The night of the rebirth ceremony crept in heavy and humid.
Kimimaro and Saya were tucked away in a shabby storeroom at the hideout, the place filled with stacks of freshly tailored dark robes.
Hundreds of them, all smelling of rough cloth and dye.
The lantern-light flickered against the heaps of folded garments, throwing jagged shadows across the stone walls.
Saya's lips twisted in a pout as she crossed her arms. "Even this you had to change?"
Her voice had a hint of protest, but it came out softer than she meant, almost girlish.
Nothing like the cold iron she tried to wear just days before.
Kimimaro smirked, crouching to run his fingers over one of the folded robes.
"What more do you want? I kept the name your clan created. Jashin still sits on your little altar. The upside-down triangle, the circle, also untouched."
His eyes flicked up to her with a mocking edge. "All I did was dress them better. A little blood motif. A little bone motif. A touch of reality to your theatrics."
Her eyes darted to the embroidery on the sleeves, the new patterns etched into the fabric.
Blood winding into bone, veins twisting into spines.
"This becomes our universal emblem from today onward,"
The symbolism hit Saya harder than she wanted to admit.
Kimimaro leaned back, voice low, teasing.
"You understand, don't you? Bone and blood, together. A union."
His grin sharpened, deliberate in its provocation.
Saya's face went crimson in a flash.
She swung her fist at his shoulder, more a flustered push than a real strike, especially with the seals still binding her strength. "Shut up!"
He didn't flinch, didn't even pretend to be hurt.
He only smirked wider, as if welcoming the gesture.
The implication sat between them like a spark: the robes didn't just mark the cult's new face, they hinted at something else.
A shared mark. A bond, however twisted, between her blood and his bone.
Saya turned her face away quickly, blonde bangs falling over her darker eyes, but it did nothing to hide the furious blush spreading over her cheeks.
Her chest tightened strangely, her thoughts tangled in knots she had never allowed herself before.
She never expected that a ten-year-old boy, this 'brat' who humiliated and overpowered her, could make her body react in ways she didn't understand, could stir thoughts she had never had for anyone before.
And that terrified her almost as much as it thrilled her.
In this way, her clan's mark on the cult remained.
Visually, it almost looked natural as Saya stared at it, as if those two symbols had always belonged together.
The thought made her cheeks warm again.
She quickly averted her eyes, annoyed at herself, but the heat in her face refused to die down.
'Why does it feel… right? Like it belongs. Like we belong. Damn it, what am I even thinking? He's just a child three years younger… no, worse, a brat who humiliated me and stole everything from me. And yet—'
Her gaze flicked back to Kimimaro, who was smirking faintly as though he could see straight through her flustered act.
'And yet he wears that smirk as if all of this was planned from the start. As if my clan, my cult, even me, were just waiting for him to come and take it. Why do I… feel less anger than I should? Why do I feel… this disgusting sense of relief?'
Her nails dug lightly into her palm.
'Maybe it's because, for once, I don't have to carry it all alone. Maybe it's because… he feels unshakable, even though he's younger. That terrifies me. And it thrills me.'
She blushed harder, hating herself for the thought, but the truth was there, crawling under her skin no matter how she tried to deny it.
Kimimaro let his gaze linger on her a little longer this time, studying her appearance with unusual intent.
Something about her current demeanor caught his eye — softer, careless, almost inviting his attention without her realizing it.
She wore only a sleeveless dark shirt, cropped short to leave her stomach bare.
The cut was smaller than most shinobi wear, enough that part of her developing chest was still exposed.
Beneath that, a mesh armor clung tightly to her arms and midsection, functional yet leaving little to the imagination.
Her lower half was wrapped in fitted dark shinobi pants, practical but accentuating her form.
This was what she casually wore beneath her cultist cloak, and yet, in front of Kimimaro, she walked like this without concern, as if it didn't matter anymore.
Perhaps she assumed he'd soon hand her a new uniform anyway.
But Kimimaro was also a man.
And despite being only thirteen, Saya was already halfway through her development.
From the front and the back, there were already noticeable curves, bulges that marked the difference between child and woman.
Her face, flushed red in embarrassment earlier, only made her look cuter now, framed by that messy white-blonde ponytail and wild bangs.
The sharp contrast of her pale hair and deep eyes gave her a striking presence, one Kimimaro couldn't help but observe for a few seconds longer than usual in silence.
Saya froze for a moment when she noticed his eyes on her.
She had grown used to his sharp, dissecting glances before, the kind that measured her like one would a weapon, cold, calculating, deciding whether she was worth keeping or discarding.
