An anti-air capability was something the vast majority of shinobi in the Ninja World catastrophically lacked.
If Kiyohara could flawlessly master the mechanics of unassisted aerodynamic flight, the tactical advantages would be absolute. It would grant him unparalleled superiority whether he was actively hunting down a retreating high-value target or escaping an apocalyptic Kage-level grid bombardment.
Refusing to let the momentum slide, Kiyohara focused his mind and initiated a secondary diagnostic attempt. This time, by micro-adjusting the magnetic field lines, he successfully levitated for a full five seconds at a stable height of three centimeters.
Then came the third attempt, the fourth, the fifth...
With every single grueling repetition, his biological systems adapted. His muscle memory refined the chakra loops. The duration of his anti-gravity levitation steadily extended, his stable altitude increased, and the raw chakra consumption required to maintain the electromagnetic field drastically, permanently decreased.
Kiyohara only halted his training when the chakra levels in his coils finally bottomed out, threatening physical exhaustion.
He dropped back onto the grass, panting heavily. This intoxicating sensation of systematically engineering his own evolutionary growth, brick by brick, was profoundly addictive.
Concurrently, deep within the subterranean underbelly of Konoha, hidden inside the heavily fortified Root headquarters.
Danzo Shimura sat motionless in a pitch-black study, his lone left eye staring intently at an unrolled intelligence brief under the flickering candlelight. The weak flame cast his shadow against the stone wall behind him—twisted, massive, and distinctly hideous.
"Kiyohara..." Danzo murmured, reading the clinical analysis of the eastern front. "Demonstrated exceptional mastery over Wind and Earth nature transformations. Possesses a highly evolved Magnet Release Kekkei Genkai mutation. During the defensive rout at the Land of Rain border, he physically sent a hostile Sixth Gate user flying with a single, unadorned close-quarters counter-punch..."
Danzo's regular, bony fingers tapped slowly against the wooden desk, producing a heavy, rhythmic thud that echoed in the silent room.
"That treacherous snake Orochimaru deliberately withheld the specific biometrics of this combat report from my desk," Danzo sneered coldly to himself. "He has clearly developed his own private designs for the boy."
"But... this is acceptable," Danzo's lone eye narrowed in the dark. "As long as Orochimaru requires my black-budget financial support to maintain his illegal laboratories, I hold the absolute political leverage over his career. Even if he successfully rides the wave of war to become the Fourth Hokage in the future, he will still be completely subject to my constraints."
He tossed the scroll onto the desk and looked down at the faceless Root ANBU kneeling silently on one knee before his platform.
"Maintain twenty-four-hour surveillance on Kiyohara. Focus your intelligence collection heavily on mapping his civilian social network, the people he actively contacts, and his developing political leanings toward the Hokage faction."
"Yes, Lord Danzo," the operative responded, his voice a flat, hollow drone beneath his porcelain mask.
"Furthermore, rigorously log the frequency of his private research shifts within Orochimaru's laboratory and report any data anomalies immediately."
"Understood."
The Root assassin dissolved soundlessly back into the shadows of the floorboards, leaving absolutely no trace that he had ever physically occupied the space.
Danzo closed his lone eye, cold calculations spinning through his mind. The terrifying potential Kiyohara was currently displaying on the battlefield was more than worthy of Root's total attention.
If the civilian brat could be successfully re-educated, he would serve as an absolute, peerless weapon for Root's operations. And even if his psychology proved too resilient to break, he absolutely could not be permitted to align his political loyalty entirely with Orochimaru's rising faction.
The supreme future of Konoha had to be held firmly in the hands of the right ruler—in his, Danzo Shimura's, hands.
As for Orochimaru... that brilliant, amoral fool obsessed with decoding forbidden jutsu and chasing eternal life was, ultimately, just a highly effective chess piece on Danzo's board. Once the Sannin's scientific talents had been fully milked to benefit Root's military power, Danzo would naturally deploy a method to permanently handle him.
The next morning, the cool summer sun had barely broken the horizon when Kiyohara arrived back at the Third Training Ground.
The intensive magnetic levitation experiments from the previous evening had severely burned through his chakra reserves, but after an unbroken night of deep sleep, his Yang Release vitality had already replenished his coils to seventy percent capacity.
Furthermore, Kiyohara could distinctly feel that his maximum chakra capacity had seen another minute, permanent expansion. This was the continuous, compounding physiological transformation brought by fully integrating the Iwa Spirit's genetic legacy.
