Ashina and Kimimaro soon deduced that the creation of the so-called immortal "undying body" was just one half of the Chinoike-Jashinist heritage.
The other half could be described as a kind of refined voodoo sorcery.
Its most potent form was simple in principle; once you possessed the perfected immortal body, you could share blood with your target.
By then stabbing yourself to death within the ritual framework, you didn't die; the damage was instead carried over to the victim through Yin–Yang transfer.
But there was another branch of the technique, one Hidan had never possessed.
In this version, cult artisans produced miniature effigy-dolls, crafted with painstaking seals.
By smearing an enemy's blood onto the doll, ordinary Jashin followers could mimic the same principle: damage redirected onto the victim, while they themselves remained unharmed.
Weaker, yes, but terrifying in numbers.
And more dangerously still, in mass ceremonies with dozens of chanters, the ritual didn't always even need blood.
With enough hands linking the seal, they could attune to faint leaks of chakra from a nearby opponent and use that as the medium.
That explained the sudden ambush on him and Reika; he hadn't underestimated their numbers, but the mechanics they used to reach for him.
All of this additionally only confirmed what Kimimaro already believed regarding that there was no such thing as "hell" in this world.
Not in the shinobi system, not in the lore, and not even in his own past life as a fan of the series, as he deemed back then.
Ashina had also already explained that the Reaper Death Seal was nothing mystical at all, but simply Yin–Yang Release shaped into sealing form.
The only confirmed afterlife in the original series canonically ever was the Pure Land, where souls went after death, and the so-called Purgatory, where failures were cast aside.
That was all the series itself had ever mentioned.
Even the Rinnegan's "King of Hell" technique?
Almost certainly another Yin–Yang construct.
The Rinnegan, after all, excelled most in that duality of the Yin and Yang Relases together.
However, in truth, Yin–Yang Release had never been exclusive to Ōtsutsuki, Rinnegan, or Tenseigan holders, Ten-Tails jinchūriki, or any other so-called divine category.
That idea was a misconception born from observation, not a rule.
Izanagi itself was proof. It was explicitly described as a Yin–Yang technique, yet any basic Sharingan user could, in principle, perform it.
So, proximity to the "divine" merely lowered the barrier.
The closer one stood to that realm, the easier it became to wield something so potent, something capable of rewriting reality itself.
But ease was not exclusivity.
With time, understanding, and discipline, even those without direct divine links could reach it.
Ashina had more or less confirmed as much to him directly in the past.
This entire Chinoike thing now was an even more obvious proof.
Which was precisely why it mattered that Kimimaro had encountered these principles so early.
Yin–Yang Release obviously wasn't something mastered quickly or even any time soon.
It demanded years of refinement at least.
Starting young wasn't a luxury.
It was a necessity.
...
Kimimaro stood before Saya again soon, after finishing his "inspection", arms folded, his pale eyes fixed on her as if weighing every twitch in her expression.
She sat there bound and sullen, but even in her indignation, he could see the calculations running behind her eyes.
"Explain," he said, voice flat but sharp enough to cut.
"Not just the tricks. The bones of it. How does your little "faith" actually breathe?"
Saya hesitated, then spat out the pieces of what she knew, half-shame, half-pride.
The Jashinists believed all life was worthless unless offered up in sacrifice.
Death was their currency, slaughter their worship.
To bleed and to make others bleed was to touch Jashin himself.
The most devout, the most successful killers, sometimes received "rewards."
For most, the promise was protection, recognition, or scraps of power.
Kimimaro listened, expression unreadable.
Then he interrupted. "Sloppy. Too scattered. But it has potential."
"For once, you always promised them 'rewards', but from where I stand, it looked like nothing but swindling. Always pushing the stone down the road, always promising it would be tomorrow, one day, never today." His voice was sharp, each syllable clipped and deliberate.
"Also, the tricks I saw there? You think those were sufficient? They weren't truly powerful and were only useful in groups. While the power of the cult itself is currently very weak, its presence is nonexistent. So, what kind of power and security can it bring to its members?"
"Why would anyone want to join you and risk their lives, while allowing themselves to be molded by you? Because, out there, shinobi villages hold the monopoly. Power is bloodlines, even in the so-called hijutus clans, who also genetically adapted to their techniques over time, and other accidents of birth. That's what rules the world."
"So who comes to you naturally? Criminals, black market rats, failed shinobi. People with crooked morals and the loudest hunger for freedom and strength. Those are good targets. They want out of the system. They want revenge. We adapt to them."
His gaze cut into her. "Also, we will drop all the constant, painful blood sacrifices and rituals. That only makes them betray you faster, desperate to survive. Keep the rituals, but make them ceremonial, blood to bind them, not bleed them dry. Increase the reward instead. Bigger sacrifices, stronger sources. We start hunting shinobi. That's where true power lies."
Saya's eyes widened slightly, then narrowed into slits.
She had expected more threats, maybe another cruel demand, but instead he was… dissecting her cult, reshaping it in front of her like clay.
"You…" Her voice faltered before sharpening. "You would have us abandon what makes us Jashinists? Without blood, without sacrifice, it is nothing but a farce!"
Kimimaro tilted his head, that faint, mocking smile ghosting across his lips.
Saya grit her teeth afterward. "Yet… you're not wrong. The ones we lure are weak, broken. Fodder. They join, they bleed, they die, and then the next wave comes. They are not loyal, not powerful."
