They found shelter in a cave that night, the air warm from the land's ever-present steam.
The floor was uneven but dry enough, and for Reika, exhaustion came fast.
The days of running, the shock of her mother's death, the escape from Kirigakure's hunters, all of it caught up to her once her head touched the cloak she used as a pillow.
When she woke, pale light filtered through cracks in the cave wall.
For a moment, she thought everything had been a dream.
The ruins, the strange boy with bone-white hair, the pendant with a dead Uzumaki whispering from within.
She half expected to wake to her mother's voice calling her for breakfast.
But the cave was empty.
Her chest tightened until she noticed the faint sound of movement outside.
She followed the noise, stepping carefully through a narrow passage that branched toward the open air.
And there he was.
Kimimaro moved across a clearing in the morning light, body taut and precise.
His strikes, stretches, and fluid motions weren't frantic or clumsy.
They were disciplined, methodical, as if every gesture had been broken down and rebuilt a thousand times.
His hair, damp with sweat, clung to his forehead, his breath controlled, not ragged.
Reika blinked, remembering how late into the night he had sat upright, claiming he was meditating.
She had fallen asleep with his stillness etched into her memory, and now she woke to find him already training as if sleep were nothing more than a brief pause.
Her lips pressed into a thin line. 'He barely rests at all.'
A strange mix stirred inside her: respect, unease, and something else she couldn't name.
She had always been proud of her training, her control over her ice, the discipline her mother had forced her to maintain to survive.
Yet compared to this boy, younger than her, who meditated through the night and trained at dawn as though time itself were an enemy, her own efforts suddenly felt… ordinary.
'Is this what it takes?' she wondered, watching his body move with relentless focus. 'To live with no hesitation, no waste, not even in sleep?'
The thought sat heavily in her chest.
She tightened her cloak around her shoulders, the morning air prickling her skin.
By the time Reika had settled against the rock face and looked at it closer, his steps traced deliberate arcs across the clearing, arms sweeping, twisting, and cutting through the air in patterns that at first looked bizarre.
Her brows furrowed.
It didn't resemble any taijutsu form she'd seen before.
No stance she recognized, no kata passed down through the shinobi villages.
It was closer to a dance, fluid but strange, something that looked utterly impractical in a real fight.
But then she pictured his bones.
Each empty strike suddenly filled with an invisible edge, spikes bursting from palms, blades sliding from forearms, lances sprouting from elbows, knees, even his spine.
Every spin, every arc, every twist of his body became a lethal strike, a net of death that few could hope to predict or block.
Her eyes widened faintly. 'So that's what it is. A kata built for his strange kekkei genkai. A dance of bones.'
The thought alone made her skin prickle.
But something else tugged at her attention.
No matter how sharp the image became in her mind, she realized he wasn't actually manifesting anything.
No ivory blades, no skeletal armor, nothing.
Only the 'empty' movements.
'Why doesn't he summon them too?' she wondered.
'Is it because he doesn't want me to see his full style yet? Or… maybe he just doesn't want to waste the energy.'
She bit her lip lightly, narrowing her eyes at him.
The more she watched, the clearer it became that nothing he did was wasted.
Even when it looked foolish, it wasn't.
Every motion was a piece of something larger, a deadly pattern invisible unless you knew what to look for.
Reika exhaled softly, a shiver running down her spine despite the steam in the morning air.
Kimimaro's movements eventually slowed, then stopped.
He straightened, wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm, and walked toward her with that calm, deliberate pace of his.
"Morning," he said simply.
Reika blinked, realizing how intently she'd been watching.
She averted her eyes, her face stiffening as if she had been caught peeking again.
She shifted her cloak, covering herself unnecessarily, and muttered, "...Morning."
To cover her embarrassment, she spoke quickly. "So what exactly is your purpose here? Don't tell me we crossed into this country just to sit in hot springs. Even if we're laying low, we need some kind of settlement, something more permanent than sleeping in caves."
Kimimaro's lips curved. "Oh? Concerned about accommodations already? You sound like someone settling into married life."
Her cheeks colored faintly, and she shot him a sharp look, though she held her tongue.
Still, there was a flicker in her gaze, like she didn't expect someone so disciplined and serious to toss out a joke like that.
His smirk softened, turning serious. "We came here to look into two things. Both of which might lead us somewhere unexpected."
Reika tilted her head slightly, cautious but curious. "Two things?"
"Chinoike clan," Kimimaro said, his tone flat but certain. "And the so-called Jashinist cult." A faint grin pulled at the edge of his lips. "I believe those two can point us toward… interesting directions."