The complete harmonization of spiritual intent and physical energy doesn't simply materialize overnight; it requires a prolonged, grueling biological process. Kiyohara's physical vessel was becoming incrementally denser and stronger by the day during this metamorphosis, steadily marching toward the absolute bottleneck limit of human biology once more.
Today, he planned to practice the seamless, tactical coordination of his Earth and Wind transformations. Earth Release for area-denial defense and structures; Wind Release for high-yield, armor-piercing long-range strikes and personal kinetic acceleration. Combining the two opposing elements would grant him a massive, versatile array of tactical options.
Just as his hands began to move to weave the foundational seals for an Earth Flow Wall, a soft, familiar voice drifted from the treeline behind him.
"Kiyohara. You're training this early in the morning?"
Kiyohara paused his chakra and turned smoothly.
Shisui Uchiha.
The younger prodigy still carried his signature, gentle smile, but with his heightened sensory perceptions, Kiyohara instantly detected a deep, agonizing, hidden confusion buried in the depths of the boy's eyes. More importantly, compared to their brief interaction before the coastline invasion, Shisui's raw chakra signature was more than just a single level stronger. It was violently dense.
"Shisui," Kiyohara nodded in polite greeting. "Are you here to utilize the field as well?"
"Mm... I suppose so," Shisui walked over to stand beside him, his gaze fixed distantly on the heavily charred training posts. "Lately... there have been several things within the village and the clan that I physically cannot figure out. I thought throwing myself into grueling training might quiet the noise in my head. And since I didn't want to train under the constant, suffocating watch of the clan elders... I came here."
Kiyohara analyzed the boy's psychological state. He knew exactly what catastrophic event was currently fracturing Shisui's mind, but he wisely chose not to play the lecturer, simply mirroring the conversation naturally.
"It's a reliable method. When you are forcing your body through a technique, your brain is forced to focus entirely on stabilizing the chakra flow. The rest of the world's troubles temporarily vanish."
"Yeah..." Shisui murmured softly, turning his head to look directly into Kiyohara's calm black eyes. "Kiyohara. Would you be open to a brief spar? I want to clinically test my current limits against someone of your caliber."
Kiyohara calculated the risks for a fraction of a second, before nodding calmly.
He genuinely wanted to test his newly mutated physical capabilities against an agile opponent. His last life-or-death struggle against Shennong had been entirely too brief and chaotic. Shennong was terrified of Orochimaru sniping him from the canopy, so the Sky leader had chosen to cut his losses and retreat early.
"Alright. But let's keep the output strictly within friendly parameters."
Shisui nodded seriously. In an instant, his dark eyes spun, and the lethal, blood-red Three-Tomoe Sharingan materialized flawlessly in his pupils.
The two shinobi rapidly pulled apart, establishing a clean, twenty-meter tactical distance between each other on the open grass.
"Ready?" Shisui asked, raising his right hand to form the traditional Seal of Confrontation.
"Let's begin."
The exact millisecond the final syllable left Kiyohara's lips, both prodigies vanished simultaneously.
Kiyohara's hands blurred through seals at a velocity vastly superior to his past self, his newly optimized meridian pathways guiding the chakra drops with absolute, zero-resistance efficiency. Hand speed was merely a physical byproduct; true seal execution speed was dictated entirely by a ninja's capability to channel chakra through their coils without bottlenecking.
"Earth Release: Earth Rising Spear!"
Dozens of razor-sharp, heavy rock lances erupted violently from the grass, thrusting upward directly beneath Shisui's coordinates.
But Shisui's physical figure had already smoothly evaporated from the execution zone. Before the rock spears could even pierce his afterimage, he materialized flawlessly to Kiyohara's left flank.
'What an incredibly optimized, fluid Body Flicker Technique...' Kiyohara's eyes narrowed. Shisui had grown terrifyingly stronger since their last encounter.
In the next microsecond, Shisui bypassed elemental ninjutsu entirely. He smoothly drew the customized short sword mounted on his back, executing a blinding, fluid Iaijutsu slash aimed directly at Kiyohara's neck. The steel blade was heavily enveloped in a buzzing, translucent layer of Wind-attribute chakra, its armor-piercing sharpness doubled.
Simultaneously, a massive wave of black iron sand surged violently from Kiyohara's hip thermos, transforming into dozens of jagged, high-density spikes that launched like a shotgun blast toward Shisui's chest.
Shisui was forced to instantly abort his offensive line, swinging his short sword in a brilliant, defensive defensive wheel. The wind-infused blade light formed a flawless silver curtain, violently knocking away all the incoming iron sand spikes.
