Kiyohara stood silently in the freezing rain. Within the vast expanse of his mental space, the spiritual body of the Iwa ninja had completely dissolved into blinding specks of light, and raw, genetic power surged into his physical body like a tidal wave.
He could analyze the biological mutations in real-time.
His baseline spiritual energy was skyrocketing. The three-dimensional range of his sensory perception expanded significantly, and his microscopic neurological processing speed seemed to have quickened by a fraction of a millisecond.
His genetic affinities for Earth and Yang attributes stacked flawlessly upon his existing mutations.
His natural resonance with Earth Release was vastly, permanently enhanced. Simultaneously, the Yang Release chakra representing raw biological vitality within his coils became terrifyingly active.
Along with this mutation, his baseline physical energy spiked. Kiyohara could literally feel his muscle fibers subtly tearing and reorganizing to handle vastly higher kinetic loads. His bone density increased exponentially, and the cardiovascular functions of his internal organs became fundamentally stronger and more resilient than before.
'My chakra capacity has expanded again,' Kiyohara calculated clinically.
It had now reached a staggering level of roughly 4.4 Kakashis. In terms of raw chakra volume alone, Kiyohara could confidently be classified as an elite powerhouse among Jonin.
If his baseline genetics continued to forcefully mutate and stack with every Urn inheritance like this, his chakra volume might theoretically one day rival or exceed that of the Progenitor of Chakra, Kaguya Ōtsutsuki.
Of course, it was entirely too early to rely on apocalyptic hypotheticals.
'I wonder what timeline the next ghost will originate from,' Kiyohara sighed inwardly, violently pulling his attention back to the current, lethal situation in the canyon.
Every single micro-enhancement in his combat strength increased his mathematical odds of surviving the meat grinder of the Third Great Ninja War. And more importantly, it provided him with the raw firepower required to protect himself and Rin against Madara Uchiha's impending psychological torture plot.
Immediately, Kiyohara looked up through the rain.
Shennong, wearing his torn yellow medical coat, was steadily closing the distance toward Orochimaru.
Kiyohara's heart rate remained cold, but he was entirely vigilant.
This specific antagonist from the Bonds movie timeline was canonically infamous for possessing the biological anomaly to infinitely open the Eight Inner Gates without suffering the lethal, cellular necrosis side effects.
In the future timeline of the movie, Shennong was only easily defeated because Sasuke Uchiha used the Sharingan to microscopically analyze the unnatural chakra flow inside his body, and used pinpoint Chidori Senbon needles to violently sever Shennong's chakra pathways in advance. Therefore, Shennong's ultimate technique could not be deployed at all, ending the apocalyptic fight abruptly.
Kiyohara glanced at Orochimaru, then at Kurenai and Genma.
It was safe to assume that absolutely no one in their current squad possessed the surgical, ocular precision required for that specific counter-tactic.
At this moment, Shennong's lean, terrifyingly powerful muscles gleamed strangely in the gray rain.
He took a deep, shuddering breath and formed several highly complex, forbidden hand seals.
"Forbidden Jutsu: Body Revival Technique!"
In an instant, Shennong's physical biology began to violently, horrifyingly mutate.
His muscles expanded and reorganized at a speed visible to the naked eye, his skin twitched as if hundreds of parasites were squirming beneath it, and massive, blackened veins bulged under his flesh like coiled serpents.
His kinetic aura skyrocketed instantly, and his chakra fluctuations became violently, oppressively dangerous.
Orochimaru's pale expression turned entirely solemn. "I truly didn't expect you to have completed the Body Activation research to this extreme extent."
Decades ago, before the destruction of the Land of the Sky, Orochimaru and Shennong had formally collaborated in secret laboratories. Orochimaru had acquired several foundational, regenerative forbidden jutsu from the Sky leader, which provided massive inspiration for his own immortality research. It was just that their later ideological cooperation wasn't pleasant, and their respective paranoia led to violent disagreements.
