Her red eyes burned with desperation, but also calculation.
She wasn't begging blindly; she was gambling.
If they were capable of killing Konoha's elite duo like that, then maybe they were also capable of sparing one life… if it profited them.
The cavern went quiet for a breath, their footsteps pausing as the four of them turned their eyes toward her.
The scythe-wielder licked blood from her lips as she'd just been handed dessert.
The Hyūga tilted her head, eyes gleaming pale white with curiosity.
Reika's gaze was unreadable behind her calm mask.
And Kimimaro?
He just watched her, his face carved into that calm, unnerving stillness.
Her heart pounded, but she held his gaze, refusing to look away.
"Please," she repeated, lower this time, but steadier. "I'll do whatever it takes."
Kimimaro quickly recounted the chain of events in his mind as he studied the anxious girl before him.
His sensory clones had first marked her group weeks ago, small chakra signatures of shinobi level, moving between scattered hideouts across the island.
He had tailed them silently, gathering pieces until the pattern revealed itself.
Only later did he realize they were Uchiha.
And from that moment on, with the massacre in Konoha still fresh, the outcome was obvious.
Root would eventually find them. All he had to do was wait.
So he spread his net wider, tracing their movements in secret, sharpening his awareness for the day when the inevitable strike came.
That day was now.
And he had already decided how it would end, not just by using those Root operatives as high-quality sacrifices for his rites, but also by seizing the most valuable prize among the survivors. The girl.
He didn't yet know her name, but from the faint impressions he had gleaned through distant sensing, her chakra was dense, potent, and had a very distinct 'quality' unlike the rest.
Clearly talented, especially for her age.
Clearly worth more than the other Uchiha.
She was a gem supposed to be buried.
It took Kimimaro only a few seconds to respond.
His gaze swept over the girl, then the broken, handsome man, seemingly in his late thirties, bleeding out at her side.
"Emi," he called calmly.
The Hyūga girl moved closer, her pale eyes opening wide as she examined the wound under Akane's tense, watchful stare.
Akane flinched when she saw the grim set of Emi's mouth.
Her hands trembled, but before panic could crack her voice, Kimimaro's tone cut in, steady, deceptively soft.
"If we save him, you will join us permanently. You promised anything. That's the condition."
Akane nodded almost instantly, the words sliding past her reason.
Her mind was pinned on her father's gasping chest, on the spreading pool beneath him.
Whatever sounded wrong in that bargain, she couldn't hear it now.
Kimimaro read Emi's expression in silence, then lifted his head slightly. "Saya."
The blonde appeared from behind, her scythe still faintly stained.
Kimimaro explained, level as ever. "You will start first. Fuse him with some ritual essence. Slow the decay, hold him on the edge. Then Emi will finish with healing."
Akane's brows knit together.
The words "ritual essence" made her chest tighten, but she didn't stop them.
She knew too well her father wouldn't last without intervention.
Saya shrugged, not a shred of pity in her voice, and pulled out a prepared scroll.
She unsealed a shallow chalice, its contents swirling dark red, sticky, and luminous as if alive.
"Don't blink, Uchiha," she muttered, and pressed the chalice close to Kenshin's torn side.
From it, threads of crimson energy unspooled, stringy and wet like veins pulled free from some corpse.
They crawled across his wounds, freezing them in time, slowing the bleed.
The torn tissue knit slightly, enough to halt death's progress, though not enough to truly restore.
The air filled with an acrid tang, half-metallic, half-sulfur.
Akane stiffened, horrified, but when her father's breathing steadied even a little, she swallowed and stayed still.
Then Emi knelt.
She placed her glowing hands just above his chest, Byakugan veins rising around her eyes.
Her fingers trembled once, then steadied.
The pale-green chakra spread in delicate threads, guided with precision down to the smallest vessel.
It wasn't an ordinary Mystical Palm.
She fused gentle fist discipline with medical control, using pinpoint strikes of Yang chakra to pulse life back into cells, stitching without tearing, forcing breath back into his lungs, forcing blood back into flow.
Her vision gave her a surgeon's map in real time, chakra coils, organ walls, even the microscopic shifts where cells frayed.
Every touch was too sharp, too exact to be learned from Konoha's clinics.
Akane leaned forward unconsciously, her own hands clutching her knees as though to steady herself.
She had never seen healing like this.
Kimimaro's expression didn't waver.
To him, it was a test, a demonstration of both Saya's blood-ritual mastery and Emi's surgical talent.
A balance of cruelty and nurture, yin and yang.
