Chapter 161: Submission Achieved, Courtesy Applied
"Good," Kimimaro thought calmly. "Perfect chance to test this."
There had been a reason he'd opened his Tenseigan right from the beginning this time.
Deliberate shock and awe tactic.
Submission, achieved efficiently.
None of them knew the limits of those eyes.
None of them knew about cooldowns, strain, and costs for him now.
Ao wasn't Emi in Byakugan fine vision, not even close, and Mei was no Tobirama in the sensory mode.
At best, they could sense or see scale, density, maybe odd chakra properties from overlapping kekkei genkai.
They could not read the rules.
Which meant perception was everything.
That was why he avoided the Truth-Seeking Orbs.
Too expensive.
And even too revealing and a true "overkill".
But they wouldn't yield easily.
So he chose something else.
Something he felt he had enough power for now.
Kimimaro raised one hand.
Thousand-Ash Extinction.
The air rippled once, so subtly it barely registered, and then dozens of the approaching Kirigakure shinobi simply ceased to exist, frozen mid-jutsu.
There was no explosion. No scream.
Their bodies withered in place, flesh drying and collapsing into pale ash that scattered into the mist before their weapons could even finish falling.
No delay.
No resistance.
Just erasure.
A direct hit, invisible to them, swallowed by the night before any of them could even understand what had happened.
At that same moment, Ao already launched some Water Release, a desperate wave meant to bind or distract, while Mei forced out her unique Lava Release, the Melting Apparition Technique surging forward in shimmering heat.
Kimimaro didn't stop.
Tenseigan: Celestial Mantle.
The translucent pressure field curved around him at that time, the water peeling away as if slapped aside by an invisible wall, the lava dispersing harmlessly, redirected back toward them without resistance, without effort.
Then he was gone again.
His Tenseigan Chakra Mode flickered into existence for a brief moment, then shut down again just as cleanly, as if it had never been there at all.
He reappeared behind Mei.
She barely had time to register the shift before his hand pressed against her back, and a suppression seal snapped into place, locking her chakra down completely this time.
"Still being unreasonable," Kimimaro remarked dryly. "Unfortunate."
He caught her as her legs gave out, holding her effortlessly under one arm, her body already slick with sweat, breath uneven, teeth clenched in fury and disbelief.
Ao moved again in desperation.
A water-whip construct lashed toward Kimimaro, fast, precise.
Kimimaro didn't bother dodging.
He punched Ao before he could register it.
Not a technique.
Just a fist.
Ao's body folded mid-motion and crashed into the stone, bones shattering on impact.
Before he could even recover, Kimimaro was on him, driving him into the ground again and again, brutal, efficient, carefully stopping just short of killing him.
"You live," Kimimaro said calmly. "For now."
When a single Byakugan was your most notable asset, you simply weren't high level. Especially when it came from an accidental, partially recessive Hyūga dilution like Mukai Kohinata's, not a pure main-branch Byakugan to begin with.
More chakra signatures surged in.
More shinobi.
Among them, Chōjūrō.
He stepped forward, gripping his massive blade with white knuckles, trying desperately not to shake as he took in the scene.
A strange ash drifting in the air.
Bodies gone.
Ao broken.
Mei restrained.
"L-Lady Mei," he said, forcing his voice steady. "Release her."
Kimimaro glanced at him once.
He didn't even bother replying.
Instead, he summoned that barely visible gray mass again, the pressure alone making Chōjūrō's breath hitch.
Mei, limp in Kimimaro's hold, finally shouted.
"Chōjūrō!" Her voice cut through the mist, fierce despite her position.
"Stop. Fall back. All of you."
"B-but—" he started.
"NOW!" she snapped.
For a moment, Kimimaro almost smiled.
Held like a kitten, soaked in sweat, chakra sealed, and still commanding.
Ao, barely conscious, forced himself to speak. "Listen… to her… You'll die."
Chōjūrō looked between them, jaw clenched, then finally nodded, signaling the others back toward the hideout.
One by one, they retreated.
Silence returned.
Kimimaro adjusted his grip on Mei slightly and looked down at her.
"…Interesting," he said mildly.
Then he smirked, just a little.
"But Kirigakure really does produce stubborn leaders."
The words landed lightly, almost amused.
Inside, Mei went very still.
By now, the truth had settled completely.
Not as fear, not as panic, but as certainty.
Confrontation was futile.
Not difficult. Not risky. Futile.
Even if every shinobi in this hideout had charged him at once, hundreds of them, it wouldn't have changed the outcome.
