'So all their rituals and techniques are rooted in Yin–Yang Release?'
Kimimaro mused, eyes narrowing faintly.
'That could be useful to me… very useful.'
The thought hardened into a decision almost immediately.
He would take this cult for himself.
Not for their followers, those were ants, but for their strange arsenal of techniques.
Additionally, if he could dissect their principles, strip them to their essence, and weave them into his own bloodline, perhaps he could finally push his Shikotsumyaku to its true peak.
The All-Killing Ash Bones.
He had long believed the technique was possible, but incomplete without Yin–Yang.
For three years, he had experimented, saturating his bones with Yin chakra, flooding them with Yang vitality, yet the balance never held.
The fusion was imperfect, always collapsing before it could take shape.
And now, staring at the strangely trembling Chinoike girl before him, he wondered if this was it. Whether he was right once again.
Additionally, from the pendant against his chest, Ashina's voice constantly slipped through, low and sharp, also tinged with greed.
The Uzumaki elder had probably seen the same thing he had.
This cult's foundation wasn't merely trickery; it was a crude vessel for Yin–Yang manipulation.
A vessel that could be refined, weaponized.
Kimimaro smirked faintly, amused at the symmetry.
Teacher and student both stirred by the same promise, both thrilled by the scent of uncharted power.
For Ashina, it was fuel for his bitter dream of revenge and the restoration of his fallen clan's pride.
For Kimimaro, it was another step on the staircase he was carving, toward standing above all others, toward becoming the axis on which this plane would turn.
And now both their hungers aligned perfectly.
Kimimaro's gaze sharpened. "The Chinoike clan… You should have been exterminated in a night of infighting a few years back?"
Saya stiffened. Her dark-blue eyes flicked to him, a ripple of unease passing through her composure. 'He knows even this…'
Finally, she exhaled sharply and spoke, her tone edged but laced with bitterness.
"…Not all of us wanted the same fate."
Kimimaro said nothing, only waited patiently, gaze like a blade.
"There were two sides," Saya continued reluctantly.
"One that believed we should endure the Valley of Hell, hide and wait until the world forgot us. They were cautious. Cowards. They feared Kumo's eye too much. But the other side, the side I was born into, hungered to break out of the hellish valley. To take revenge on the Uchiha, on Kumogakure, on everyone who trapped us there like dogs."
Her lips curled in scorn, though it was unclear who she despised more, her enemies or her own kin.
"It was that faction that created Jashinism. At first, only as a mask, a tool to gather followers outside the valley. Civilians are weak, but they are plentiful and gullible. We experimented with rituals, with new techniques. We believed we could forge power enough to break free."
Her hand twitched against her robe, as if remembering.
"The plan was simple. A coup. Slaughter the weaklings, from our clan, who clung to their fear, sacrifice them along with their families in one grand ritual, and use their blood to grant our civilian flock something… greater. Immortality, power, proof that the Chinoike could not be erased. There was no other way. Then we would march out with newfound strength. First into Wind or Earth, far from Konoha and Kumo's grip, and rise again completely eventually."
Her voice faltered, just for an instant. "But it failed. The other side must have been tipped off. They anticipated everything. And the ritual…"
Her eyes narrowed, haunted for a second. "It didn't work the way it was meant to. Instead of immortality, it was chaos. Blood everywhere."
She fell silent, shoulders tense, glaring at Kimimaro as though daring him to mock her for it.
Saya's lips pressed tight as though the words themselves cut her tongue, but finally she admitted, "I only lived because I played dead. Hid beneath the corpses with a small child's body, until the screaming stopped."
Her gaze drifted for a heartbeat, dark blue eyes flickering with something like old terror buried under layers of pride.
"Later, I slipped out while the others were either killing each other or already dead."
Kimimaro listened in silence, his stare never wavering.
His voice was calm, but edged.
"Who warned them? And why did your ritual backfire?"
Saya's jaw clenched. "I don't know," she admitted, reluctant, her tone carrying both shame and anger.
Kimimaro's gaze sharpened. "And did you take your clan's techniques with you when you crawled out of that pit?"
