara did not respond to the taunt.
The fundamental, biological weakness of Steel Release was that maintaining the molecular hardening required a continuous, massive drain on chakra reserves.
Rō had already been fighting the caravan guards earlier today, so his baseline chakra consumption must already be significant. Furthermore, he hadn't fully recovered from his metabolic absorption process.
"Kurenai!" Kiyohara shouted the operational code.
From the high perimeter, a fully prepared Kurenai immediately wove the required seals. "Demonic Illusion: Hell Viewing Technique!"
Rō's brutal movements stalled completely. A momentary, horrific daze flashed through his eyes as his brain hallucinated his worst nightmare.
Although the psychological paralysis lasted for less than a single second, it was an eternity for a speed-specialist like Kiyohara.
He lunged forward at supersonic speed, his ninja sword stabbing directly toward Rō's right pupil.
As the future inheritor of the exact same bloodline, Kiyohara knew the biological flaw: The soft tissue of the eyes cannot be transmutated without blinding the user.
Rō snapped violently out of the illusion and desperately raised his metallic right forearm to block the blade.
But the thrust was a calculated feint.
Kiyohara's left hand had already finished forming a single, lethal seal. His hand seal speed had increased exponentially over the past month.
"Lightning Release: Ground Running!"
High-voltage electrical current surged violently from Kiyohara's boots into the saturated mud, instantly crawling up Rō's legs.
Steel is a flawless conductor. And since Rō's entire biological body was currently transmutated into metal, the Lightning Release possessed a catastrophic, amplified effect on his nervous system.
Rō let out a miserable, agonizing scream, his massive body completely paralyzed by the voltage for two seconds.
Now was the time.
Kiyohara discarded his sword into the mud and clapped his hands together violently.
Massive volumes of black iron sand surged from the thermos, instantly forming thick, heavy chains that rapidly bound Rō's paralyzed limbs layer by layer, pinning him to the rock wall.
"You think you can bind me with this fragile trash?!" Rō roared furiously, his metallic muscles bulging as the iron sand chains began to creak and warp under his immense physical torque.
He struggled with all his might, and the magnetic chains actually started to crack.
But Kiyohara had already completed the next sequence of seals.
"Earth Release: Earth Rising Spear!"
Massive, razor-sharp rock spears erupted violently from the bedrock beneath Rō, stabbing upward toward his groin and abdomen.
Rō was forced to instantly divert his physical torque to defense, using his metallized legs to violently shatter the rising rock spears before they impaled him.
And with this vital distraction, the magnetic iron sand chains rapidly tightened around his torso once more.
"It's not over yet," Kiyohara took a deep, massive breath.
"Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!"
A localized, violent hurricane swept through the hollow. But the gale wasn't aimed to attack Rō directly; it was aimed to violently whip up the loose iron sand particles scattered across the entire battlefield.
The microscopic iron sand spun at blinding, supersonic speeds within the gale, forming a localized, razor-sharp tornado that completely enveloped Rō's bound body.
Inside the black vortex, millions of jagged iron sand particles collided with and ruthlessly sawed into Rō's armor at high speed. It was a literal, magnetic sandblaster.
A continuous, deafening screech of grinding metal joined into one unbroken roar, and blinding sparks flickered wildly within the black tornado.
Rō's miserable screams of agony were drowned out by the roar of the wind.
His Steel Release could effortlessly withstand a single, massive blunt-force attack, but millions of continuous, microscopic cuts placed an enormous, impossible strain on his chakra coils to maintain the hardening.
In the micro-areas where his fading chakra couldn't reinforce the armor in time, deep, jagged cracks began to appear on his metallic skin, seeping thick threads of human blood.
"AAAAAAH!"
Rō burst forth with the final dregs of his chakra. The metallic luster on his body flared intensely, turning pitch black.
With a roar of pure adrenaline, he violently flexed, physically forcing open the iron sand tornado and shattering the chains. But the price was catastrophic: his entire body was covered in thousands of fine, bleeding lacerations, and his armor was visibly flaking off.
