Kimimaro eventually lowered himself onto a slab of broken stone, the faint orange ring of the Temporal Inhibition Palm still burning around the hole in his torso.
The world was quiet, the fight long over, but the girls gathered around him with the tension of people who had survived death by inches.
Emi knelt in front of him immediately, her violet eyes bright, focused, even through the exhaustion lining her face, as she worriedly inspected him visually first.
"Hold still," she said, voice soft but carrying that familiar teasing edge.
"And don't you dare pass out on me. You still owe me several apologies."
Kimimaro raised an eyebrow. "For what, exactly?"
"For almost dying, for scaring the life out of all of us… and, I don't know, for existing?"
It was absurd.
It made Reika sigh.
It made Saya snort.
It made Akane roll her eyes.
But it grounded them.
It grounded him.
Because Emi always sounded like this when she was terrified.
She promptly placed both hands over the wound, chakra flaring into a thin golden-green glow around her fingers, to begin healing him.
"This is going to sting. Also, if you grit your teeth, that's cheating."
He didn't move. "Begin."
Her healing chakra sank into the suspended tissue, weaving itself between the frozen-by-stasis cells.
Her brows furrowed, just slightly, because she could already see it.
"…Poison traces, as well..." she murmured. "Of course, he coats his blade in something disgusting. Typical."
Emi inhaled, drew deeper into her work.
Her posture changed, less playful, more surgeonlike, her entire demeanor tightening.
White eyes narrowed, her Byakugan open and overextended to the maximum.
Arms and fingers steadied.
Chakra sharpened to microscopic threads.
Everyone felt it.
Emi's true brilliance.
When she was like this, she could have outclassed the entirety of the Leaf's medical corps.
And yet, her voice never lost its warmth.
Minutes have passed already.
"There you are," she whispered, almost to herself.
"Nasty toxin… stuck right between the muscle strands. Don't move, Kimimaro."
He didn't.
He watched her instead.
Her face close, eyes narrowed in concentration, a faint tremble in her lower lashes, she thought she hid well with her chestnut messy bangs.
'She's afraid,' he thought.
'But she works anyway.'
Akane shifted behind them, gaze fixed on his wound.
She hated feeling 'useless' in any way, at any moment.
For example, she hated that she couldn't help now besides watching Emi's chakra glow with microscopic precision.
Reika remained silent, but her hand rested lightly on Kimimaro's shoulder from behind, steady, cold, grounding.
Saya paced like a caged animal, every step a nervous twitch disguised as irritation.
Minutes more stretched.
Then—
The stasis ring flickered.
Emi tensed instantly.
"Your chakra's collapsing! If this dies now, the damage spreads fast, and the poison floods everything."
Kimimaro closed his eyes briefly. "I know."
Saya stepped closer. "What do you need?"
He opened his eyes and looked at her. "Not yet."
She froze. "…Tch. Fine."
Emi swallowed, her voice suddenly small.
"I can clean all of it… But I need a little more time. Just a little. Kimimaro, don't let that flame collapse yet."
"I will hold it."
And he did.
Even as the ring dimmed.
Even as the flame shuddered.
Even as his chakra burned dangerously low.
Emi's hands moved faster now, chakra thinned to needle-like threads as she delicately flushed the remaining toxin out of his system.
More minutes went by.
Then—
The stasis ring pulsed once.
Twice.
Then—
Kimimaro finally inhaled sharply.
Feeling that even with his chakra control, he could not afford to gamble anymore and let his chakra reserves further diminish on maintaining the ring.
"Saya."
She was beside him instantly, palms slamming down over the wound with a black-red shimmer she was molding with her hands just now.
The chalice ritual essence flared, washing over and then locking the wound in an unnatural cold freeze again.
Emi barely paused, voice trembling only for half a heartbeat.
"Good. That's perfect, Saya. Hold it. Just hold it steady."
Saya muttered under her breath, "I know, I know, don't screw it up—shut up and finish."
Akane let out a breath she didn't know she was holding.
Reika tightened her grip on Kimimaro's shoulder.
And Emi—
Emi finally worked without the timer ticking against her so urgently, or Kimimaro possibly dying from the chakra exhaustion first.
So, she pushed deeper, severing poisoned fibers, cleansing veins, stitching tissues back together with absolute precision.
Half an hour more flew by, just enough for the chalice energy itself as well to be nearly spent.
Yet, when she was finally successfully done, right on time, the wound was completely gone.
Not a scar.
Not a trace.
Emi sat back slowly, hands shaking, wet hair sticking to her cheeks.
"It's finished," she whispered.
Then she puffed her cheeks out in frustration.
"And you—you idiot—stop doing that thing where you nearly die and make me age ten years in under an hour."
Her voice cracked only once.
Kimimaro touched her wrist lightly.
"You did well."
Emi blinked.
"…Say it again."
"You did well."
Reika exhaled, relief sliding into her bones.
