However, inside Akane's instinctive upper-body Susanoo, still tethered to the ground and smaller than Orochimaru's Eight Branches, Kimimaro's condition shifted.
He still had a massive hole through his torso.
Blood stained his chest and pooled along Akane's hands.
But then she saw it.
A strange color glowed around the wound.
Deep reddish-orange.
Almost flame-like.
A chakra that didn't spread outward, but held everything in place, as if the injury itself had been pinned in time.
"Kimimaro… what is—"
Before she could finish, he grinned at her.
A lazy, maddening grin entirely out of place for someone half-impaled a moment ago.
"Relax," he said softly. "I had to do something risky if I wanted to give you that pair of eyes. Think of it as… a present."
Akane froze.
Then relief washed over her.
Then fury.
She smacked him in the head, carefully, but still firm enough to show exactly what she felt.
"Idiot! I thought you were dying! Who does something that stupid just to awaken my Mangekyō?!"
Kimimaro coughed once, more amused than hurt.
"I didn't have a choice. Your Mangekyō was the only thing that could tilt the battle more in our favor. And don't worry. The wound is contained. Completely."
He tapped the edge of the glowing chakra with two fingers.
"It's essentially frozen. No spreading. No bleeding. Even if whatever poison was on the blade can't move. It's held in stasis."
Akane blinked, anger twisting into confusion.
"What technique is that?"
Kimimaro's eyes flickered with a quieter pride.
"Let's call it...Temporal Inhibition Palm..."
"Something conceptual I've been working on these last few years. Inspired by those Yin-Yang, immortality, Chinoike-Jashinist ritual frameworks we studied. A way to stop all change in a single point of my body. No essence, no sacrifice, just skill."
He tilted his head, still half-smiling.
"Enough about me," he said, exhaling lightly as he lifted his gaze to her eyes.
For a moment, he was genuinely taken aback.
Akane's new Mangekyō pattern spun there, dark, angular, and uniquely hers.
Even through the pain, he looked almost mesmerized, studying the depth of the chakra swirling behind those pupils.
Then his tone shifted back into instruction, calm but firm.
"Listen carefully. Don't let your new power run wild. Your spiritual energy just got denser and darker all at once. If you let it pour out in instinctive Yin pulses to feed the Susanoo, you'll burn too much chakra in seconds."
Akane blinked, caught off guard.
"So what do I—"
"You refine it," Kimimaro said. "Reel it in. Narrow the flow. Don't push chakra into the Susanoo. Let the Susanoo pull only what it needs."
Akane swallowed, eyes focusing inward.
She could feel it. Her chakra thrashing like a living storm, trying to flood into the skeletal giant around her.
"…I didn't know it felt like this," she muttered, voice tight.
"It only feels like this the first time," he replied. "Control it now, and it won't control you later."
Akane gritted her teeth, breath shaking, but she nodded.
"Fine. I'll… manage it. Just don't give me another heart attack like that."
Kimimaro gave her a faint, exhausted smirk.
"No promises."
Meanwhile, as Akane still subconsciously 'held' him inside the ribcage of her Susanoo, his weight resting against her, Kimimaro tilted his head slightly toward her.
"Tell me," he murmured. "Your two Mangekyō abilities. I need to know them so we can coordinate better."
Akane swallowed once, still shaken, then leaned closer and whispered the descriptions into his ear in her own slightly charming way.
The moment her words sank in, Kimimaro's eyes widened a fraction.
Even through the pain and his usual composure, he was stunned.
Those abilities…
That level of conceptual destruction…
He breathed out slowly.
"Impressive," he said softly. "More than I expected."
And then he shifted as if nothing had happened.
He gave her a small grin and said, almost too casually, "As pleasant as this is, it isn't really my style to be carried around inside a girl's Susanoo. Let me down."
Akane's eye twitched.
"…You're impossible," she muttered, half relieved, half irritated.
But she obeyed. She stopped letting him lean on her like that.
The skeletal ribs also loosened next, allowing him to step out.
He reassured her one more time before moving.
"I'm really fine. As long as this jutsu holds and I don't run out of chakra, I can fight normally. The injury won't spread. I activated it the moment I was hit, before the damage could travel."
Akane exhaled shakily, but nodded.
"Just… don't do it again."
Kimimaro nodded as he stepped out of the Susanoo just as three familiar figures approached through the ruined terrain.
Reika, Saya, and Emi were all visibly exhausted, clothes torn, chakra thin, each carrying signs of the individual battles they had been locked in.
Orochimaru's three shadow clones had dispelled only moments ago, and the girls had also immediately sensed the surge of movement here.
Reika arrived first, eyes narrowing in concern.
Her Kagura's Mind Eye had been tracking Kimimaro's chakra the entire time, and the sudden spike of Akane's Mangekyō had hit her like a flare.
Emi's Byakugan's vision, though optimized for close-range combat at that moment, still managed to pick up the distant chaos with parts of her telescopic vision.
Saya simply stared, chest heaving, half in awe, half in disbelief.
All three of them had seen or sensed various fragments of what had just happened.
And now they were here, battered but ready, watching Kimimaro step off Akane's Susanoo like a man who had not just engineered his own impalement for strategy.
Kimimaro explained the situation to them in a few quick, clipped sentences.
Nothing dramatic, just the facts.
Their reactions came instantly.
Reika's eyes tightened with quiet fury, and worry layered together.
Saya let out a sharp, humorless laugh, muttering something about him being insane in the most admiring way possible.
Emi smacked his arm lightly, scolding him for "going full suicidal idiot mode," but clearly relieved he was still standing.
However, before any of them could say more, the ground trembled.
In the distance, the Eight Branches finally finished moving toward here in full, eight massive serpent heads aligning as the colossal body coiled in preparation.
Orochimaru closed in again.