Kiyohara frowned.
The tone of these three young men was incredibly, stereotypically "Uchiha."
In the Itachi Shinden novels, these exact types of arrogant Uchiha police officers possessed the exact same, condescending attitude towards even the Clan Leader's own son, Itachi.
In the Uchiha Clan, arrogant insubordination against any authority outside their own narrow hierarchy was basically a cultural tradition. Or rather, the entire Uchiha Clan's underlying political philosophy was simple: Might makes right.
"What if I refuse to go?" Kiyohara asked, his voice entirely flat.
"Then you won't have a choice," the leading Uchiha sneered, his hand dropping to his weapon pouch. "The Sharingan is the sacred, exclusive bloodline of the Uchiha Clan. Since you have awakened it, you must return to the clan compound for registration and integration. That is the rule."
Kiyohara looked at the three arrogant teenagers and suddenly laughed softly.
"Rules? Who exactly set these rules?"
"The Uchiha Clan set these rules!" the leader snapped.
"But I am a Konoha Ninja," Kiyohara stated coldly. "My allegiance is to the Hokage and Konoha Command. Not to a private police force."
The expressions of the three Uchiha darkened significantly.
"It seems you prefer learning things the hard way," the leader hissed.
They activated their Sharingan simultaneously, and the Two Tomoe spun threateningly within their scarlet pupils.
The atmosphere in the street instantly became suffocatingly tense.
But just as Kiyohara was preparing to execute them and claim self-defense, a calm voice came from the side.
"Stop."
A young boy walked over from the opposite side of the street.
He wa very young, the youngest among everyone present.
But when the three aggressive Uchiha saw his face, their posture instantly stiffened, and they dared not be negligent.
The reason was entirely simple: that boy was the Uchiha Clan's genius prodigy, Shisui Uchiha.
To have awakened a mature, Three-Tomoe Sharingan at such an impossibly young age meant his future was limitless within the clan.
He was already a renowned young hero on the front lines, widely known as "Shisui of the Body Flicker."
He looked at the three Uchiha officers.
"You three go back to the compound first. Tell Lord Fugaku that I will personally escort Kiyohara over."
"But..." the three Uchiha hesitated for a moment, exchanging annoyed glances, but they finally bowed their heads in deep respect to the prodigy and left.
After they were gone, Shisui turned to Kiyohara.
"I'm deeply sorry about that. Some radical people in the clan have a rather... tough, arrogant attitude toward outsiders. But please believe that the vast majority of our moderate clansmen are very welcoming of your joining."
"I know," Kiyohara nodded slightly.
The Uchiha are just like this.
It was incredibly easy for their arrogant genetics to cause conflicts with other Ninja, which led to their reputation currently being in the gutter.
"Why did you come out here?" Kiyohara asked immediately.
The three Uchiha from just now looked exactly like an official arrest squad sent by Fugaku, and Shisui was clearly operating independently from them.
"I was surprised when I read the classified report that you had actually awakened the Sharingan, so I came here myself to verify it," Shisui looked up at Kiyohara.
Because of their ages and Kiyohara's massive physical development, Kiyohara was actually significantly taller and broader than Shisui.
"I see," Kiyohara figured that Uchiha Tekka, who had been defeated by him earlier in the year, would also be incredibly shocked by this development.
"By the way, Shisui... I want to ask you a specific question," Kiyohara looked down at the boy.
He intended to clinically check Shisui's psychological composition to see the current, exact concentration of his Will of Fire indoctrination.
"In your honest opinion... what exactly is the current relationship between the Uchiha Clan and Konoha Command?"
Shisui was silent for a long moment after hearing Kiyohara's heavy question.
After pondering for a while, he answered seriously:
"They are functionally one entity," Shisui said slowly.
Those dark, intelligent eyes looked directly at Kiyohara.
"The Uchiha are an integral, historical part of Konoha, and Konoha is the Uchiha's home. But... over these past few decades, some deep misunderstandings and systemic barriers have made this relationship incredibly complicated and toxic."
Shisui paused, then continued earnestly:
"Kiyohara. I know you might have some deep resistance towards joining the clan's politics, but please, at least go see Lord Fugaku and hear his thoughts today. Fugaku is not that kind of radical, stubborn person; I truly believe he will do everything to spare the villagers and the clansmen from violent civil conflict."
