While Kiyohara rifled through Ao's belongings, the young Kiyohara dissolved into motes of light and drifted back into the urn inside his mind, settling beside the urn that housed the rogue-nin version of himself. For a second, Kiyohara felt something was deeply off. Naruto carried the Nine-Tails inside him; was he about to become some kind of walking funeral hall?
He shook the thought away. There were more urgent matters at hand than worrying about the décor of his inner world.
He stepped back to Ao's corpse, crouched, and drove a kunai into the man's skull with cold efficiency. Then he drew it out and wiped the blade clean. It wasn't cruelty. It was caution.
In the ninja world, the dead could still speak. There were too many strange techniques that could pry secrets from a corpse, from the shape of a wound, from lingering chakra, from the state of a brain. Kiyohara wasn't arrogant enough to leave information behind for the enemy to study.
So he went one step further. He damaged Ao's body in several places, making it harder to reconstruct the details of their duel or infer what techniques had killed him. It was a grim habit, but a useful one. Everything on a battlefield was evidence to someone.
Only after that did he begin stripping the corpse properly.
Ao's sword came first. Kiyohara lifted it with an appraising glance, weighing the balance in his hand. The blade quality was excellent, well above standard issue. A good weapon always meant money, and right now money meant survival, progress, and fewer desperate choices later.
Then came the jonin armor. He loosened the straps, peeled it off, and folded it with practiced speed. Armor from a veteran of Kirigakure would fetch a respectable price, especially if the fittings were still intact.
Finally he took the ninja pouch, loosened its cord, and spilled the contents into his palm one category at a time. That was how he'd taught himself to loot efficiently: weapons first, explosive tags second, consumables third, tools and documents last. The order mattered. A good routine saved lives.
There was a packet of specially made soldier pills inside. Kiyohara frowned and inspected them more than once before setting them aside. In one sense, pills like these were no different from forbidden drugs. They forced the body to produce more than it should, borrowing strength from tomorrow to survive today.
Later on, people like Naruto, Sasuke, and even Sakura rarely relied on this kind of thing. There was a reason for that. Anything that artificially amplified chakra always extracted a price from the flesh eventually. Still, on a battlefield, a price paid tomorrow sometimes looked preferable to dying before sunset.
He tucked the pills into a sealing scroll. Better to keep them than leave them lying around.
There were also more than twenty explosive tags, bundled carefully and sealed against moisture. Kiyohara's eyes brightened a little at that. Explosive tags weren't just weapons. They were currency, insurance, bargaining chips, and occasionally the difference between a clean retreat and a corpse left on the road.
After that came the smaller things: wire, shuriken, kunai, replacement fittings, and a compact telescope. There was also a map, oil-stained and folded many times over. Nothing astonishing, but no detail on a dead jonin should be wasted.
The entire process took less than thirty seconds. Over time, Kiyohara had built an almost mechanical rhythm for looting. Hands moved, eyes sorted, mind calculated. On a bad day, this routine meant recovering enough value to pay off debt. On a worse day, it meant collecting what your enemy had been too dead to use.
Only when he was done did he rise and begin heading back.
At the same time, in another part of the battlefield, Terumi Mei was dragging the pale-faced Ranmaru away at top speed. Her long brown hair whipped behind her, and her breathing was ragged despite the speed at which she moved.
'Don't stop, Ranmaru,' she urged. 'If you collapse now, we're finished.'
The Red Eyes bloodline was extraordinary. It could distort perception, interfere with the Byakugan, and create openings that even the Hyuga would fail to detect. Yet its power came with an obvious flaw. The strain on the user's body was severe, and Ranmaru was never built for prolonged combat or hard marching. His value was immense, but so was his fragility.
That was why Kirigakure still coveted the Byakugan. The Red Eyes could disrupt it, yes, but the Byakugan was a complete weapon. Reconnaissance, tracking, close-combat guidance, field control—it did all of that without turning its owner into a sickly child after a single hard mission.
Just as the two were about to break from the battlefield completely, a figure stepped out in front of them.
Kakashi.
He stood with a kunai in hand, body low and steady, his visible eye calm in the dim light. He looked tired, but not hesitant.
'Leave him,' Kakashi said. 'If I take down the one interfering with the Byakugan, this battle ends here.'
