"Because this is my first time taking out a loan," Kiyohara said.
He looked up at Tsunade. She wore a sleeveless top beneath a green haori that did little to hide the lush curves of her figure, and light blue capri pants that made her long, shapely legs stand out even more.
"Your first time?" Tsunade frowned ever so slightly.
Kiyohara immediately understood. Bad news. From that tiny change in expression alone, he could already tell that Tsunade's personal credit was probably beyond saving.
"Ahem." Tsunade cleared her throat and looked at him with complete seriousness. "I'm Tsunade. Lend me some money right now, and once I turn things around, I'll definitely pay you back."
"Lady Tsunade is going gambling again?" Kiyohara asked.
Everyone in the village knew Tsunade was a compulsive gambler. Her reputation had long since reached the point where people openly called her the Legendary Sucker. Kiyohara honestly felt that even if he lent her the money, she still had no chance of winning.
Stop while you still can, Tsunade. Everyone else out there is making money. You're the only one bleeding it dry.
And yet, on impulse, he still took out fifty thousand taels and handed it over to her.
"Lady Tsunade, I'm very interested in medical ninjutsu. Could you teach me a little?"
Kiyohara's eyes were steady as he asked the question. In present-day Konoha, medical ninja training still hadn't been systematized the way it would be in the future. Even years later, when Team Seven first went out on a mission, Naruto had still needed to stab the back of his own hand with a kunai to force poison out because Sakura hadn't yet learned even basic techniques like detoxification or hemostasis.
It wasn't until much later, in an era like Boruto's, that every genin would receive basic medical knowledge before the talented few were selected for deeper training.
"Hmm…" Tsunade narrowed her eyes, thinking.
"Lady Tsunade, they're calling for you again!" Shizune hurried over from the distance with Tonton in her arms.
She had wanted Tsunade to stop gambling for a long time, but Tsunade had shoved a task onto her instead and ordered her to keep watch inside. Shizune didn't dare disobey, so she had come running the moment she saw an opening.
"Kid, you're lucky today." Tsunade nodded at last. "I'll sell you two techniques. One hundred thousand taels."
She spread her hands as if the deal were perfectly fair. They were both basic medical techniques, but that did not mean they were easy to buy. Since she needed cash urgently and Kiyohara was a ninja from the village, she was selling them cheap.
"No problem, Lady Tsunade." Kiyohara smiled immediately.
Even he hadn't expected her to agree so readily. He quickly produced the one hundred thousand taels, along with a blank scroll and a pen. He had originally prepared them so he could continue recording the rogue Kiyohara's ninjutsu, but now they were being used to copy medical techniques instead.
A normal C-rank mission paid anywhere from thirty thousand to one hundred thousand taels. And according to the official guidebook, when multiple shinobi completed the same mission, the reward was split evenly among all of them.
In other words, a hundred thousand taels represented the proceeds of several missions for most ninja.
"You even carry this stuff around with you?" Tsunade gave him a strange look.
She assumed he was the studious sort who liked researching jutsu, so she did not think too deeply about it. Taking the pen, she bent over the page and began to write with quick, forceful strokes.
What she recorded for him were exactly the two fundamental medical techniques he needed most: the Hemostasis Technique and the Detoxification Technique.
"Cash on delivery." Tsunade tossed the scroll and pen back to him, then hurried toward the casino with a thick wad of bills in hand.
"Shizune, move. Quickly."
At this point, Tsunade's whole heart was set on turning the tables in one glorious comeback.
Shizune had watched the entire transaction from start to finish. Even though every medical ninja knew those two techniques, she still could not help sighing inwardly.
Lady Tsunade's gambling addiction really was hopeless.
"Lady Tsunade, you lose nine times out of ten when you gamble," Shizune urged once more.
She genuinely believed Kiyohara had just done something harmful by lending Tsunade money.
"Shizune, you don't understand." Tsunade's expression turned profound. "Losing is only temporarily storing your money somewhere else. The moment you quit, that's when you've truly lost everything."
After saying something that sounded absurdly wise, she strode off toward the casino without another word, ready to conquer the tables and reclaim everything that belonged to her.
***
Kiyohara stood there, watching Tsunade and Shizune leave, then slowly shook his head.
If the Three Legendary Sannin each embodied one of humanity's great vices, then Orochimaru was poison, Jiraiya was lust, and Tsunade was gambling. It fit so well that Kiyohara felt the world itself had a sense of humor. Even the back of Tsunade's coat had the character for "gambling" emblazoned across it like a banner of fate.
"You got lucky," the rogue Kiyohara said. "You even managed to buy those two techniques."
Every ninja could only master a limited number of jutsu in their lifetime. One of the requirements for becoming a jonin was proficiency in at least two chakra nature transformations. For ordinary shinobi, just having a few reliable techniques in hand was already considered good.
The rogue Kiyohara had spent years drifting from place to place as Orochimaru's black glove, doing dirty work that could not be exposed to the light. Everything he had learned was geared toward killing and survival. Medical ninjutsu was one of the few fields in which he had almost no knowledge at all.
Kiyohara lowered his gaze to the scroll. Tsunade's handwriting was a mess, hurried and sharp, but with some effort he could still read it.
"Do you think I can learn them in the next few days?" he asked.
"That should be enough." The rogue Kiyohara sounded calm. "I can guide your chakra myself."
These were the most basic medical techniques, and unlike some advanced healing arts, they did not require a Yang Release affinity. Since Kiyohara's elemental natures were wind and lightning, he could still learn them.
