Kimimaro's grin lingered faintly, and he fell quiet again as Ashina's voice faded back into the silence of his mind.
Saya tilted her head, still catching her breath, and squinted at him.
"There you go again… muttering to the wind like some lunatic priest. Should I be worried you'll start preaching too?"
She smirked despite the burns, her grin crooked. "Or maybe you're already talking to Jashin, and just don't want to admit it."
Reika gave her a sideways glance, calm and flat as ever. "If he were talking to Jashin, you'd be dead already, Saya. He's obviously talking with Lord Ashina."
She crossed her arms, still pale but steady.
Kimimaro finally turned his gaze on them both, voice quiet but cutting.
"Yes, if I ever do that, Saya, then you'll be the first sacrifice."
Saya blinked, then barked a laugh again, grinning through split lips.
"Hah! That's more like you."
Kimimaro shook his head a little; in truth, Kimimaro still felt the sting of it settle in his chest.
He could admit it now; he had truly been a little drunk on power.
He, who in his first life couldn't even step outside his room for most of the time, had carved out something vast in this one.
With the body of a ten-year-old, he had seized a cult with his bones alone, cowed them into obedience until they looked at him like some sort of a 'demon lord'.
He had swelled their numbers into the hundreds, kept two striking girls bound to him as his right and left hands, and moved shadows across an entire land.
He had dictated the flow of days, commanded from a throne of discipline, made the timid Land of Hot Water and its pacifist village tremble under whispers.
For a moment, it was everything men dreamed of: power, fear, women, command.
But this fight had ripped the veil away.
Against just one Elite Jōnin, that was only something akin to a stronger canon fodder in his mind until now; all of it had been child's play.
Fragile sandcastles, impressive to the small and the weak, but meaningless before the true tides of this world.
The five great villages, the monsters like the Akatsuki, even Orochimaru, his former master's shadowed faction, dwarfed what Kimimaro had built so far.
He understood it now.
This battle had come at the right time, before arrogance rotted his steps.
It humbled him, cut him down to size, and reminded him of the truth.
He was climbing the staircase that stretched to the sky.
But he was still only near the bottom.
Meanwhile, the last seal flared and dimmed, locking the elite jōnin into that special scroll.
Kimimaro, Reika, and Saya turned at last toward the Hyūga girl.
She stood ringed by twenty fanatics, pale eyes flicking between them all, her body still tense though she hadn't been touched once.
Saya smirked, exhaustion doing nothing to dull her bite. "So, this was it, wasn't it? All this blood and thunder for her. Forget the elite, she's the prize, isn't she, Kimimaro?"
Her grin widened, mocking. "Don't tell me you've got a thing for trembling little birds."
Kimimaro's gaze stayed steady on Emi. "Yes," he said simply.
Saya blinked, taken aback for a heartbeat, before her grin crooked into something sharper. "Oh? So I was right."
Kimimaro tilted his head slightly, bone-white hair brushing his cheek. "Not for the reason you think. Her eyes."
That made Saya's smirk falter, curiosity prickling beneath the play.
Reika, arms folded, gave a cold glance at the girl. "Byakugan. That changes things."
Emi straightened faintly under the weight of all their stares.
Her lips parted, and she forced a dry little laugh, as if to cover the twist in her stomach.
"W-wow… dragged into a nightmare cult, and the first thing you people notice is my eyes. Figures." She let the laugh fade, voice lighter than her gut.
"Do I get to know who exactly I'm supposed to thank for… all this?"
Kimimaro stepped closer, his tone calm, unhurried.
"You may call me Kimimaro."
Her Byakugan had already told her enough about him, the way his bones flexed beneath skin, unnatural, disciplined, monstrous.
She lifted her chin a fraction anyway. "And what happens to me now, Kimimaro?"
His thin smile returned. "That depends. On how useful you intend to be."
Emi had been watching the entire battle with her Byakugan spinning.
She hadn't fought, couldn't fight, not when she was surrounded by dozens of cultists, their strange voodoo aura gnawing at her limbs and slowing her even when they didn't touch her.
Not when lightning and bone and ice were tearing the field apart in every direction.
All she could do was survive.
She slipped into the blind spots between arcs of lightning, the sweep of the scythe, the burst of bone spears.
She threaded herself into safe pockets of space, moving just enough, never more, guided by the perfect clarity of her vision.
But what she saw left her shaken.
These weren't techniques she knew.
They weren't the neat, catalogued ninjutsu she'd studied in the academy.