She had just watched it happen.
He hadn't strained. He hadn't hurried.
He hadn't even raised his voice.
That strange technique, the one that reduced dozens of shinobi into gray, ash-like remnants in an instant, had arrived too fast to react to.
No seals. No warning. Area-wide.
Wide enough to erase squads before they could even begin forming jutsu.
His speed was worse.
She had felt it now, clearly.
That brief surge of cyan chakra enveloping him, not explosive, not wild, but decisive.
It wasn't coincidence that he kept appearing behind her.
He was simply moving faster than her reactions could exist.
Her Lava Release, her signature, something that had melted through defenses and terrified enemies for years, had been dismissed with a casual wave and invisible force.
No counter-jutsu. No clash. Just denial.
This wasn't a shinobi battle.
It felt like standing in front of something alien.
Something wearing a human shape out of convenience.
The worst possible situation.
Mei clenched her teeth.
She would not keep feeding her people into that.
If there was no path forward through force, then force was no longer leadership.
Sacrificing subordinates pointlessly wasn't resolve. It was stupidity.
She met his gaze again, sweat cooling on her skin, heart pounding, but mind finally clear.
Stubborn, yes.
But not suicidal.
Kimimaro, meanwhile, wasn't sure why he did it.
Maybe it was because, after asserting himself so completely against them, the tension had drained in an unexpected way.
Or maybe it was simply that dominance, once established beyond question, left room for… indulgence.
His gaze lingered on Mei's damp bangs, plastered messily across her face from sweat and mist. They had been bothering him for a while now.
Even back when consuming the original story, that hairstyle had always annoyed him for reasons he'd never fully articulated.
So he reached out. Calmly.
He hooked two fingers under that thickest strand and brushed it aside, clearing her eyes and most of her face in one smooth motion.
"There," he said mildly. "That's better."
Mei froze.
Not because of fear this time.
Because of how normal it was.
"How do you even see with that haircut?" Kimimaro continued, tone dry. "It's terrible. Completely impractical for a shinobi."
Her eyes widened a fraction. "Y-you—"
"And," he added, looking directly into her eyes now, "we have the same eye color. Emerald. Ever notice that?"
She hadn't.
Now she couldn't stop noticing it.
The closeness.
His hand already gone, but the warmth lingering.
His face right there, angular, sharp, unmarked by strain or madness.
Too young. Too composed. Too… human.
For a moment, she didn't know what unsettled her more. The power, or this.
"That doesn't mean anything," she said, a bit too quickly.
"Maybe," Kimimaro replied. "Or maybe it does."
She swallowed.
Strangely, the gesture hadn't frightened her further. It had done the opposite.
It cracked something in the image she'd built of him, the monster, the alien force.
This wasn't how something like that behaved.
Kimimaro seemed to notice her reaction and exhaled quietly.
"I'm not like that guy controlling Yagura," he said.
"I don't know why you jumped to that conclusion so quickly."
Mei's jaw tightened. "You overpower us. Suppress my chakra. Move like—"
"Like someone strong," he interrupted. "That's all."
She hesitated.
"I don't have a vendetta against Kirigakure," Kimimaro continued. "No obsession. No grudge. I don't care about your past sins."
He looked around briefly, at the mist, the retreating shinobi, the broken ground.
"I only saw an opportunity. A broken great village with infrastructure, legitimacy, and isolation. A place that can be taken and reshaped into a power base on the side."
He looked back at her. "That's it. That's why I'm here."
The frankness caught her off guard more than any threat had.
This wasn't madness.
It was strategy.
Up close, now that the killing pressure was gone, she became uncomfortably aware of other things.
How young he looked.
How close she was.
How his earlier touch, clearing her hair, lingered in memory far longer than it should have.
Her body reacted before her mind wanted it to.
A faint heat. A hint of embarrassment she hadn't felt in years.
She pushed it down and tested him again.
"You seem to know a lot," she said carefully. "Do you know who's controlling Yagura?"
Kimimaro's eyes narrowed just a touch.
"Enough," he said. "More than you do."
Off to the side, Ao watched the exchange in silence, battered and broken, propped against stone like an afterthought.
He felt like a third party to something he wasn't meant to interrupt.
The ambiguity. The shift in tone.
The way Mei was clearly recalibrating in real time.
He didn't comment.
He didn't dare.
He just listened, eyes sharp despite the pain, understanding that something far more dangerous than a battle was unfolding right in front of them.