Terumi Mei's heart tightened. Under normal circumstances she would have welcomed the challenge. But not now. Not with Ranmaru at her side and Konoha reinforcements possibly arriving at any moment.
She did not waste words. Her lips parted and a thick, acidic stream burst forth in a violent gush. 'Lava Release: Lava Monster Technique!'
Kakashi's Sharingan spun. He caught the angle and spread of the corrosive spray in an instant, then leaped backward while snapping an explosive-tag kunai forward at the same time.
The blast erupted between them. Acid vapor, smoke, and flying debris filled the air in a bitter cloud.
Using the explosion as cover, Mei didn't press the attack. She seized Ranmaru's hand and vanished into the fog, prioritizing escape over victory. She was unwilling, but not foolish.
When the smoke thinned, Kakashi swept his sleeve over his face and peered through the residue with his Sharingan. He could still make out the two of them retreating, but they were already at the edge of his effective pursuit range. Another few seconds, and they were gone.
He stood there in silence for a moment.
Tactically, he should have chased them. The special ninja capable of interfering with the Byakugan was the key to the entire operation. Taking him down would cripple Kirigakure's ambush strategy. But tactics weren't the only thing that mattered anymore. Not after Kannabi Bridge. Not after Obito.
He closed his left eyelid, minimizing the drain of the Sharingan, and made his choice.
'The priority is the safety of my comrades.'
With that, Kakashi turned and sped back toward the main battlefield.
On the field itself, the tide of battle had already begun to shift. With Terumi Mei withdrawing, with Ao lured away, and with Ranmaru no longer supporting the interference, the remaining Kirigakure shinobi found themselves under mounting pressure. Some were killed quickly. Others scattered into the fading mist once they realized the mission had failed.
The fighting ended not with celebration, but with exhaustion.
The air was thick with the mingled smells of water, blood, damp earth, and scorched fabric. The silence that followed wasn't peaceful. It was the kind of silence that came only after people had screamed enough for the day.
Rin Nohara stood with her hands clasped near her chest, scanning the thinning fog again and again. She was safe for the moment, but safety meant little when someone else had vanished into danger.
Hyuga Nobuhiko lay nearby, his injuries stabilized after emergency treatment. Hyuga Ginka, drenched from head to toe, stood with a rigid expression and said nothing. Her earlier arrogance had been carved down by battle, uncertainty, and the humiliating realization that her Byakugan had been neutralized right in front of her.
Genma Shiranui had begun collecting senbon from the ground, wiping them clean and setting them aside with habitual thrift. Kurenai Yuhi, drained almost to the point of collapse, kept her red eyes fixed on the direction Kiyohara had gone, as if staring hard enough might drag him safely back.
Kakashi returned just in time to find them all waiting.
No one said it outright, but they were all thinking the same thing. If Kiyohara didn't come back, then this would be another name added to the list. Another comrade gone into the fog and not returned. Another grave. Another regret.
Then, at last, footsteps came through the white haze.
Rustle. Step. Rustle.
A figure emerged slowly from the dissipating mist.
Kiyohara.
He looked even more battered than when he had left. His clothes were torn in several places, dust clung to his skin, and blood stained parts of his outfit dark. His face was pale, and fatigue lingered in every line of his posture. But he was alive, intact, and walking under his own power.
'Kiyohara!' Rin's voice broke first, the tension in her shoulders collapsing in an instant. She hurried toward him, relief flooding her features. 'Are you alright? Were you hurt badly?'
'I'm fine. I won't die,' Kiyohara said, forcing a breath past his tired lungs. 'Just a little worn out.'
Kakashi walked up beside him and gave him one long, careful look. No fatal wounds. No missing limbs. No half-hidden collapse under borrowed bravado. Slowly, the stiffness in his shoulders eased.
'It's good that you're back,' he said.
Coming from Kakashi, that was practically a declaration of deep emotion.
Kiyohara understood it for what it was and let out a tired breath that was almost a laugh. In the end, the battlefield had given him exactly what it always gave: injuries, fatigue, money, suspicion, opportunities, and one more step forward bought at a price.
And somewhere inside him, beside the other urns, another future self slept in silence.
The war was not over. The danger was not gone. But tonight, at least, he had returned alive—with spoils in hand, power gained, and his place among the living firmly held.
***