Not the polished entries tucked away in the clan's library for side branch members.
Not even the broader scrolls of the village archive.
This was something else.
Strange, ritualistic powers that looked almost magical, cultists screaming with blood-smeared dolls, their simulated pain echoing into the enemy's body.
Bone sprouting like living weapons, bending into impossible shapes.
Ice coiling into storms and domes.
It was a world hidden beneath the shinobi world, she thought she understood.
And now she was trapped inside it.
Her lips tightened, but she forced herself to keep her face calm, even cheeky, even faintly amused.
She let her pale eyes linger on the three who had broken the storm.
The girls looked close to her own age, maybe one was a year older at most.
The shorter one with dark plhair and those sharp, golden-hazel eyes that seemed to burn from within; the taller one with blonde hair and deep, dark blue eyes now, striking in their own colder way.
Both were very pretty and developed for their age, not much worse than her, in her mind, and far too composed for what they had just survived.
And then there was the boy.
The one who was clearly their leader.
He looked even younger than the girls, his face still carrying the smoothness of a child, yet the way he carried himself screamed otherwise.
His robes were different from theirs, heavier and more intricate, stitched in bone-white and deep violet. A large yin–yang mark rested over his chest, and on his back, the emblem of a bone blossoming into a flower spread like a quiet declaration.
His posture was measured, his aura restrained but heavy, and even his chakra felt… noble.
It was unlike anything she had ever seen in someone her own age.
No Konoha peer carried themselves like that.
Not even the heirs of the Main Branch could match it.
It left her unsettled.
How could three children like this be the leaders of some nightmarish cult she'd never even heard whispers about in Konoha?
What else were they hiding?
She knew she would need to understand fast if she wanted to keep breathing.
Her lips curled into that familiar, self-deprecating, pitiful little smirk, the armor she always wore. 'Out of one cage, straight into another, she thought. Figures. Finally, about to fly free, and now I'm about to be kidnapped instead. Let's see what they plan to do with me next.'
Kimimaro let his gaze rest on her for a moment longer.
The cute face, the faint trace of curves forming into womanhood because of the quirky and tight clothing, outwardly still a girl, but her eyes already sharper than most adults'.
He let his sensing brush over her, tasting the weight of her words, the rhythm of her chakra.
It told him more than her trembling act did.
He spoke evenly, with that same unnerving calm.
"You're awfully casual for someone betraying their own village just now. And don't think your sympathy act works on me. See, I already know what kind of person you are."
Emi blinked, then let out a small, coy laugh, tilting her head just so.
"Wow, straight to the point, huh? Guess you're not the type to fall for puppy eyes."
Her lips curled into a cheeky half-smile. "Maybe I'm just tired of cages. Maybe I figured it was time to pick the winning side."
Her voice was light, almost playful, but her mind ticked in sharper lines. 'Play along. Smile. Make them think I'm harmless. Cute and cooperative, the perfect little tool. And then… who knows what doors open later.'
Kimimaro caught that glint beneath the surface.
He didn't press it, only allowed himself a thin smirk.
"At least you're honest in your dishonesty. That makes you easier to manage."
Saya snorted, twirling her scythe against her shoulder despite the burns.
"Hah. She's got some bite. I like her already. If she steps out of line, I'll carve it out of her."
Reika, arms folded, regarded Emi with cool indifference.
"She's clever. That much is obvious. We'll see if she's useful. If not, she'll be fuel like the rest."
Kimimaro raised a hand, and the surviving cultists shuffled forward, still muttering their chants under ragged breaths.
"Clean the ground. Hide the battle. Make it look like nothing happened here."
The fanatics dragged what remained of corpses and blood into shallow pits, smeared earth over scorch marks, and erased what signs they could. It was crude, but enough for a land already blind to danger.
Within the hour, the group slipped back into the forest, shadows weaving among the trees of the Land of Hot Water.
Kimimaro walked at the front, Gorō's sealed body dragged behind on a reinforced scroll, Saya and Reika flanking.
Emi moved beside Kimimaro, a pale little bird caged in the company of wolves.
He glanced at her without slowing. "You walk willingly now, or should I have them drag you?"
Emi flashed him a dry smile, brushing a strand of messy hair from her face. "Oh, don't worry. I'm a fast learner. I walk, I listen, I smile. No need to waste rope on me."
Kimimaro's smirk flickered again, just faintly. "Good. Then maybe you'll live longer than most."
The woods swallowed their footsteps, the cult's chants fading into the dark between trees.