Wearing a hood, Naruto traveled a long distance before finally arriving in the Land of Tea.
He chose this place as his temporary residence.
The Land of Tea was a peninsula nation, surrounded on all sides by the sea. Its fishing industry was well developed, and because it could sustain itself, it had little interaction with neighboring countries. For Naruto, this made it a relatively safe place.
The moment Naruto set foot in the Land of Tea, he sensed an extremely familiar chakra. After focusing carefully, he was shocked to discover that this chakra was almost identical to his own Sage chakra.
Following the trail of this chakra, Naruto arrived at a mountain range and discovered an entrance. After going deeper inside, he realized it was a base.
The ground of the base was filled with strange biological limbs soaked in jars and containers, creating an eerie and unsettling scene.
Naruto noticed a layer of shed snake skin on the floor. He crouched down to inspect it, and a cold glint flashed through his eyes.
"Orochimaru…"
However, aside from that Sage chakra, there was no trace of Orochimaru's presence in the base. The entire place was in disarray, clearly abandoned long ago.
Naruto followed the chakra to a sealed iron door. The Sage chakra was coming from behind it.
He formed a Rasengan and slammed it forward. The tremendous impact shattered the iron door with ease.
Naruto stepped into the room and was greeted by a shocking sight.
A teenager—no more than skin and bones—was lying there, his body riddled with tubes. The instruments connected to them had long stopped functioning. With no nutritional supply, the boy had wasted away into a severely malnourished state.
Hearing the disturbance, the boy did not open his eyes. In a weak voice, he asked,
"Who's there?"
Naruto did not answer.
Suddenly, the boy grew agitated.
"Did Orochimaru-sama send you? Do I still have value to him? No matter what kind of experiment it is, I'm willing to accept it—as long as I can be of use to Orochimaru-sama!"
Naruto could tell at a glance: this boy was one of Orochimaru's experimental subjects.
When Naruto remained silent for a long time, the boy gradually realized that the person who had come was likely not sent by Orochimaru.
"What's your name?" Naruto suddenly asked.
"Kaguya… Kimimaro."
"Kaguya Kimimaro…" Naruto said slowly. "This place has been abandoned for a long time. Orochimaru has already discarded you."
In a despondent murmur, Kimimaro said,
"Even at the end of my life, I'm still useless… still unable to help Orochimaru-sama…"
"Brainwashed to this extent…" Naruto muttered to himself. Seeing that even after learning he'd been abandoned, Kimimaro was still thinking only of Orochimaru, Naruto found it difficult to understand.
Kimimaro suddenly opened his eyes. His green pupils burned with anger.
"I was not brainwashed! Orochimaru-sama and I understand each other. What do you know?!"
"I don't," Naruto replied calmly. "If you truly understood each other, then why were you left here to die? Judging by your condition, you won't live much longer. You're barely hanging on by Sage chakra alone. In the end, this is nothing more than your one-sided wishful thinking."
Kimimaro let out a sorrowful whisper.
"Perhaps that's true. My body is plagued by illness, and my time is nearly up. I've always thought about why people continue to live. Eventually, I realized that people are born for a purpose. I firmly believe that living means having an important mission. And my mission… was to exist for Orochimaru-sama.
Someone who cannot shoulder even a fraction of Orochimaru-sama ambitions… Since Orochimaru-sama no longer needs a vessel, someone like me, who has no value, being abandoned is only natural."
Naruto mercilessly refuted him.
"People are never meant to live for others. Humans are selfish creatures—we only ever live for ourselves. You just happened to meet Orochimaru at the wrong time, in the wrong place. To him, you were nothing more than a tool to achieve his goals. And you? You're just a failure who placed all your hopes onto someone else."
Kimimaro closed his eyes again.
"None of that matters anymore. I don't have much time left. These things are meaningless to me now. You can either kill me here… or leave me to die on my own."
Naruto neither moved to kill Kimimaro nor turned to leave. He remained standing where he was.
"Kimimaro," Naruto said quietly, "you have the courage to accept death. But do you have the courage to change? Do you have the courage to live for yourself, just once?"
Kimimaro opened his eyes again, confusion filling his gaze.
"Change… live for myself…?"
Naruto nodded.
"That's right. It has nothing to do with Orochimaru. Nothing to do with purpose or destiny. It's only about you.
I once believed that my existence was unnecessary. I longed for friends, for warmth, for attention, for recognition. But I eventually realized that all of that was false.
Deep down, you're resentful too, aren't you? Resentful that Orochimaru abandoned you. You gave him everything, and in the end, you're left to die alone in a room like a prison—no one caring whether you live or die."
Kimimaro's eyes flickered.
Naruto was right.
Even though Kimimaro had regarded Orochimaru as his entire world, being locked away here to await death still made him question whether everything he had done was truly worth it.
He remembered the last time he saw Orochimaru.
Standing before the gravely ill Kimimaro, Orochimaru had said coldly,
"Kimimaro, I no longer need a vessel to achieve immortality. And you, suffering from a bloodline disease, no longer have any value in battle. This base has been abandoned. You will remain here and be abandoned along with it."
Looking into Orochimaru's icy, serpent-like eyes, the warmth in Kimimaro's heart froze.
He had given everything to Orochimaru, yet it seemed he had never caused even the slightest ripple in Orochimaru's heart.
A tear slid from the corner of Kimimaro's eye.
Kimimaro had believed that the day he met Orochimaru was the day he escaped despair.
But in truth, he had merely stepped from one despair into another.
"Why," Kimimaro asked softly, "must you destroy the last shred of belief I have left… at the very end of my life?"
Naruto answered seriously,
"Because I like you. I admire your loyalty. I admire your purity. If you were to become my companion, I think I could entrust my back to you."
Kimimaro did not respond immediately. Instead, he looked at Naruto and asked,
"After all this talking… I still don't know your name."
"Naruto," he replied. "Uzumaki Naruto."
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