The Land of Hot Water, a little less than a year after the invasion of Konoha.
Deep within the current hidden heart of Jashinism, the main underground research center lay carved into the rock, broader and more refined than the outer chambers.
Seals were etched into every surface, layered and overlapping, reinforcing the structure and masking it from anything that tried to peer too closely.
One corridor sloped upward at a shallow angle, concealed behind multiple barriers.
It led to a narrow, carefully shaped opening that overlooked the valley outside, allowing those within to observe the land beyond while remaining completely unseen.
That was where they sat.
A long stone table rested near the edge of the chamber, positioned just close enough to the opening for light and air to filter in.
Kimimaro and Emi were seated across from one another, papers spread between them, reports and diagrams held in place by seal tags and small weights.
The atmosphere was calm. Focused. Almost domestic in its quiet rhythm.
Emi leaned forward slightly, chin resting in her palm, reading with casual concentration.
She was nearly eighteen now, her body fully matured, her posture easy and self-assured.
Soft chestnut hair framed her extra youthful, subtly rounded face, a few unruly strands slipping across her eyes, the rest gathered into a loose side ponytail held by a dark ribbon.
Her attire remained familiar, a sleeveless fitted combat tunic in deep violet, a black sash at her waist, matte leggings, and long gloves, clean and practical.
But her eyes drew the gaze.
A faint, pale bluish glow lingered within them, muted but unmistakable, far more vivid than the usual flat white.
They looked sharper. Livelier.
As if something beneath the dōjutsu had awakened and learned to look back at the world rather than simply see through it.
Her usual demeanor hadn't changed. Calm, observant, lightly amused at rest.
Only now, there was a quiet depth behind it that hadn't been there before.
Even now, Kimimaro occasionally caught himself lingering on her eyes.
It wasn't just the faint sensory pressure constantly humming beneath them, now quiet but unmistakably alive.
Visually, they fit her far better than the old pale white ever had, the soft chestnut of her hair and those slightly messy, lush bangs framing that pale blue glow in a way that made the contrast sharper, cleaner.
Emi noticed, of course.
She always did.
"…You're staring again," she said without looking up from the papers. "If you're trying to analyze them, you're doing it very badly."
Kimimaro didn't deny it. "They're distracting."
She glanced up then, one brow lifting, a crooked smile tugging at her lips. "Wow. A compliment. Should I mark the date?"
"They work better on you than the original," he added calmly. "Aesthetic improvement."
She snorted. "That's the nicest insult I've ever gotten."
Kimimaro's gaze flicked back to the table. "Given how many main-branch Hyūga lost access to their eyes for that result, you should be grateful."
Emi leaned back in her chair, grinning openly now. "You say that like you didn't enjoy it."
"I was thorough," he replied dryly. "There's a difference."
She laughed, light and unbothered, the sound echoing softly through the chamber. "You're impossible."
"And yet," Kimimaro said, finally looking back at her, "you turned out well."
For a moment, her expression softened, just a fraction, before she waved it off and returned to the papers.
"…Don't get weird."
Kimimaro allowed himself the faintest smile.
His demeanor obviously shifted depending on where he stood.
In Konoha, or during serious operations, he was cold and exacting.
Here, among the girls and within what passed for 'home', he allowed himself to be quieter, looser, almost human.
He soon returned his gaze to the table.
Most of the papers spread before them bore familiar titles by now, all revolving around Hashirama cells in one form or another.
Cellular compatibility. Vitality saturation thresholds. Long-term stabilization. And similar.
Alongside the faint glow in Emi's eyes, it made one thing clear.
Their long period of focus on Byakugan research was over now.
That chapter had closed. They had pivoted decisively already.
And that shift was reflected in Kimimaro as well.
On the surface, his eyes remained the same calm emerald green they had always been.
But layered beneath them was something far more evolved.
A Byakugan could still be activated, sealed rather than transplanted, a crucial difference that left his resting gaze untouched by the Hyūga's pale white.
His eyes only changed when he willed them to.
And now, there was simply one more change.
Something beyond Byakugan.
A true Tenseigan.
Dormant when unused.
Perfectly aligned when active.
Still, even with that Tenseigan awakened, Kimimaro didn't walk as if the world were already in his grasp.
He wasn't Toneri.
That difference mattered.
Part of it was temperament.
Kimimaro was not prone to delusion, nor to mistaking potential for completion.
But more importantly, he knew something Toneri had not had to confront at all.
His eyes did not truly fit him yet.
The cyan glow of the Tenseigan was real, unmistakably so, but his current body could not support it as a true High Six Paths instrument, not the way Toneri had wielded it the moment it awakened.
That gap had nothing to do with skill or will.
It was genetics.
The easiest way to see it was also the most superficial.
Kimimaro's distinct hair color hinted at deeper Ōtsutsuki influence, yes, but only faintly.
Beyond that, he was still overwhelmingly human.
Toneri had been something else entirely.
Paler hair. Almost unnaturally pale skin.
Features that weren't just aesthetic, but symptomatic.
His clan on the moon had represented nearly a thousand years of ruthless bloodline preservation, interbreeding, and isolation, inadvertently retaining as much of Hamura's Ōtsutsuki essence as possible.
That was why Toneri existed at all. An accidental genetic atavism, closer to a true Ōtsutsuki than any modern shinobi. Almost perfect.
And that same extremity was also why he had been the last of them.
The moon's harsh environment and those practices had thinned their numbers until nothing remained.
The Kaguya clan, Kimimaro's own lineage, had also lived in isolation, shunned and driven into internal breeding in recent generations, but it still wasn't comparable.
Not to the moon clan's near-absolute preservation of purity, the unintended result of Hamura's migration and goals.
Those lunar descendants had earned the right to retain the Ōtsutsuki name, at least by human standards, in his opinion.
They were still human, but closer than any others to those true alien aberrations.
The Kaguya, by contrast, was only an echo, a distorted offshoot, marked by excess and waste rather than preservation.
So, if one compared preserved Ōtsutsuki blood essence between the two, Toneri surpassed him completely.
It wasn't even a contest. In truth, only the direct sons of Hagoromo and Hamura themselves could rival that level.
That was why Toneri had been able to awaken the Tenseigan and immediately stand on a High Six Paths level.
No shinobi training. No battlefield refinement. No gradual adaptation.
One day, he stole Hanabi's eyes. The next, he was contending with Naruto after the war, Naruto empowered by Hagoromo himself.
In Kimimaro's judgment, Toneri hadn't lost because he was weak.
He had lost because he was inexperienced.
No combat sense. No shinobi finesse. No proper mindset.
And because he had awakened that power moments before using it, with no time to adapt.
Kimimaro was not Toneri.
Possessing the Tenseigan did not mean he could wield it the same way.
For now, it remained mostly sealed, deliberately suppressed.
He fed it only the bare minimum of chakra required to keep it stable, refusing to let it drain or damage a body that wasn't yet ready.
Prolonged use would be dangerous. Reckless.
At most, he could activate it briefly, a few decisive moments in battle, nothing more.
He understood that limit well.
He had seen what happened when mortal vessels tried to channel powers meant for Ōtsutsuki frames.
That was why he classified himself honestly.
Low Six Paths.
The Tenseigan alone qualified him for that spectrum.
Even moments of its use could overwhelm nearly anyone in the world as it stood now.
But it was still far from the peak, even of what that dōjutsu could allow, let alone true proximity to the root of all power.
Perfect, pure Ōtsutsuki essence.
He wasn't there yet. And unlike Toneri, he knew better than to pretend otherwise.