He was a man who believed in fairness.
Since he had no easy answer to the enemy's invisibility, the simplest solution was to drag the enemy down to his own level. Then, once both sides were blind, victory would come down to experience, nerve, and who could kill first.
Kiyohara closed his eyes. Behind him, the spirit of rogue-nin Kiyohara emerged soundlessly, like a second shadow peeling away from his back.
Go on, my stand-in.
If he kept his eyes open, the lime dust still hanging in the air would burn them raw. But the rogue-nin Kiyohara could become his second pair of eyes.
"To your left," the rogue-nin Kiyohara said in his mind. "He's about to form hand seals and use ninjutsu to hide himself again."
The gray haze churning through the cave made every outline vague, but to the spirit, Daishi's figure was still clear.
"Got it."
Kiyohara nodded and pulled a shuriken from his ninja pouch.
Screech. Screech.
He threw two shuriken in quick succession. They spun through the swirling gray mist, slicing toward the shape only his future self could see.
Hearing the cutting whistle, Daishi had no choice but to stop his hand seals and dodge. Yet every time he tried to move back into position and weave another ninjutsu, Kiyohara's attacks interrupted him again.
"This brat isn't affected at all?"
Daishi's fist clenched hard enough to creak. His eyes were screwed shut, tears streaming down his face without stopping.
If this wasn't treated quickly enough, he might even go blind. Yet Kiyohara was still moving as steadily as before. Daishi could even hear the dry hiss of more powder scattering across the ground. That damned brat had clearly thrown in even more lime.
"Can you really call yourself a ninja?"
"Sorry," Kiyohara said evenly. "A ninja is supposed to be an assassin. You're the one playing warrior."
Ninjas poisoned, infiltrated, spied, and killed. But the moment a fight started, some of them suddenly wanted to posture about dignity and fairness.
If Daishi wanted to moralize, he could explain it to Kiyohara's shuriken.
Kiyohara gripped another shuriken tightly and poured Wind Release chakra into it. Thin, flowing currents wrapped around the blade and sharpened it to a lethal edge.
Caught off guard, Daishi was struck in the body. Blood spilled from the wound in a hot line down his side.
"Huoguang!"
Unable to hold back any longer, Daishi shouted for his teammate.
But what came back to him was not Huoguang's reassuring voice. It was a scream.
Daishi's heart sank at once.
Could it be Huoguang really couldn't handle those brats?
He and Kiyohara were fighting near the cave entrance, while Huoguang and the others were deeper inside. He couldn't see what had happened back there. All he could hear were scattered sounds of battle, then that raw, abrupt cry.
"What happened?" Kiyohara immediately asked.
The rogue-nin Kiyohara turned his attention deeper into the cave. "Kakashi got his left eye cut while saving Obito. Obito got enraged and awakened a two-tomoe Sharingan. One of the Iwa jonin had his arm slashed."
"I see."
Kiyohara gave the faintest nod.
So it had still happened, just like in the original story. Kakashi lost his left eye. Obito, driven by fury, awakened his Sharingan. Everything had still fallen onto the same track.
No... was it really coincidence?
For the first time, Kiyohara felt with stark clarity that this world truly had something like fate.
Naruto had once been called the Child of Prophecy. Jiraiya had spent his whole life wandering through the ninja world for that prophecy's sake, chasing a thread he could never quite grasp.
And when the Sage of Six Paths appeared before Naruto, carrying the chakra of the nine tailed beasts, his first words had been about the appointed moment, the destined time when the Child of Prophecy would change the world.
The tailed beasts had understood instantly. That meant the Sage of Six Paths had told them about it a thousand years earlier.
I have the will, Kiyohara thought. The butterfly effect will only grow larger from here. It's just that I'm still too weak. The wind I'm stirring up isn't strong enough yet to throw fate off its course.
The will connected him to countless possible futures. By its very nature, it was the greatest variable of all.
