Returning to the journey.

At this critical moment, Kaito realized that facing that entity directly would be an arduous and potentially too dangerous task. He needed a quick and effective strategy to deal with the situation.

"I guess I'll have to use this in its unfinished form," Kaito said, forming several hand seals and touching the middle of his forehead. A large ice tattoo formed and spread over his body as natural energy began to flow within him. Six eyes turned completely blue, emitting a faint smoke of extreme cold. Additionally, two wings of ice appeared on his back, while an ice armor formed around his body. However, not everything was perfect; with this, chakra and natural energy were struggling for control within his body, causing Kaito extreme pain as he tried to balance them.

As the demonic hand approached rapidly, Kaito concentrated his chakra while attempting to balance the natural energy within him. He prepared to unleash a more powerful and targeted jutsu using natural energy, aiming to neutralize the threat more effectively.

"Jutsu: Crescent Ice Sword!"

With a shout, Kaito unleashed his jutsu, creating a huge crescent-shaped ice sword that shot towards the demonic hand with incredible speed and precision. The sharp blade sliced through the air with a sharp buzz, hitting its target with lethal accuracy.

The ice sword cut through the demonic arm with overwhelming force, causing a thunderous roar as the frozen limb shattered into pieces. The entity roared in furious pain as the ice spread, enveloping and freezing the arm completely.

With the threat temporarily contained, Kaito focused on neutralizing the mystical circle sustaining the entity. He quickly approached the circle and began to dismantle it with hand seals and chakra manipulation, breaking the connections and weakening its energy. He feared the demon might emerge from the portal, knowing that if just the arm was so powerful, he trembled at the thought of the demon itself.

A loud cry echoed from the summoning circle, sending a shiver down his spine, prompting him to accelerate the process even more.

As the circle unraveled, the demonic aura began to diminish, weakening the entity and limiting its influence on the environment. Kaito continued his work with determination, ensuring the threat was completely neutralized.

Finally, with the circle undone and the entity weakened, Kaito breathed a sigh of relief, although his back was sweating cold as he had exerted a lot of pressure while trying to unravel the seals. He had faced a dangerous threat and emerged victorious, but at that moment, the natural energy in his body went into disarray with his chakra, causing more pain and freezing his body for real, something Kaito felt he wouldn't be able to undo quickly.

He then took the opportunity to undo the fuinjutsu he had placed on his forehead, dissipating the natural energy approaching him. However, there was still residual energy within him that he tried to expel with some ninjutsu, but nothing seemed to work.

Kaito broke into a cold sweat at the thought of being frozen by his own ability but soon had an idea. Concentrating everything on his left arm, he turned it into a sculpture of dark ice. He lost all senses in that arm but remained hopeful as he felt that no matter how difficult that ice was, he could control tiny particles smaller than a grain of sand.

"If I learn true sage mode or train enough with these particles, I can bring my arm back to normal," Kaito thought, sighing. After all, all he used was a seal he had been studying, the same one Orochimaru had placed on Sasuke, but with many modifications made only to collect natural energy and try to balance it temporarily in his body. However, it wasn't entirely complete, and he still had to test it before using it. However, he found himself cornered when faced with the demonic hand, causing a strong reaction in his body after the seal went out of control, leaving him completely exhausted and his chakra in chaos.

But at that moment, Kaito saw the woman he had knocked out before standing up and looking at him with hatred and frenzy, advancing towards him with everything she had.

The woman quickly reached him and attacked with all her might in a punch enveloped in all the chakra she possessed, which Kaito knew could fatally wound him, but he had lost so much strength, and his chakra was in disarray.

Kaito could only raise his now-frozen arm with that dark ice to defend himself, and soon the clash between the woman's punch and the frozen arm occurred, throwing him backwards and hitting one of the cages.

The woman remained in the same spot, but she had a horrible expression on her face, as if in extreme pain. She then looked at her arm, which now looked like minced meat, completely limp. It seemed like all her bones in that arm had turned to dust.

She screamed in pain as she looked at Kaito with even more hateful eyes and advanced towards him again, ready to tear all his skin off. However, as she was about to punch the already weakened Kaito, whose vision was blurry, a small flash of black and blue hit the woman from behind, causing her to collide with the wall, breaking the bones in her back in the process.

Kaito breathed heavily as he regained some of the air he had lost and his consciousness, which was about to slip away.

Looking at what had saved him, he couldn't help but smile, for it was the small black cat that had attacked with the same attack he had used against Kaito once.

"Great job, little black. I'll give you plenty of meat when we get out of here," Kaito said, stroking the cat's head with his good hand.

Looking at his other arm and the woman's arm, Kaito realized that this dark ice was extremely resistant, often superior to his normal ice, as there was no sign of damage from that impact.

He sighed and began to briefly recover just to have the strength to react to anything, while grabbing his sword that had been left on the scroll, and walked towards the other guy who had been thrown along with the beautiful lady, fearing he might wake up, but as Kaito approached, he realized he had already departed from this world. So he returned to the woman who was unconscious again and checked her wounds. Her spine was broken, and she possibly would never walk in this world again, and her arm was completely devastated, causing her to lose a lot of blood. If he didn't treat her, she would die within seconds.

Kaito froze his hand to temporarily stop the bleeding because he wanted information about what all this was.

He was about to wake her up, but he thought of something and froze his entire body up to his neck, leaving only his head out so she could speak.

