Chapter 47:
– Blake –
The two most beautiful telepaths I'd ever met sat across from me in the university cafeteria, and I was suddenly very aware that I'd been fantasizing about other women approximately thirty seconds before they'd appeared.
Jean's green eyes sparkled with something that might have been amusement. Emma's perfectly sculpted eyebrow arched just slightly, the kind of micro-expression that suggested she knew exactly what I'd been thinking about and was filing it away for later use.
Telepaths. Right. I really needed to work on my mental shielding. Believe it or not, the supernatural world didn't really have mind readers, and yet human mutants were full of them, apparently.
I had barely processed the arrival of Jean Grey and Emma Frost—two women who'd literally traveled through time for me, who'd saved my life, who sent me increasingly suggestive photos every single day—when Peter's voice cut through my mental scramble.
"Hey Blake! The specs on those robots were insane—" Peter's voice cut through my mild panic as he bounded toward our table, tablet clutched in his hands like a holy relic. His enthusiasm lasted approximately half a second before his brain caught up with his eyes. "Ah crap. You two are here."
Jean and Emma turned in perfect synchronization, matching smirks spreading across their faces in a way that was either rehearsed or the result of spending way too much time in each other's heads. Probably both.
"Hello, Peter," Jean said warmly as she turned her head, her red hair catching the afternoon light streaming through the cafeteria's massive windows. "Fancy meeting you here."
"What a delightful coincidence," Emma added, her tone dripping with mock innocence. She crossed her legs beneath the table, the movement drawing my attention in ways I immediately tried to suppress.
Peter dropped into the seat beside me with the dramatic exhaustion of someone who'd been dealing with these two for months. He set his tablet down and fixed them both with a flat stare that I recognized from years of friendship—it was his "I'm too tired for your bullshit" expression, usually reserved for particularly annoying substitute teachers or Flash Thompson's more creative insults.
"Sure it is," he said, voice dripping with sarcasm. "It's definitely not a coincidence that the two of you are attending the same university as Blake and I." He paused, then added with brutal honesty, "And by that I mean mostly Blake."
I snorted despite myself. He wasn't wrong. Jean and Emma's interest in Peter had always been secondary at best—a necessary extension of their bizarre, time-displaced devotion to me. Which was still something I was processing, months later.
"Come on, Peter." Jean leaned forward slightly, her expression softening into something approaching genuine warmth. "Aren't we friends by now?"
"We did pay for that lovely costume of yours," Emma pointed out, examining her manicured nails with studied disinterest. "Along with all those fancy Spider-Man gadgets you've been using to swing around Queens every night."
She said it just loud enough.
Peter's entire body went rigid. His head whipped around so fast I was genuinely concerned about whiplash, eyes scanning the crowded cafeteria with barely concealed panic. Students laughed and chatted at nearby tables. A group of freshmen argued loudly about course schedules. One of Tony's cooking robots was demonstrating something complicated involving fire and what looked like crêpes to an appreciative audience.
Nobody was paying us the slightest attention.
Peter exhaled slowly, his shoulders dropping from somewhere around his ears. "Jesus Christ, Emma."
"Relax." Emma's blue eyes finally lifted from her nails, meeting Peter's glare with cool amusement. "Both Jean and I are mind readers, remember? We would know if anyone was listening to our conversation. Your precious secret identity is perfectly safe."
"That's not the point—"
"The point is that you're paranoid," Emma continued smoothly, "which is actually quite sensible given your extracurricular activities. But perhaps channel that paranoia toward actual threats rather than casual lunch conversation?"
Peter's jaw tightened. I watched the familiar war play out across his face—the desire to argue versus the knowledge that arguing with Emma Frost was about as productive as yelling at a particularly smug glacier.
"You know what?" Peter turned to me, gesturing at the two women with barely contained frustration. "These two. Blake, I need you to understand something about these two."
"Peter—" Jean started.
"No, let me finish." He held up a hand, cutting her off. "Yeah, okay, they've been... somewhat all right to me these past couple of months. They helped me upgrade my web-shooters. They funded better materials for my suit. Jean even pulled me out of a collapsing building that one time when I definitely would've been crushed."
"You're welcome," Jean murmured.
"But—" Peter's voice sharpened, "—they also haven't hesitated to threaten me if I ever tried spilling any of their secrets. Or yours. Or anything related to your whole..." He waved his hand vaguely in my direction. "Supernatural situation."
I frowned, glancing between my best friend and the two women who'd apparently been menacing him in my absence. "They threatened you?"
"Multiple times," Peter confirmed, crossing his arms. "Very creatively. Emma once spent fifteen minutes describing exactly how she'd rewrite my brain to make me think I was a particularly dim-witted golden retriever if I ever betrayed their trust."
Emma's lips twitched. "You have to admit, it was an elegant solution."
"It was terrifying!"
"Those aren't mutually exclusive."
"Not that I was ever going to betray anyone anyway," Peter continued, his glare intensifying. "That's not the kind of person I am, and they knew that. They're telepaths—they could literally see that I meant no harm. But they threatened me anyway."