He panted heavily, coughing blood, staring fixedly at Kiyohara with hatred.
Without saying a word, he charged again. But his physical speed was noticeably, fatally slower.
Orochimaru, observing silently from the canopy, watched Kiyohara seamlessly sequence Earth, Lightning, Wind, and Magnet Release. The Sannin felt an overwhelming, chilling sense of familiarity. This ruthless, pragmatic boy was truly a mirror image of himself.
This time, Kiyohara did not dodge the incoming charge.
He stood perfectly firm, his hands forming the Tiger seal.
To visually camouflage his actions from Orochimaru, Kiyohara deliberately manipulated his chakra to make a dark, earthy luster appear visibly on his forearms and chest.
Earth Release: Earth Spear!
But simultaneously, underneath the cosmetic Earth jutsu, Kiyohara violently activated his true genetic mutation. He layered his own Steel Release perfectly underneath his skin.
His chakra was currently being consumed at double the normal rate. But this also meant that Kiyohara's physical defense was vastly stronger than Rō's failing armor at this exact moment.
Steel Release's raw defensive power was absolute, but Earth Spear also possessed the utility of violently enhancing muscle destructive power. (Kakuzu of the Akatsuki could use Earth Spear to physically shatter reinforced fortress gates with a single punch).
Kiyohara combined both. The black, metallic luster covered his entire right fist.
Rō's desperate punch arrived. A full-force, do-or-die blow, smashing directly toward Kiyohara's chest.
Kiyohara didn't dodge or evade. He stood his ground and took the punch dead-on.
BOOM!
A deafening, concussive impact echoed through the canyon.
Kiyohara was forced to take a half-step back to absorb the kinetic shock. The heavy canvas cloak and flak jacket over his chest were instantly shredded into confetti, but the skin underneath was completely, flawlessly intact. There wasn't even a red bruise.
Rō's eyes widened to the point of tearing. He looked at his own bleeding, trembling fist in disbelief, then stared at Kiyohara's undamaged chest.
"Impossible... you... you actually know an advanced hardening jutsu?!" Rō gasped, utterly shocked.
The next millisecond, his shock morphed into panic.
If he couldn't physically take down this Konoha brat right now, it would devolve into a war of attrition. The boy had untouched perimeter backup, while Rō had no one. His chakra was empty.
He was bound to die!
He turned violently to flee into the forest, abandoning the ore.
But Kiyohara was vastly faster.
The Body Flicker activated, and Kiyohara materialized instantly behind the giant.
Kiyohara held his right fingers perfectly straight, fused tightly together like a spearhead. His fingertips were pitch-black and as dense as military-grade tungsten.
With a brutal thrust, his hand-blade pierced effortlessly into Rō's broad back. It penetrated the skin—which was currently only faintly metallized due to Rō's total chakra exhaustion—and pierced flawlessly, directly through his heart.
Rō's massive body stiffened instantly. He slowly, agonizingly looked down at the bloody, black fingers protruding from the center of his own chest.
Arterial blood gushed violently from the exit wound, but it was quickly washed away by the freezing rain.
"You..." Rō wanted to curse the boy.
Kiyohara ruthlessly withdrew his hand. Rō slowly collapsed to his knees, then fell face-first into the mud, the violent light in his eyes fading into nothingness.
"Phew..." Kiyohara immediately deactivated both Earth Spear and his Steel Release.
The chakra consumption of maintaining and stacking both abilities simultaneously was truly astronomical.
But it didn't matter. Kiyohara had successfully fulfilled his second dying wish.
He immediately looked inward, connecting with the Iwa Spirit within his mental space.
From the moment Kiyohara engaged the rogue ninja, the Iwa Spirit had been silently watching the brutal duel. At this moment, the ghost's expression was incredibly satisfied, nodding involuntarily.
'Not bad at all. Your operational progress is vastly faster than I ever calculated,' the Iwa Spirit said, genuine emotion in his voice. He had assumed Kiyohara would need years to reach this level of lethal efficiency.
