Hearing Kaguya Kimimaro's answer, Kurogane Ren was momentarily stunned and couldn't help but take a closer look at him.
Even as a child, Kimimaro already had that distinctive appearance—two red dots marked on his forehead, a bone blade in his hand, and a faint smell of dirt lingering on him.
Scratches were still visible on the prison walls, and they looked fresh.
It was easy to imagine that before Kurogane Ren arrived, the boy had been using his bone blade to scrape at the walls.
At that moment, Kurogane Ren couldn't help but sigh. If he needed subordinates, Kimimaro would truly be one of the best.
But he didn't need any, and Kimimaro's bloodline disease doomed him to live only a few years.
This kind of bloodline disease was so stubborn that even Orochimaru, who had the deepest understanding of the human body, and the highly skilled medic Kabuto Yakushi couldn't cure it together.
In the original story, Kimimaro lived to fifteen. Without Orochimaru and Kabuto, he definitely wouldn't make it that far.
Kurogane Ren had no intention of researching the disease. If even those two couldn't solve it, he wasn't going to waste his time.
"Hmm, then let me put it another way. Can you give me your body?" Kurogane Ren said directly. He had no intention of manipulating the boy with words.
Kimimaro immediately became alert. Even at his young age, he could understand the meaning behind those words.
However, the moment Kurogane Ren finished speaking, his finger was already pressed against Kimimaro's forehead. Instantly, countless curse marks spread from that point, covering the boy's body.
At that moment, when Kimimaro tried to use his bloodline ability, he realized he could no longer control the bones that once moved as naturally as his own limbs. Worse still, his arms and legs gradually lost all strength, and he collapsed to the ground.
Kurogane Ren lifted Kimimaro's small body, intending to freeze his time at this very moment, halting the bloodline disease before it could fully manifest.
He had no plans to fuse with him using the Demon Bud Technique right now. That disease was no joke.
If it weren't for the fact that Orochimaru would later take Kimimaro away, he wouldn't even bother taking him at this point.
As for the bloodline disease, Kurogane Ren believed it wouldn't be able to withstand Hashirama cells. However, the problem was that the invasive nature of those cells would likely be just as difficult for him to endure.
Therefore, the Shikotsumyaku bloodline would have to wait until everything was ready—until he could resist the disease—before being fused.
After that, he stood within the Kaguya clan's territory, deep in thought.
In the Land of Water, there was also a young boy named Haku who possessed Ice Release.
Kurogane Ren had no interest in fusing Ice Release through the Demon Bud Technique. At this time, Haku's parents were still alive and hadn't discovered his bloodline, so he was still living a "happy" life.
However, compared to the well-known Kaguya clan, Haku lived in an obscure village. Finding him wouldn't be easy.
So the question was—should he spend a large amount of time searching for him?
Kurogane Ren recalled everything about Haku. Since coming to this world, his memory seemed to have improved significantly. Things he might not have remembered in his previous life now came back clearly.
He knew this was due to the strengthening of his mental energy, which was a good thing.
In the end, he summoned a group of crows and instructed them to search for a village that experienced snowfall all year round.
Even in the Land of Water, places with constant snowfall were rare, so it shouldn't be too difficult.
Although crow summons couldn't perform reverse summoning and lacked a complete inheritance, making it hard for them to speak, their intelligence was still quite high.
As long as he gave them specific instructions each time, they could understand and carry them out. They were very reliable summons.
Watching the crows fly off with their tasks, Kurogane Ren noted that this was already the second group sent out to search for people.
That's right—there had been a first group.
The first batch was much larger and was currently searching outward from Takigakure.
Their target was Jugo, a man born with an uncontrollable Sage Body.
Although the original story never specified Jugo's village, his Sage Body was most likely connected to Ryuchi Cave.
After Kabuto trained in Sage Mode at Ryuchi Cave and emerged, the first ninja he encountered was from Takigakure. So even if Ryuchi Cave wasn't located there, it should be somewhere nearby.
Having the crows search outward from Takigakure was the right choice.
Finding Jugo would actually be simple—he only needed to wait for Jugo to speak first. As long as a crow could confirm that he understood its language, his identity would be clear.
Thinking of Jugo, Kurogane Ren suddenly paused.
After connecting all the characters related to Orochimaru, he finally realized why something had been bothering him—the timeline felt completely off.
He looked at the Kimimaro in his hands, who was only two or three years old. At this time, Jugo would also be around the same age.
But in his memory, the two met when they were already teenagers—nearly ten years later.
Orochimaru's curse mark, as he recalled, was developed based on Jugo's physique. Yet Orochimaru had already branded Anko Mitarashi with the Heaven Curse Mark before defecting.
So the question was—Orochimaru's defection wasn't far off, at most one or two years away.
Within such a short time, would Orochimaru first find Kimimaro, then somehow make him grow into a teenager, and then send him to find a suddenly grown-up Jugo and persuade him to cooperate for research?
Kurogane Ren rubbed his temples. The timeline was completely chaotic.
Perhaps he had remembered incorrectly. Maybe during this period, Orochimaru had been researching the curse mark using Jugo's clan. Then Jugo went berserk and destroyed the village, cutting off Orochimaru's research materials, but also revealing Jugo's existence.
Only then did Orochimaru send Kimimaro to find Jugo, allowing the two to meet.
That seemed to be the only reasonable explanation.
Kurogane Ren let out a sigh. No matter what, he needed to find Jugo before Orochimaru did.
He had no intention of fusing with Jugo using the Demon Bud Technique. Jugo's unstable condition made it too risky. No matter how powerful it was, losing one's sanity would always lead to being defeated by someone clear-minded.
So instead of fusing with Jugo, it would be better to use his physique—like Orochimaru did—to develop something similar to a curse mark.
As he thought this through, Kurogane Ren used the Summoning Technique to return to his experimental base, settled Kimimaro in place, and then returned to Konoha.
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