"Hmph."
Daishi let out a muffled grunt and drew his sword.
If something had really happened to Huoguang, then he wouldn't be able to escape alone anyway.
"I'll finish this quickly."
Thick stone wrapped around Daishi's left hand, swelling into a massive rock-covered fist. He charged straight forward, the stony knuckles smashing toward Kiyohara with a violent rush of air.
Earth Release: Rock Fist Technique!
"He's using Rock Fist," the rogue-nin Kiyohara said in his mind, his tone edged with contempt. "Looks like he poured everything into invisibility. The rest of his skills aren't much."
"Half a step left. Lower your head."
Kiyohara obeyed instantly. The rocky fist tore past his hair, the force of it whipping up a hard gust against his scalp.
"Now. Lightning Release: Earth Walk."
Kiyohara formed hand seals at once. Blue-white arcs burst outward and crawled low across the ground with a savage crackle.
Crack!
The lightning shattered most of the stone covering Daishi's left hand.
"This brat knows another jutsu too?"
Daishi's brow tightened. Kiyohara wore the clothes of a genin, and yet the jutsu he displayed were practiced, efficient, and nothing like what a mere genin should be able to use.
He had assumed Kiyohara was just a commoner with no clan mark on his back. So where was all this chakra coming from?
"No," Kiyohara muttered inwardly. "Now it's your turn."
A wave of light-headed emptiness washed through him.
He had already used several ninjutsu in a row. He hadn't had any chance to rest on the way here either. If he hadn't taken the forbidden medicine beforehand, his chakra would have run dry long ago.
Daishi dug his feet in again. Stone rapidly re-formed around his fist. This time he moved more cautiously, relying on sound to pin down Kiyohara's location.
"Too slow."
The rogue-nin Kiyohara's voice fell softly into his mind.
Under that guidance, Kiyohara moved through the gray fog like a blade through cloth. Every step landed neatly in Daishi's blind spot.
"Right hand. Kunai. Three inches higher."
Kiyohara followed the instruction without hesitation and drove the kunai into the joint just above Daishi's right elbow.
Daishi cried out. His Rock Fist Technique instantly collapsed, the stone shell crumbling and shattering off his arm.
"How is this possible...?"
He stared at Kiyohara in disbelief. "You're clearly just a genin..."
Kiyohara did not answer.
Making a sound now would only expose his own position.
Rumble!
Then the entire ground trembled beneath them. A deafening crash rolled through the cave, and the ceiling shook violently.
"Another Iwa jonin already used Earth Release: Rock House Collapse," the rogue-nin Kiyohara warned.
Kiyohara gave a small nod.
This jutsu was most effective in caves. It broke the overhead rock loose and turned the whole place into a death trap, burying everyone inside beneath a collapsing mountain of stone.
That meant Huoguang had already reached for his killing move.
In that instant, Kiyohara understood that Daishi had lost any chance of escaping. He gripped his kunai and, using the chaos of the cave's collapse as cover, slashed it across Daishi's throat in one swift motion.
Blood sprayed hot and fast.
"Everyone, run for the exit!" Kakashi shouted from inside.
Kiyohara used the last of his remaining chakra to release Wind Release: Great Breakthrough, blowing the lingering lime fog away from the cave mouth.
Rumble... rumble... rumble...
He was the first to sprint outside, then immediately turned back to wait for the others.
Kurenai Yuhi and Genma Shiranui were the fastest after him. Both burst out of the cave in a rush.
Kakashi was slower. His injured left eye had already turned into a blind spot in his vision.
Bang!
A falling rock struck straight into that blind angle.
Then, just as an enormous boulder came crashing down toward him, Obito shoved Kakashi out of the way.
With a deafening crash, the stone pinned Obito beneath it. Only half his body remained visible outside the rubble.
For a moment, all Kiyohara could hear was the grief in the air, sharp and ragged as if even the world itself had been struck mute.