Kimimaro wasn't surprised that Orochimaru deduced so much, so fast, even about him.
If anything, this only confirmed suspicions he'd carried ever since waking up in this body.
Because really… wasn't it too convenient?
Orochimaru just happened to "wander" near the Kaguya territory the very night they were wiped out.
Just happened to notice a single child in a clan the entire shinobi world dismissed as deranged marauders.
Just happened to decide that this obscure and even shunned bloodline, out of the countless kekkei genkai scattered across the nations, was worth watching more closely until that time.
The original Kimimaro… definitely hadn't been chosen by some unbelievable accident.
He had been targeted.
Why else would Orochimaru later keep comparing him to someone like Sasuke, a boy he held in sky-high regard, to the point of obsession?
Why else would he prepare him as the "main" vessel before his disease ruined those plans?
Why would he slip around the clan like some ghost, waiting for the exact moment their downfall created an easy, ownerless asset?
Because Orochimaru had smelled something nobody else in the world even dreamed existed.
Because even the Dead Bone Pulse, that once-in-a-generation phenomenon, wasn't the Kaguya clan's true genetic prize.
The true value was what lay beneath it, Hamura's own version of the Sage Body.
A deeply buried inheritance from the first alien gods that touched this world.
A faint thread of those elite creations. Born from Kaguya and Hamura's distant line.
And Orochimaru — without transmigration, without future knowledge — still sniffed it out.
That alone proved how terrifyingly far ahead he was of every so-called "genius" native to this world.
He wasn't quite Madara…
But he wasn't far from the same tier of dangerous insight either.
And the bastard apparently knew some things about Senju–Uchiha unity and the Rinnegan long before the world found out.
Kabuto had babbled enough during the Fourth War in the original timeline to confirm that much.
Maybe in this timeline, Orochimaru was likely looking for someone like him again.
Maybe he'd been circling the Kaguya for the same perfect vessel again a few years prior.
But Kimimaro had escaped before the Kirigakure massacre ever happened this time around.
He had slipped through Orochimaru's fingers before the snake even realized the prize was gone.
And as for how Kimimaro felt toward him now…
It was simple.
He remembered.
He remembered the original boy crawling on ruined legs to obey.
Breaking his bones on command.
Ripping his spine free for amusement.
Burning through his lifespan like a candle, Orochimaru held over a flame just to see how fast it melted.
The biggest loser imaginable.
A pet dog who wagged his tail as he died, grateful for scraps.
Kimimaro felt nothing of that now.
Just a cold, clinical contempt.
'Never again,' he thought.
Not as prey.
Not as a vessel.
Not as a tool.
He would face Orochimaru this time not as that tragic slave, but as something the snake had never prepared for.
A Kaguya that didn't crawl. A monster who had eaten the boy Orochimaru once owned — and become something entirely new.
So, he didn't flinch at Orochimaru's last words and presence.
He simply stepped forward once, bone blade still resting lazily at his side, eyes narrowing just enough to show he'd already measured this monster and accepted the odds.
"So you finally came," he said. "I suppose it was only a matter of time."
Reika, Saya, Emi, and Akane moved without needing a signal.
The four of them locked into place, forming that quiet, deadly cross-pattern around him.
Kimimaro didn't look at them. He didn't need to.
His gaze remained on the serpent.
"You've smelled us for a long time, Orochimaru," he said. "If you finally want answers, you'll have to earn them."
"So, you knew about me, too, boy..."
Orochimaru's voice slithered out, low and amused, golden eyes dilating like a predator.
His tongue flicked briefly past his lips, as if sampling the chakra in the air.
"How flattering," he added, tilting his head.
"And most children your age barely grasp the difference between fear and instinct. Yet you… You seem to fully recognize me on sight and even claim that you expected this encounter..."
Orochimaru's smile sharpened, curiosity coiling around every syllable.
"My, my… you've been rather impressive for someone who should have been barely older than a toddler when the Kirigakure eradicated your clan," he murmured.
"A Kaguya infant perfectly slipping through that slaughter on his own, on time? Quite improbable… almost insulting to logic."
His eyes drifted across the girls one by one, dissecting them without moving a finger.
"And these treasures you've collected… how delightful."
A soft hiss of admiration, half-genuine, half-mocking.
"A pristine Uchiha, when even I couldn't secure one after such a long time of searching and trying for every possible angle… A Hyūga branch girl whose seal should have melted her cortex the moment she ran away… An actual Yuki survivor carrying a whisper of Uzumaki blood, when I personally confirmed the clan was ashes without much worth taking…"
His gaze lingered last on Saya, head tilting. "And that one… Is it Chinoike, perhaps? Or that's how they were called. How sweet. I nearly forgot that relic of a lineage existed. It seems I overlooked a rather charming piece on the board."
A trace of annoyance flickered in his smile, quickly smothered by amusement.
"And all of them orbit you so nicely," Orochimaru observed, voice curling with a peculiar blend of envy and amusement. "A little… curious, isn't it?"
His eyes narrowed, thoughts flicking through his own past acquisitions with quiet disdain.
"So this brat gathers such great prodigies," Orochimaru mused, lips curving into a thin, poisonous smile, "while I, after decades of research and preparation, end up with Jūgo's uncontrollable rages, Suigetsu's indolence, Karin's hysteria, all three worth little beyond being contained and experimented on, and that overeager little troupe I once so generously labeled the Sound Four…"
Karin had promising qualifications in terms of bloodline, but no real shinobi talent beyond eventual support work; her mentality was far too fragile and weak for anything else.
Jūgo was undeniably powerful, yet barely coherent outside the grip of his violent episodes.
Suigetsu, despite his so-called 'prestigious lineage', amounted to little more than a mediocre Hōzuki, a glorified civilian with hydration tricks.
And the so-called Sound Four… they had been nothing but real civilians and orphans until he'd carved them into barely functional weapons through sheer force of will, their only real merit being their blind loyalty, unlike those three troublesome specimens who were constantly rebellious.
Even his most valuable subordinate, Kabuto, excelled far more in intellectual tasks and espionage than in raw shinobi ability, and certainly possessed no bloodline worthy of note.
A low, rasping chuckle escaped him.
"Fortune plays such cruel little jokes."
"But no matter. What you've gathered, cultivated, refined…"
His tongue flicked out.
"…will belong to me soon enough anyway."