"I have to sincerely thank you for the foundational experimental data you left behind in the ruins back then, Orochimaru," Shennong's voice dropped to a deep, resonant, unnatural octave.
"Now... let me clinically demonstrate the absolute, ultimate in physical human strength."
BOOM!
The bedrock beneath Shennong's feet violently exploded into dust, and his muscular figure vanished instantly.
Orochimaru's hands blurred through seals almost simultaneously. "Summoning: Rashōmon!"
A massive, towering steel gate bearing a horrifying demonic face erupted violently from the mud, completely blocking Shennong's supersonic path of impact.
However, in the exact next millisecond, Shennong had already responded.
"Eight Gates! Sixth Gate of Joy: OPEN!"
A massive aura of blazing green, vaporized sweat erupted violently from Shennong's body. His physical speed surged again, breaking the sound barrier, and he threw a devastating, unadorned straight punch directly at the demonic steel gate.
BANG!
The impossibly heavy, fortified Rashōmon was physically, violently punched completely through!
Amidst flying steel shrapnel and splinters, Shennong broke effortlessly through the legendary defense and charged straight for the Sannin's throat.
A hint of genuine, profound surprise flashed in Orochimaru's slitted eyes. His spine instantly dislocated, and his body twisted backward with the impossible flexibility of a water snake, barely avoiding having his head punched off his shoulders.
At the exact same time, a massive swarm of thick, highly venomous vipers lunged aggressively from his sleeves, tightly entangling Shennong's muscular limbs.
"Hidden Shadow Many Snake Hands!"
"Pathetic!" Shennong roared.
The blazing green steam on Shennong's body jolted violently. The sheer kinetic shockwave of his flexing muscles instantly shattered all the venomous snakes into bloody minced meat.
He instantly pivoted, planting his foot and throwing a rapid-fire series of devastating punches at the retreating Sannin. Each individual strike created a deafening sonic boom, and the heavy curtain of rain was literally torn into a localized vacuum by the sheer aerodynamic friction of his fists.
Orochimaru contorted wildly through the deadly shadows of the punches, his pale hands quickly forming a sequence of lethal seals.
"Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!"
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"
The gale-force wind violently fed oxygen to the flames, creating a massive, roaring inferno that lunged directly at Shennong.
Faced with such an apocalyptic, S-Rank combination ninjutsu, any ordinary elite Jonin would either desperately dodge or cast a massive Water defensive wall.
But Shennong performed an absolutely astonishing, psychotic action.
He charged directly, head-first into the center of the roaring fireball, completely ignoring the thousands of degrees of thermal heat!
The dense green steam emanating from his open Gates collided violently with the flames, making a horrific sizzling sound as the fire was physically repelled by his chakra pressure.
Shennong burst out the other side of the inferno. His yellow coat was entirely incinerated, but his bare skin was only slightly red with first-degree burns—which instantly healed back to their normal state at a visible rate.
'What utterly impossible cellular recovery power...' Orochimaru narrowed his eyes, analyzing the biology.
"It's not over yet, snake!"
Immediately upon landing, Shennong lunged upward again. This time, highly compressed, glowing air currents gathered violently on his fists due to his extreme speed.
"Morning Peacock!"
Countless flaming, supersonic fist shadows ignited the air friction, turning into hundreds of localized fireballs. They covered absolutely all of Orochimaru's physical dodging space like a peacock violently spreading its tail.
Orochimaru was forced to instantly utilize the Substitution Technique. His true body materialized seamlessly on a thick branch thirty meters away.
The spot on the ground where he had just been standing was now a massive, smoking, molten crater five meters in diameter.
Kiyohara watched the apocalyptic duel from the flank, his heart pounding in his chest.
The pure, unadulterated kinetic power of the Sixth Gate, flawlessly combined with a biology permanently strengthened by the Body Revival forbidden jutsu, granted Shennong terrifying, near-Kage level destructive power and speed.