The accusation hung in the air between us. Jean's expression had shifted from teasing to something more complicated—guilt, maybe, mixed with the particular defensiveness of someone who knew they'd done something wrong but hadn't quite figured out how to fix it.
I leaned back in my seat, studying both women carefully. These two had saved my life. They'd traveled back in time—somehow, through means neither had ever fully explained—specifically to prevent my death. They'd watched over Peter in my absence, helped him become a better hero, kept him safe from threats he didn't even know existed.
But they'd also bullied my best friend. Used their powers to intimidate someone who'd done nothing to deserve it.
"That's not okay," I said quietly.
Jean flinched. Emma's perfect composure cracked, just for a moment there was a flash of something raw and vulnerable beneath the glacial exterior.
"Even if you two are gorgeous," I continued, holding their gazes steadily, "and even if I owe you my life—which I do, and I haven't forgotten that—I'm not going to sit here and let you bully my best friend. Peter's been with me since we were kids. He's family. And family doesn't get threatened."
Silence stretched between us. The ambient noise of the cafeteria seemed to fade, leaving just the four of us in our little bubble of tension and unspoken history.
Jean was the first to break. Her green eyes glistened with something that might have been tears, and when she spoke, her voice was softer than I'd ever heard it.
"You're right." She reached across the table, her fingers stopping just short of touching Peter's arm—asking permission rather than assuming it. "Peter, I'm sorry. Genuinely sorry. The way we treated you was wrong."
"Manipulative," Emma added, the word seeming to cost her something. Her perfect posture had shifted, shoulders slightly hunched in a way that made her look almost vulnerable. "And overbearing. We were... we didn't handle things well."
Peter's expression remained guarded, but I could see the surprise flickering behind his eyes. Whatever he'd expected from this confrontation, genuine apologies apparently hadn't been on the list.
"It's just..." Jean's voice caught. She took a breath, steadying herself. "What happened in our timeline. What we went through. It messed us up, Peter. Mentally. Emotionally. In ways we're still trying to understand."
"We've spent the past few months being each other's therapists," Emma admitted, something like dark humor coloring her tone. "Processing everything we lost. Everything we saw. Everything we did to get here."
I thought about what I knew, or rather, what I'd pieced together from fragments and implications. Two powerful telepaths, desperately in love with a version of me that no longer existed, ripping themselves out of their own timeline to prevent some catastrophe I couldn't even imagine.
The psychological toll of that kind of sacrifice... yeah. I could see how it might leave scars.
Peter, apparently, was thinking along similar lines. "I don't really know how healthy that is," he pointed out, though his tone had lost some of its edge. "Being each other's therapists, I mean. Isn't there something about objectivity? Professional distance?"
Jean and Emma exchanged a look—one of those silent telepathic conversations that I'd learned to recognize over the past months of video chats with them. Something passed between them, some shared understanding that excluded the rest of us.
"We're the only two telepaths we trust," Emma said finally. "Each other. That's it. Everyone else either has an agenda, or can't understand what it's like to live inside other people's heads, or..." She trailed off, shaking her head. "It's complicated."
"It's always complicated with you two," Peter muttered, but there was no real heat in it anymore.
I'd been quiet, processing, but something had been nagging at me since the conversation started. My mother, Tony, and I had spent hours speculating about Jean and Emma's situation in the months since they'd first appeared. We'd never gotten the full story out of either of them—they deflected questions about the future with practiced ease, changing subjects or simply refusing to answer.
But certain things seemed obvious, even without confirmation.
They'd been my lovers in that other timeline. That much was clear from the way they looked at me, touched me, spoke about a version of me they'd known intimately. Something terrible had happened—to me specifically, and possibly to the world at large. Something so catastrophic that it had driven two of the most powerful mutants on the planet to attempt something as insane and desperate as time travel.
"Can I ask you something?" The words left my mouth before I could think better of them. "About your timeline. About what happened."
Jean's expression shuttered immediately. Emma's eyes went flat and cold.
"What was the cause?" I pressed, even though I could feel the temperature at our table dropping. "What happened that made you—"
"That future is dead to us." Jean's voice was steady, but there was steel beneath the softness. "We don't want to talk about it. Not with anyone. Not ever." She met my eyes, and I saw something ancient and terrible lurking behind the green. "If that's okay."
It wasn't really a question. It was a boundary, drawn in permanent ink.
"We just want to make the most of our new lives here," Emma added, her composure reassembled like armor. "The past—our past—doesn't exist anymore. We made sure of that. Dwelling on it serves no purpose."
I wanted to push. Every instinct I had screamed that understanding their timeline might be crucial—that whatever had happened before could happen again if we weren't careful. But I also recognized trauma when I saw it. These two women had been through something that had broken them in fundamental ways, and they were still trying to put themselves back together.
"Okay," I said quietly. "I won't ask again."
Jean's shoulders relaxed slightly. Emma's mask slipped, revealing a flash of genuine gratitude before sliding back into place.
"However," Jean said, and her tone shifted to something more purposeful, "there is something we genuinely do need to address. Something we came here specifically to correct."
