As they moved back from the battlefield, still visibly exhausted, Kimimaro's mind drifted forward into the future, not only his own, but that of the thing he was building.
Strength alone was not the measure of achievement.
In just a few short years, he had carved something truly unique into the shinobi world.
He had built a cult from the forsaken, those cast out by the so-called order of the hidden villages.
It was not simply a gathering of misfits, but an agreement between two extremes: the absolute top and the absolute bottom.
The persecuted bloodlines, hunted or suppressed precisely because they were too strong, now stood beside the powerless outcasts who had been ignored for being too weak.
Unlike the hidden villages, which were structured around the mid-tier masses, the endless ranks of shinobi tools, bound by factions of smaller clans and the dictatorial Kages who presided over them and formed cliques, his new creation was something else entirely.
His cult cut out the middle.
It was a pact of the rejected.
For the gifted bloodline users at the peak, those like Akane, whom he even recently also personally explained all of this before, the message was clear: stop begging for recognition from the world that 'feared' you.
Instead, join us, and we will become the ones who decide whose approval matters.
Let the world crawl to us. Let us trample down those who cast us over the edge.
And for the weak at the very bottom, there was also a bargain.
They could gain power, power denied to them by the false promises, empty ceremonies, and hypocritical rites of the hidden villages, by respecting them instead.
There, no academy class or mission reward politics would ever make a nobody into something. Here, they could worship, they could bleed, and in exchange, they would wield real strength and uniquely evolved bodies.
Even this single Quasi-Kage essence they had claimed today was enough to permanently alter the bodies and lifespans of hundreds of them.
His cult offered what no system of the shinobi world ever could.
Kimimaro let the thought settle as he walked, the faint ache of strain still running through his bones.
For a moment, he almost smiled.
But the more power they drew, the more careful he had to be.
He had given strict orders to every follower: there were a few names, a few living legends, who must never be provoked.
The Sannin.
Jiraiya, Tsunade, Orochimaru.
This land, the Land of Hot Water and its hot springs, was precisely the kind of place where those figures might appear.
Both Jiraiya and Tsunade, aimless and generally unemployed at present, drifted through places like this.
If they happened to cross paths, it would be by accident.
However, neither was the type to waste effort on a group like his unless provoked.
Not to mention, they likely lacked the awareness or instinct to even notice their presence here, especially with their unspoken understanding with the higher-ups and local leaders.
Orochimaru, though… that was different.
Orochimaru was unpredictable.
If he caught the faintest scent of what Kimimaro was building, he might take an interest immediately.
And he was more than capable of sniffing something around.
And that, Kimimaro admitted, he could not withstand, not yet.
For at least a few more years, at least, he had no confidence to contend with that monster in human skin.
Orochimaru's current main focus was on Otogakure, which neighbored this land directly, and Kimimaro hoped that this obsession would keep him occupied, despite the proximity.
But hope was not enough.
So he prepared.
He planned to slowly pivot greatly to that giant island across instead of the Hot Water.
It became increasingly necessary as the cult grew overall.
Suppressory systems were improved again, layers of seals and sensory screens woven across their bases.
He even made sure to keep his own presence masked most of the time, often staying away on that Kirigakure island where his training and experiments were less exposed.
He thought ahead, one measure after another, ready to vanish and relocate at the first sign of danger.
Because life was unpredictable. One could never know which current would drag them under.
And if that current carried the face of Orochimaru, Kimimaro would rather dissolve like water, adapt, flow around the obstacle, and return to strike when he had grown into something unstoppable.
That was his nature. That was his discipline.
For now, Kimimaro had no doubt.
If given just a few years, every one of his current Blessed would break through into the realm of proper Kage.
Together, they would become a force no hidden village or group could simply ignore or sweep aside.
By then, they would no longer need to hide.
They would be the ones who made others hide, chasing opportunities in the wider world rather than avoiding them.
It was at that thought that Ashina's voice stirred in his mind, faint but steady.
"You've come far," the old Uzumaki's tone carried both pride and something softer, almost nostalgic. "From those empty caves and broken stones in Uzushiogakure… to this. Less than a year, Kimimaro. Half a year ago, you were just a boy speaking to a ghost in ruins. Now you have subordinates, followers, even territory."