Kiyohara correctly guessed that the current Shennong had likely managed to synthesize and master a small fraction of the Zero-Tails' dark chakra, but definitely not the entire beast.
If he had truly mastered the beast completely, the events of the movie timeline wouldn't be physically possible; he would have conquered the world. It would take him at least another decade of research to reach that apex.
"Lord Orochimaru!" Genma yelled, gripping a kunai, wanting to step forward and provide tactical support.
Orochimaru licked his lips, an intense, fanatical light appearing in his golden eyes. He raised a hand to stop the Genin.
"Stand down. This is... fascinating. Such a flawless physical vessel is deeply worth studying in single combat."
Shennong frowned, hovering in his fighting stance.
Just as Kiyohara had clinically calculated, Shennong had indeed not fully stabilized his control over the dark chakra. After fighting Orochimaru's evasive tactics for just two minutes, Shennong could physically feel his chakra reserves burning out entirely too quickly.
The biological supply of the dark chakra was volatile and unstable, and maintaining the Sixth Gate simultaneously with the cellular reconstruction of Body Revival consumed an absolutely enormous, unsustainable amount of calories.
If he continued to fight a prolonged war of attrition against a virtually immortal monster like Orochimaru, Shennong would likely be the first to suffer cardiac arrest.
He had to end this operation instantly.
Shennong's gray gaze swept coldly across the perimeter of the battlefield and landed directly on Kiyohara.
That specific Konoha teenager had been standing perfectly still since earlier. His eyes were somewhat unfocused, as if he were currently in a deep, psychological daze.
'That's right... that kid is the one who just slaughtered Kano Rō,' Shennong's mind raced at supersonic speeds. 'He possesses the Magnet Release, and he somehow knows advanced Earth hardening jutsu. His chakra must be completely, utterly drained by now! If I kidnap him and Kano Rō's corpse simultaneously... my genetic research on body activation will inevitably achieve a flawless breakthrough!'
Shennong made his tactical decision instantly.
He feigned a devastating follow-up attack directly toward Orochimaru, but suddenly, violently pivoted mid-air. He rushed directly toward Kiyohara's flank at the absolute, limit-breaking speed of the Gate of Joy!
"Kiyohara! Watch out!" Kurenai screamed in terror.
Several massive, venomous vipers instantly shot out from Orochimaru's distant sleeves, attempting to cross the gap and intercept Shennong's trajectory.
But the blazing green steam on Shennong's body jolted violently; after the heavy snakes managed to entangle his legs, they were immediately, effortlessly torn apart by raw, muscular force.
The distance was entirely too close!
Orochimaru's brow furrowed slightly in genuine concern. The snakes he used were essentially a low-level application of the Summoning Technique; their physical serpentine bodies naturally couldn't compare to the durability of a Sixth Gate user.
"Hmph," Shennong let out a muffled grunt of triumph and, without even looking back at Orochimaru, went straight for the seemingly paralyzed teenager.
Contrary to what Shennong had calculated, Kiyohara had indeed consumed a massive amount of chakra during the previous assassination.
However... his baseline chakra was currently recovering at a rapid, terrifying rate, far exceeding his prior biological limits!
The massive influx of raw chakra Kiyohara had just permanently inherited from the Iwa Spirit, flawlessly combined with the passive cellular recovery buff brought by the Power of the White Snake, had already replenished his coils significantly.
And now, he had obtained the full inheritance of a veteran Steel Release master.
At this exact moment, Kiyohara's understanding of Steel Release was fundamentally different. He instinctively understood exactly how to achieve significantly stronger hardening effects using a fraction of the chakra. He understood the flawless, optimal flow-path of the metallic chakra within his own meridian system.
As well as the precise, surgical control methods for hardening specific, isolated parts of his body to exponentially increase the armor's density.
When Shennong broke the sound barrier and rushed directly in front of him, Kiyohara's newly enhanced neural reflexes easily processed the surprise attack.