Kenshin's gasps grew steadier, the dark pallor retreating from his skin.
The blood flow slowed, then stopped.
His chest rose and fell.
Alive, stabilized, though only barely.
Akane's shoulders sagged with relief, a choked breath escaping her lips.
She didn't even notice the invisible chain that had already clicked around her neck when she agreed.
Kimimaro noticed and was satisfied.
His voice cut through the heavy silence like the strike of a blade.
"He will slowly recover. Only this combination could have saved him at this time in the world."
His eyes stayed on her, unblinking.
"From now on, welcome to the Jashinist cult. Remember, we don't tolerate traitors. And you have nowhere to go anyway. You're far safer if you stay with us."
Akane froze at first, lips parting, the words heavy in her ears.
She looked back at her father, pale but breathing.
Her throat tightened, but no denial came.
He was right.
Konoha would come again.
The Root would strike again.
And wandering alone with her injured father?
That was just a slower death.
Her jaw clenched. "...I know."
She said it quietly, but her Sharingan didn't waver as it met his gaze.
Somewhere beneath the fear, a spark of resolve flickered.
"Tell me slowly about your identity and situation. Don't miss anything," Kimimaro said evenly, his usual routine, at this point, regarding 'picking up' strange girls like that, his arms folded, his tone giving no room for excuses.
Akane swallowed, her eyes still darting between her unconscious father and the bone-pale boy in front of her. But she obeyed.
Piece by piece, she began to recount.
It turned out that after the legendary Uchiha clan had been eliminated by Konoha leadership more than four months ago, under the justification of planning to launch a coup, not every Uchiha had been present in the village at that time.
Most had been, yes.
The clan had been deliberately left alone to recall in mass, so they could all be slaughtered in one night more easily.
So while the Uchiha just wanted to have more numbers for the coup and increase their chances, for Konoha, it was the exact opposite; they already knew of the coup and prepared to eliminate them from the beginning.
But the Uchiha weren't just ordinary villagers.
"Some were still outside," Akane admitted, her voice tight.
"Official forces, on missions. And… others, for different reasons."
Kimimaro's eyes narrowed slightly, inviting her to go on.
"As the strongest shinobi clan since Konoha's founding, alongside the Senju, we had… privileges. We could send our people in and out without the Hokage's constant permission. To deal with external business, logistics. Weapons, tools, medicine, supplies… things too basic, too humiliating, to rely on other clans or merchants for." Her lips trembled at the memory, but her words sharpened with pride as she spoke of her heritage. "We didn't need Konoha's leash for that."
Kimimaro thought silently, recalling the canonical evidence himself, the clan's outside hideouts, like the one where Itachi and Sasuke later fought.
Of course, they had such bases.
What great clan of that standing wouldn't?
Who would willingly leave their survival in the hands of outsiders?
For the Uchiha, it was both practicality and pride. Politics, too.
Akane continued, her voice steadier now. "My father was in charge of some of those external matters as the only Outer Elder of the Uchiha, but it was not exactly an enviable position within our clan. Procurement, shipments, and… the kind of negotiations no one else in the clan wanted to touch. That's why we weren't in the compound that night. That's why we survived accidentally."
Her fists clenched on her knees, knuckles pale. "But Root found us anyway."
Kimimaro studied her in silence for a moment.
Her explanation fit perfectly with the cracks he already knew about from the original series and his usual common-sense deductive reasoning.
Kimimaro's eyes lingered on her, cold and sharp, testing.
"Then tell me, was it true? This so-called coup. Why did your clan plan it?"
The question made Akane stiffen. Her small fists clenched tight on her knees until her nails dug into her skin.
For a moment, she trembled, not from fear of him, but from the weight of words her clan had carried silently for years.
She raised her head, Sharingan still faintly glowing in the low light. "Yes… It was true. It was a coup. But don't twist it. It wasn't some mindless rebellion."
Her teeth ground together. "It was supposed to be a clean takeover. A strike for survival."
Her voice gained strength as she went on, spilling the bitterness she had clearly been holding back for years.
"Ever since the Nine-Tails attack, suspicion clung to us. Everyone whispered that only a Uchiha could control the fox, even though there was no proof. We weren't allowed at that time to even try and join the village operations against the fox and lower the casualties, and clear our name, entrapping us even more. After that, the Third and the council pushed us out of the center of Konoha, forced our entire clan into one corner of the village, as livestock penned away from the rest."