I blinked. "Correct?"
"In our timeline," Jean continued, leaning forward with an intensity that made me instinctively lean back, "certain events unfolded in a specific sequence. Peter got his powers. You got your powers. And the two of you..." She smiled, something fond and nostalgic softening her features. "You started your superhero careers together. Partners from the beginning. Spider-Man and the Angel of New York, they called you. The Dynamic Duo of the supernatural world."
"Angel of New York?" I repeated dumbly.
"It was very dramatic," Emma said dryly. "Lots of merchandise. Peter was jealous of your action figure sales."
"I would never—" Peter started.
"You absolutely were. You complained about it constantly!" Jean interrupted.
Peter's mouth opened and closed several times before he apparently decided to let that particular battle go. He turned to me instead, eyes wide with dawning realization. "Dude. You were a superhero? In their timeline?"
I pointed at myself, still struggling to process. "What superhero career? I don't have a superhero career. I've been—" I gestured vaguely, "—training. Learning to control my powers. Trying not to accidentally destroy things. That's not the same as—"
"Exactly." Emma cut me off with a sharp nod. "You don't have one. That's the problem."
"In our timeline," Jean explained, her voice patient but urgent, "you and Peter both awakened your abilities around the same time. You discovered your fallen angel heritage the same week Peter got bitten by that radioactive spider. You trained together, fought together, grew together. But in this timeline..."
"I got sent to another dimension," I finished, the pieces clicking into place. "The teleportation power activated before I could start the hero thing."
"Precisely." Jean reached across the table, her fingers brushing against my hand in a gesture that sent warmth flooding through my chest. "You missed months of development. Months of building your reputation, establishing yourself as a protector. And we need to correct that."
"The timeline has diverged significantly," Emma added, her analytical mind clearly in full gear. "Your absence created ripples. Certain threats that you would have addressed went unchallenged. Certain alliances that would have formed remained unformed. The butterfly effect, essentially, but with supernatural consequences."
You're telling me I was supposed to be out there fighting crime while I was learning chakra getting two sexy older girlfriends in another dimension? I thought to myself. And then I remembered these two were mind readers…
"Yes—that is part of it..." Jean and Emma both pouted. "Among other things." Jean's green eyes held mine, and I saw something fierce burning in their depths. "Blake, you're important. Not just to us—to the world. The future we came from... you were a symbol. A beacon. When people saw your wings in the sky, they felt hope. They felt safe."
The intensity of her belief made me flinch. It reminded me, uncomfortably, of the way Konan used to look at me. Like I was something holy. Something worth dying for. Something I definitely didn't feel like I deserved to be.
"And you're important to us, of course," Emma added, her tone lighter but no less sincere. A delicate pink flush spread across her perfect cheekbones. Emma Frost, actually blushing. "That should go without saying. But it's not just personal attachment driving this. The world needs you out there, Blake. The sooner you start, the better."
Peter had been uncharacteristically quiet during this exchange, but now he practically vibrated out of his seat with barely contained excitement. "Dude. Dude. You're gonna be a superhero?"
"Apparently?"
"That's freaking awesome!" Peter grabbed my shoulder, shaking me with an enthusiasm that would've rattled a normal person's teeth. Good thing I had supernatural durability. "We can be partners! Like they said—the Dynamic Duo! I can help you design your costume, figure out your hero name, establish your patrol routes—"
"No." Jean and Emma spoke in perfect unison, their voices flat and final.
Peter's excitement deflated slightly. "What? Why not?"
"We will be designing his costume," Emma said, in a tone that brooked absolutely no argument. "We know what works. We know what he needs. And frankly, Peter, your fashion sense leaves something to be desired."
"Hey! My costume is cool!"
"Your costume is red and blue spandex with a spider motif." Emma's lip curled slightly. "It's functional. It is not, however, stylish."
"Spider-Man is iconic!"
"Spider-Man looks like he got dressed in the dark at a discount Halloween store."
"Take that back!"
Jean held up a hand before the argument could escalate further. "What Emma means," she said diplomatically, shooting her fellow telepath a quelling look, "is that Blake's situation is unique. He's not just a superhuman—he's a fallen angel hybrid with divine lightning powers, chakra manipulation abilities, and interdimensional travel capabilities. His costume needs to accommodate wings, channel supernatural energy, and look appropriate for someone who might end up being worshipped as an actual angel by certain segments of the population…"
WAIT!? What was that last part!?
"Also," Emma added, and did not answer my mental question this time. "We've already designed it. The sketches are finished. We've been planning this for months."
Of course they had. Because apparently my life was just something these two had been micromanaging from the moment they'd arrived in this timeline.
I should probably have been annoyed. A younger version of me definitely would have bristled at the presumption, the way they'd clearly been making plans for my future without consulting me. But... there was something almost touching about it too. They cared. They cared so much that they'd spent months preparing, planning, trying to set me up for success in a world they understood better than I did.
"Can I at least see these designs?" I asked.
