Shisui was focused on picking the lock when a pale face suddenly appeared from the shadows.
Big green eyes stared wide at him, red markings under the eyelids, and two round red dots between the eyebrows.
From that low angle and under the dim yellow light...
He looked like a ghost who'd died here hundreds of years ago, still wandering around with no one to lay him to rest.
Shisui couldn't help it—he let out a shout and took a step back.
Kimimaro clearly didn't expect such a strong reaction and shrank back in surprise at Shisui's sudden shout.
Hatake Satoru also just felt the scene was a little creepy, but Shisui's yell almost gave him a heart attack.
"..."
"..."
Once Shisui calmed down, he got a good look at Kimimaro's face. He looked just like a typical member of the Kaguya clan.
Actually, he looked cleaner and better than the other weird-looking ones Shisui had seen before.
But he did seem really young—probably only five or six years old at most.
"You two work together really well. If it had been anyone else standing here, you'd have scared them into a heart attack," Hatake Satoru said, shaking his head and flicking Shisui on the forehead.
Shisui awkwardly glanced at the two of them, rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand, then crouched off to the side with a piece of wire to pick the lock.
Hatake Satoru squatted down and looked at Kimimaro, who was sitting inside.
"Oh, we're teachers from the academy. The new Mizukage sent us out to help kids learn."
"You can't read, right? So now you get to take classes and learn."
Hatake Satoru smiled as he spoke, actually looking like a pretty friendly teacher.
Aside from the odd-looking blindfold, there didn't seem to be anything too suspicious about him.
Kimimaro hesitated. He had been kept here since he was little, never went to school, and barely knew what the outside world looked like.
He'd just finally gotten out, had a fight, and now someone was sweet-talking him back into this cage.
Hatake Satoru knew his excuse was full of holes—what ninja ever cared about school, as long as you could kill?
Still, if Kimimaro had been locked up here his whole life, he probably couldn't tell lies from the truth.
As long as they could talk him out of this place, getting him to stay at the academy would be no problem.
School, classes—all that stuff was totally new to Kimimaro.
And people are always curious about what they don't know.
"…If I go to school, do I have to come back here?" Kimimaro asked, eyes darting toward Hatake Satoru.
"Hmm—nope. You won't ever have to come back to this place~"
"Not only that, you'll also have a lot of people to be with."
*Click.*
Right after Satoru said that, Shisui waved the unlocked chain in his hand and pulled open the big door beside them.
If there had been sealing tags involved, it might've taken longer. But for regular chains, it was nothing to him.
"Alrighty—come on out. You're free now."
Hatake Satoru stood up and took a few steps back.
Kimimaro looked up at the two of them. He felt like leaving this place might be a really bad idea.
But his longing for the outside world, and the desire to be around others, had already grown stronger than his loyalty to the clan.
He wanted to feel needed, but the clan's need for him was always short-lived.
He spent most of his time alone down here. Compared to endless killing and war, he wished there was another way to show his worth.
Kimimaro bent down and crawled out from the dungeon.
The candle behind him, casting three long shadows, flickered wildly before going out with a trail of blue smoke. The underground cell was left in complete darkness.
...
That afternoon, news of Kimimaro's disappearance caused a huge uproar within the Kaguya clan.
What a mess—while everyone was busy cleaning up the battlefield and dealing with all the casualties, they slipped up.
And in that moment of carelessness, the living weapon hidden deep underground had vanished.
Even though they didn't trust the new Mizukage, Hozuki Mangetsu, this was serious. If Kimimaro lost control, it would lead to a bloodbath.
The Kaguya clan had no choice but to send an urgent report to the old advisor, who then tried to pressure the new Mizukage into sending people to find Kimimaro.
"Lord Mizukage, the priority right now isn't sorting through these missions — we need to send someone to find the missing Kimimaro!"
The old man was clearly panicking next to Hozuki Mangetsu, who stayed calm and slow as ever, focused on organizing the paperwork.
Of course the old man was anxious — how could he not be? Kimimaro was a deadly weapon, someone the Kaguya clan had been carefully raising.
Once the kid was strong enough, he'd be a powerful warrior under their control.
And now he's gone? What kind of sick joke is this?
What's even scarier is the possibility that Kimimaro ended up in Hatake Satoru's hands.
But Kimimaro had always been kept underground. Hatake Satoru hadn't even been in Kirigakure for that long — how could he possibly have figured out where the Kaguya clan was hiding him?
"Ugh, you're so noisy, old man. Stop bugging me already. Things need to be done one at a time, right?"
"No matter how urgent it is, Kimimaro won't disappear in just a few more minutes."
Hozuki Mangetsu waved him off irritably without even looking up, and went right back to sorting the mission files.
The only person who could actually make him listen was Hatake Satoru.
That old man didn't have any real power anymore, and he was totally fooled by Hatake Satoru. Naturally, Hozuki Mangetsu didn't respect him much.
And about Kimimaro — a child, a human weapon.
Hozuki Mangetsu clearly remembered that Hatake Satoru had shown interest in one of the Kaguya kids. Maybe it was him.
Can it really be called "kidnapping" if a teacher takes in a child like that? No, that's the light of humanity — saving a living weapon from a life of misery and confinement.
As Hozuki Mangetsu thought about it, he nodded to himself.
Yeah, he shouldn't send anyone to find him.
"You have no idea how serious this is, even if you are the Mizukage now!"
"But don't forget, this is only your first day on the job!"
"I served under the last Mizukage — when things like this happen, you should listen to me!"
The old advisor was so mad at Hozuki Mangetsu's careless attitude that his face turned red.
Anbu had already been reorganized, and now all orders came from the Mizukage.
If the Mizukage didn't help out now, the Kaguya clan definitely wouldn't be there for him if something else happened later.
A few of the old man's most loyal men had already gone to help, but what could just a handful of them really do?
Hozuki Mangetsu counted the stack of white mission files in his hands. Each one was a different task.
Then he looked up at the old man's angry face — a face that looked like it wanted to tear him apart — and gave a sweet, innocent smile.
"Okay, okay, I get it. Let's call in the Kaguya clan first."
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