But Kimimaro's calm voice cut through the crash of earth. "You already are."
Tenzo's earth wall burst upward, splitting the clearing, but Kimimaro's drill tore through it in seconds, bones splintering rock as if it were paper.
The mercenary leapt back, sickle carving down with wind chakra humming across its edge, the slash extending far enough to shear through one of Reika's frozen crocodiles in a single sweep.
His body bulged further, veins black against his skin.
The pill and his crude lung manipulation had driven him into a frenzy, each step heavier, each swing sharper, but his movements twitchy, almost frantic.
Akane's Sharingan spun.
She caught every delay, every stagger where Saya's blood-threaded genjutsu pulled his body just out of rhythm.
"He's wide open!" she called, weaving seals.
Lightning erupted from her hands, spearing across the battlefield in a branching net.
Tenzo cursed, slamming his sickle into the ground.
Earth chakra flared, pulling up a wall of hardened soil to block, but the lightning carved through the cracks, jolting across his body and forcing his muscles to seize.
That was Saya's moment.
Her scythe arced low, crimson eyes blazing as she whispered, "Sanguine Marionette."
The blood inside his cuts jerked, tugging his own arm mid-swing.
The sickle, meant for Kimimaro's head, twisted off-course and nearly clipped his own thigh instead. He bellowed, tearing against it, but every movement now carried her hooks.
From the back, Emi's voice cut in, steady, calm despite the chaos. "He's breaking free for moments at a time, but it's draining his chakra each time. Keep pressing him."
Her Byakugan tracked the micro-surges inside his tenketsu, reading how much those pills were chewing through his reserves.
Reika's second dragon crashed down, freezing another swath of writhing grass and forcing Tenzo to dodge sideways.
He moved fast, unnaturally so, but his mind lagged, blood threads and genjutsu fracturing his instincts.
Kimimaro was already there, his whip lashing across Tenzo's torso.
The needles burst outward again, pricking flesh and bone alike, locking the mercenary's ribs.
"You're finished," Kimimaro said, voice cold, measured.
Tenzo's teeth ground.
His eyes bloodshot, his chest heaving like a furnace, he still found breath to laugh hoarsely.
"You think… I crawled this far to die to children?"
His muscles surged again, self-destructive earth chakra exploding all around him.
He stomped, and the ground cracked, tossing Kimimaro back a step, and for a moment, his sickle, enhanced with earth-hardening and weighting principles, blurred so fast the air itself screamed.
He cut the whip binding him, blood spraying from his own torn flesh.
Saya hissed in delight, eyes burning.
"Yes, struggle more. It makes the fall sweeter."
But the longer he raged, the more his vision warped, the blood in his veins already Saya's leash, and Akane's Sharingan waiting to twist his every twitch into another mistake.
Kimimaro's gaze stayed calm even as Tenzo's frenzy peaked.
"The stronger the body, the faster the mind collapses when it's cracked open," he thought.
Tenzo's frenzy hit its peak.
His sickle split the air into screaming arcs, wind and earth chakra swirling until it felt like a storm was condensed into his grip.
With each swing, trees toppled, stone shattered, and the air itself seemed to slice.
For a heartbeat, even Kimimaro stilled.
Not out of fear, but acknowledgment, this was the kind of desperate eruption only a cornered beast could muster.
Reika anchored her stance, frost blooming under her feet. "Now," she whispered, hands flashing through seals.
The third dragon erupted, not to attack but to corral, freezing the ground beneath Tenzo's steps so his footing slipped each time he lunged.
Saya's crimson mist thickened, seeping into every wound she'd opened on him.
"Dance for me," she breathed, and his legs buckled, forced into jerky stumbles as her blood puppetry coiled tighter.
Akane's Sharingan glowed like a furnace. She struck through the gaps, fire and lightning weaving into one, searing into his chest.
His confused eyes locked with hers for a single instant, and the genjutsu slammed down, illusions of shadowy chains binding him, making every swing feel heavier than it was.
Tenzo roared, forcing his muscles to tear against his own flesh just to move, but that was the opening Kimimaro had waited for.
The bone drill extended with a crack like thunder, piercing clean through Tenzo's shoulder and pinning him against the frozen ground.
At the same time, Kimimaro's whip constricted his waist, bone needles digging into the arteries Saya had already laced with her chakra.
The mercenary's sickle fell from his grasp, clattering uselessly on the stone.
His chest heaved, eyes rolling red with blood.
He tried to speak, but only a rasp came out, half laugh, half cough.
Kimimaro stepped forward, gaze calm, merciless.
"You struggled well. That's why you'll make a worthy offering."
With a flick of his free hand, a scroll opened in midair, dark ink glowing as the sealwork ignited.