Jean's face lit up. "Of course! We brought the sketches. We were hoping you'd want to discuss them today—"
"You brought sketches to orientation?" Peter interrupted, incredulous. "What, did you just have them ready in case Blake happened to be at lunch?"
"We knew he'd be at lunch," Emma said simply. "Telepaths, remember?"
"That's creepy!"
"That's efficient."
I rubbed my temples, feeling the beginnings of a headache forming behind my eyes. "Okay. Okay. Let me just..." I took a breath, organizing the chaos of the last few minutes into something approaching coherent thoughts. "So you want me to become a superhero. You've designed a costume for me. And this is apparently necessary to 'correct the timeline' or whatever."
"Essentially, yes." Jean nodded, her expression earnest. "We're not trying to control you, Blake. We're trying to help you become what you were always meant to be. What you would have become naturally if... if things had gone differently."
"The powers you have," Emma added, her voice softening into something almost gentle, "they're not just for show. They're not just for protecting yourself and the people you love—though they're certainly good for that. You have the potential to change the world. To save lives on a scale most people can't even imagine. But only if you actually use them."
I thought about the past few months. Training with my mother. Learning to control my holy lightning, my chakra, my wings. Fighting Kokabiel in that moonlit park and nearly dying in the process. All of it had felt like preparation, but preparation for what? I'd never really let myself imagine what came next…
Apparently, Jean and Emma had done that imagining for me.
Now I really had something that was going to be mine.
Plus being able to be a more popular superhero than Ironman actually sounded kinda hilarious. Couldn't wait for the next family dinner.
"Alright," I said finally. "Show me what you've got."
Jean reached into her bag—designer, probably Emma's influence—and withdrew a leather portfolio. She set it on the table between us, flipping it open to reveal a series of sketches that immediately caught my breath.
The costume was... beautiful wasn't quite the right word. Striking. Powerful. It was predominantly black with accents of deep blue and silver, designed to accommodate my wings while still looking sleek and modern. Armor plating in key areas—not medieval, but tactical. Something that looked like it belonged in this century while still honoring the supernatural heritage that flowed through my veins.
"We incorporated elements from both your fallen angel side and your human side," Jean explained, pointing to various features. "The wing ports here can seal when you're not flying, maintaining the silhouette. The silver accents channel lightning—they'll actually glow when you use your holy powers. And the chest piece..." She traced the design there, something almost reverent in her touch. "It's reinforced to handle the kind of impacts you faced against Kokabiel."
"We also included pockets," Emma added practically. "Because heroes need to carry things, and no one ever designs costumes with adequate storage."
Peter leaned over my shoulder, examining the sketches with the critical eye of someone who'd spent months iterating on his own superhero outfit. "This is actually really good," he admitted reluctantly. "Like, genuinely impressive design work. The wing integration especially—I never would've thought of sealing ports."
"We've had time to think about it," Jean said softly, and I heard the weight of years—of a whole other lifetime—in those simple words.
I stared at the designs, at this vision of a future I'd never let myself imagine. Blake Himejima, superhero. Protector of the innocent. Hope in the sky with wings spread wide.
It was terrifying.
It was also, I realized with growing certainty, exactly what I wanted.
"Okay," I said, looking up at the two women who'd crossed time and space to give me this chance. "Let's do it…"
Jean's smile could have lit up the entire cafeteria.
Emma's eyes gleamed with satisfaction and something deeper—pride, maybe, or hope.
And Peter, my best friend since childhood, slung an arm around my shoulders with a grin that promised endless amounts of both support and mockery in the months to come.
"Welcome to the superhero business, dude," he said. "Fair warning: the hours suck and the pay is nonexistent. But the costume is gonna be fire."
And right after he said those words, I suddenly felt something snap into place inside of me.
Emma and Jean both gave me curious glances as they realized something just happened.
I realized then and there by metaphorically "embracing my destiny or whatever" mystical mumbo jumbo had just happened, my own mutant power had finally snapped into place! I knew that if I wanted to, I could open a portal right now to go visit Tsunade and Shizune in the elemental Nations!
I suspected—no, I knew—that both Jean and Emma were reading my sudden spike of anticipation like it was written in neon letters across my forehead. Telepaths. They always knew.
Jean's expression shifted from satisfied pride to something softer, almost wistful. Her green eyes held mine, and I saw understanding there mixed with something that looked like longing.
Emma's perfectly composed mask cracked just slightly, revealing a flash of disappointment before she smoothed it over with practiced ease. But I'd caught it. That moment of vulnerability that said she wanted me to stay, even as she understood why I couldn't.
"It seems," Emma said, her voice carrying that particular crisp tone she used when compartmentalizing emotions, "we can go over the rest of this later. You clearly have somewhere important to be."
Peter's head swiveled between us, confusion written across his face in bold letters. "Wait, what? Where are you going?" He gestured around the cafeteria, at the gleaming robots and the crowds of students navigating their first day. "Dude, it's orientation day. We've got—" he consulted his phone, "—approximately seventeen different campus tours and information sessions scheduled. The engineering lab tour alone is supposed to be—"
"I won't be gone long," I interrupted, already pushing back from the table. My heart was hammering against my ribs, anticipation and nervousness warring in my chest. "I just—I need to try something. Test something."
