A spark flashed in Kiyohara's eyes, and the fog in his mind seemed to split cleanly down the middle. In a world where a single mistake could cost a life, having a jōnin's help at the critical moment wasn't a luxury, it was the kind of advantage that could drag someone back from the edge of death.
"Then we don't have time to waste," he said, already moving.
He slipped back into the room and, under the rogue-nin Kiyohara's wary, puzzled gaze, took out a blank scroll and a brush. The gesture was calm and deliberate, like he was preparing for study rather than survival.
The rogue-nin eyed him. "What are you trying to do now? Studying hard at the last minute? Hoping there's some top-student version of your future waiting for you?"
"No," Kiyohara replied, tone flat with practicality. "That's too much trouble. I only got one ninjutsu from you. If you teach me face-to-face, I won't be able to learn many. But if we record them… I can keep learning them indefinitely."
He spoke as if it were obvious, because it was. If a future version of himself could be summoned, then each one could write down everything he knew. One scroll today, another tomorrow, and over time it would become an entire archive: a private, expanding library of techniques, built from the only resource he could reliably access, himself.
If he didn't do it this way, how could he possibly squeeze the most out of what little he had?
Cutting others down for profit, that was "harvesting leeks."
But cutting yourself? Could that even count?
It was like cheating on an exam where everyone was cheating, except the answers you copied were from your own head.
The room fell quiet.
The rogue-nin's weather-beaten face shifted, surprise breaking through the exhaustion carved into his features. His past self… looked like he'd started thinking in the cold, efficient language of someone who expected the world to take everything from him and planned to take it back first.
After a brief pause, he still lowered the brush and began to write. In the end, it was his past self. Helping wasn't exactly a loss.
He dictated another ninjutsu, and the ink had barely dried when he suddenly froze, head tilting as if he'd heard something no one else could.
"What is it?" Kiyohara asked, thinking he was searching his memory.
"Someone's coming."
Even as a spirit, the man's instincts were sharp, jōnin sharp. Without senses like that, he never would've survived the shinobi world long enough to reach middle age before dying.
Kiyohara immediately set the scroll aside and swept away the traces of their work, smoothing the room back into something ordinary.
"Kiyohara!"
A voice called from outside not long after.
He opened the door and found a beautiful young woman standing there, her red eyes striking, bright as rubies, steady as if they could pin a person in place.
Kurenai Yuhi.
"Kurenai," he greeted.
She was his teammate, along with Genma Shiranui. The three of them formed a single squad.
"This is what you asked me to pick up, soldier pills," Kurenai said, holding out a small pouch.
"Thanks. I owe you," Kiyohara replied, taking it.
Kurenai's gaze lingered on him, as if weighing him. "How are your other preparations coming?"
In a few days, they would be joining members of Minato's unit for a classified mission, classified to the point that even now they didn't know what they were being sent to do. The only thing they'd been told was the destination: Kannabi Bridge.
Reconnaissance? An attack? They wouldn't learn the truth until the day they left, when the jōnin leading them finally chose to speak.
"Pretty much done," Kiyohara said with a small nod.
There wasn't much he needed to bring. The only thing that mattered was the urn holding the rogue-nin Kiyohara's ashes. If things went wrong, and in war they always did, then "a future me" might be the last thread keeping him alive.
Kurenai exhaled softly, the kind of breath that carried more weight than it should've. "I really wish this war would end."
At her age, she still wore her uniform neatly, still moved with the crispness of someone trained to believe in order and purpose, but worry sat between her brows like a permanent shadow. The war had become a ceiling over everyone's life, an endless, low cloud that never broke.
Being a shinobi was dangerous even in peace. In war, it stopped being a profession and became a countdown.
"It won't last much longer," Kiyohara said.
War, at its core, was collective violence, force used to reach political, economic, or social ends. A shinobi world war was no different. The Second Shinobi World War's wounds had healed just enough for nations to convince themselves they could afford to bleed again.
This time, though, everyone would lose.
Konoha would be hollowed out, pushed until even children would be sent to the front.
Kumogakure would lose the Sandaime Raikage, the pride they leaned on like an unbreakable pillar.
Kirigakure's Sanbi would die alongside Rin Nohara.