But the scattered iron sand did not fall uselessly to the dirt. Riding Kiyohara's microscopic magnetic control, the particles instantly reconsolidated in mid-air behind the Uchiha, turning into heavy, fluid chains that ruthlessly wrapped around Shisui's ankles to anchor him.
"Magnet Release..." Shisui muttered, analyzing the invisible field.
He felt the terrifying evolution of Kiyohara's control. His body leaped lightly into the air, utilizing a micro-burst of chakra from his boots to cleanly evade the closing iron loop.
Hovering mid-air, Shisui's hands blurred through fire seals.
"Fire Release: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique!"
Dozens of hyper-compressed, volatile fireballs rained down toward Kiyohara from completely different aerodynamic angles, perfectly blocking all standard paths of physical evasion.
Kiyohara didn't bother wasting stamina running. He slammed his palms flat against the grass.
"Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall!"
A massive, three-meter-thick earthen rampart rose violently from the dirt, absorbing the impact of the entire fireball barrage. The flames exploded violently against the rock, kicking up a massive, blinding cloud of dust and steam.
But Shisui's offensive loop was relentless.
His figure materialized instantly atop the crest of Kiyohara's earth wall, his hands already finishing a secondary, high-yield sequence of signs.
"Fire Release: Great Dragon Fire Technique!"
A massive, roaring dragon composed of white-hot, compressed flame spewed violently from his mouth, crashing straight down over the wall to incinerate Kiyohara underneath. The raw thermal output of this single jutsu far outscaled the baseline parameters of an ordinary Jonin's fire mastery; Kiyohara could feel his hair singeing from the sheer heat radiation.
"Magnet Release: Iron Sand Giant Spear!"
Massive volumes of black iron sand soared into the sky, molding instantly into three colossal, heavy lances that rammed head-on into the descending fire dragon. The iron sand was visibly melting into molten slag under the dragon's white-hot temperature, but the physical mass of the spears successfully pierced through the core of the flame, violently dispersing the dragon's structural integrity.
Amidst the falling ash and blinding dust, Kiyohara suddenly exploded forward through the smoke.
His right fingers were fused perfectly straight like a thrusting spearhead, glinting with a deep, dull metallic luster—the localized, dense application of his Steel Release armor.
Shisui's Sharingan tracked the trajectory flawlessly, and he swung his short sword down to block the physical hand-thrust.
CLANG!
The wooden-backed short sword collided brutally with the naked human fingers, producing the distinct, ear-splitting screech of forged steel clashing against dense iron plating.
Shisui felt a monstrous kinetic force transfer through his steel blade, completely numbing the nerves in the web of his right hand.
He smoothly rode the massive kinetic recoil to vault backward thirty meters, landing gracefully on the grass. His Three-Tomoe Sharingan whirled frantically, fixed intently on the boy's undamaged black hand.
Kiyohara smoothly halted his advance, lowering his arm, and calmly stared back at the Uchiha.
Both teenage monsters stood in silence, mutually assessing the terrifying growth of the other.
'Shisui has undeniably already awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan,' Kiyohara concluded coldly. 'Otherwise, it would be impossible for his baseline neurological speed, physical strength, and visual tracking reactions to progress by this many orders of magnitude in a single month.'
In the canon lore, the only emotional trauma dense enough to cause Shisui to awaken those cursed eyes was the violent death of his close friend and rival. In the Itachi Shinden novels, Shisui confessed the dark truth to Itachi: his eyes were birthed out of the darkness hidden within his own heart. He had felt a microsecond of ugly, petty jealousy toward his brilliant friend's achievements. And though that hesitation lasted for only a split second, it had caused his friend to be slaughtered by the enemy, leaving Shisui perpetually haunted by an incurable, agonizing guilt.
Concurrently, Shisui was profoundly alarmed by the sheer speed of Kiyohara's evolution.
The boy's macro-control over his iron sand domain was already masterful, and his baseline Taijutsu efficiency had undergone an absolute, qualitative leap. Furthermore, that finger-hardening technique from just now... it felt completely different from standard rock manipulation.
"Kiyohara... that physical hardening technique just now... what exactly was it?" Shisui couldn't help but ask, sheathing his sword.
"An optimized application of Earth Release: Earth Spear," Kiyohara lied smoothly, his face an emotionless mask. "I've been intensely researching data to develop a theoretical Steel Release mutation lately, so I manually executed a few structural modifications to the chakra loop to increase the density."