An inverted triangle spread outward, pulling threads of chakra into the parchment, linking it directly to the Jashinist chalice waiting back in their sanctum.
Saya's mist funneled him downward, Reika's ice walls tightened, and Akane's genjutsu forced his gaze down, all ensuring he could not resist.
The seal snapped shut with a hiss, dragging Tenzo's body inside.
His roar cut off abruptly, leaving only silence and the faint shimmer of the scroll as it folded itself closed.
Kimimaro plucked it from the air and let it roll shut in his hand.
For a moment, he studied the still-warm parchment, then tucked it into his cloak.
Behind him, Saya licked her lips, crimson eyes gleaming with satisfaction. "Another sacrifice for our 'god'."
Reika's dragon dissolved into mist, her tone quiet, steady. "Another step on the path."
Akane exhaled, crimson tomoe fading back into black, though her expression stayed sharp.
"Pathetic. All that power, wasted."
Emi's Byakugan dimmed, her small hands lowering the faint blue barrier she'd kept over herself the entire time.
She was quiet, but her wide eyes betrayed the awe she felt, watching them grind down a mercenary that most of the world would have called untouchable.
Kimimaro gave them all a single nod, expression unreadable.
Inside, though, he was satisfied.
Another test passed.
Another enemy consumed by their rising shadow.
The five of them regrouped a little further from the frozen, ruined battlefield.
Kimimaro unrolled his sleeves, the bone drill receding back into his arm.
Reika's breathing was faintly ragged, strands of ice-mist clinging to her hair, her Yin Seal receding, her chakra drained from maintaining such wide-area jutsu for so long.
Saya's arms were streaked with half-closed cuts, the price of her blood techniques, though she looked perversely satisfied with each sting.
Akane's Sharingan dimmed not just from choice but necessity, her eyes burning faintly from prolonged use, and she pressed her lips together to hide it.
Even Emi, who hadn't fought directly, rubbed her temples, Byakugan leaving a bit of a dull ache when kept open under so much strain and urgency.
Saya stretched her shoulders with a satisfied crack. "That one wasn't a pushover. If he'd kept his head clear, maybe I'd have had to bleed more for it."
Akane's Sharingan dimmed back to black. She crossed her arms. "He relied too much on brute muscle and his tricks with grass. Once we saw through that, it was just about pressure. His body was strong, his mind wasn't."
Reika nodded slightly. "Exactly. His goal was obvious from the start: separate us, trap one or two in that overgrown grass, then finish them with his sickle and those crocodiles. But the moment Emi found him with her vision, his hiding was worthless. From there, it was just a matter of collapsing his field with my ice."
Emi, still catching her breath, piped up. "He tried not to look at anyone's eyes too much. But it didn't matter once Saya's blood got in. Even if he avoided Sharingan genjutsu, Ketsuryūgan doesn't care about where you look; it hits from inside."
Saya grinned. "And once he was bleeding, he was mine. Every cut was a chain. Even when he popped that pill and juiced up, it only made his body move faster while his head stayed scrambled. Like watching a puppet dance with cut strings."
Kimimaro gave a short nod. "That was his fatal flaw. He could boost his body, but his mental defenses were poor. No powerful counter to genjutsu, no counter to internal manipulation. Once Akane and Saya layered their pressure, it was over."
Akane smirked faintly. "He did get close a few times. That pill and his lung technique gave him real power. If he'd broken through to Reika or Emi, it might have gone differently."
Reika's tone stayed calm, though her eyes narrowed. "But he didn't. Ice locked his movement, blood eroded his control, Sharingan predicted him, and bones closed the distance. He never adapted. That's why he lost."
Saya twirled her scythe once before resting it on her shoulder. "He was strong. Quasi-Kage, maybe. But strength doesn't matter if you don't know how to fight unique cases like us."
Kimimaro let them speak, then closed the analysis with his usual calm certainty.
"He was dangerous because he wanted to split us and crush us in isolation. But our strength lies in the opposite; we overlap, we cover, we counter. That's why he fell. Remember this: his mistake was underestimating teamwork. Ours would be forgetting it."
They all fell silent at that, the air heavy but satisfied.
Another powerful enemy gone, another lesson learned.
For a while, the group was silent, the only sound the wind moving over broken ice and grass.
Then Ashina's dry voice echoed from the pendant against Kimimaro's chest. "Hmph. The mercenary was strong enough to almost kill a squad of ordinary jōnin on his own. But against all of you together? He was already doomed. Never forget this lesson: Raw power is just one step. Coordination, counters, planning, deception, those are what let you break giants and live to tell of it."
Kimimaro's lips curved faintly.
The others glanced at him, curious, though only he heard the old Uzumaki's voice. So, he murmured under his breath, just enough for Ashina to hear. "Don't worry. I'm not forgetting."