"..."
Kiyohara was speechless for a microsecond.
Spare the clan from conflict?
Well, from a twisted, canon perspective, Fugaku did indeed spare the village from conflict.
After all, Fugaku ultimately let his son, Itachi, slaughter the entire Uchiha Clan in a single night. Fugaku directly, pathetically gave up resistance, sat on the floor, and willingly waited for Itachi to execute him.
Except for Sasuke, all the Uchiha clansmen died quietly in the Uchiha's internal genocide; that undeniably prevented a massive, structural civil war with the other villagers.
But that was a bit entirely too much of a dark, horrific joke to make right now.
"Is that so? Then lead the way. Take me to see him," Kiyohara said calmly.
Fugaku would come knocking sooner or later; Kiyohara had anticipated being "invited" to the Uchiha Compound.
It was just that the three Uchiha from before were acting like thugs, and a small, violent conflict had almost occurred.
"Alright. Please follow me, Kiyohara," Seeing Kiyohara agree peacefully, Shisui smiled with genuine relief.
Then he led the way.
After passing through a massive, heavily guarded torii gate, Kiyohara knew he had officially entered the Uchiha's autonomous sector.
The two walked together towards the Uchiha Clan grounds, or what could accurately be classified as an independent settlement.
The Uchiha Clan's settlement was functionally equivalent to a massive, gated residential complex or a private town.
Or rather, all of these ancient, large Ninja clans possessed their own independent residential districts. The Hyuga Clan and the Nara Clan were both like this.
Members of the Ninja clans lived entirely in specific, heavily patrolled areas, inside of which were exclusively fellow clansmen. Ordinary civilian clansmen would do simple business inside the walls, and generally, fellow shinobi would patronize their shops after returning from missions.
Kiyohara saw an elderly couple selling rice crackers from a stall, and the two looked at Kiyohara with intense, whispering curiosity.
Not just them; Kiyohara could feel dozens of other hidden gazes locking onto him from windows and rooftops.
Usually, no unescorted outsiders would ever penetrate this deep into the compound. After seeing the famous "Magnet Release Kiyohara" walking with Shisui, naturally, all eyes were cast heavily upon him.
After all, despite his new eyes, he was still considered a "outsider" for now.
Shisui and Kiyohara walked side-by-side, moving along the pristine stone path, and soon reached a relatively narrow, traditional street.
Most of the high courtyard walls were heavily painted with the Uchiha's red fan crest.
It was late afternoon, the sun shining obliquely, casting dappled, peaceful tree shadows on the stone path.
"It feels like there are quite a massive amount of people living here," Kiyohara observed.
"Many of the active clansmen are currently on duty at the Konoha Military Police Force headquarters, and some have deployed to the eastern battlefield, so there aren't actually many people present right now. If you came at night, it would be incredibly lively," Shisui explained.
Kiyohara nodded.
There were many people, but he could physically, psychologically feel that the atmosphere here was entirely different from other civilian areas of Konoha.
It was vastly more closed off, far more paranoid... self-important. The very air seemed to be suffocatingly filled with a faint sense of extreme arrogance and pride.
Turning a sharp street corner, a few figures suddenly appeared ahead, blocking the path.
Leading the blockade was an old man with thinning gray hair and a slightly hunched figure, but his dark eyes were as terrifyingly sharp as an apex eagle.
He was wearing an incredibly traditional, formal Uchiha robe, leaning heavily on a wooden cane, standing directly in the middle of the road, clearly waiting to intercept them.
"That is Elder Setsuna Uchiha," Shisui whispered in a low voice, a heavy hint of gravity and tension in his tone.
Hearing Shisui mention this specific name, the information corresponding to Setsuna Uchiha immediately surfaced in Kiyohara's mind.
Setsuna Uchiha. The undisputed leader of the radical hawk faction of the Uchiha Clan.
He was considered the direct spiritual and political successor to Madara Uchiha's will.
Although Kiyohara did not know why, back when Madara was actually alive and defected, not a single clansman had defected with him.
But decades after everyone firmly believed Madara had been "killed" by Hashirama Senju... these so-called, radical successors of "Madara's Will" began to aggressively emerge from the woodwork.