'It went smoothly,' Kiyohara replied mentally. 'I got slightly lucky. Rō's chakra was already depleted from fighting the caravan guards earlier today. Furthermore, Kurenai's Genjutsu gave me the critical opening.'
'Your baseline chakra reserves are also significantly greater than mine were when I was alive,' the Iwa Spirit noted proudly. 'With you as the vessel, my Steel Release might truly have a day when its name strikes terror across the Ninja World.'
The Iwa Spirit's ghostly form became fainter and fainter.
Finally, his form dissolved entirely into countless, blinding points of light. The core light dove directly into the stone Urn within Kiyohara's mind, permanently unlocking the final seals.
The remaining wave of energy surged violently outward, permanently fusing with Kiyohara's cellular structure.
Kiyohara could feel the absolute, unadulterated power of a perfected Steel Release mutation constantly pouring into his own DNA, permanently rewriting his genetics.
As Kiyohara stood silently in the rain, adapting to the agony of the mutation, Orochimaru stepped out from behind the massive tree and began a slow, mocking clap.
"Splendid."
From Orochimaru's perspective, he obviously couldn't see the internal, spiritual inheritance taking place; he only saw Kiyohara standing victoriously over the giant's corpse, panting heavily.
But such a flawless, lethal combat performance from a newly promoted Jonin still made Orochimaru feel profoundly satisfied.
Especially since Kiyohara had seemingly mastered a restricted technique like Earth Spear. Among all B-Rank Earth jutsu, that specific hardening technique was notoriously one of the most difficult to physically master.
'Just how old is he currently?' Orochimaru thought, looking at the boy's sharp, blood-spattered face. He truly felt that the boy was terrifyingly young for this level of slaughter.
If Orochimaru were completely honest with himself, at that exact same age, he might not have fought as flawlessly as Kiyohara just did. If the boy continued to evolve at this exponential rate, his future would inevitably be apocalyptic.
"Kiyohara! What was that final jutsu you used?!" Kurenai yelled, dropping from the trees. She clearly didn't possess Orochimaru's encyclopedic experience and didn't understand the mechanics of the hardening techniques.
Suddenly, Orochimaru turned violently on his heel. His hands blurred through seals instantly.
"Hidden Shadow Snake Hands!"
A massive swarm of thick, highly venomous vipers shot violently out from his long sleeve, lunging aggressively toward a seemingly empty, dark cluster of trees twenty meters away.
Almost simultaneously, a dark, muscular shadow erupted violently from behind the tree line and threw a devastating, concussive punch!
BOOM!
The swarm of vipers was physically shattered by the sheer kinetic shockwave of the punch, snake flesh and blood raining down everywhere.
The shadow landed gracefully in the clearing. It was a man wearing a brown hood and a pale yellow medical coat.
After Orochimaru saw Shennong's face, a hint of genuine, dangerous surprise flashed in his golden eyes.
"You still dare to show your face to me, Shennong?" Orochimaru's voice turned instantly cold and lethal. "A pathetic remnant of the Land of the Sky."
"Long time no see, Orochimaru," Shennong smiled, a simple, disarming expression that didn't reach his gray eyes. "When my country was burned to ash by Konoha decades ago, you were still just a naive young man following behind the Third Hokage like a lost dog, weren't you?"
"What exactly are you doing here?" Orochimaru hissed, his chakra beginning to flare.
"Kano Rō slaughtered several of my top researchers and stole a highly classified cache of Body Activation biometrics. I came to retrieve it," Shennong stated coldly. "As for you... Orochimaru. My former scientific collaborator. Although you and I have shared highly profitable cooperation in genetic experiments over the years... the sea of blood that Konoha owes the Land of the Sky is a debt that must finally be repaid."
Shennong reached up and violently tore off his yellow medical coat, revealing a heavily scarred, terrifyingly muscular torso pulsing with dark chakra.
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