Saya flopped backward onto the ground, groaning. "Finally."
Akane crossed her arms, cheeks faintly red. "Good. He's fine. Good."
Kimimaro stood.
Whole.
Steady.
Alive.
Emi wiped her long-lost tears so fast no one was supposed to see, though they all did.
And somehow, the battlefield seemed a little less ruined.
Kimimaro glanced at Emi, a faint warmth settling in his chest.
She was far more than just a capable healer, far more than the girl who had just closed a life-ending wound in under an hour.
She was the cult's brightest spark, playful and teasing on the surface, but built on sharp intelligence and that quiet, old sadness only a lifelong "caged bird" could carry.
Around him, that light of hers felt real.
She respected his strength, yet she was the only one who dared to tug him back toward something human, slicing through the group's darkness with a joke or a smile at exactly the right moment.
The only one who could make him smirk without even trying.
Kimimaro's gaze lingered on Emi a moment longer, the faint warmth still there, then he finally spoke.
Soft. Low.
For her first, because she was the one still leaning over him, breath uneven, hands trembling from further precision-exhaustion, after such a demanding fight, and the aftershock of stress and some self-doubt.
"…You did well, relax now..." He repeated, quieter this time, as if meant only for her.
Emi's violet eyes flicked up, wide for a heartbeat before she covered it with a crooked, watery smile.
"Don't get sweet on me now, or I'll start thinking you're dying again."
Reika gave a tiny exhale of something like amusement.
Akane shot her a look. "Shut up. He's fine."
The bickering, the small noises, settled Kimimaro in a way nothing else could.
He shifted slightly on the stone, flexing the restored muscles once, twice, testing.
No pain. No stiffness.
Emi really had done it.
He looked around at all four of them, their faces drawn with exhaustion, worry, adrenaline, and that stubborn loyalty that refused to bend even when the world tried to shatter them.
"Enough," he said quietly.
All four of them stilled.
He continued, voice steady, calm, the authority returning as it had never left.
"I'm not dying today. And none of you are either."
Emi huffed, eyes soft. "Good. I was ready to strangle you back to life."
Saya cracked her knuckles. "I was ready to strangle you if you didn't wake up."
Reika's gaze was cool but relieved. "We know."
Akane crossed her arms, chin tilting up. "Just don't make a habit of it."
Kimimaro breathed out once, the faintest hint of a smirk playing at the edge of his mouth as he looked at her next, specifically.
"Then stop reacting as if the world ends every time I fall."
Akane stiffened like he'd struck a nerve.
"I did not," she snapped, too fast.
Reika slid her a sidelong glance, calm and unconvinced, her Kagura's Mind Eye having registered every spike in Akane's chakra the moment it happened.
Saya barked a laugh, loud and merciless. "Please. You screamed his name like some tragic widow in a discount play. I heard it from across the damn battlefield."
"I did not," Akane repeated, volume rising with her blush.
Emi, still blotting the corners of her eyes with her sleeve, added gently, "You kind of did. My Byakugan saw your chakra spike like a firework from the periphery."
Akane rounded on all of them at once, then snapped her attention back to Kimimaro, as if he were the only one whose opinion actually mattered.
Her voice lowered.
"It wasn't… screaming. I just…" Her jaw clenched. "I thought you died. For a second."
"And what happened in that second?" Kimimaro asked.
He wasn't mocking her. He genuinely wanted to hear it.
Akane hated that.
Her almond, phoenix-like eyes had settled back into their natural onyx, yet the strain was written all over them, a thin red haze lingering at the rims like the afterglow of a flame that had burned far too fiercely.
"I didn't think," she muttered. "Everything just… broke."
She lifted a hand as if the memory itself stung.
"And then something else snapped back together. Harder. Sharper."
Kimimaro nodded.
"Well, that snap was her Mangekyo Sharingan girls..." he said simply.
"I knew it," Emi whispered behind them. "It felt like the air exploded."
Saya rolled her eyes. "It did explode."
Reika added quietly, her voice steady as ever, "It saved all of us. That awakening… it was the shift in the fight. The one thing that let us push him back on a more equal footing, truly."
Akane didn't look at any of them.
She looked only at him.
"So," she said, tone tight. "You gambled on me awakening it."
Kimimaro didn't flinch.
"I gambled," he said, "on what you already were."
"And I was right... Your Mangekyo abilities…" Kimimaro continued, voice low.
"Extinction and Oblivion. A concept that dissolves matter and destabilizes chakra. That is not a simple awakening. That is a crown. A weapon no one else on this continent possesses."
Akane swallowed, the motion tight, betraying more than she wanted it to.
Her chin trembled once before she strangled the reaction, dragging her expression back into something sharp and imperious.
"So what you're saying is…" she lifted her chin higher, voice steadier than she felt, "I mattered. A lot."
There was a deliberate edge to the way she said it.
An opening, almost shameless in its pride, inviting him to say it more directly.