As Kiyohara was clinically analyzing the old man, Setsuna and his two bodyguards were also intensely scrutinizing Kiyohara.
"Is this the bastard bloodline that was left outside the walls?" Setsuna's voice was hoarse and grating, exactly like grinding stone.
"The Sharingan is a sacred eye that only a very small, elite fraction of people in our pure clan can activate."
Setsuna's somewhat cloudy eyes stared piercingly at Kiyohara.
He honestly did not expect that a civilian bloodline left outside could actually have a spontaneous, atavistic awakening of the Sharingan.
And now, a living, terrifyingly powerful example like Kiyohara had suddenly appeared.
In places they didn't know about, could there be other Uchiha bloodlines scattered outside as well?
"You don't mind letting us evaluate your strength, right, boy?" Setsuna finished speaking, then looked at the two elite ANBU-level Ninja standing beside him as bodyguards.
The ninja on the left was tall and thin; it was Inabi Uchiha.
The ninja on the right possessed an incredibly robust, towering physique with knotted muscles; it was Tekka Uchiha's older brother, who appeared to be one of the incredibly rare ninjas in the Uchiha Clan specializing heavily in Taijutsu.
The two bodyguards activated their Sharingan simultaneously.
Inabi's eyes possessed two tomoe, while the muscular Uchiha's eyes possessed a mature Three-Tomoe.
"Strength..." Kiyohara narrowed his eyes coldly.
Setsuna Uchiha... he really was exactly as radical and aggressive as the ANBU rumors suggested.
But if he weren't a violent radical, he wouldn't have been rightfully thrown into a maximum-security prison by Tobirama Senju decades ago.
He hadn't expected the physical test to come before he even met Fugaku.
Could it only be said that this violent arrogance is exactly what it means to be an Uchiha?
He had only ever fought Shisui and Tekka from this clan. It would be highly beneficial for his combat data to spar with older, veteran Uchiha.
Kiyohara also had his own little, dark agenda in his heart.
The Sharingan possessed the ability to "copy" jutsu.
He could blatantly, legally steal the opponent's proprietary ninjutsu during this "friendly" battle, or "launder" some ninjutsu that overlapped with his previously acquired jutsu from the ghosts.
"Elder Setsuna, this is entirely inappropriate. Lord Fugaku explicitly ordered..." Seeing that the atmosphere was rapidly deteriorating into violence, Shisui wanted to interject diplomatically.
"Hmph! Fugaku? I contributed quite a massive amount of political capital to him becoming the Clan Leader. He will wait," Setsuna snapped, glaring at Shisui.
He would normally deeply appreciate a junior with excellent strength like Shisui. After all, Shisui was a pure-blooded Uchiha born and raised inside the walls, who looked exactly like a pillar of the Uchiha Clan's future.
But Kiyohara was different.
The boy had never, ever received an Uchiha education, so it was impossible for him to feel any gratitude toward the clan or be willing to blindly sacrifice himself for their goals. He needed to be physically broken and shown his place in the hierarchy.
"Shisui. It's been entirely too long since I've sparred with a veteran Uchiha Ninja; giving it a try wouldn't be bad," Kiyohara stated coldly.
As he spoke, a flash of crimson appeared in Kiyohara's pitch-black eyes, and a single, heavy black tomoe swirled incessantly within them.
The entire physical world, in Kiyohara's enhanced vision, slowed down significantly.
His eyes could flawlessly, microscopically see the dense chakra flowing through Inabi and the muscular Uchiha.
"Who do you want to test yourself against first, boy?" Seeing Kiyohara agree with such arrogant backbone, Setsuna nodded slightly.
The bastard still had some of the fighting bearing of their Uchiha Clan.
"Do you want Inabi on the left, or Yashiro on the right?" Setsuna asked, leaning on his cane.
"I'll take both of them together," Kiyohara said flatly.
He possessed Steel Release and Earth Spear; even if things went completely wrong, there wouldn't be any physical danger to him.
"Hmph! So incredibly arrogant," Yashiro crossed his massive, muscular arms.
Tall and sturdy, he also possessed a violently fiery temper. Seeing a civilian half-blood's arrogant attitude, he immediately flared up with killing intent.
"Elder Setsuna..." Yashiro looked at the old man, signaling for permission to break bones.
