"So that means… Uchiha Madara is right under my feet."
Kiyohara thought.
The original story was pretty vague about this part.
Maybe Madara had White Zetsu haul Obito into the underground cave and then lied that Obito had "fallen down" there. Or maybe it really did happen that way, and Obito, in the Sharingan stage, had already unconsciously used part of Kamui.
"You okay, Rin… Kakashi?"
Obito, only half his body and head protruding from under the boulder, looked over with his left eye.
"Obito!"
Kakashi's pupils shrank; he rushed over and tried to push the boulder away with all his strength.
But no matter how hard he pressed, it didn't budge.
"Forget it, Kakashi. I'm done for. The whole right side of my body's crushed—I can't feel a thing."
At that, Kakashi slumped against the wall, blaming himself and pouring out his regret.
It was all his fault—it had come to this because of him.
Kiyohara watched the scene quietly from behind.
Was it moving?
Their bond was definitely deep.
But…
In Obito's heart, only Kakashi and Rin really counted as "people."
Everyone else—even those who treated him well—he'd turn on without blinking.
He'd even tried to kill his own teacher and his teacher's wife. Kushina had brought him rice balls and taken care of him when he trained, and he still ended up like that.
That was one reason Kiyohara never tried to get close to Obito.
First, there was no need. Second, he might attract Madara's attention and end up as a piece in Obito's villain origin story.
"Minato should be on his way now," Kiyohara thought.
Once Minato arrived, they could move on Kannabi Bridge together and blow it. Mission complete.
On this alone, Kiyohara figured he'd earn enough credit to be promoted and sit the chūnin selection. With a little internal screening, he'd probably be bumped up straightaway.
"Taiseki's dead?"
Kiyohara suddenly noticed a familiar form among the fallen rocks. It looked like Taiseki hadn't gotten out in time—maybe thanks to all that lime—and had his head smashed in, leaving only his body visible.
What a stroke of luck.
Kiyohara went over to loot the body.
A quick search and—paydirt.
"Nice, carrying thirty thousand on you, huh."
He found a thick wad of bills in Taiseki's pouch, which he promptly "confiscated in the name of justice" and stuffed into his own.
"Huh?"
He then spotted a jutsu scroll tucked inside.
Unrolling it, he saw a C-rank called Earth Release: Subterranean Voyage—a technique that turned solid earth and rock into a fluid medium, letting you swim underground.
"Guess he was working on this one recently but hadn't mastered it."
Kiyohara shook his head. Now it was his.
If Taiseki had actually learned Subterranean Voyage, he probably wouldn't have died in that cave-in.
Thoughts aside, Kiyohara's hands didn't stop. He packed Taiseki's Iwa flak vest, kunai, shuriken, exploding tags, and the rest into his sealing scroll.
"Kakashi, I'm going to give you my Sharingan as your jōnin promotion gift."
While Kiyohara looted, Obito was finishing his last words to Kakashi.
"Rin, use your medical ninjutsu to transplant my Sharingan—cornea and all—into Kakashi's left eye."
"Obito…"
Kakashi was speechless.
Rin rubbed her face, forcing down her grief, and said to Kakashi, "Come here. We'll start the surgery right away."
She pulled the necessary tools from her med kit.
"Here we go—hot-swap Sharingan," Kiyohara thought.
The most absurd thing in the shinobi world really was the Sharingan.
It was basically a plug-in. Didn't matter if you could "run" it—anyone could slot it in.
In reality, eyeball transplantation is extremely difficult. The optic nerve is a non-regenerating nerve bundle; to hook up a donor eye, you'd have to attach the optic nerve to the recipient's.
And that nerve has over a million individual fibers. Getting the donor's optic nerve to line up perfectly with the recipient's is like trying to re-align and weld a severed fiber-optic cable with over a million hair-thin strands—without any color coding or labels—without missing a single one.
Then there's immune rejection and blood supply to worry about on top of that.
Seeing Rin pull off an eye transplant in a cave with portable tools… Kiyohara had to admit: medical ninjutsu really was a miracle tech.
"The surrounding Iwa-nin are gathering," Rogue Kiyohara's spirit drifted back and reported.
He'd been scouting for Kiyohara the whole time.
"Got it," Kiyohara nodded lightly.
In the original story, Kakashi's team had been in exactly this situation too—practically wiped before blowing the bridge, surrounded by Iwa forces.
Only Minato's arrival had saved them.
That made Kiyohara wonder: maybe that was the real point of this mission—to lure all these Iwa troops into one place so Minato could wipe them out in a single strike.
If Minato had come himself from the start, the enemy would've bolted at first sight and turned it into a drawn-out guerrilla game.
"Just about recovered my chakra," Kiyohara thought.
Aside from the mission credit, his biggest gain this time was experience.
Rogue Kiyohara's many tricks had to be used in person to really become his skills.
Those experience and techniques were the "software."
Add in the "hardware"—fused talent from Rogue Kiyohara and doubled chakra from enhancers—and his strength had skyrocketed.
He could easily crush his past self now—he could give himself a handicap arm and still win.
"Tough little cockroaches. You're all still alive," a voice said.
Kakkō emerged from another exit, his arm already bandaged.
He looked over the group, surprised they hadn't been crushed by the collapse.
"And you—you actually used tricks that cheap on Taiseki," he added, eyeing Kiyohara.
Then his gaze dropped to Kiyohara still picking Taiseki's corpse clean, and his mouth twitched.
"Hmph. I'll deal with the white-haired brat first," Kakkō said.
Kakashi did feel different—looking closely, he realized why: the kid had a Sharingan.
A gleam of greed lit Kakkō's eyes.
If this brat could pull it off, then why couldn't he?
He raised his blades, each wrapped in white bandages at the wrists—one on each hand.
Kakashi stared back, eyes full of resolve.
"Kiyohara—let me," he said, stepping past him with his short sword raised.
He would avenge Obito.
The next moment, both figures vanished.
When they reappeared, a sharp clang rang out from the collision—
And Kakashi's short blade, heirloom of Hatake Sakumo and his constant companion, shattered.
~~~
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