Only once the boat had drifted far into the open sea, the island already a fading blot in the mist, did Kimimaro allow himself the smallest sigh.
It was almost inaudible, just a whisper of air leaving his chest.
His senses stretched wide across the waves, yet nothing followed. No signatures closing in, no chakra spikes in pursuit. They had slipped free.
He didn't feel particularly moved by this dislocation.
Losing the ruins, abandoning the ground where he had carved three years of discipline, it was a change, nothing more.
Kimimaro had always known such things could never be permanent. The world was flux, endless motion. To cling was to break.
For years, he had trained not only his body but his mind.
To endure the endless repetition, the long silences, the hours of tedium, he had cut away the weight of self.
He acted, trained, fought, lived, with presence alone, doing what stood before him, without distraction.
The state of no-self had come to him not as a creed, but as necessity.
Even his grand ambitions, those towering dreams of domination, could be forgotten in the short term, placed aside so that he could give himself completely to the next step of the staircase.
He didn't abandon them; he simply set them down until it was time to pick them up again.
It wasn't that he lacked desire. Far from it.
Monks preached that the end of desire was enlightenment, but Kimimaro knew that was a lie of weakness.
They discarded ambition because they deemed it impossible.
He did not. He knew everything was possible in this world, everything.
Especially for someone like him, with his bloodline, his foresight, his intelligence.
So he didn't sever his ego; he chained it.
He suppressed it, controlled it, wielded it like a tool.
He let it rest when it got in the way of progress, and let it rise when it fueled his climb.
That was the difference. Where monks became empty, Kimimaro became sharp.
The boat cut through the water, steady in his hands, his presence as calm as stone.
What Kimimaro had used back there to confuse the pursuers were simple Earth Release clones. They didn't carry even ten percent of his chakra, but they were sturdy enough compared to most elemental or basic clone techniques. Not true threats, but reliable decoys.
The reason he hadn't made use of Shadow Clones was simple: he didn't know the technique.
Even Ashina Uzumaki, with his bottomless library of sealing and battle knowledge, had admitted he didn't know it either.
That fact had surprised Kimimaro greatly.
The explanation was obvious. Shadow Clone was the work of Tobirama Senju. One of the rare techniques he had truly created himself fully, rather than reshaping or "borrowing."
Ashina had taught Kimimaro the truth of that man, in their spare time, that most of his genius lay in refining, systematizing, and weaponizing what already existed, often plucked straight from Uzumaki's hands.
Seals, formulae, patterns of chakra, the Uzumaki had pioneered them for centuries, but Tobirama had the power, the intellect, and the political reach to make them infamous. To make them his.
Yes, what the world so often credited to Tobirama alone was in truth the work of the teams of brilliant minds he led in Konoha.
They labored under him, refining and experimenting together, yet their names were erased, their efforts folded into his.
All to inflate his prestige, to polish his legend, to give his authority even greater weight.
It was plagiarism in a sense, but a commendable one.
Take the strength of 'allies' and subordinates, stamp it with their own name, and spread it to the world.
Kimimaro couldn't help but respect that, even as he looked down on the hypocrisy.
After all, if the Uzumaki had truly been capable of pushing their craft that far on their own, they would have created the Flying Raijin or Edo Tensei themselves. But they hadn't. Tobirama had.
Kimimaro thought of it as typical of the Leaf: theft and innovation, hand in hand, wrapped up in noble pretense.
People made the mistake of thinking Shadow Clones were common just because they saw them so often.
In truth, it was a top-secret Konoha technique, exclusive and jealously guarded.
Even within the village, few actually knew it.
The illusion came from the handful of shinobi who did master it, using it so frequently, in the original series, that many fans believed it was cabbage-tier, cheap, everywhere, disposable.
Kimimaro knew better.
'If I ever get the chance, this will be one of the things I steal from Konoha.'
A faint smirk tugged at his lips at the thought.
Kimimaro finally turned his head, the steady rhythm of his rowing unbroken.
The girl behind him sat stiffly, her cloak drawn close, golden eyes fixed on the sea as if the horizon alone mattered.
Yet the twitch of her fingers on her lap, the slight tightness of her shoulders, betrayed her.
She was awkward in their closeness, clearly unused to it.
The small boat forced them together, their knees brushing with every shift of the waves.
She tried to mask it behind that cold, serious expression, but to Kimimaro's eyes, it was transparent.
He almost chuckled.
From the pendant against his chest, Ashina stirred, his dry voice curling into Kimimaro's mind.