"Test what?" Peter demanded, but I was already standing, already moving.
Jean reached out as I passed, her fingers brushing against my wrist in a gesture that sent warmth flooding up my arm. "Be safe," she murmured, quiet enough that only I could hear.
I squeezed her hand briefly—gratitude and affection and a dozen other emotions I didn't have words for—before releasing it. Emma caught my eye as I turned to leave, and for just a moment, her usual ice-queen facade melted completely. She looked young. Vulnerable. Like the girl she must have been before time travel and trauma and whatever horrors their timeline had held. "Come back," she said simply.
"Always," I promised.
The cafeteria doors swung shut behind me, cutting off Peter's increasingly agitated questions and the ambient noise of hundreds of students navigating their new lives. I walked quickly across the quad, my enhanced senses scanning for somewhere private. Somewhere I wouldn't be interrupted or accidentally witnessed by normal humans who definitely weren't ready to see a guy tear holes in reality.
I found it behind the library—a small maintenance alcove partially hidden by overgrown hedges that someone had clearly been neglecting. Secluded enough. Private enough. My hands were shaking as I called on that power I'd felt snap into place, that strange dimensional awareness that had been growing stronger over the past months but had only just crystallized into something I could actually use.
I'd gotten good at short-range portals. I could hop from one end of Manhattan to the other now, could open doorways that spanned miles with barely a thought. I'd been planning to surprise Mom and Pepper in California, just show up unannounced with Tony and watch their faces light up.
But this was different. This was reaching across dimensional boundaries, punching through the fabric of reality itself to connect two completely separate worlds. The Elemental Nations weren't just far away, they existed in an entirely different plane of existence, accessible only through whatever cosmic accident or divine intervention had granted me this ability.
Please work, I thought desperately. Please, please work.
I reached deep inside myself, past the holy lightning that crackled in my veins, past the chakra Mom had taught me to cultivate, down to something more fundamental. That place where dimensions folded and twisted, where the boundaries between worlds grew thin. I could feel the Elemental Nations out there. It was a specific resonance, a frequency I'd learned to recognize during my months trapped there. Tsunade's laugh. Shizune's gentle voice. The smell of the compound's training grounds and the taste of terrible hospital food and the memory of falling asleep tangled between two beautiful women who'd somehow decided I was worth loving.
The air in front of me began to shimmer, then tear. A swirling portal of brilliant blue light erupted into existence. It was beautiful. Terrifying. The most incredible thing I'd ever created with my own power. Through the portal, I could see trees—massive, ancient trees that definitely didn't exist anywhere in New York. Forest. The Elemental Nations.
I'd done it.
A nervous grin spread across my face, probably making me look slightly unhinged, but I didn't care. I'd actually mastered interdimensional travel. I could visit Tsunade and Shizune whenever I wanted now. I could split my time between worlds, maintain relationships across the cosmic divide, be there for the people I loved no matter where they were.
Also, yeah, I could pop over to Malibu and surprise Pepper and Mom without dealing with airplane security. That was definitely a bonus.
But first—first, I needed to see two gorgeous kunoichi who'd probably been worried sick about me for the past three months.
I took a breath, steadied myself, and stepped through.
The transition was... smooth. Impossibly smooth. I'd been half-expecting some kind of cosmic turbulence, some sensation of being stretched across dimensional boundaries or torn apart and reassembled. But it was more like stepping through a doorway into a room with slightly different air pressure. A moment of displacement, a brief sensation of elsewhere, and then—
Solid ground beneath my feet. The smell of pine and earth. Birdsong and rustling leaves and the particular quality of light that filtered through the canopy of forests that had never known industrialization.
I was back.
I blinked, letting my eyes adjust, taking in my surroundings. Large forest clearing. Ancient trees forming a natural arena. Afternoon sun slanting through the branches overhead. Familiar, in that way the Elemental Nations had become familiar during my time here.
And I wasn't alone.
My brain took a moment to process what I was seeing. Two figures—both immediately recognizable—stood side by side in combat-ready stances. Rock Lee, the enthusiastic taijutsu specialist I'd trained with briefly, his green jumpsuit somehow even more vibrant than I remembered. And Gaara of the Sand, the former psychotic jinchuriki who'd tried to murder me during the Chunin Exams, his sand already swirling around him in defensive patterns.
They were facing off against...
What the fuck was that?
The enemy—and there was no question he was an enemy, judging by the killing intent rolling off him in waves—was incredibly pale. Like, corpse-pale. Paper-white skin stretched over sharp features, giving him an almost skeletal appearance. But that wasn't the disturbing part.
The disturbing part was the spine. He was holding his own goddamn spine. Had apparently ripped it right out of his body, because there was a gaping, bloodless hole in his back where it should have been. The vertebrae had been transformed into some kind of grotesque weapon.