After that, he slapped the woman's face hard, causing her to wake up feeling a lot of pain from the injuries and now from the slaps that made one of her teeth fly away.

"Damn you, I'm going to kill you, I'm going to flay you alive, I'm going to offer your soul to my God, you will regret ever being born," she spat at Kaito, releasing all her hatred towards him as soon as she opened her mouth. Kaito just gave her a few more slaps, causing more teeth to fly out.

"Answer me truthfully, and I may spare your life, otherwise, you will be destined to become a block of ice while feeling your body slowly losing its functions until you die from multiple organ failure. That's not something you will enjoy," Kaito spoke in a threatening tone.

The woman hesitated for a few seconds, but then began to curse Kaito with every possible swear word in the world.

"So you want it this way," with a snap of his fingers, several micro-needles penetrated the woman's body, hitting directly the bone of her broken spine.

The woman's face quickly changed color from white to red, then purple, and finally a grayish color. Meanwhile, she screamed continuously.

"Will you answer me now, or do I need to be firmer?" He spoke with a cold and indifferent voice.

The woman didn't know if it was illusion or truth, but the moment he spoke, she felt like she was in a frozen hell, where a mysterious and dangerous creature was about to freeze her body and soul.

"Alright, I'll tell you, but only if you promise to let me go.." before the woman could finish, she felt pain again, as Kaito had used the same technique as before.

"You're not in a position to bargain anything, but if you tell me the truth, I can let you go," Kaito said again, causing the pain to stop.

The woman nodded hastily, still with a pained expression, but then began to detail everything.

"I am part of a group of worshippers of God. My parents abandoned me when I was a child, and I found myself alone in this cruel world, without strength and without support, until one day I met the worshippers of God. They taught me to read and write, gave me food, treated me well, and introduced me to their religion. So I became a part of it, until the day of my first ritual. I offered to God an assassin that the worshippers had captured, and then a great amount of energy entered my body, giving me strength.

Although the improvement was small, the sensation was addictive. So once a month, I participated and offered an offering in exchange for power. With this, I became very strong and started to capture more and more offerings for my God, who promised me power to bring order to this cruel world." The woman stopped there, showing an expression of adoration and as if she didn't think she was doing anything wrong by offering people as sacrifices to an entity they didn't know.

Kaito sighed and asked the woman to tell the rest of the story, and he finally discovered that this religion had several other members, many of whom were much stronger than her and performed even bigger rituals than she was doing, even mentioning some locations.

'I have to report this to Hiruzen and even to the people here in the Land of Iron,' Kaito thought with a sense of urgency.

"Tell me how to release everyone from this sleep they are in?" Kaito asked the woman again, who promptly responded about a seal that would undo the effect of this fuinjutsu, and it wasn't a difficult seal, it was a seal to make people vomit.

"I've already told you everything I knew, will you release me?" The woman asked with doubt in her eyes.

"Unfortunately not," saying this, Kaito snapped his fingers, and several ice spikes formed inside the woman's frozen body.

"You..." Was all the woman managed to say as her mouth filled with blood, dying quickly.

Kaito looked at her briefly and began to wake up all the people in that basement. It didn't take long, and finally, he had freed everyone, who thanked him endlessly after realizing their situation, including the ninjas from various villages.

"Thank you for your help, I will remember your name, Dracule Mihawk," one of the ninjas said as he thanked him.

After that, several other people came to thank him and then left, each going their own way.

Only the children remained in the place because they didn't know how to return home.

He didn't worry too much about it and took everyone out of the basement as he walked towards the guards, who, upon realizing this, were confused because they had never seen so many people appearing out of nowhere in the Land of Iron. So they had stopped the people in search of answers until Kaito arrived with the various children.

Kaito approached the guard and explained everything that had happened, completely shocking him. Then one of the guards gave the order for one of them to go fetch their superiors.

Soon, a large number of people were gathered in one place, bringing more and more curious people until finally some parents recognized their children and began to cry with emotion, upon hearing about a certain Dracule Mihawk who had saved them. These parents quickly approached Kaito and bowed in gratitude.

Kaito had never felt this feeling before, but now he was being treated like a hero by many, which made him feel somewhat embarrassed, luckily he was disguised.

It didn't take long for the officials to arrive, and Kaito retrieved his scroll, removing the bodies from it. All of them had varying degrees of injuries, with the only one slightly intact being the one who had died from the water jutsu.

"Wow, I've seen this woman before. She owned a beverage stall not far from here, and this guy was working as a carpenter," one of the guards remarked upon recognizing the two bodies, and everyone agreed, surprised that these seemingly normal people were worshippers of a demon.

He didn't wait any longer and took the opportunity to leave while everyone was distracted because he didn't want to attract too much attention to himself, and as a ninja, he quickly went unnoticed by everyone and had already left the Land of Iron, continuing his journey.

The little black one came out of his clothes and started scratching in complaints when he realized where they were.

"Damn servant, where's my meat you promised me? I swear I'm going to scratch you to death," the little feline said.

But all Kaito understood was "meow, meow, meow, meow..." Making Kaito smile at him as he gently picked him up to prevent him from scratching more.

"Sorry, little black one. I had to sneak out, but I promise I'll hunt some animals for you along the way," Kaito said, calming the feline slightly as it made its way to the top of his head.

"Meow, meow," the little black one meowed.

(I hope you understood me, human.)

That's what the little black one said, but poor Kaito didn't understand and simply stroked its fur, which the feline took as obedience.