He stated the lie casually, letting it float in the air.
He intended to proactively plant the public rumor of his "Steel Release research" now. That way, when he inevitably deployed the full, absolute power of the Kekkei Genkai in upcoming high-visibility campaigns, the village administration would simply assume his genius-level chakra control had successfully completed the elemental synthesis over time.
"Steel Release..." Shisui pondered the theory, his eyes widening slightly before he nodded in deep respect. He didn't pry any further into another ninja's proprietary techniques.
The blood-red Three-Tomoe Sharingan in his eyes faded away, returning to a calm, human black. "Let's conclude the spar here. If we continue to push the velocity, we won't be able to physically hold back our lethality."
Kiyohara smoothly withdrew his magnetic chakra. The iron sand slithered obediently back into the thermos, and the metallic black armor melted away from his skin.
The two teenagers walked over to the shade of a massive oak tree at the edge of the training grounds and sat down on the grass.
Shisui remained staring at his knees in heavy silence for a long moment, the cool morning breeze rustling his cloak, before he suddenly asked a raw, vulnerable question.
"Kiyohara... tell me the truth. What do you honestly think... a comrade and a bond truly represent to a shinobi?"
Kiyohara looked at the boy's depressed profile.
He now had absolute confirmation that Shisui was drowning in the initial trauma of awakening his Mangekyō.
"I don't have a sentimental answer for you," Kiyohara shook his head calmly. "But from a purely tactical and psychological perspective... I believe a comrade is simply the person you are completely, willingly prepared to entrust your blind spots to on a battlefield. And a bond... is a psychological tether that you refuse to easily cut, even when facing the absolute highest degree of logistical or existential difficulty."
Shisui lowered his head deeper into his hands, his voice dropping to a trembling whisper.
"I once possessed an exceptional friend. He was vastly more naturally talented than I was, always running three steps ahead of me on the path. And in the dark corners of my mind... I felt a petty, ugly jealousy toward his growth..."
Kiyohara didn't interrupt the confession. He simply sat there, acting as a silent, non-judgmental soundboard.
"It was my own emotional weakness that caused his execution," Shisui's voice fractured slightly with raw grief. "Thinking back on it now behind my desk... how utterly, pathetically ridiculous that jealousy truly was. If I had simply purged my ego and acted the exact microsecond the ambush triggered... he would still be alive today. We could still be training together in this clearing, working side-by-side to secure a peaceful future for the Uchiha name..."
"The past is a fixed; it cannot be physically or tactically rewritten," Kiyohara stated coldly, his voice devoid of empty sentimentality but carrying a grounded, peer-like weight. "But your future trajectory remains a choice. If your friend's consciousness is looking down from the Pure Land, he wouldn't want his sacrifice to permanently paralyze your growth. He would want you to use that guilt to ensure you never hesitate again."
The people of the Uchiha Clan were entirely, genetically cursed.
Their internal emotional spectrum was simply far too rich, volatile, and intense for human biology to safely process. To state the reality bluntly: they were structural victims of severe internal psychological friction. The more their brains struggled against cognitive dissonance and emotional trauma, the more violently their unique optic nerves mutated, forcing them to discover the absolute darkest aspects of human nature.
Shisui was arguably one of the few anomalies within his bloodline who possessed a fundamentally benevolent nature. Even after awakening the catastrophic power of the Mangekyō, his core ideology remained tethered to protecting the village. Once a radical like Obito turned, he immediately demanded that the entire global population be forcibly trapped within a collective hallucination to escape the pain.
Shisui looked deeply thoughtful, the heavy fog of guilt in his eyes clearing slightly under Kiyohara's pragmatic advice.
The two shinobi spent another half-hour casually trading technical insights regarding chakra shape transformation before parting ways to attend to their respective duties. Kiyohara could tell that the systemic instability within Shisui's heart hadn't completely dissipated, but that was outside his operational parameters.
Could the genetic, historical curse of the entire Uchiha lineage truly be resolved by a few logical words from a civilian Chunin? Not a chance.
A few more days passed in an unbroken routine.
Kiyohara's macro-control over his anti-gravity "flight" mechanics improved with every passing hour of intensive practice.
Now, he could effortlessly maintain a perfectly balanced levitated state just inches above the bedrock, navigating through the dense forest canopy for several minutes of unbroken flight.
Although his aerial maneuverability was still far too slow and rigid to be deployed in a high-velocity, multi-directional dogfight against a speed specialist, as an unexpected method of rapid terrain traversal or an emergency escape route to cleanly disengage from a Kage-level arena, the technique was firmly tracking toward combat-readiness.
