Kimimaro's priority was clear. He needed to get out of the Land of Water as fast as possible.
With Obito's lunacy steering Kirigakure from the shadows, the whole country was collapsing into blood and paranoia rapidly in real time.
Staying here was like waiting for an executioner.
But that didn't mean he planned to "join" Konoha.
That was a fantasy, barely possible, and also putting a leash on himself in another form.
There was no chance Konoha would ever let a strange child from the Land of Water roam freely, no matter how brilliant his bloodline.
Despite what third-rate fanfics from his past life liked to imagine, reality was far less forgiving.
At best, if he bowed and wagged his tail perfectly, maybe Danzo would have scooped him up as Root's personal pet, slapped a curse seal on his tongue, and kept him as property.
No better than the Hyūga side branch slaves.
And for what?
What could he possibly gain in Konoha that would be worth crawling like that?
Even if they had treasures, secret jutsu, forbidden techniques, who said they'd ever hand them over?
In this world, servants don't get rewarded.
They get discarded.
Orochimaru proved that better than anyone.
Kimimaro's original self gave him everything, and in return, Orochimaru threw him away at the first chance for a new toy.
Didn't even bother reviving him with Edo Tensei at some point.
That was the fate of servants here: forgotten, mocked, erased.
So no, he wouldn't beg.
If there were things in Konoha worth taking, he would simply take them.
And not through "official channels," but with his own hands.
When Konoha crumbled in the future, and it would, more than once, even by that same Orochimaru, he would pluck what he wanted straight from its corpse.
He smirked faintly, recalling how he'd felt in his past life watching Nagato flatten Konoha into a crater. Unexplainable satisfaction. He also just didn't like their hypocrisy.
"Rather than trust Konoha for protection, I trust my fists. And rather than beg for their scraps, I'll make them an 'offer they can't refuse', and take everything I find fitting."
For now, however, the Land of Fire's eastern coast was simply the nearest escape point, and there was something he wanted to confirm around there anyway. Nothing more than that.
So he boarded a standard traveling ship, the kind that ferried merchants, commoners, and goods from island to mainland.
It would take a few days to cross, but that was fine. A safe few days.
He quietly observed the ship. Almost a hundred passengers crammed aboard, along with trade crates and livestock.
But no shinobi. Of course not.
Encounters like that only happened in fantasy stories.
In the real world, shinobi were like ghosts, rare, dangerous, and untouchable.
Commoners whispered their names like they were celebrities or gods, but never expected to actually meet one on a ferry.
There was no "courting death" scene either right away.
No thugs or bandits.
Just civilians.
Farmers, tradesmen, families.
The only problem was the attention.
A few older women from the upper classes had noticed him.
They whispered to one another, glancing too often, and eventually began approaching him under flimsy pretexts, asking if he was traveling alone, where his parents were, if he was hungry, and if he needed new clothes.
One even brushed her hand against his arm with a coy smile, and another patted his head like he was a pet.
"Like a doll…"
"Such a beautiful boy…"
"Adorable…"
Kimimaro endured it all, smiling faintly, answering politely, never provoking.
He couldn't afford unnecessary attention before he'd even left Water Country.
Not when bloodline users like him were hunted openly.
So he played along, polite and cold beneath the surface.
After all, Kimimaro understood perfectly why they acted that way.
In his own eyes, he really was perhaps the most handsome character in all of Naruto once grown.
Sasuke? Obviously plainer, despite all the hype. Minato as well.
Kakashi? Please, half his "charm" was the mask covering what wasn't there.
They all lacked that elusive "X-factor," that ethereal and aesthetic look that made someone unforgettable.
Kimimaro had it. His features struck the perfect balance, sharp but not harsh, refined without being feminine.
Unlike Toneri's porcelain delicacy, his beauty carried more weight, a masculine symmetry that made it even more striking.
Compared to the plain face and sickly, wasted body he'd had in his past life on Earth, this felt like winning the lottery twice over.
And beauty, in its own way, was another weapon.
People listened more, trusted more, desired more, all because of it.
Thankfully, Kimimaro's body was also healthy now, and would perhaps reach its full potential, physically, structurally, and even aesthetically.
After all, while he possessed the Dead Bone Pulse, the original Kimimaro had been locked away for most of his life, only used the ability perhaps once or twice before, when he was very young, before they locked him because of it.
The damage to the body, hence, back then, had been minimal.
The current Kimimaro wanted to keep it that way.
This body wasn't just a weapon; it was also a prize, and he intended to preserve it for decades, not burn it out like the fool who died at fifteen for Orochimaru's goals and getting Sasuke, his "replacement", after he fully rotted away.
If nurtured carefully, his body might even grow taller, broader, and more imposing than in the original series.
After all, the Kaguya bloodline didn't just mean bones; it carried the Sage's Body lineage through Hamura.
That wasn't something to waste.
In the original, despite all the wear and tear, Kimimaro still clawed his way to Elite Jōnin level by fifteen. That alone was terrifying.
A body collapsing under disease, bones grinding against flesh, yet he still stood at that height. Pure willpower, twisted devotion, and his bloodline alone held him upright.
By the end, every step he took was probably agony, yet he fought as if nothing chained him.