But this time, it wasn't that.
This time, his gaze lingered differently.
It wasn't the smirk of mockery either, nor the impassive chill she had come to hate and, in some twisted way, rely on.
It was heavier, warmer somehow, as though he wasn't weighing her usefulness, but simply… seeing her.
Her chest tightened strangely.
She shifted her stance, suddenly aware of how bare her stomach felt, how the shirt rode high, how the mesh pressed against skin.
The air in the shabby storage room felt hotter than before.
Her first instinct was indignation — what are you staring at? — but the words caught in her throat. Instead, her face reddened deeper, and she quickly looked away, pretending to fuss over one of the folded robes at her side.
Yet even as she turned away, the thought pushed up on its own.
"That wasn't how you look at a 'subordinate'… That was something else."
'But he's so young... N-No… that's not quite it.'
'Something about him makes age feel irrelevant…'
It wasn't just his enhanced physique.
It wasn't the strength in that frame that did it.
It was the aura he carried, something far heavier than his years.
His words, his thoughts, the weight of his entire presence overall.
She clenched her jaw, annoyed at the warmth that crawled up her neck.
Still, the fact that she didn't snap at him, didn't bite back like she usually would, betrayed something even she didn't want to admit.
Kimimaro's lips curved into a faint smirk again, eventually. "Relax. I was just evaluating."
He tilted his head, letting his gaze deliberately wander for a second more before meeting her eyes. "However... You wear that shirt as if you wanted me to notice. Careless."
Her face went crimson. "I–! That's just what I wear under the cloak, idiot! Don't read into it!"
She crossed her arms tightly over her chest, twisting her body half away from him.
Kimimaro chuckled lowly, the sound calm but cutting.
"Oh? Then perhaps I should provide you with the new uniform sooner. Wouldn't want the high priestess of blood and death looking so… distracted."
She froze, unable to decide whether to glare or hide her face.
In the end, she huffed, eyes darting away, muttering under her breath. "Tch… smug brat…"
Kimimaro let it linger a moment, clearly amused, then added smoothly, "It suits you better this way, though."
Her heart skipped, her embarrassment doubling.
She had no retort this time, so she turned her back altogether, clutching one of the folded robes as if it were the only thing anchoring her composure.
Kimimaro took Saya's robes first, laying them out with the same precision he gave to his bone dances.
They were darker than the common cult garb, reinforced with subtle bone motifs stitched in faint silver thread, weaving together with the older blood-mark patterns.
To anyone else, it was decoration, but for Saya, it marked her elevation above the ordinary flock, the first of the new "Blessed."
When he handed them to her, he didn't explain much.
"Hierarchy matters. If they can't see who stands above them, they'll claw at each other until nothing remains."
Saya took them hesitantly, fingers brushing over the cloth, realizing they were finer than anything the cult had ever possessed before.
Strange warmth prickled in her chest, though her pride kept her chin high. "Tch. You're putting me in your little play of symbols, too?"
Kimimaro only smirked. "Symbols rule people more than blades. Learn that, and you'll understand why this is necessary."
Then he revealed and changed into his own.
The robes were entirely unlike the ragged things he had arrived in.
A light lavender shirt, long-sleeved, loose but sharp in cut, due to his expected use of his kekkei genkai, fell over black shinobi pants and sandals.
Where the original Kimimaro had once bound himself with Orochimaru's grotesque rope, this one wore no such leash.
Instead, at his chest, faintly embroidered, rested a large yin-yang symbol, dark and light swirling together as if to proclaim the fusion he sought.
Two red hair ornaments fastened neat locks of his pale hair at either side of his head, and on his forehead, above the eyes that seemed too calm, too cold for a boy of ten, he had painted back the ancestral crimson dots of the Kaguya again.
Not for sentiment.
Not for mourning.
But because they made him look even more mysterious and left an even deeper impression.
Not only on subordinates, but even more ethereal impression for his future "image" in the shinobi world.
Saya stared at him longer than she meant to, her lips parting slightly before she caught herself. For once, she had no mocking retort.
His presence seemed even heavier now, not just the smirk of a boy who stole her cult, but something colder, crafted, deliberate.
Kimimaro noticed her silence, and his smirk returned faintly.
"Good," he murmured. "Even you understand it."
She quickly turned her face away, clutching her new robes tighter.
But she could not erase the thought pressing against her mind:
'He doesn't look like a child at all. He truly looks like someone meant to be followed.'