A month later, the five of them gathered deep in the caverns of the Land of Hot Water hideout, where Saya had been consolidating the cult.
The air smelled faintly of sulfur from the nearby springs, the carved stone walls painted with seals that flickered softly like pale flames.
To Kimimaro, the scene looked almost absurd.
If someone stumbled in, they might mistake it for some third-rate anime lineup.
Reika, indifferent, ethereal, yet for him, uniquely gentle.
Emi, the cheeky, coy little sister type.
Akane, Uchiha fire incarnate, domineering to the world, externally seductive, but oddly tsundere and competitive with him.
And Saya, half mad, eyes flashing with devotion, like a yandere who thought their "cult family" was worth killing the world for.
Kimimaro, however, never let himself forget. 'These aren't just girls, they're my weapons. Assets. I'm not chasing them. I'm forging the blades that will cut my way to the summit.'
They were some of the finest bloodline talents in the world.
He wasn't wasting any time or indulging himself, not yet, at least, he was making progress.
Not to mention, none of them were empty vases.
Each carried ambitions, grudges, and vengeance they meant to fulfill once they had more power. In their own way, they were using him too. It was a mutual arrangement, a win–win.
The difference was that only Kimimaro had the clarity and capacity to weave them together into something coherent, to steer their fragile boat through a sea of merciless waves of the shinobi world as the leader.
Eventually, he let his calm gaze sweep across them.
A few days earlier, his sensor clones stationed in the Land of Hot Water had picked up the trace of a powerful presence.
Saya was the first to be notified by them and then immediately relayed it to him, across the sea, through special messenger falcons they had, prompting Kimimaro to call this gathering.
"Our next hunt isn't another random underworld mercenary or a misguided chūnin deserter," he began evenly. "This one is big."
Saya's grin spread. "Finally. You've been starving me with scraps lately."
Reika flicked her a cold glance but said nothing, waiting for Kimimaro to elaborate.
He folded his hands. "Known only as 'Tenzo'. S-rank, by reputation. Once the head of Kusagakure's equivalent of ANBU. Failed coup, went rogue. Now a mercenary with too much power for a village his size to handle. Quasi-Kage level at least. Dangerous."
'Weak enough that the Akatsuki haven't recruited him, yet still too loud to be ignored for us currently,' Kimimaro thought.
His lips curved faintly. "For him, it ends here. He stepped into our hunting grounds."
Emi leaned forward slightly, curious. "Kusa ANBU leader… why defect? You don't abandon something like that without cause."
Kimimaro's gaze flicked toward her, approving that she asked. "From what information I gathered, he grew sick of his village crawling at Konoha's feet. Kusa plays errand boy, support during wars, supplies, but has missions stolen, sacrifices the biggest proportionally, and always begs for scraps. He tried to cut the leash, but failed. Escaped. Since then, he's made a name in the underworld. Fear, blood, reputation."
Finally, his gaze settled on Emi. She straightened instinctively.
"You're weaker than the rest of us. That's a fact," he said flatly.
Her mouth twisted. "Thanks for the vote of confidence."
"But," he continued, pulling several sealing tags from his sleeve, "your Byakugan will be vital. Tenzo's specialty includes stealth and misdirection; hiding among the giant overgrown vegetation around himself, he makes with his unique jutsu. Your eyes cut through that. You'll stay back. If he closes in, you use these."
He placed the tags in her hand. They pulsed faintly, Ashina's script woven through them. "The strongest barrier seals we've created so far. Even if he's faster than we expect, they'll hold long enough for us to reach you during the fight. Don't waste them."
Emi looked at the talismans, then at him.
She puffed her cheeks, muttering, "So basically I'm bait with insurance."
Kimimaro's expression didn't shift.
"Bait that sees everything. Don't underestimate your role."
Her pout softened just slightly, her fingers curling tighter around the tags. "…Fine. But if I outshine you with these eyes, I'll remind you forever."
Kimimaro ignored her cheek, though inwardly he was faintly amused. 'Even a high chūnin can become decisive if placed right. That's what the world forgets.'
He stood, voice steady. "This is the biggest prey we've caught yet. An S-rank, ritual fuel, and proof of what we are becoming. We do this cleanly, we rise another step."
The four of them nodded, each in their own way: Reika, composed; Saya, grinning like a wolf; Emi, pretending nonchalant but clutching her seals; Akane, smirking with that competitive gleam aimed squarely at him.
Kimimaro looked at them all. 'Third-rate anime lineup or not… no one in the world will laugh when they see what monsters this little group becomes in just a few short years, perhaps.'
'I don't think any of them will end up weaker than an ordinary Akatsuki member. If anything, they'll all surpass that level. Strange how everything lined up for me perfectly over time… though it wasn't just fate. It was foresight, and the fact that I acted decisively every time to 'acquire' them in the first place. Just like with Ashina at the start...' He thought a bit proudly.
'What they lack currently the most is age and time; even without any inventions, they would have become quite a factor in the shinobi world, not to mention with me directing them now.'
***
As they moved swiftly through the forests of the Land of Hot Water, the conversation naturally shifted to the mercenary's purpose.
Kimimaro's thoughts crystallized aloud. "A man of that level doesn't linger in one place without reason. Either someone in Yugakure, or even the Daimyō himself, hired him. They wouldn't risk open confrontation or alerting the great villages, but they might test us with a blade in the dark. Pressure, investigation… the same thing in the end."
Reika, running a step behind, spoke with her usual calm certainty. "Peace doesn't attract missing-nin of this caliber. He didn't come here for the hot baths."
Saya chuckled darkly, spinning her scythe lazily as if already imagining blood. "Good. If they're scared enough to throw money at a man like him, it means we've already got them dancing. That makes him nothing more than an expensive offering delivered to our door."