Reika frowned. The names meant little to her. "Chinoike…? And Jashinists?"
Inside the pendant, Ashina stirred, his voice echoing low into Kimimaro's mind.
"…Chinoike. Yes, there was such a clan, long ago. Exiled during the Warring States. Somewhere around this land, if memory serves. Their bloodline was strange… crimson eyes with powers tied to blood itself. But I never heard the full tale."
A pause, heavy with suspicion.
"And how do you know of them, boy?"
Kimimaro's expression didn't shift.
He did not answer Ashina's silent question, only letting the thought pass.
Instead, he looked down at Reika, who was still watching him closely.
"Our search begins now. We'll visit every major place worth mentioning, dig through the whispers of this land. Sometimes openly, sometimes in shadows. We'll question locals, poke around in the markets."
Reika exhaled slowly, doubt flickering in her golden eyes.
It sounded impossible, too vague, somewhat too ambitious.
But then again, hadn't this boy already pried a dead patriarch of her clan's ancestors out of the void? Despite not even being an Uzumaki?
Her lips pressed thin, but she nodded.
"Fine. If you say you'll find something, I'll believe it. For now."
Kimimaro smirked faintly. 'Good. Trust, born from results, not words.'
And so they set off, slipping deeper into the Land of Hot Water, beginning a quiet trail that would lead them through towns, villages, temples, even the underbelly of the black markets, everywhere a scrap of information might hide.
...
A few days later, their quiet trail through Hot Water began to shift.
Whispers of odd disappearances, strange gatherings at night, travelers vanishing without a trace, all little pieces that painted the edge of something darker.
Then, one evening, an informant finally leaned close across a shabby tavern table and murmured of a "meeting."
A contact who claimed to be tied to the Jashinist cult.
Secluded. Far from the villages.
Kimimaro agreed without hesitation.
The night after, he and Reika moved under heavy cloaks, their young frames swallowed by dark fabric.
Their footsteps crunched faintly on the gravel path as they slipped deeper into the countryside.
The meeting place revealed itself at the end of a winding path: a half-collapsed shrine, long abandoned.
Steam from nearby hot springs drifted across the broken stone steps, shrouding the ruined torii gate in mist.
Weeds grew thick around weather-worn statues, their faces chipped away, leaving only vague silhouettes of gods no one prayed to anymore.
The whole place reeked of neglect and something faintly metallic beneath the damp blood, maybe, or just the scent of old rust clinging to the stone.
"This is obviously a setup, Kimimaro…" Reika muttered, her eyes narrowing as her chakra sense spread across the field.
Kimimaro's lips curved faintly. "I know. But this is also the door. The entry never looks welcoming. If it did, it wouldn't be the Jashinists."
She shot him a side look, unimpressed. "You sound far too eager."
His smirk widened a fraction. "And you sound nervous."
Her cloak shifted as she crossed her arms, annoyed but unwilling to deny it.
He glanced forward, his voice lowering as the mist thickened around them.
"With my sensing, we can measure the field before we step in. If it's unreasonable, we pull back. If it's acceptable… we walk through. Simple."
Reika exhaled slowly, nodding.
Her golden eyes sharpened as her chakra also spread outward, scanning every flicker in the shrine's ruins.
Kimimaro's eyes half-closed, his chakra already spreading outward like a net cast across the shrine grounds.
Where Reika's senses caught only fragments, his cut sharper.
"…Dozens," he murmured. "But they're nothing. Civilians. Flies buzzing around the altar."
Reika frowned. "Then what's the real presence here?"
Kimimaro's gaze sharpened. "There is one. A single flame that stands out among the trash. Perhaps stronger than you. A girl. Older than you slightly, maybe, but I'm not certain."
Reika stiffened, her arms crossing under her cloak. "…A Jashinist?"
"Most likely," Kimimaro said.
His smirk crept in, faint and cold.
"And not a small one either. The flies are gathered for her web."
Ashina's voice rumbled low from the pendant, approving yet wary. "So the cult hides its spearhead behind a mob of worthless husks. Typical. But if her strength and age are as you say, then this is no ordinary zealot."
Kimimaro nodded as he let his chakra coil back into himself, opening his eyes fully.
He looked at Reika, his tone even.
"Now you see why I walked us here. The flies don't matter. It's the spider we came to meet."
Reika exhaled slowly, her golden eyes narrowing toward the mist-shrouded shrine.
She didn't like it, but she didn't argue.
Not when Kimimaro's senses cut through the fog with such certainty.
Together, cloaked, they moved toward the ruined torii, the taste of iron thick in the air.