The pale guy swung his spine-sword at Lee with casual brutality. Lee dodged with the superhuman speed I remembered, but barely. The bone-blade carved through the space where his head had been a split-second earlier, and I heard the whistle of displaced air even from where I stood.
Gaara's sand surged forward, forming a wall between Lee and the follow-up attack. The spine-sword slammed into it with enough force to send cracks spidering through the compressed earth. Gaara grunted, his sand reforming and hardening, but I could see the strain on his face.
They were struggling. Both of them. Two young ninja I'd seen perform incredible feats during the exams, working together, and they were barely holding their own.
"Blake-san?!" Lee's shocked voice cut through the sound of combat. His eyes had gone wide with recognition, his usual enthusiastic energy momentarily overridden by sheer surprise. "You're—how did you—"
"FOCUS!" Gaara snapped, his sand forming spikes that launched toward the pale enemy. "Fight now, questions later!"
The pale guy—whoever he was—didn't even seem concerned about my sudden appearance. His eyes, cold and empty as a winter grave, flicked toward me briefly before dismissing me as irrelevant. He twisted his spine-sword in a complex pattern that deflected Gaara's sand spikes, sending them scattering harmlessly across the clearing.
"Another interruption," the enemy said, his voice flat and emotionless. "How tiresome. I suppose I'll need to eliminate all of you before I can continue my mission."
Well. Shit.
This wasn't how I'd imagined my grand return to the Elemental Nations. I'd been picturing a tearful reunion with Tsunade, probably some teasing from Shizune, maybe celebratory ramen. Instead, I'd walked directly into what looked like a boss fight from some kind of horror game.
My eight wings erupted from my back instinctively, black feathers rustling as they spread wide. The familiar weight settled across my shoulders, and with it came the combat mindset I'd been developing over months of training. Assess the situation. Identify threats. Protect allies…?
How was Gaara's crazy ass an ally now? I had no idea, but he was fighting side by side with Lee and I was quick on the uptake if nothing else.
"Yosh!" Lee's response was a battle cry as he launched himself forward, fists blurring with speed that my enhanced eyes could barely track. "I will show you the power of youth! A true genius of hard work can overcome any bloodline limit!"
I cracked my knuckles, feeling holy lightning already beginning to crackle along my fingertips in anticipation. The golden-white energy cast dancing shadows across the clearing. "So here's how this is gonna go. You're gonna put down the creepy bone-sword—seriously, that's disgusting—and we're all gonna have a nice conversation about why you're trying to kill Rock Lee, who is literally one of the nicest people I've ever met."
"Blake-san!" Lee's voice was strained but still carried that infectious enthusiasm that made it impossible not to like him. "Your timing is most youthful! However, you should not concern yourself with this battle! Gaara-san and I have everything under control—"
"You absolutely did not have everything under control. He was about to kill you when I got here…" Gaara interrupted, his sand swirling protectively around both of them. His pale green eyes—so different from the unhinged madness I remembered from our first encounter—were locked on Kimimaro with deadly focus. "This enemy is stronger than he appears. His bones are harder than steel, and his disease hasn't slowed him down as much as it should have."
"Disease?" I blinked, taking a closer look at Kimimaro. Now that Gaara mentioned it, I could see it—the slightly sunken quality to his cheeks, the faint tremor in his hands that he was suppressing through sheer willpower, the way he moved with just a fraction too much care, like his body was a weapon he didn't entirely trust anymore.
He was dying. Actively dying. And he was still fighting at this level? That was... actually kind of impressive in a deeply tragic way.
"The Kaguya clan bloodline," Kimimaro said, apparently fine with discussing his impending mortality mid-combat. "A genetic disease that kills us young. I have perhaps weeks left. Maybe days." His expression didn't change at all. "Which means I have nothing to lose by completing my final mission for Lord Orochimaru."
"Right. Orochimaru." I grimaced at the name. The snake bastard had tried to mark me with his curse seal, nearly killed my mother, and was apparently still causing problems months later. "Let me guess—he sent you to do something horrible and you're just following orders like a good little soldier?"
"I serve Lord Orochimaru faithfully," Kimimaro replied, and there was finally some emotion in his voice. Devotion. The kind of fanatical loyalty that made my skin crawl. "He gave my life meaning when I had none. He is the only person who ever wanted me. I will give him everything, including my last breath."
Oh. Oh shit. This guy wasn't just evil—he was a tragic villain. The kind with a sad backstory that would probably make me feel bad about beating the crap out of him if I thought about it too hard.
Good thing I wasn't planning to think about it too hard.
"Cool motive," I said. Then I moved. The clearing exploded into motion. I launched myself forward with a burst of chakra-enhanced speed, closing the distance between us in a heartbeat. Kimimaro's spine-sword whipped around to intercept me, the vertebrae whistling through the air with deadly precision. I twisted mid-flight, one wing angling down to help me bank sharply to the left. The bone blade missed my head by inches—close enough that I felt the displaced air ruffle my hair.
My lightning-charged fist slammed into Kimimaro's exposed ribs.