Akane's voice was sharp, assured. "If he was sent to kill us, we'll cut him down. If he was sent to investigate, we'll make sure nothing of him goes back. Either way, he's already our prey."
Kimimaro let the words sink in; before his own voice came out calm but final, carrying that undertone of command.
"Exactly. Whatever his mission, it leads back to us. Which means there's no negotiation, no exception. We hunt him. We sacrifice him. And when his ashes scatter, the message will be clear: this land belongs to us."
"Either way, after we deal with him, we'll take his head and send a sterner warning to both Yugakure and the Daimyō," Kimimaro said calmly, though his tone carried a weight that left no room for doubt.
"We were too lenient lately, assuming we had some unspoken agreement. Instead, they've grown bold…"
Inside, his thoughts sharpened further.
They had dodged a bullet this time. He'd been a little careless, letting their operations run too openly.
Fortunately, it seemed no one had dared to hire the Akatsuki yet. That left him some room to maneuver.
If they struck hard now, with their newly swollen numbers, and even pressed on the Daimyō directly, the other side would back down after this.
After all, only the Yugakure itself and the Daimyo might have enough funds to hire them out of the entire country, probably.
But if weakness was shown, the situation could flip.
For now, the Akatsuki was probably a nuclear option, most likely.
Yugakure wouldn't call them lightly, but if they did, it would mean devastation.
Kimimaro had enough black market contacts through the cult's underworld networks to know exactly what rumors were circulating.
His cult wasn't a secret anymore.
Whispers about them had already reached the ears of many hidden villages and merchants, but those whispers were fragmented, carefully suppressed.
At most, outsiders assumed there was some slightly stronger-than-average leader, a figurehead, nothing remarkable.
No one suspected the truth: that more than a thousand fanatics had gathered under his banner, in such a short amount of time, and among them, several terrifying "little monsters," bloodline talents on par with the elite of any great village. Talents as young as him as well.
On the other hand, the Akatsuki was the most elite mercenary organization in the world.
Their exact identities and powers remained a mystery to most, but their track record was enough; whenever they were deployed, the results were absolute.
If Yugakure were to call them, the cult's leadership would surely be targeted and destroyed in one decisive strike.
But that was precisely why Kimimaro doubted the move.
Eliminating him and the inner circle might solve one problem, but it would leave behind over a thousand scattered zealots.
And those zealots, unleashed without control, would flood into guerrilla warfare across the Land of Hot Water, wrecking its fragile peace and gutting its tourism economy.
Akatsuki would take their payment and leave; they obviously wouldn't personally hunt for thousands of hidden 'ants'.
So, the cult leadership was eliminated, but the chaos that followed?
No one would handle that cleanup and end it anytime soon.
Yugakure lacked the manpower, the Daimyō lacked the funds during a wrecked economy, and the great villages wouldn't intervene for free.
By the time the remnants were rooted out one by one, the Land of Hot Water's reputation as a haven of peace and the land of the best leisure tourism would be permanently destroyed.
That was the exact image Kimimaro had cultivated all along: a reckless, half-mad cult of Jashinists, splintered into cells, barely restrained by the existence of some vague, shadowy, but weak leader.
He had even reached out unofficially to Yugakure's leadership before, establishing a tacit understanding; they look the other way, and he keeps his "flock" from tearing apart their lands.
Therefore, in his mind, this mercenary was not meant to eliminate them, but to "teach them a lesson," a show of pressure to keep the cult more in line.
But Kimimaro understood the stakes. If he let himself be pushed now, in any way, then the Yugakure would only grow bolder, tightening pressure, suppressing their operations, probing deeper, and testing every weakness they imagined he had.
That was unacceptable. So, he had to answer this provocation with the strength of his own.
...
The group moved swiftly through the thinning forest until the faint scent of damp earth gave way to a clearing wrapped in tall grass eventually.
Kimimaro's senses confirmed it; someone waited ahead.
His squad slowed, cloaks swaying in the wind, and then they saw him.
A tall, broad-shouldered man stood leaning against the trunk of a dead tree, a massive sickle strapped across his back, the handle wrapped in rough bandages where calloused hands had worn it down.
His skin was weathered, scarred from years of fighting, but his eyes were sharp, hungry, wary, with the look of a predator that had survived too long in the dark.
His hair was dark, streaked faintly with grey despite his frame still looking in its prime, and a thin scar cut diagonally across his nose.
He didn't speak right away, just studied them.
His eyes flicked over their matching black cloaks with blood-and-bone motifs stitched along the hems.
Recognition clicked in his expression, and his lips curved into something between a grin and a grimace.
"So," he said finally, voice low and rough, like gravel sliding. "The rumors weren't smoke after all. The strange cult of 'Jashinists' that sprouted in this land… all those whispers I was hired to check out. And here you are."
He chuckled, though the sound carried no warmth. "But all I see now are kids, wearing some cloaks like warlords. I thought I'd find some ragged priests with knives. Instead…"
His eyes lingered, studying their chakra signatures with his limited sense a bit more. "...I find monsters in the making."
Saya rested her scythe against her shoulder, smirking. "You don't sound too disappointed."
"Disappointed?" Tenzo barked out a short laugh.
"Hardly. I was told to investigate, to pressure your leaders if possible, and report back. I didn't expect the leaders themselves to walk up to me."
His eyes narrowed, the amusement gone.
"But now that I see you, you're it. The higher-ups. Children, but dangerous ones. Which makes this easier. No need to waste time with shadows if I can cut the head off the snake. So let me 'trim' your numbers a little first, as that 'warning' they told me to give to you."