His microscopic control over his chakra manipulation had been profoundly tempered under the extreme, constant neurological demands of this anti-gravity training.
This afternoon, Kiyohara stepped out of Orochimaru's primary laboratory, located at the desolate perimeter of the village. The heavy, sterile scent of industrial disinfectant and chemical reagents still clung faintly to his fabric.
He was preparing to head back to his apartment to scrub down and prepare his gear when a Konoha ANBU operative wearing a porcelain owl mask materialized completely silently from the shadows of the alleyway before him.
"Jonin Kiyohara Shin. The Hokage has issued an urgent, high-priority command summon. Report to the central Hokage Office immediately."
Kiyohara's heart rate spiked for a single microsecond before flattening back out into a cold, perfect rhythm. 'The timeline is moving.'
"Understood. Lead the way," Kiyohara replied calmly.
Just yesterday, he had officially received his administrative Jonin notification and his dark green military flak jacket from the logistics bureau. He was now an officially recognized, legal Jonin of the Hidden Leaf.
Inside the Hokage's central office, the atmosphere was suffocatingly solemn.
The Third Hokage sat heavily behind his massive desk, his brow furrowed in a deep, troubled scowl as dense wisps of blue tobacco smoke rose from his pipe.
Gathered within the room stood Orochimaru, Kurenai, Genma, and even a young, hyper-energetic Might Guy leaning against the wall.
"Kiyohara. You've arrived. Step forward," Hiruzen managed a tired nod, motioning for the boy to join the briefing circle.
"Hokage-sama. Lord Orochimaru," Kiyohara bowed respectfully, before offering a calm nod to his teammates. Guy grinned wildly, his white teeth flashing in the dim room as he gave Kiyohara a silent, intense thumbs-up of solidarity.
"We have just received confirmation of a catastrophic emergency situation on the borders," Hiruzen got straight to the point, sliding an encoded red intelligence scroll across the desk.
"Our primary Green Hill intelligence outpost, situated directly on the volatile border of the Land of Grass, was violently assaulted by an unknown, stealth-specialized force late last night. A specialized tactical unit consisting of five elite Medical Ninjas attached to the outpost was completely captured alive while executing a routine border patrol sweep."
"The definitive identity and overarching political purpose of the hostile force remain entirely unconfirmed. But their physical execution was incredibly swift, professional, and entirely secretive; the outpost guards only possessed the operational window to transmit a single, emergency distress flare before the grid went dark."
'Medical ninja captured alive on the Grass border...'
A cold, heavy dread settled deep within Kiyohara's stomach. His analytical mind instantly connected the biometric data.
In the structural doctrine of the Ninja World, due to their invaluable, rare capability to heal combat units and extend logistics, Medical Ninjas are always heavily protected within the rear lines. They only become priority targets for live capture if an enemy nation requires high-level genetic interrogation... or if a mastermind requires an innocent, fragile host to act as a Trojan Horse.
Orochimaru's raspy, smooth voice hissed from the corner of the desk.
"According to the preliminary sensory data transmitted by the surviving scouts, the assault force exclusively utilized highly advanced, silent Water Release jutsu, coordinated their vectors flawlessly, and operated with absolute black-ops training. They do not possess the chaotic signature of rogue mercenary bands or wandering bandits. It is statistically, highly probable that they are an elite infiltration cell from Kirigakure operating deep within the interior."
Listening to the clinical analysis being traded between the Sannin and the Hokage, Kiyohara's mind reached absolute, chilling clarity.
The snare had officially been sprung.
Madara Uchiha's psychological execution script had just triggered its opening act.
Nine times out of ten, Rin Nohara was currently bound in the center of that captured medical platoon.
Sure enough, the exact microsecond the thought finalized in Kiyohara's mind, Orochimaru unrolled a supplementary sheet detailing the verified names of the missing medical personnel.
Kiyohara ran his eyes down the ink.
Rin Nohara. Rank: Chunin (Medical Corps).
Their mandatory wartime mission was explicit: deploy immediately to the Land of Grass theater, execute high-speed tactical reconnaissance, locate the hidden Mist black-ops extraction cell, and violently rescue the captured medical assets before they crossed into international waters.
A few minor bureaucratic parameters had shifted compared to the original canon story due to his own interference, but the ultimate, tragic trajectory remained terrifyingly absolute.
Rin Nohara had been taken.
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Give me powerstones.
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