The impact sent a shockwave rippling through the clearing, cracking the earth beneath our feet and sending loose leaves swirling into the air. Kimimaro skidded backward, his feet carving trenches in the dirt, but he didn't go down. His free hand shot out, bone spikes erupting from his palm in a deadly cluster aimed directly at my face.
I was already moving. Eight wings gave me maneuverability that ground-bound fighters could only dream about. I twisted in mid-air, using my wings to redirect my momentum, and the bone spikes sailed harmlessly past me. One of them grazed my shoulder—a shallow cut that stung but didn't slow me down.
"DYNAMIC ENTRY!"
Lee came in from the side like a green missile, his leg extended in a devastating kick that would've caved in a normal person's skull. Kimimaro raised his forearm to block, and I heard the sickening crunch of bone meeting bone. But instead of breaking under the impact, Kimimaro's arm hardened further, the bones beneath his skin visibly thickening and reinforcing themselves.
"Impressive," Kimimaro acknowledged, his voice still maddeningly calm. "But insufficient."
His spine-sword lashed out in a horizontal arc aimed at Lee's midsection. Lee backflipped away with that superhuman agility of his, but Kimimaro was already pivoting, bringing the blade around toward Gaara, who'd been preparing another sand attack.
The sand surged up in a defensive wall, but Kimimaro's bone-blade punched through it like tissue paper. Gaara grunted, his sand reforming and hardening, layer upon layer of compressed earth that finally managed to catch the spine-sword and hold it in place.
"NOW!" Gaara shouted.
I didn't need to be told twice. While Kimimaro was locked in place, trying to wrench his weapon free from Gaara's sand, I dropped from above like a falcon on a rabbit. Both fists extended, holy lightning crackling and spitting around them in violent arcs that scorched the air itself.
Kimimaro looked up at the last second. His eyes widened fractionally—the first real emotion I'd seen from him besides his creepy devotion to Orochimaru.
My fists connected with his shoulders, driving him down into the earth with the full force of my supernatural strength combined with gravity and holy lightning. The ground beneath him didn't just crack—it shattered, creating a crater easily ten feet across. Lightning danced across the broken earth, leaving scorch marks and the sharp smell of ozone.
For a moment, I thought that was it. Fight over. Bad guy defeated.
Then Kimimaro erupted from the crater like some kind of skeletal horror-movie monster.
Bones jutted from every part of his body now—shoulders, forearms, knees, even his ribcage. He looked like he'd turned himself into a walking pincushion of deadly spikes. Blood trickled from a cut on his forehead—the only visible damage from my attack—but his expression remained eerily serene.
"You're strong," he observed, rolling his shoulders experimentally. The bone spikes retracted slightly, then extended again, like he was testing their function. "Stronger than I anticipated. But strength alone won't stop me from completing my mission."
"What mission?" I demanded, landing beside Lee and Gaara. The three of us formed a loose triangle around Kimimaro, cutting off his escape routes. "What's so important that you're fighting three-on-one while actively dying?"
"Blake-san!" Lee interjected before Kimimaro could answer. "This enemy is attempting to prevent us from rescuing Sasuke-kun! Sasuke-kun is trying to abandon the village, and we were dispatched on a mission to bring him back!"
I blinked, processing that information. "Wait, Sasuke Uchiha? The brooding kid from Naruto's team?"
"The very same!" Lee's fists clenched, his voice rising with passionate intensity. "We cannot allow him to throw away his bonds with his comrades! I will drag him back to the village if I must!"
"Naruto went on ahead," Gaara added, his voice much calmer than Lee's but no less determined. His sand coiled around his arms like living serpents. "He's probably caught up to Sasuke by now. Lee and I stayed behind to deal with this obstacle."
"And I just happened to arrive at exactly the right moment?" I shook my head, a wry smile tugging at my lips despite the situation. "Man, my timing is either perfect or terrible, I can never tell which."
"Your timing is most youthful!" Lee declared, and somehow he managed to give me a thumbs-up while maintaining his fighting stance. "With your assistance, we shall overcome this challenge and rescue Sasuke-kun from the darkness that threatens to consume him!"
"Nobody," Kimimaro said, his dead-fish eyes narrowing slightly, "is going anywhere."
He moved, and this time he was faster. Way faster. His body seemed to blur, bones extending and retracting in rhythm with his movements, turning him into a grotesque fusion of dancer and blender. He closed the distance to Lee in a heartbeat, bone spikes erupting from his palms in a deadly cluster aimed at Lee's chest.
Lee twisted aside with reflexes honed by years of training, but one spike caught him across the ribs, drawing blood. He hissed in pain but didn't slow down, his leg whipping around in a counter-kick that Kimimaro blocked with his forearm.
Gaara's sand surged forward, forming a massive hand that tried to grab Kimimaro and crush him. Kimimaro leaped straight up, impossibly high, clearing the sand hand by several feet. While airborne, he twisted his spine—literally twisted it, rotating his upper body a full one-eighty degrees while his legs stayed facing forward—and fired a volley of bone bullets from his fingertips.