Setsuna nodded slightly.
Since Kiyohara stupidly requested it, it was fine to let him bleed a little to learn his place.
"Mind your limits," Setsuna finally did not forget to add a stern reminder to his guards.
Don't go too far and accidentally execute him.
Just gauging Kiyohara's strength is enough.
ANBU rumors claimed that this brat used some kind of classified, long-range ninjutsu to blow off an arm of Raiga Kurosuki, and then slaughtered the heavily injured Swordsman.
His long-range strength was definitely not simple.
But this time, they were going to test his close-combat Taijutsu.
Unfortunately for them, what they didn't know was that Kiyohara's close-combat ability was also a catastrophic, Kage-level anomaly.
"Understood," Yashiro nodded cracking his knuckles.
He glanced at Inabi.
Inabi stepped forward and said mockingly, "Since the two of us are fighting you simultaneously, we will generously hold back and won't use any Ninjutsu that's too overwhelming."
With that arrogant sentence, Inabi already moved at supersonic speed.
A razor-sharp kunai slid smoothly out from his sleeve, flashing with a cold light in the sunlight, stabbing straight and flawlessly at Kiyohara's throat.
At the exact same microsecond, Yashiro attacked violently from the right flank.
He didn't use a weapon, but instead launched a devastating, bone-shattering kick directly toward Kiyohara's exposed ribs, the wind whistling heavily with sheer kinetic force.
The two veterans coordinated with perfect, tacit lethality, one from the left and one from the right.
Facing their flawless pincer attack, Kiyohara's expression remained completely unchanged.
With his two biggest weaknesses—dynamic vision and Genjutsu defense—permanently filled by the Sharingan, and apart from advanced Sealing Jutsu which Kiyohara wasn't very good at yet, he had mastered all other combat aspects.
He could accurately be considered a flawless all-rounder.
He raised his right hand lazily, and in the blink of an eye, his bare index and middle fingers clamped perfectly onto the steel kunai Inabi had thrust. He forcefully halted its aerodynamic trajectory in mid-air, making it impossible for the blade to advance even a fraction of an inch further.
Kiyohara's left hand also reached out simultaneously, effortlessly grabbing Yashiro's massive kicking foot.
SNAP! SNAP!
Accompanied by two crisp, terrifying sounds of kinetic impact being absorbed, in just a single microsecond, he had perfectly, flawlessly stopped the simultaneous, full-force attacks of both veteran Elite Jonin.
Inabi's eyes widened in absolute, paralyzing shock.
He had used his full physical strength for that lethal thrust; how the hell could a teenager have effortlessly caught it with just two bare fingers?!
Was he not terrified of his hand slipping and having his fingers sliced cleanly off by the steel?!
Was the dynamic kinetic vision of a mere One-Tomoe actually this strong? Or was Kiyohara's neurological reflex speed simply already at a Kage level?!
"!!"
Yashiro was even more profoundly horrified.
He was one of the elite few in the clan who specialized entirely in physical Taijutsu; a casual kick from him was enough to shatter solid bedrock.
But now... his ankle was held securely by Kiyohara exactly like it was locked in industrial iron pliers, and no matter how much explosive force he exerted, he couldn't pull it out.
"You..." Yashiro gritted his teeth, his three-tomoe spinning as massive amounts of chakra surged within his body to attempt to violently break free.
But Kiyohara's left hand remained as immovable as a mountain.
At this exact moment, Kiyohara's scarlet pupils quietly, clinically watched the two struggling men.
In the vision of the Sharingan, the two men's microscopic chakra flow, muscle exertion, and even the prediction of their exact next movements were flawlessly, clearly visible.
"I can't pull it..." Inabi placed both hands desperately on the handle of the kunai, only to horrifically find that he still couldn't pull the steel blade out from between Kiyohara's two fingers.
This... this simply defied all physical common sense!
Inabi's Sharingan spun rapidly, and he finally, terrifyingly discovered through X-ray vision that at some microsecond point, Kiyohara's fingers had been flawlessly covered with a highly compressed, deep black layer of chakra.
What kind of impossible technique was that? An advanced Earth hardening technique?
Watching the terrified, Hell-struck expressions on Inabi and Yashiro, Kiyohara had no mood to explain physics to them.
