A few more days passed. When Kimimaro came to check on her again, in her current, still cult-like, more shabby room inside the hideout, as he occasionally did, the sight this time gave him an immediate pause.
Emi was no longer in a coma.
She was upright now, still confined to the bed, her head propped against the wall of the dim chamber.
The suppression and absorption seals still covered her forehead in neat, deliberate layers of ink, stark against her pale skin.
The bandaged traces around her arms and throat made her look more like a preserved mummy than a living kunoichi.
Her gaze was not the same.
Empty, hollow, as if her eyes had been wrung out of meaning.
Her face held that frozen stiffness of someone still half caught between agony and silence.
Kimimaro frowned faintly.
Physical damage he could perhaps, possibly calculate, repair in parts in the future.
After all, this was such a supernatural world.
But if her mind had been shattered, due to the psychological shock, if she woke like this forever, blank and pliant, then she was nothing but wasted effort forever. A hollow vessel.
He tested her. His voice was low, calm, but edged with deliberate weight.
"Emi. Do you hear me?"
For a moment, there was nothing. Only that glassy stare fixed forward.
Then, slowly, her eyes shifted, turning toward him.
A spark of life cracked faintly through the haze.
Her lips moved. Her voice was weak, but not broken.
"…Thank you… for saving me."
Kimimaro's shoulders eased, the tension bleeding out in silence.
His breath left in a thin stream.
So she had not been lost.
That simple line told him more than she realized.
She had clearly been aware, at least in fragments, during the ordeal, buried under pain so deep she could neither act nor think.
She had felt the crushing energy, felt the seals burning into her forehead, and somehow understood that this, and only this, had pulled her back from the edge of annihilation.
Kimimaro sat beside her bed, eyes narrowing with cold calculation.
"Good," he said softly. "You're still in there."
Her frail attempt at a smile only emphasized how rattled she still was, but it was enough to assure him that his "pet" had not slipped beyond use.
He leaned forward, his tone stripped of its usual mockery, softer, almost normal.
"Do you understand what happened to you?"
For a while, she only stared at his face, close enough now that every angle and sharpness of his features pressed into her vision.
Her lips trembled, then steadied, and finally she gave a small nod.
Her teeth clenched, her voice rough, broken at the edges but carrying meaning.
"They… burned me alive. From the inside. My own clan. My own blood."
Kimimaro studied her expression, the tautness in her jaw, the thin shimmer in her eyes.
Then a faint smirk tugged at his lips.
"Good," he murmured. "Hatred means you're still alive. Still conscious."
The rage seared, but humiliation walked with it inside Emi's head now.
To think she had boasted once, even to herself, of finding freedom.
And when she finally stepped outside the bars of the cage, it wasn't Kumo, or anyone else, that saved her. It was him.
That smug-faced boy who looked younger than her, who ripped her forehead protector like paper, who teased and dissected her every word. Him. His rituals, his seals, his people.
It made her want to spit. It made her want to bite his throat out, eat him alive, laugh as his blood hit her tongue.
But when her gaze rose again, all she managed was a careful, obedient nod, as if his approval mattered.
Seeing this, Kimimaro's voice was calm, almost conversational, but his words cut straight through.
"So you understand now what would have happened to you if you had left with that Kumo ninja that day?"
"You probably didn't even think about such long-range Caged Bird activation. But even if you did, you thought Kumogakure could've saved you? Foolish. Now you see how complex it is. To be honest, perhaps the only person in the entire world who could've saved you was me."
Emi's eyes narrowed just slightly, suspicion flickering.
Kimimaro caught it and smirked, mocking her without a pause. "What? You think you were anything more to them? Don't flatter yourself. To Kumo, you were just an expendable clown. Do you really think you were the only side branch member who ever tried to escape like that and got enticed by them? You truly thought you were special? Destined? Some 'main character'?"
Her cheeks warmed instantly. She wanted to snap back, but the ridicule landed harder than she wished.
Kimimaro leaned in, voice cool and relentless. "Ever since their operation failed in Konoha all those years ago with their envoy, they've probably incited plenty of side branch members during missions since. And Konoha? At its weakest point in history, it can only turn a blind eye. So Kumo tricks a fool like you, at a time, toys with your Byakugan for a few days, trying to learn its secrets on the fly, unsuccessful, so far, if I might guess. Then the Main Branch notices and fries your brain from a distance. That's why they waited exactly four days. That's the minimum threshold before suspicion grows too large and they move to erase you next."
Emi's lips parted, ready to fire back, but the words stalled.
She considered it.
The timing. The logic.
And slowly, humiliation replaced the spark in her throat.
She had thought herself optimistic, daring, sharp, even brave.
But looking at it from his angle, she was nothing but a pawn in someone else's game.
Her gaze dropped, face heating more than she wanted.
"So… your theory might be right. But… is there any proof?"
Kimimaro chuckled under his breath. "No. There's no proof. How could I get it from here? Only logic. If they were bold enough to stage a play against the Hyūga clan head in Konoha nearly a decade ago, why wouldn't they use smaller tricks like this far earlier? And if one of those side-branch members had ever truly escaped, freed from the seal, don't you think the world would have heard of them and that matter by now? It's been years. Silence is its own answer."
As for why Kumo was so obsessed with the Byakugan, Kimimaro couldn't say for certain.
Perhaps it was because they stood as the second-strongest village, with the most aggressive, expansionist culture.
Or perhaps it was tied to their advantage in technology, driven by their lightning release and electricity-based productivity.
Whatever the case, it was natural they'd want to seize the Byakugan and bend it into another weapon for themselves.
This time, Emi understood completely.
Her gut twisted with embarrassment.
She had thought she was clever.
She had thought she was free.
But standing here, she realized just how stupid she had been.
Her eyes lifted, unwilling but inevitable, toward Kimimaro.
For the first time, he didn't look like just an infuriating captor; he looked like the only person who had actually saved her.
But his tone didn't soften. "Do you even grasp how much it cost me to save you? How much special ritual essence did I lose?"
Her brows pulled together. "…Essence?"
"You don't need to know the details," Kimimaro said flatly. "Only that it's worth more than your life. Yin-Yang essence, something that can counter the continental attack that was frying you alive, something that can make men semi-immortal on weekdays, you only now became one inadvertently. And I spent it on you. That's the only reason you're still here."
Emi bit her lip, unsure whether to feel grateful or furious.
He continued without pause, voice sharp. "Those suppression seals that saved you? They're not tricks anyone else could do. They're Uzumaki seals, the most precious, secret, lost heritage that only I hold in the world, now. No one else. So, you should be careful from now on. And one mistake, and no one, not Konoha, not Kumo, will be able to save you again."
Emi sat in silence, her heart hammering, her face carefully composed.
But deep inside, she seethed.
'He calls me expendable… a clown… yet I'm supposed to thank him for saving me like a pet dog. Damn him. Damn that smug face. If I ever get the chance—'
And yet, despite the fury, she knew.
Without him, she would already be ashes scattered by her clan's cursed seal.
Emi lowered her head slowly, her lips curling into a polite, almost sweet smile.
"Then… I suppose I owe you my life. Thank you, Kimimaro sir."
The bow was graceful, the words obedient.
To anyone watching, it was the perfect mask of gratitude and submission.
Inside, though, her chest burned with contradiction.
She still wanted to bite him. To claw that smug face off and spit in his calm eyes.
To scream that she wasn't some pet he could mock and toy with.
And yet… for some reason, bowing didn't feel as strange and forced as she expected.