He didn't panic. He first utilized the Konoha Body Flicker to cleanly dodge a few meters backward, but unfortunately, Shennong's sheer momentum still closed the gap instantly. With the apocalyptic kinetic enhancement of the Eight Gates, Shennong's speed was nearly inescapable.
So, focusing entirely on his chest cavity, Kiyohara flawlessly stacked the localized use of his new Steel Release perfectly underneath the cosmetic activation of Earth Release: Earth Spear.
Shennong's massive fist, radiating blazing green steam and carrying a localized sonic boom, slammed directly toward the dead center of Kiyohara's chest.
If this ungodly punch landed solidly on a normal human, even an elite defensive Jonin would have their sternum pulverized and be instantly killed on the spot.
However.
CLAAAAAANG!
The deafening, apocalyptic bang of raw kinetic force colliding with metal echoed through the canyon, making everyone's eardrums ache.
Shennong was utterly stunned.
His fist had indeed struck the boy's chest dead-on... but it felt exactly like punching a solid, immovable mountain of reinforced steel.
The horrific kinetic recoil caused a sharp, blinding pain to shatter his knuckles, while Kiyohara remained perfectly, absolutely unmoved.
The skin on Kiyohara's chest currently gleamed with a deep, impenetrable black metallic luster.
At the exact microsecond of physical contact, Kiyohara instinctively began to refine his chakra into pure magnetic force, violently rotating the power of his localized magnetic field.
The invisible magnetic field formed a secondary, kinetic layer of protection across the skin's surface, flawlessly dispersing the apocalyptic impact force evenly throughout his skeletal structure into the ground.
Shennong's full-strength, Sixth Gate blow couldn't even force Kiyohara to take a single step backward!
"This... this is impossible!" Shennong's pupils contracted in pure, unadulterated terror.
Kiyohara slowly raised his head, his black eyes completely cold, and exhaled a long breath of turbid air.
The official Konoha Bingo Book evaluates the Earth Spear technique as an elite defense capable of bouncing off all physical attacks like a diamond; when attacked, it activates instantly, projecting the illusion of an indestructible body.
But right now... Kiyohara's absolute physical density vastly exceeded that of the Earth Spear!
"Formation of Ten Thousand Snakes!"
While Shennong was completely paralyzed by shock, Orochimaru crouched low to the mud and violently spat out a literal tidal wave of thousands of venomous snakes from his mouth!
Shennong instantly felt the apocalyptic danger rushing up behind him and desperately wanted to pull back to dodge.
But it was already entirely too late.
Kiyohara's right hand shot out with blinding, lethal speed and grabbed Shennong's wrist.
That hand also gleamed with a pitch-black metallic luster, its hardened fingers gripping tight like an industrial iron pincer.
"You—!" Shennong roared, trying to violently yank his arm free.
Only to find that Kiyohara's physical grip strength was completely, impossibly staggering.
This was not just the raw muscular strength of the Earth and Yang mutations, but also the physical enhancement of the localized magnetic field's kinetic power.
At the exact microsecond he grabbed Shennong, Kiyohara had already manipulated the magnetic polarity between his hand and Shennong's body to a repulsive state, but he specifically only adjusted his own side's polarity—thus creating a one-way, inescapable "suction" effect.
Shennong physically felt like a helpless piece of iron attracted by an industrial electromagnet. The physical difficulty of breaking his wrist free had doubled exponentially.
In the next millisecond, Kiyohara's left fist had already struck out.
This counter-punch was completely unadorned. There was no flashy elemental ninjutsu, no screaming lightning, no complex techniques.
It simply condensed all of his mutated physical strength, the absolute hardness of the Steel Release, the muscle-destroying kinetic transfer of the Earth Spear, and the raw physical acceleration enhanced by the Magnetic Field Rotation into a single, flawless, devastating punch.
BANG!
The black steel fist buried itself brutally into the dead center of Shennong's abdomen.
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