She hesitated again, then gave a sharp nod. "Less than I wanted. After I was sure everyone had torn each other apart, I scavenged what I could. Then I left. Later, found the Jashinists who weren't caught in the purge, and… continued. I took what remained and made it mine, becoming the new leader. New methods, new experiments."
Kimimaro remained quiet for a moment, thoughtful.
Her story fit together, yet something in it made the picture sharper for him.
'She never mentioned Hidan. She probably didn't notice him then. But if there were ordinary Jashinists at that grand fateful ritual, too, then perhaps Hidan was among them initially also.'
'If so, then the answer is simple: the two factions clashed, the ritual backfired, both sides were wounded, and a young fanatic like Hidan crawled out with the true prize somehow.'
'His immortality... He probably already was informed of his Curse Jutsu in fragments from earlier and just mastered it alone from then on.'
Kimimaro's thoughts continued coldly, connecting threads.
'If Hidan's ability had awakened then, he could have slaughtered the survivors and Jashinists while they were weak right away.'
'But why him alone? Luck, compatibility… or simply madness. The boy most possessed by 'faith' may have been the only vessel the ritual truly clung to.'
'He escaped, wandered, butchered shinobi, then eventually joined Akatsuki. The rest of the world wrote it off as Chinoike infighting, likely because Hidan told Yugakure that story himself. And maybe he forgot parts, or deluded himself further, because of the ritual's shock. Convenient for his religion, convenient for the lie.'
His eyes narrowed further.
But this still leaves the greater mystery.
The peaceful faction somehow anticipated the attack.
The hardliners' ritual failed in exactly the worst way.
Coincidence?
No. Too neat.
Which means there was probably a third hand in play.
Someone powerful enough to bend Yin–Yang currents from the shadows, to drink in the chaos while the Chinoike bled each other dry.
Perhaps the entire clan was nothing more than a sacrifice for another's purpose from the very beginning.
In fact, Hidan, too, might just be an accidental product that the other party didn't bother to erase for some reason.
Kimimaro then leaned down slightly, gaze hard as a blade, voice flat.
"Then your clan's tragedy may not have been entirely your own doing. It may have been arranged. If you want to know what truly happened, you'll need me. Your vision is narrow. Alone, you'll never uncover it."
Saya's fists trembled at her sides.
She hated his words, hated how calm and certain he sounded, but deep down, part of her knew he wasn't wrong.
Reika, who had stood silently until now, finally spoke.
"So even you, with all that hatred for the Uchiha and Kumogakure, were just pawns of some far bigger player than you were."
Her voice was steady, but her eyes betrayed a flicker of pity.
"He might be right. If there's another hand behind it all, maybe you don't even know what you're serving."
The shrine was silent after that, save for the drip of water echoing from its cracked ceiling.
Saya stood in the circle's center, humiliated, furious, yet inwardly shaken, her smirk long gone.
Kimimaro tilted his head slightly, gaze narrowing.
"Your clan's techniques are… obscure. Even I could barely sense them. Which makes me wonder, perhaps it wasn't one faction sacrificing the other that night. Perhaps all of you were sacrifices. For someone else entirely."
Saya's eyes widened a fraction, her lips pressing thin.
Kimimaro smirked, sharp and mocking. "And if that's the case, your techniques might not be safe to use at all. Tempered by another hand, throughout history, twisted for someone else's purpose. You'll need me to examine them if you don't want to end up as nothing more than another pawn."
He spoke with quiet confidence, but as the words left his mouth, a thought jolted through him, colder than the shrine's mist.
'Could it be truly him…? It strangely fits his modus operandi. But then why no mention of this in the original? Unless… it was a backup. A scheme that never needed to be used, so the world never saw it.'
For a heartbeat, his composure was a mask hiding a storm.
A gut feeling told him the threads of this clan's destruction, their false god, and that cursed ritual might trace back to one distinct non-human figure he knew too well.
Someone who moved through the shinobi world like a phantom, planting seeds, testing pawns, always preparing layers of contingencies, for its ultimate plan.
Kimimaro's fingers flexed at his side, bones itching beneath the skin. The possibility wasn't proven, but it was enough to ignite suspicion. Enough to sharpen his resolve.