"Good."
Kiyohara tucked the scroll away and continued down the street. His conversations with the rogue Kiyohara took place directly in his mind, like the quiet inner dialogues Naruto had once had with Kurama. To everyone else, he looked like a boy merely walking alone through the village.
Hopefully the money he had left would still be enough to buy a decent set of armor.
Chakra was precious. A shinobi's reserves were finite, and every scrap of it had to be spent carefully. That was why ninja tools mattered so much in this world. A Great Fireball might not necessarily burn someone to death, but a kunai through the throat would end most fights just fine.
So Kiyohara had no intention of buying more shuriken or kunai. What he wanted was armor.
Only chunin were officially qualified to wear the standard green flak vest, but no rule stopped him from buying better chainmail to wear beneath his clothing. If it could save him from a fatal strike at the critical moment, then that alone would make it worth every tael.
After that, he purchased a number of common shinobi tools and, after a brief hesitation, added an extra bag of lime powder to the pile. By the time he was finished, the money he had left was pitifully small.
When he finally returned home carrying bags in both hands, he asked the question that mattered most. "How do we make the medicine?"
The process of refining the forbidden drug was something only the rogue Kiyohara understood. Kiyohara himself knew absolutely nothing about it. But he wasn't worried the other man would harm him.
If he followed the original course of events and went to reinforce Minato's squad without changing anything, then there was a very high chance he simply wouldn't survive. Rin would be captured. Kakashi would lose an eye. Obito would end up with half his body crushed beneath a boulder.
And even if Kiyohara somehow lived through it, who could say he wouldn't come out missing an arm or a leg?
Compared with that, trusting his future self was the far more rational choice.
"I'll have to possess you to do this step," the rogue Kiyohara said. "The timing is extremely delicate. But every time I possess you, my soul dissipates faster. There isn't much of me left to waste."
As soon as he finished speaking, the spirit slipped into Kiyohara's body.
Kiyohara's scalp tingled. A strange sensation swept through him, half cold and half burning, as if another current had merged with his own blood. He watched in silence as his hands and feet began to move on their own.
It wasn't complete loss of control. If he truly wanted to, he could still wrest his body back at any moment. But for now, he remained where he was inside himself and observed everything with unnerving clarity.
The rogue Kiyohara moved with practiced efficiency. He sorted the herbs, lit the fire, controlled the heat, and handled every tool with a level of precision Kiyohara himself could never have managed. The motions were clean, economical, and utterly confident.
It felt less like being controlled and more like sitting inside the body of a veteran while watching him work through muscle memory built over decades.
Powdered herbs were measured. Liquids were heated. Several ingredients that looked harmless on their own became sharp, almost acrid once they were mixed together. A bitter medicinal smell filled the room until it stung his nose.
Kiyohara could tell at a glance why the other man said timing was everything. Add one ingredient too early, and the whole batch would go cloudy. Add one too late, and the chakra-reactive properties would destabilize.
No wonder ordinary shinobi had no way to make this kind of thing. Forget refining it—most people would probably ruin the ingredients before even understanding what had gone wrong.
While the rogue Kiyohara worked, he explained as much as he could.
"The key is balance. This isn't the kind of drug that explodes your body with brute force. It stimulates your cells, your chakra pathways, and your response speed in short bursts. If the ratio is off, it stops being a shortcut and starts becoming poison."
Kiyohara memorized every word he could. But the more he watched, the more he understood one thing: even with the explanation, there was no chance he could reproduce it on his own right now.
This was knowledge refined through trial, error, pain, and survival. No amount of reading a formula once would let him skip that process.
By the time the preparation was complete, several portions of medicine had been made. They did not look impressive. The finished product was dull in color and gave off an unpleasant smell.
But to Kiyohara, they were more beautiful than any treasure.
"This is what you called a forbidden drug?" he asked inwardly.
"If you were dealing with the mainstream shinobi world, yes. But compared to the really vicious things Orochimaru keeps, this is practically gentle."
Kiyohara almost laughed. Gentle. In the ninja world, even poison seemed to come with layers and rankings.
When the rogue Kiyohara finally withdrew from his body, his figure looked dimmer than before.
"You consumed more of yourself this time," Kiyohara said quietly.
"Of course I did." The rogue Kiyohara's expression was tired, but there was still a trace of amusement in it. "Possession, chakra control, medicine refinement—none of that comes free. So use what I've left you properly."
Kiyohara did not answer right away. He stared at the medicine on the table, then at the scattered armor, tools, and medical scrolls he had bought with borrowed money.
He had gone all in. Truly all in.
If he died at Kannabi Bridge, the debt would vanish with him. If he survived, then every one of these choices might become the foundation for everything that came after.
The room was quiet. Outside, Konoha still sounded alive—vendors shouting, footsteps crossing the street, distant voices rising and falling like an ordinary day.
But for Kiyohara, that ordinary day had already tilted toward the edge of life and death.
He slowly flexed his fingers, feeling the lingering aftertaste of possession still threaded through his limbs. The sense of having been guided by an older, harder version of himself had not faded yet. It sat in his bones like a warning, and like a promise.
Three days.
In three days, he would head for Kannabi Bridge with Minato's squad.
And by then, whether it was armor, forbidden medicine, medical ninjutsu, or the hand of his future self reaching out from death itself, Kiyohara intended to squeeze every last drop of strength he could from all of it.
Because on that battlefield, no one was coming to save a disposable genin unless he first made himself worth saving.