He calmed Jūgo's madness with ease.
He crushed the Sound Four like they were toys.
He helped Orochimaru assassinate the Fourth Kazekage.
He held off Gaara, Lee, and Naruto together after the Chūnin Exams.
All of that while his body was betraying him every second.
So imagine the reverse.
Imagine Kimimaro without the disease.
A body not breaking down, but thriving.
It wasn't speculation, either.
Edo Tensei proved it during the Fourth Shinobi War.
When revived with an immortal body and limitless chakra reserves, Kimimaro was Kage-class, one of the deadliest monsters on that battlefield.
That was the true measure of the bloodline.
That was the future the original wasted.
And this time?
This time, there would be no sickness.
...
A few days later, the ship reached Fire Country's opposite shore, docking at a smaller coastal town.
Kimimaro stepped off the boat quietly, his posture calm, his eyes sharp.
Kimimaro glanced once more at the sea behind him.
Somewhere back there, his clan still breathed, drunk on blood and loot.
He felt nothing sentimental.
In a few months, maybe half a year, they would all be corpses under Kirigakure's boots.
And really, wasn't that inevitable?
When he awakened the Shikotsumyaku as a child, they hadn't celebrated him.
They had locked him away.
Even for a clan that glorified violence, his power was too much, too alien, too terrifying.
Instead of raising him as their pride, they treated him like a monster in a cage.
That was the Kaguya way.
They thought in bursts of violence, not survival.
They saw him as a trump card to throw out when desperation struck.
And in the end, when they charged Kirigakure like lunatics, they didn't even bother unleashing him during that chaos.
Numbers alone, maybe they thought, would be enough again.
Or maybe their fear of him outweighed even their desperation.
Result? They died like dogs.
Kimimaro, still caged, survived by default.
In canon, that was his "fate."
To walk out of confinement into emptiness, then kneel at Orochimaru's feet because he had no one else.
His so-called "loyalty" born of isolation and despair. He mistook a leash for salvation.
The current Kimimaro sneered at that thought.
"Peace, belonging, bonds, all lies. The only truth is desire. The only anchor is strength. The old me never understood that."
He tapped a finger against the ship's rail, eyes narrowing at the horizon.
"Selflessness was his poison. Selfishness is my cure."
Kimimaro soon walked through the town, his steps calm but his eyes quietly taking in every detail.
The place felt strange, almost inconsistent.
An ancient world on the surface, dirt roads, wooden stalls, and fishermen shouting over their catches.
Yet here and some flashes felt out of place: refined tools, cleaner workshops, even bits of infrastructure that reminded him faintly of modern Earth.
He smirked faintly. "Chakra, of course. A cheat code for civilization itself. It sharpens minds, strengthens bodies, and multiplies productivity. With enough of it, you could skip centuries of fumbling."
But then his gaze shifted to the worn faces around him, the poverty hiding in alleys, the lingering tension of people too used to conflict.
"And yet, here it is. Wasted. War after war, every gain burned down before it could build momentum. An endless loop of children raised to kill before they can think. That's why this world never breaks through to prosperity."
His lips curved, not in pity but in quiet amusement.
"If I ever sit at the top, I'll change that. Not out of kindness, but because a supreme being should have a proper stage. If the world insists on crawling, I'll force it to march. Call it tyranny if they like. I'll call it progress."
Kimimaro's main reason for coming here wasn't simply to wander. He wanted to inquire about Uzushiogakure, the Land of Whirlpools.
According to the crude map he had carried and a few more he had glanced at in this town, it should lie somewhere across these waters.
Yet, strangely, most maps ignored it completely, as if the place had never existed.
That alone was suspicious.
"Still under surveillance by the Five Great Villages? Sealed off from the world somehow?" he mused silently, narrowing his eyes.
But then he shook his head.
"Unlikely. After the chaos of the Third Shinobi War, with how much blood those villages spilled against each other, there's no chance anyone kept such a place locked down. Not consistently."
More likely, it was nothing but ruins now.
And yet, the very absence of information tugged at him.
"I doubt I'll find anything useful. But ignoring it feels foolish. I'll at least probe, even if all that's left is ash."
For the next day, Kimimaro asked carefully here and there, never too direct, but probing.
The result was the same everywhere.
Uzushiogakure had been destroyed long ago, yes, but the silence around it was unnatural.
People avoided the topic, as if their tongues had been sealed.
It wasn't just forgotten.
It was deliberately suppressed.
Even the Land of Fire, the so-called "ally" of the Uzumaki, had erased it from their custom maps and memories.
Allies indeed, they had bled the clan dry for their sealing arts, then looked away when the whirlpools drowned.
Still, he didn't believe anyone could seriously threaten him there now.
Uzushiogakure lay between Kirigakure and Konoha, in the no-man's-sea between Fire and Water.
Kirigakure had turned inward, obsessed with its own civil wars, purges, and bloodline hunts.
They wouldn't waste time guarding ruins.
And Konoha? They had gotten what they wanted already; the Uzumaki were just another discarded resource. Who cared about their ruins?
"If there's danger left in those ruins, it won't be from the villages. It'll be from what the Uzumaki themselves left behind. And that… might be worth the risk."