"The first logical answer is shinobi… Their blood is stronger. Their chakra is richer. If such sacrifices were taken, if rituals fed on them, the power of our ordinary followers could multiply tenfold as well as their loyalty."
She stared at him now, resentment and something like reluctant awe mixing in her dark eyes.
"But to hunt shinobi, boy, is to invite war. This is why I never did so. Do you really think you can face a proper village's wrath?"
Kimimaro's grin sharpened. "If they come, we make their corpses the foundation stones of this cult even more."
Saya's breath caught, a shiver running down her spine despite herself.
She wanted to sneer, to curse him, to call him arrogant, but deep down, she knew the path he spoke of was truer than anything her elders had left behind.
Kimimaro then shook his head slightly before he began to sort it all aloud, streamlining the chaos and thoughts forming inside his head, into something sharper.
"Pain and death as proof of faith."
"To suffer is communion, to kill is worship."
"Death isn't the end; it's a merger with Jashin."
"That's fine. Keep it."
Saya glared, but said nothing.
"The economy of your cult," he continued, "is blood. Sacrifices are the coin. The more you offer, the higher you climb. This turns killing into competition. And competition keeps your flock hungry."
"You should've emphasized this more."
Her brows furrowed; she hadn't thought of it in such terms, but his words cut frighteningly close to the truth.
"As for community...", Kimimaro went on.
"You keep them bound through fear as the first thing."
"Prestige comes not only from the blood you spill but from how much agony you endure yourself. Pain becomes a shared language. However, never forcefully. Dissenters? You don't debate with them. They join your sacrifices. That keeps your ranks tight. Blood bonds."
Saya bit her lip, remembering her own initiations, the cuts, the chanting, the way she had forced others to bleed beside her.
He spoke like someone who had seen it all from the inside.
"Recruitment," Kimimaro said next, dismissive. "We prey on the broken, the abandoned, the disillusioned. Also, war orphans. Bandits. Villagers too weak to matter. And, on top of offering the supernatural powers, you also sell them one more ideological kind of promise: 'Your suffering has meaning. Jashin makes you eternal.' That's bait any desperate fool would bite."
Ashina's voice stirred faintly in his pendant, approving the clarity.
Saya hissed, "And the hierarchy?"
Kimimaro smirked faintly. "Pathetic, as you built it. But it can be refined. Outer Circle: fodder and zealots, there to die. Inner Circle: slowly created shinobi-level cultists, enforcers of ritual. And above them, the Blessed, those marked with true gifts. They become proof that god exists. Prove the slaughter is worth it."
He let that sink in, then added, "Your rituals are the glue. Daily bloodletting, the killing of captives, seasonal festivals of mass sacrifice."
"You make them share pain, stabbings, cuts, tortures, chanting Jashin's name until they believe agony is joy. A perfect mechanism of control."
Saya shifted uncomfortably, because he was peeling apart what she had clung to her whole life and laying it bare as machinery.
"Why it works?" Kimimaro finished coldly.
"Simple promise: kill, be rewarded."
"Visible proof: rituals over time also create real effects, immortality, and curse techniques."
"Emotional hook: the powerless find power in cruelty."
"Structural grip: fear and blood rituals bind them tighter than any ideology ever could."
His gaze bore into hers. "What you call faith is nothing but a business. And now it's mine."
Saya's breath caught, her face burning with anger, humiliation, and something else she couldn't name.
Kimimaro's gaze hardened into something absolute, leaving Saya with no room to slip away.
"You and Reika," he said calmly, his voice carrying like steel, "will be the first of the Blessed.
And I," his lips curved into a thin smile, "am your new leader."
Saya's eyes widened for a heartbeat.
The words cut her like a blade, sharper than any threat.
Her teeth clenched.
She wanted to spit venom, to sneer, to deny it, but the seal on her body pulsed faintly, a cruel reminder of who held control now.
Kimimaro didn't let the silence linger. "Your duties will change. You'll summon back what's left of your flock. I will address them myself."
"And when I do, they'll hear not the tired promises you fed them, but a new doctrine. One that binds them tighter, rewards them faster, and builds something real."
He leaned forward slightly, his tone colder, deliberate.
"You will stand by me and listen."
"You will learn what true leadership looks like."
Saya's breath caught in her throat.
She knew that as soon as that first meeting was finalized, there would be no going back, even if she wasn't trapped.
Humiliation burned through her chest, hotter than any wound.
Just days ago, she had been the spider in the center of the web, commanding shadows with a word.
Now this boy, this stranger, had walked into her shrine, scattered her illusions, torn the web apart, and sat in her place as if it was always his.
Her fists trembled, not from rage alone.
There was something else.
That icy certainty in his voice, the way he had stolen everything from her without hesitation, without doubt, without even cruelty, only inevitability.
It stirred something low in her gut, something she despised even more than her anger.
A warped sense of security.
A flicker of expectation.
The same domineering force that had stripped her bare also gave the illusion that nothing could shake him, and if she was chained to him, maybe nothing could shake her either.
She hated herself for feeling it.
Kimimaro straightened, as if satisfied with her silence.
His eyes cut away, already calculating the next step, his mind far beyond this room.
Reika, standing nearby, watched in silence, her gaze unreadable.
Saya lowered her head, a smirk curling despite herself, bitter and twisted.
"Tch… Fine. You want my flock? Then command them. Let's see how long they obey you."
But inside, she already knew the truth: he had taken everything from her, and for reasons she didn't dare name, she couldn't stop herself from following where he led.
And just like that, the scene closed.
The cult of Jashin had a new master.