Usually, when wearing his standard uniform, Kiyohara's physical build looked no different from other athletic ninjas. But by constantly utilizing the cellular density of Earth Spear stacked with Steel Release, he possessed an absolute, explosive kinetic power capable of casually splitting mountains.
"HAH!"
Seeing he couldn't pull his leg free, Yashiro simply gave up retreating. He twisted his massive body abruptly, using his trapped foot as an anchor, and whipped his left leg directly toward Kiyohara's head.
This roundhouse kick was horrifyingly heavy and powerful; if it connected, it would instantly shatter a normal human's skull into powder.
At the exact same time, Inabi also reacted flawlessly.
He decisively abandoned the trapped kunai, leaned backward, kicked violently off Kiyohara's extended arm with both feet, and leveraged the kinetic force to leap high into mid-air.
While in the air, his hands were already blurring through hand seals at supersonic speed.
Fire Release hand seals.
A flash of analytical realization crossed Kiyohara's eyes.
He used his left hand to casually, brutally press Yashiro's trapped ankle downward, destroying the man's balance, while simultaneously turning his body slightly. He released the kunai with his right hand, raising his solid elbow to directly meet Yashiro's incoming roundhouse kick.
BANG!
A dull, concussive thud of kinetic impact sounded like a cannon firing.
Yashiro felt exactly as if his leg had just violently kicked into a solid titanium mountain.
The catastrophic recoil force instantly made his entire leg go completely numb with nerve damage, and he lost his balance entirely.
Kiyohara, casually taking advantage of this shifting momentum, guided Yashiro's ankle to the side, and then let go.
BOOM!
Yashiro was violently, brutally smashed completely through the heavy courtyard brick wall by the street, bricks and stone flying violently everywhere, completely cracking the arrogant Uchiha fan crest pattern painted on the wall.
At this exact microsecond, Inabi, hovering in the air, had already flawlessly finished forming his seals.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"
A massive, apocalyptic fireball with a diameter exceeding two meters erupted violently from Inabi's mouth, the scorching, white-hot flames violently distorting the oxygen in the air as it smashed directly down toward Kiyohara below.
But Kiyohara's movements were faster.
At the exact microsecond he threw Yashiro through the wall, his hands were also blurring through seals.
He caught up from behind, using vastly superior hand speed and his flawless ability to guide chakra, completing the Wind Release seals a fraction of a second ahead of the flames.
Kiyohara opened his mouth and spat out a localized, hurricane-force gust of wild wind directly upwards.
"Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!"
The massive gale roared deafeningly, stirring up dust and broken bricks from the ground, instantly forming a physical wall of compressed wind above his head.
Immediately after, the exact microsecond before the wind wall dissipated from the heat, he quickly formed seals and flawlessly completed his own Fire Release sequence.
He spat out another, highly compressed fireball the size of a human fist.
"Fire Release: Small Flame Bullet!"
This was the exact, basic technique taught to Kiyohara by the ghost of Uchiha Kiyohara just days ago.
The tiny fireball flew directly into his own, roaring wind wall; the massive oxygen flow violently fueled the fire, and the small fireball instantly, catastrophically expanded several dozen times over.
It turned into a massive, apocalyptic fireball exceeding four meters in diameter, soaring violently against gravity to meet Inabi's Great Fireball head-on!
Inabi saw clearly through his Sharingan, his pupils shrinking abruptly in absolute, mortal terror.
Releasing two opposing elemental ninjutsu flawlessly, faster than an Elite Uchiha could release one?!
What kind of absolute, impossible joke is this monster?!
BOOM!
A deafening, catastrophic explosion resounded heavily throughout the entire Uchiha street, shattering nearby windows.
The opposing flames exploded violently like a massive bomb, suffocating heat waves sweeping destructively in all directions, and the green leaves and branches of the ancient trees on both sides of the street instantly turned to charred, smoking black ash.
After the smoke and flames finally dissipated... Kiyohara's aerodynamic fireball was clearly superior.
With the massive oxygen assistance of the Wind current, Kiyohara's fireball was structurally much larger, completely overpowering and swallowing Inabi's fireball, and blasting the elite Uchiha violently out of the sky.
.....
.....
.....
Give me powerstones.
Support me and read advance chapters on patreon.com/ImmortalDaoWriter