Kaida was sitting in his room in the ship, as he had already found everything he needed, but this has complicated things more than providing any solution.
'I was perfectly content with the fact that I lost the chance to save Kimimaro, but this…'
According to the jonins' memories, the annihilation of the Kaguya clan had only happened a few months prior, and as he had expected, Kimimaro was able to evade that and run away from the clutches of the Mizukage. Even till this date, he was not found by the Kiri ninja, both factions. Part of it could be attributed to the war going on between these two factions.
They couldn't send as many ninja after him as they would have liked. Also, the Jonin knew about the last place Kimimaro was spotted as a measure to be alert about a potential threat on the loose. Naturally, this would have been good information and news to be happy about, but the location where Kimimaro was last spotted was the reason for Kaida's tension. He brought out his self-drawn map and marked the location of Kimimaro the Jonin knew about in order.
Then he drew the path his team is going to take during the mission, and the reason became clear why he was brooding.
'Kimimaro is on the opposite side of the country,' he thought.
If he wanted to go and bring him to Konoha, he would have to leave the caravan and his team for at least a couple of days to locate and bring back Kimimaro while also evading hundreds of ninja patrolling the whole country from both factions.
Though he had already left his clone behind for this information hunt here, but that was because he was always around within the range to reach them whenever he was required.
But to leave them for 2 whole days was a completely different matter altogether. Not only will he not be able to reach them in case of an emergency his clone couldn't handle, but even providing an explanation why he was unable to do so would be a headache.
Alas, he does have to make a decision, whether he wants to stay with the group or leave.
'If I have to leave, this is the perfect time, since we are in a neutral area for the next week. This is the safest our group will ever be in this country, so there is a fair amount of chance that no one will even notice my absence, and getting a threat of S-rank level here is negligible… let's give it a try. I am pretty sure my clone with 50 percent of my chakra could handle any threat below Kage level.'
After making up his mind, he gave the city one last scan to make sure there was no hidden danger there. But even if there was any present, there is no way a cursory glance will find them. So, after a last look, he sprinted away from the city.
…
The biggest problem with this country was that it was not connected at all. For any travel, they have to travel through the sea, which was not much of a problem unless you were trying to be stealthy.
'Why the hell are they so far apart?' Kaida grumbled as he ran through the sea. Walking on the water was child's play for someone at his level, but that doesn't mean it doesn't take chakra. And since he had to evade most of the surveillance around the sea, he had to always take the weirdly bigger route which he was able to find after going through memories of few who were able to locate him.
Naturally, he had found them beforehand and used them as a literal map for his travel. After half a day of travel, he finally reached the first location Kimimaro was spotted after running away from Kirigakure.
Though there was not a chance that he would be back here, Kaida wanted to find out something, so he went to the village in which Kimimaro had killed a few people to run away.
Naturally, Kaida was not interested in that detail as the boy was trained as a killer for most of his life. What would one expect him to do when he was for once left on his own? No, it was the second detail that was bugging him.
The villagers were so afraid of a Kaguya clan ninja that they tried to kill the boy when he was young, which was also understandable.
BUT
'Why would they pursue him only to get killed when he had already shown that he was more than capable of killing full-grown men?'
According to the memories of the Jonins he had acquired throughout the journey, Kimimaro was pursued by villagers out of the village where he killed all of the pursuers.
This had also bugged Kiri ninja as well, that why they had checked for any genjutsu on the villagers only to find no response for it.
Though Kiri was not known for their genjutsu expertise, but someone else was.
After reaching the village, Kaida picked up a normal passerby for the check-up and tapped on his shoulder.
"Yes?"
"Can I talk to you about something?" Kaida asked, his eyes glowing red with three tomoe rotating in them. The man nodded and casually led Kaida to one of the silent areas of the village.
When they reached there, Kaida scanned the mind of the person in front of him and found that he was one of the people who went after Kimimaro that day, along with half of the other men in the village.
When Kaida reached that part of his memories, he found a great amount of terror the man felt from Kimimaro, but there was also something else – hatred, which was unusually high for someone who they had never met in their life.
'There is definitely something wrong with this,' Kaida thought, and finally the three tomoe in his eyes merged together and formed a beautiful flower-shaped structure in his eyes.
'Now is not the time to save chakra,' Kaida thought.
'I was right. They were under a very subtle genjutsu which will increase their hatred towards the Kaguya clan way too much. And since these are just civilians with no active chakra to protect their brain, they are still under that genjutsu even after so much time had passed.'
"Now the question is, why would someone purposefully try to make a village enemy of a young boy? Do they want them to die? No, someone with this level of control could have easily slaughtered everyone in this village. Then what?"
Not being able to find any solid reason, he went to the next location and then the next, and then the next. All had one thing in common: Every location Kimimaro went, the villagers of that area were brought into genjutsu to make them hate the boy as much as possible. To check out his theory, he had checked the people of nearby villages who were completely safe, which meant someone was really trying to make Kimimaro feel like the whole world is his enemy.
And there was only one person who was in Kaida's mind who would do something like this.
"Orochimaru," he muttered under his breath as the air around him became tense. This has just become much more complex than he would have liked.