"Take them back with you. I'll entrust the Crystal Dragon to your care for now. Once you reach your destination, hand it over to another person there who possesses a dragon summon," Kimimaro instructed.
It was a pity Haruna didn't know any ninjutsu yet—otherwise, he might have entrusted it to her for self-defense.
Yomaru bowed deeply. "Thank you for your trust, my lord!"
"Alright. I have other matters to attend to. Keep the token I gave you. With it, no one in the Land of Demons will stop you."
Kimimaro and Karin were preparing to head toward the Land of Earth to meet Kurotsuchi. Along the way, they also intended to make a stop in the Land of Grass—to settle old scores.
Three days later, deep within the Taketori clan compound in the Land of Grass...
Taketori Takemoto, the clan head, knelt on the ground, his body pierced with bone spikes from Kimimaro's Shikotsumyaku.
"Kimimaro, I no longer dare to seek revenge. Why won't you let me go?" he pleaded.
Kimimaro shook his head. "Takemoto, after you sent Takekata to assassinate me and he fell by my hand, I thought we were even. But then you collaborated with Hōzuki Castle to sabotage me—and you kidnapped Kurotsuchi, the Tsuchikage's granddaughter. That forged a new grudge."
Takemoto's eyes dimmed with despair. He had underestimated Kimimaro's growth. How long had it been—just months?
"Kill me then. But I beg you, spare the rest of the Taketori clan. For the sake of our distant bloodline connection, let them live."
Kimimaro gave a faint nod. "I don't plan to wipe out your entire clan. Do two things for me before your end, and I promise to preserve the Taketori name under my protection."
Though not particularly strong, Takemoto was still a clan head—a man who understood when to resist and when to yield. After a pause, he nodded. "What do you want?"
"First, gather your clan and proclaim me your successor. Second, tell me everything you know about Hōzuki Castle. You've served as a senior advisor in Grass Village, so you must have valuable intel."
The two spoke for a long time in a secret chamber. Afterward, Takemoto assembled the clan to make arrangements for his death.
Since Takemoto cooperated, Kimimaro gave him a dignified death—absorbing his life energy directly without extracting his bones or spilling blood.
"Karin," Kimimaro said after, "when you were still with the Grass ninja, was there anyone from the Taketori clan who treated you well?"
She thought for a moment. "There was one—Taketori Takemori. I think he's a distant cousin of Takemoto. He was kind to me and my mother."
Kimimaro summoned Takemori immediately. "Karin says you're decent. From now on, you'll lead the Taketori clan."
Takemori was stunned, then overjoyed. "Thank you, Lord Kimimaro… and Miss Karin."
"I'm not the clan head. You are," Kimimaro corrected calmly.
"To the outside world, I may be the clan head, but in truth, Lord Kimimaro leads the Taketori clan."
"You're sharp," Kimimaro said approvingly. "Then here's your first task: identify all of Takemoto's loyalists, especially those who bullied Karin's mother. I want a thorough purge—but no executions without my judgment. Bring them to me."
"Yes!"
After Takemori left, Karin asked in a hushed tone, "Didn't you say you'd let them go?"
"I did," Kimimaro replied, "but not those who caused you pain. Not all are innocent."
Karin leaned into him and whispered, "Kimimaro… you're the best."
The purge was swift. The Taketori clan was small—just over a hundred members, with maybe a few dozen active shinobi. Those who needed removal included one jōnin and a dozen chūnin, none of them elite.
Including Takemoto, Kimimaro absorbed roughly 50,000 units of life energy.
After unlocking the three-tomoe Sharingan days ago, his chakra capacity and absorption threshold had increased—now reaching 150,000, which meant he no longer had to wait between infusions.
Life energy, however, wasn't the only gain.
He also acquired blood samples from over a dozen Taketori shinobi. One jōnin's genetic material alone could support the creation of hundreds of enhanced soldiers. In total, this batch could produce more than 2,000.
Not that Kimimaro needed an army of super soldiers anymore—his goal was quality over quantity. A few thousand elite operatives, not tens of thousands. In true high-level combat, refined shinobi still mattered more than numbers.
He couldn't turn all the enhanced soldiers into Bone Guards—it would be too monotonous. But these bloodlines should still be preserved for now.
After this conflict, only Taketori Takemori remained a jōnin in the Taketori clan; the rest were either injured, demoted, or genin-level at best.
Given the current circumstances, if the Taketori clan continued to stay in the Land of Grass, their decline would soon be exposed. Should any opportunistic force decide to strike, the clan would be finished.
This wasn't a tightly regulated village like Konohagakure, where the Hokage tried to balance power and maintain order. In the minor nations, ninja clans often lived in constant strife. Even Konoha—supposedly the most stable of the Great Villages—had experienced the Uchiha Clan Massacre, orchestrated from within.
"You'll migrate to the Land of Vegetables in batches," Kimimaro ordered coldly.
The ninja forces in the Land of Grass were fragmented—Kusagakure itself lacked the unity seen in major villages. Factions like Grass Fruit and Grass Flower often clashed, and the Taketori clan rarely involved themselves in their affairs.
A few months earlier, Kimimaro had eliminated two of their five jōnin. With their strength so diminished, the Taketori were now treated like a fringe element—even the rest of Kusagakure barely acknowledged them.
Having no lingering attachment to this land, Taketori Takemori and the remaining clan members quickly began to follow Kimimaro's directives.
They didn't resist his rise to leadership; in fact, some were secretly relieved.
The Taketori clan had grown weak. Now that someone with the strength of Kimimaro—once even the designated successor of the main family—had returned to lead them, they saw it as a blessing.
"My lord, if you're heading to Hōzuki Castle, shall I assign someone to accompany you?" Takemori asked.
"No need," Kimimaro replied. "It won't help."
He had already extracted detailed intel about Hōzuki Castle from Taketori Takemoto.
In his previous life, he had watched most of the Naruto movies, but the one featuring Hōzuki Castle—"Naruto Shippuden the Movie: The Lost Tower"—he had skipped. When he visited the Land of Earth previously, he had only heard fragmented descriptions of the place, mostly from Karin.
He had strong impressions of other films like the one with Princess Yukie, Naruto's supposed death, Bonds, The Will of Fire, and The Last, but not this one. However, he had read online articles referencing the Box of Ultimate Bliss—an artifact said to birth a creature that thrived on fear.
What intrigued him more was a girl featured in that arc who possessed the Dragon Life Reincarnation technique—a one-use kekkei genkai that allowed her to transfer her life force to someone else. She had even kissed Naruto in the climax of that tale.
Kimimaro, however, had no interest in a bloodline limit that ended in death upon activation.
But what about the creature inside the Box of Ultimate Bliss? Could it be a source of enormous life energy?
"Are we going to Hōzuki Castle now?" Karin asked from the side.
"We can go take a look," Kimimaro said after a pause, "but I've changed my mind. I can't destroy it yet."
"Why not?"
"Because it's not just a local prison—it was constructed under the joint authority of the Five Great Nations, with the Land of Grass acting as its nominal overseer. Even if some of the villages dislike it, destroying it outright would draw the immediate attention of all the major powers."
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