Her eyes darkened, spinning faintly faster. "But the truth is, it started long before that. Decades ago, the agreements made when Konoha was founded were slowly stripped from us. We were one of the two founding clans, yet over time… we were treated like outsiders in our own village, not to mention gaining a Hokage of our own. Instead, that office was like a personal placeholder for Senju or their students. "
She drew a breath, steadying herself. "Our police force, the one duty given only to us, was supposed to symbolize trust. But in reality? It became a poison pill. The ANBU interfered in our affairs constantly, under the excuse of 'overlap' and 'oversight.' The rest of the village hated us for policing them, for acting as the arm of the law, while the Hokage's office used it as a leash. We were given power that only earned resentment, not respect."
Her lips curled bitterly. "It was deliberate. Step by step, they took everything else away, until all we had left was the one thing that isolated us further."
Kimimaro listened, expression unreadable.
Akane's voice cracked just slightly. "So the clan finally decided, better to strike first than to die slowly like dogs in a cage. Instead of waiting to be strangled, we would take leadership itself. Patriarch Fugaku was to become Hokage; he had Mangekyo powers, the higher power of our Sharingan. It wouldn't have been easy, but it was our only chance. A coup to seize what we were denied, not to destroy the village."
"They were right about one thing, though," she muttered at last, almost to herself. "We were too powerful for our own good. But not powerful enough to win against the whole village."
Akane's tone darkened, her voice trembling with hate now. "And the worst part? It wasn't even the Hokage who swung the blade himself. It was carried out by the Third's and Root's dog… that mad traitor, Itachi Uchiha."
Her hands clenched tighter. "He killed them all, and then they pinned it as if it were his own personal madness, some twisted whim. That way, Konoha could wash its hands clean, as if the massacre wasn't sanctioned from the top."
Her Sharingan flared brighter, spinning to full bloom with three tomoe, her Yin Release leaking subtly into the air like a cold fog.
Rage alone had sharpened her chakra; her presence suddenly heavier.
Kimimaro watched with faint amusement, lips twitching into a thin smirk.
'So this is the Uchiha, hm… A clan that grows stronger for no reason, just from emotions alone.'
He thought to himself, almost mocking.
'Truly a clan of hacks. Their greatest gift is pouting so hard reality itself bends for them.'
Still, the sight intrigued him.
He wasn't blind to the absurdity, yet he also wasn't about to dismiss the raw potential of a bloodline that could flare and sharpen simply on the back of hate.
...
For a moment, the cave was silent except for Akane's heavy breathing and the faint rasp of her father's shallow breaths.
Saya twirled her scythe once and rested it across her shoulders, lips curved in a dark smile.
"So even the great Uchiha were nothing but chained dogs in the end. Hah. Fitting."
Reika's golden eyes lowered to Kenshin's battered form.
He was alive now, but barely. Her jaw tightened for a bit.
For her, this story was a perfect mirror, her own clan torn apart by their own village as well; however, unlike her, Akane's father at least had a chance to survive, whereas her own mother was gone forever under Kiri's cruelty to allow her to escape.
She said nothing, but her aura grew darker, colder, a quiet grief heavy enough to make the air feel brittle.
Emi's eyes darted between them, unsettled.
She had previously thought the Uchiha massacre was just Itachi, the prodigy turned S-rank traitor who slaughtered his clan in madness.
That was the story whispered in Konoha and beyond.
But hearing this truth, the long chain of suppression and manipulation… her stomach twisted.
It didn't change her low opinion of either shinobi clans or the Konoha leadership; she already hated both, given her own cursed cage.
Still, she couldn't stop a chill at realizing just how deep the rot inside that illusory village went. She held her tongue, lips pursed tight, but her eyes said it all: disgust, not surprise.
Saya let out another short laugh, leaning on her scythe as if this were all some dark comedy.
"The proud Uchiha, whining about being caged. How fitting. Your clan was the one that once branded mine as cursed filth and forced us into that valley. You set the chain rolling that destroyed us. Now look at you, slaughtered, begging to be understood. Almost makes me want to thank fate."
Akane's Sharingan flared hot, teeth grinding. "You—! Don't you dare gloat! You think I don't know what we've lost? My clan was butchered, my people—"
Kimimaro's voice cut in, steady and stern. "Stop. Both of you."
He didn't raise his tone, but it carried enough steel to freeze them in place. His gaze turned on Akane. "Saya has her own scars. The Uchiha clan forced her Chinoike clan into the valley that ate them alive, back during the Warring States era. She's not mocking for fun. She's speaking from the same kind of ruin you're standing in now. So don't lash out blindly."