The projectiles rained down like deadly hail. Gaara's sand formed a dome over himself and Lee, the bone bullets hammering against it with sharp staccato cracks. I was already in the air, my wings carrying me above the barrage, and I could see Kimimaro beginning his descent.
Time to end this.
I gathered my chakra, feeling it mix with my holy lightning. Gold-white energy crackled around my right hand, building and building until it was almost painful to contain. The air around me ionized, making my hair stand on end and my wings glow with reflected light.
"HEY, BONE BOY!" I shouted, drawing Kimimaro's attention. His head snapped toward me, those dead eyes locking onto mine. "CATCH!"
I thrust my hand forward, and a Lightspear materialized. This one was wrapped in spiraling holy lightning that crackled and spit like a living thing. It was easily six feet long, humming with barely contained power that made the air around it shimmer with heat distortion.
I hurled it like a javelin.
The Lightspear screamed through the air, leaving a trail of ionized particles in its wake. Kimimaro tried to dodge, his body twisting with that inhuman flexibility, bones erupting from his chest to form a makeshift shield—
The Lightspear punched through his bone armor like it was tissue paper.
The impact was catastrophic. Lightning exploded outward in a spherical blast that lit up the entire clearing like a miniature sun. Kimimaro's scream—the first sound of genuine pain I'd heard from him—was drowned out by the thunderclap of divine energy detonating against his body.
When the light faded, Kimimaro was on the ground, smoke rising from the massive hole in his chest where the Lightspear had struck. His bone armor had been completely shattered, fragments scattered across the clearing. Blood pooled beneath him, dark against the scorched earth.
For a moment, I thought I'd killed him.
Then his chest rose. Fell. Rose again.
"Impossible," Kimimaro whispered, his voice wet and broken. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. "I cannot... fail Lord Orochimaru... I cannot..."
"You already have," Gaara said quietly, his sand forming restraints around Kimimaro's arms and legs. "Accept your defeat."
"Never..." Kimimaro's eyes were glazing over, consciousness fading, but he still tried to move, tried to fight. His devotion to Orochimaru was so absolute that even with a hole in his chest and death knocking on his door, he couldn't stop. "Sasuke-kun's body... belongs to Lord Orochimaru... I must... I must..."
I shivered involuntarily. I looked down at Kimimaro, who was still trying to move despite his catastrophic injuries. His fingers twitched, trying to form hand seals, but he didn't have the strength left. His eyes were unfocused, probably seeing something other than the three of us standing over him.
"Lord Orochimaru," he whispered, so quiet I almost didn't hear it. "I'm sorry... I failed you... I couldn't..." Then his eyes closed, and his body went limp.
We gave our fallen enemy a moment of silence.
"MOST IMPRESSIVE, BLAKE-SAN!" And then Lee's voice shattered the silence with characteristic enthusiasm. He bounded over, eyes shining with admiration. "Your flames of youth burn brighter than ever! That technique—the spear of light—it was like watching a thunderbolt from the heavens! Gai-sensei would be moved to tears by such a display!"
"Thanks, Lee." I couldn't help but smile at his genuine excitement. Some things never changed. "You and Gaara did most of the heavy lifting before I showed up. I just got the finishing blow."
"You arrived at the perfect moment," Gaara said, his sand receding back into the gourd on his back. His pale green eyes studied me with that same intensity from before, but there was something different in his expression now. Respect, maybe. Or at least the Gaara-equivalent of acknowledgment. "Your abilities have grown significantly since our last encounter."
"Our last encounter involved you trying to murder me," I pointed out. That was pretty much all of our encounters.
"Yes." He didn't apologize. Didn't offer excuses or explanations. Just that single word, delivered with the flat certainty that defined his entire personality.
Weirdly, I respected that. At least he wasn't pretending we were old friends.
"I have changed," Gaara continued after a moment, his voice dropping to something almost contemplative. "The demon no longer controls my actions. I choose now. I choose to protect. To form bonds." His eyes met mine. "Naruto showed me that another path was possible. After you helped him rescue the pink haired girl from me, he came back to help you fight but you had vanished. Instead the two of us clashed and he beat me. He then spared my life and showed me there was another way…" He paused, seeming to reconsider. "He is special..."
Damn… I thought Naruto had a secret thing for Sasuke and here comes Gaara just coming in here like that…
Mom would find it adorable and hilarious.
Also—Naruto BEAT Gaara, who was in tailed beast form at the time!? That was actually really fucking impressive!
But first I had things I needed to do. "You guys are part of a team?" I asked Lee.
Lee shook his head and quickly explained that he actually arrived as backup himself and was not originally part of the team. He didn't know how the rest of the boys were actually doing. It consisted of Shikamaru, Neji, Choji, Shino, Kiba, Neji and Naruto.
I couldn't help but grimace, because from what I knew those were all Genin. Not the most experienced or powerful team…
"Alright then," I decided. "You and Gaara will head back and make sure everyone else on the retrieval team is safe. I can go and get Sasuke and Naruto myself. It'll be faster since I can fly and search for them from the air as well."
And then I could quickly fly back to the village to see Tsunade and Shizune was left unsaid.
XXX