Iwagakure and Sunagakure wouldn't escape either; their ranks would be thinned until there wasn't enough new blood to replace what was gone.
And if the Five Great Nations could be dragged down like that, the smaller countries would be crushed outright. The clearest example was the Rain Country, so thoroughly infiltrated it was practically a sieve.
Kurenai's expression tightened. "When you say 'not much longer'… how long is that?"
"A few years," Kiyohara answered. "When there's no one left to fight, the war ends. That's all it ever takes."
It sounded like a cruel joke, but reality didn't care how it sounded.
Kurenai's voice came out strained. "Then won't that mean… our comrades die?"
"I think we should be worrying about ourselves," Kiyohara said, shaking his head.
"But Minato-sama will be there too," she insisted, the way so many people did, placing their faith in a name, in a legend, like reputation could stop a blade. "So it should be fine, right?"
"On the battlefield, anyone can die," Kiyohara said, making sure she heard him. "Don't get careless, Kurenai."
Even Sasuke's Six Tomoe Rinnegan could be ruined by something as simple as a kunai. In the shinobi world, no one had the right to say they wouldn't die.
Kurenai fell silent for a moment, then nodded. "Alright. I'll be careful."
She turned to leave.
Kiyohara watched her go, eyes lingering on her back a little longer than necessary. Not because he didn't trust her strength, but because war didn't care how strong you were, only whether you survived the moment that decided everything.
Behind him, the rogue-nin Kiyohara's spirit had been watching the entire exchange.
Inside the urn, he would have no five senses, no awareness of the world. But when he drifted out, he could observe like any lingering soul.
Kiyohara turned. "How's your genjutsu?"
The techniques the rogue-nin had passed on so far were all ninjutsu, useful, direct, the kind of thing that kept you alive by hitting first and hitting hard.
"Awful," the rogue-nin admitted without pride.
"Yeah… that tracks," Kiyohara muttered, thinking it through. Unless the future produced something like a "Kurama Kiyohara" or an "Uchiha Kiyohara," his genjutsu talent was never going to climb to anything terrifying.
This rotten world preached bloodline supremacy in everything it touched.
"Alright," Kiyohara said, setting the brush back in his hand. "Let's keep going."
Once Kurenai was gone, he pulled the scroll and ink out again and continued recording ninjutsu from the rogue-nin. It was the only path he had. Without strength, he couldn't earn merit. Without merit, he couldn't gain new jutsu.
Konoha had already built a dead loop for ordinary shinobi.
Over the next several days, Kiyohara trained at home without pause.
When he tested himself, the difference was undeniable: his progress in Fūton ("Wind Release") and Raiton ("Lightning Release") had sped up dramatically. Understanding that used to take him ages now came faster, sharper, like something inside him had finally aligned.
So this was what it felt like when things stacked.
He almost wanted to laugh from how much he loved it.
In the courtyard, Kiyohara formed the Wu and Chen hand seals. Then he brought his palms together and slapped them sharply, focus narrowing until the world seemed to tighten around his breathing. He gathered Fūton ("Wind Release") chakra into his palm and compressed it, forcing the pressure denser and denser as if he were packing a storm into a single point.
Whoosh!
A half-transparent gale burst forward from his hand and slammed into a tree stump. The impact carved a deep groove into the wood, leaving scars that looked freshly cut.
"Haa…" Kiyohara exhaled hard, already starting to pant.
There was no getting around it. Even the rogue-nin Kiyohara's chakra reserves hadn't been impressive, barely enough to be called "one card" worth, in blunt terms. If an elite jōnin like Kakashi was the standard, then the rogue-nin, who had only recently reached the level of an ordinary jōnin before dying, couldn't compare.
And Kiyohara right now was only a genin.
Even with the fusion boosting him somewhat, it still wasn't enough. His body felt like it ran dry too quickly, like he couldn't afford to waste even a breath.
"A shinobi's fight is a fight of chakra," he murmured, rubbing his chin as he looked at the mark on the stump.
Until he fulfilled the rogue-nin Kiyohara's second wish, every drop had to be counted.
The next day, while he was still training, Minato Namikaze called him out. When Kiyohara arrived, Obito, Kakashi, Rin Nohara, and the others were already there, waiting.
End of Chapter