Saya smirked faintly, satisfied at his words, while Akane looked away, jaw tight, fury still burning but pressed down by the weight of his warning.
Kimimaro's eyes still lingered on Akane, his expression unreadable.
Then he asked again, calm as ever. "Why here? Why Shūmoku?"
Akane exhaled shakily, her fingers tightening over her knees.
"Because… we thought it was far enough. Out of Konoha's reach, out of the other villages' sight. We wanted somewhere quiet, somewhere the last of us could hide."
Her eyes lowered. "But it was a mistake. Konoha's hands stretch everywhere. If we'd risked Kumo, at least we'd have had a deterrent. Something to make them think twice."
A bitter laugh escaped her. "Here, we had nothing. Just waiting for the Root to come."
Kimimaro studied her a moment longer, then the corners of his mouth lifted into the faintest smile. "There's no use regretting the choice now. You're already in our hands."
The words fell like iron, blunt and final.
Akane's throat tightened, but she didn't argue.
She only lowered her head further, the weight of reality pressing down.
Kimimaro questioned her further, testing the edges of her strength, her potential, her history.
Bit by bit, the picture formed.
When the news of the clan's extermination had finally reached them, outside the village walls, something inside Akane had snapped.
At just fourteen years old, her Sharingan had awakened, but not at the fledgling single tomoe stage.
Straight to two tomoe, all at once.
Maybe it was because of her extreme pride and sense of belonging toward her clan, and the fact that all of her closer relatives were also inside the village at that time, including her grandfather.
That was four months ago.
Before then, she had been little more than a high-genin, always at her father's side on his business trips, learning little beyond survival.
But after that night, her strength exploded.
She copied every technique she laid eyes on, devoured everything she could find.
And now, standing before him, she had already pushed to the third tomoe, forced out when her father was about to die under Root's blades.
Kimimaro couldn't help but be stunned.
Once again, the Uchiha's ways proved absurd.
To grow this much in mere months… it was monstrous.
With careful guidance, she was probably only months away from reaching elite jōnin level, while her father was still only around a mid-jonin.
In Kimimaro's view, the Uchiha were probably born with enlarged spiritual energy, their very souls heavier than most.
But to awaken it, they needed cracks, strong emotions, violent enough to rattle the optic nerve itself, forcing Yin Release to flare and shake loose more and more of that buried Ōtsutsuki bloodline, dragging it awake piece by piece.
But suspicion still nagged at him.
The outer elder line was supposed to be non-glamorous, a position of logistics, trade, and diplomacy.
How did a prodigy of this level appear there at all?
He kept listening, eyes sharp.
And then the clues fell into place.
Her mother, sickly, frail, a woman who had never awakened the Sharingan, had died during Akane's birth, the strain too much for her weak body.
But her lineage was no ordinary branch.
She was the daughter of the great elder himself, the leader of the hawk faction within the clan, one of the most potent lines.
Perhaps her mother's illness had suppressed the eye, never allowing it to awaken.
After all, the Sharingan was yin in nature, and without strong yang to balance it, the body crumbled.
That same imbalance explained why the most powerful Sharingan users in history went blind, why Itachi's body rotted from an unnamed sickness, and why only Hashirama's cells, overflowing with Yang vitality, could counter it, as Obito had proven, to circumvent that.
The other path was the Eternal Mangekyō, creating a closed loop of Yin, some kind, around your head that no longer leaked out and poisoned the body. It was Kimimaro's own personal best theory.
So perhaps that potential had simply skipped her mother, lying dormant, only to surface violently in Akane.
A perfect storm of inheritance and luck in genetic recombination.
Kimimaro realized grimly that if her father had truly died today, if his heart had stopped instead of being frozen on the edge, Akane might have already awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan right then and there, judging from her bloodline potential and strong emotions.
The thought made him pause.
And yet, why was she never mentioned in the story he remembered?
Why didn't she exist in the original plot that would unfold a few years later?
The answer was simple.
Because none of them survived.
The two unknown Root elites who had hunted her down, Tatsuma and Junsaku, would vanish from history as well.
Perhaps today was the very reason, because all of them destroyed each other in this dark cavern, leaving nothing behind.
After all, awakening the Mangekyō doesn't make you immortal.
She could have already been wounded or running on fumes by then, while the two of them clearly weren't.
Their contrasting condition made that obvious the moment Kimimaro's group walked in.
Later, Danzo would mold replacements, Fū, Torune, built from the ashes of men like these.
Kimimaro's eyes narrowed faintly. "So that's how it all fits together," he thought in realisation.