Kimimaro closed his eyes briefly as he walked, recalling those first lonely years.
His makeshift camp by the cliff.
The constant grind of training.
The countless hours of learning sealing arrays under Ashina's guidance, his bones aching from exertion, his chakra fraying.
He had only had one voice then, the voice inside the pendant, sharp and cynical, yet steady.
Something unfamiliar flickered in him again. Gratitude.
He asked, almost abruptly, but with uncharacteristic sincerity,
"Ashina… when the time comes, will you try to find yourself a new body?"
There was a pause. Then, for the first time, Ashina's voice wavered ever so slightly.
"It is not so simple. My body was Uzumaki. The vitality, the constitution, is not something easily replaced. A container too different would collapse or be too disappointing. Even if I found one close enough, I still lack the complete method of revival. Twenty years of isolation in those ruins, and still the puzzle eludes me."
Kimimaro could feel the bitterness behind those words.
"But," Ashina continued, "I have always believed that if I could acquire Tobirama's Edo Tensei concept, or at least study its framework, perhaps I could find the missing links. That technique breaks the boundary between the living and the dead more directly than any seal I've ever crafted. With it, I could gain the insight I might need."
Kimimaro smirked faintly. "Then there's no problem. In a few years, I plan to loot Konoha myself anyway. When that day comes, we'll simply take it together."
The pendant pulsed faintly, as though the ghost inside it was laughing without sound.
Ashina's hatred for Konoha was like poison that never thinned with time, and hearing Kimimaro so casually promise their desecration was almost cathartic for him.
"Good," the old voice whispered, laced with venom. "Very good."
Kimimaro's gaze hardened. "Please don't misunderstand, the cult would never have lasted, never have grown to this size without you. Your sensory arrays, your communication webs, they keep us ahead of pursuit."
"And at least half of our ritual techniques, their frameworks, their refinements, are your contributions.
"These sacrifices we gather, these transformations, they are as much your project as mine. Our cult will always belong to both of us as partners."
A silence stretched between them before Ashina finally spoke again, quieter. "…It was not in vain then. Teaching you. Guiding you. Perhaps all those years waiting in darkness had a purpose after all."
Kimimaro could sense it: the old man's restraint, the knowledge that, in truth, he had no leverage, actually.
Ashina Uzumaki was a ghost, bound to a seal, dependent on a boy who carried him.
He could not bargain too harshly, for what he lacked was not intellect or will, but flesh.
No body. No means of revival.
Without a body, without Edo Tensei, he was nothing but a whisper.
He knew it.
Ashina's only option was to bet everything on the future Kimimaro.
To trust that this boy would not only rise high enough, in strenght and power, to be able to help him to obtain a fitting body and the Edo Tensei sample, but also that Kimimaro would have enough sentiment, or enough pragmatism, to see the utility in reviving him, at that time, due to him helping him now for so many years for essentially 'free'.
Because if that day came, and Kimimaro resurrected him properly, Ashina would not merely be a ghost.
He would be a peak Kage-level shinobi, with decades of knowledge, also standing as an ally bound not by chains but by shared history and familiarity.
So, not only for sentimental reasons, but for practical reasons, Kimimaro would want to revive him the most eventually as another very powerful ally in the world that was against them, perhaps, but certainly their ambitions.
However, the prerequisite was that Ashina helped him like this 'selflessly' for years without demanding anything in return right away, because Kimimaro was currently too weak to provide those things without risk.
Urging him on that dangerous path prematurely, for his own goals, would just ruin their relationship, since Kimimaro was not stupid.
Then, finally, after he got revived properly later, when it wouldn't take so much risk out of Kimimaro to do so, he could move on to his own plans: revenge against Konoha, the rebirth of his clan, and perhaps the restoration of Uzushiogakure's name.
Until then, he had to watch, teach, and wait.
Both of them understood this perfectly.
That was why Kimimaro also respected him like this.
Because Ashina, for all his bitterness, understood that the boy was still too weak now to go probing into the world for Uzumaki remnants, too, for example.
That would come later, when strength and opportunity aligned.
For now, they climbed one step at a time, just as Kimimaro always said.
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AUTHOR NOTE: Big timeskips incoming, and the 'official' plot is about to start soon, too.