"You turned the battle," Kimimaro said, understanding exactly what she wanted and giving it without hesitation. A faint smirk played at his lips, almost flirting by now. "You forced him back. You kept all of us alive. That is a fact, not sentiment."
Her breath hitched again, a storm of pride, relief, and something softer and more excited colliding behind her alluring gaze.
Then, because she was Akane, she shoved it all under a scowl.
"Tch. Don't say things like that so casually."
He raised an eyebrow. "Why?"
"Because…" She looked away, ears reddening.
"Because it sounds like you're praising me too much."
"I am."
She froze.
Saya snorted. "She's going to short-circuit."
Emi giggled. "Let her."
Akane glared at all of them with all the dignity of someone trying not to combust.
Then she turned back to Kimimaro, voice low, almost quiet enough to miss.
"…If you ever fake-die again, I will obliterate you myself. Mangekyo or not."
Kimimaro regarded her for a moment.
A faint curve tugged at his lips.
"Understood."
Akane exhaled, a thin, trembling breath she tried and failed to hide.
Something flickered across her face, dangerous and unguarded, before she forced it back behind her usual sharp edges.
Because the truth hit her all at once.
He hadn't just relied on her.
He hadn't just used her power.
He had trusted her, counted on her, believed she would rise to meet him in that impossible moment.
And that realization tore something open inside her chest.
She would never say it aloud.
Not to him yet, not to anyone.
But the feeling was there, electric and frightening, threading through her like lightning finding metal.
He believed in her.
And that terrified her far more than awakening the Mangekyō… even as it pulled her dangerously, helplessly closer.
Kimimaro sensed every shift in her, of course he did.
He would have to be truly dense not to understand Akane's Uchiha-born, razor-edged tsundere nature by now.
The way her gaze kept sliding back to him, the way her chakra fluttered in tiny spikes every time he praised her, the way her posture shouted what her mouth refused to say.
It was almost laughably transparent.
A constant, unspoken refrain radiated off her.
Praise me. More. I want to hear it from you.
So he indulged her, lightly, deliberately, the way a man rewards a proud hawk for returning to the glove. And why wouldn't he?
Akane carried the Uchiha's trademark blend of arrogance, beauty, fire, and volatility. "Conquering" someone like that was satisfying on a level any man would understand.
And he remembered very well how she'd first approached him two years ago after he saved her and her father at that time.
Treating him as a rival, mocking his composure, pushing at his restraint just to see if she could make him crack. All thorns, all pride.
But underneath that storm front lay the truth she kept buried.
A deep seam of insecurity born from growing up outside the clan, outside the village, outside any identity she could anchor herself to.
She hated being underestimated.
She hated the idea of losing.
But more than anything, she craved someone she couldn't surpass, someone solid enough to lean against, even if she would die before admitting it.
And Kimimaro's unshakable will, the quiet, effortless superiority he showed day after day, sliced through her defenses like a blade wrapped in silk.
What began as a 'rivalry' had long since warped into fascination, maybe affection, maybe something stronger that she would set herself on fire before naming.
She pushed him.
She provoked him.
And every time, she ended up drawn closer, caught in his gravity.
Among the four, Akane was the storm, the wildfire, the challenge that refused to bend, yet the moment his voice dropped and carried the weight of acknowledgment, she folded faster than any of them.
Even now, even with her newly awakened power brushing against his own… she reacted to him with a softness she couldn't hide.
A submissive tilt of the chin.
A breath that trembled.
A look that betrayed everything she wouldn't dare say aloud.
It told Kimimaro all he needed to know.
He had imprinted her far deeper than she realized.
And she was his storm, circling ever closer to the center.
Kimimaro felt no hesitation anymore when it came to flirting with any of them, even with all four standing right there.
Why would he?
At this point, each of them had already yielded to him in their own way.
They might feel the sting of jealousy here and there, every human did, but none of it ever bloomed into something petty.
Because they had long since passed that threshold where jealousy mattered less than him.
His attention.
His presence.
His rare warmth.
His judgment of them.
Those things weighed infinitely more in their hearts than any quiet rivalry between them.
And Kimimaro wasn't blind.
He knew why.
He had shaped them, intentionally and slowly, into something like an us versus the world unit, a closed circle of loyalty and ambition.
They didn't just follow him.
They followed each other because he made sure they grew as a single organism.
A shared purpose, a shared ascent, a shared claim over him that paradoxically erased the need to fight for him.
They were a family in all but name.
A strange, dangerous, perfectly aligned family.
Perfect for any man.
Perfect for him.
Even now, he didn't have the time or the desire to indulge in the kinds of pleasures that simmered under the surface.
His climb to the summit demanded too much focus, too much restraint.
But knowing that when he reached that summit, there would be four mesmerized, devoted women waiting for him, each 'deadly', each 'exceptional', each his in her own way…
It sharpened his ambition, not dulled it.
A king ascends more easily when he already sees his throne.