"Hmph. Even with all that blood and grief weighing her down, she's still just a girl squirming because she's too close to a boy. Amusing, isn't it?"
Kimimaro's lips twitched faintly, though he kept his face smooth.
"Old man, if you think I'll be distracted by something that trivial, you underestimate me."
Ashina's chuckle echoed like a faint ripple of flame. "Distracted? No. But entertained? Certainly."
Kimimaro's gaze flicked back toward Reika, her expression still sharp and cold, her composure wrapped tight like armor that had already cracked underneath.
He nearly smirked, but said nothing, letting the silence stretch as the oar cut smoothly through the sea.
Meanwhile, seeing how easily he had gotten Reika "on his ship," Kimimaro's mind drifted to the question of whether there might be others like her hidden in the Land of Water.
Other talents scattered by the purges, waiting to be unearthed.
But no, he knew better.
It was already a miracle he had crossed paths with her.
The purges had been thorough.
By now, all the great bloodline clans were gone.
The Kaguya and the Yuki were among the last.
The others, those who bore Lava Release, Boil Release, had been exterminated even earlier.
Weaker lines, erased first.
Yet one name still lingered in his mind. Mei Terumi.
Successor of both those fallen clans, carrier of two bloodlines at once, who would one day rise as the Fifth Mizukage.
'How did she survive?'
Kimimaro's gaze stayed fixed on the horizon as the boat cut through the waves, but his thoughts spun sharper.
'How did a child of purged clans not only live, but grow into a shinobi strong enough to seize the village itself?'
He doubted the story that was told.
More likely, the Mizukage before Yagura had not been so foolish as to erase every weapon.
More likely, they had kept a few survivors, tools, bred and sharpened to serve.
Mei must have been one of them.
Her entire life story, the tragic survivor narrative, was probably a fabrication.
'Raise the enemy's offspring as your weapon.'
It was an old tactic. Effective.
Especially if the child carried not one, but two kekkei genkai.
His mind slid to the future, already laying possibilities out like a chessboard.
'Not impossible. Not untouchable. She'll rise because of politics and desperation. When she does, she'll have enemies on all sides. Timing will be everything. If I can reach her at the right moment… she too can be brought aboard.'
'Perhaps during that so-called coup, when Mei's ragtag faction toppled Yagura… that could be my moment to step back into the cursed Land of Water. If I play it right, if I influence her early, I might even turn Kirigakure itself into partial backing. But first, I need more strength. I can't gamble on Obito withdrawing peacefully a second time.'
Kimimaro's thoughts turned, reorganizing fragments of knowledge from the timelines he remembered.
At some point, Obito had crushed Kirigakure so thoroughly from within that many shinobi became disillusioned, and some even rebelled.
And then, suddenly, Obito simply let go.
Logistics secured, Akatsuki's base operations prepared, revenge enacted, leaving it humiliated enough, he abandoned the village, leaving it broken and the weakest among the great powers.
Mei's little "revolutionaries" then stepped in and claimed the ruins.
The official story said Ao, Mei's subordinate, discovered the truth about Yagura's control, and that gave them the chance to overthrow him.
Kimimaro didn't buy it for a second.
There was no way Mei and Ao could have stood against Yagura, let alone Obito pulling his strings.
More likely, Obito had toyed with them through Yagura's body, then killed Yagura himself when the game no longer amused him.
The Three-Tails was released, wandering free outside the village, while Obito simply vanished from the stage, leaving a shattered Kirigakure for Mei's band of rebels to inherit.
They probably didn't have enough power left to re-seal it again at that point, leaving the Akatsuki to pick it easily later when their "collection" plan started.
Kimimaro's lips curved faintly. 'Don't blame me for looking down on them. Mei, the weakest of the Kage, was propped up only by circumstance. And Ao, a mediocre elite jonin at best. If he's "second in command," it says more about Kirigakure's decay than his strength. Canon fodder, both of them.'
The idea made him smirk. 'That's why it would be so easy. When the time comes, I can step into that devastated village, present myself as their savior, the missing treasure in their drought of shinobi. Slip into their ranks, take Ao's position without effort. Mei will think she gained a weapon. In truth, it will be the other way around. That is the time I will return there.'
But that was a few years away still. He knew the sequence.
The coup, Obito's withdrawal, and Mei's ascension, all came only after the main plot had begun to unfold.
For now, it was just one of many plans he laid down like stepping stones, waiting until the time was right to walk them.
The oar dipped smoothly into the sea again, the boat cutting forward.
Kimimaro no longer glanced in the direction of the Land of Water.