There's the sound of the irregular drip of water, of fine dirt sliding into the hole and slowly quieting. There's the sound of his steady breathing, just a few feet across from her, and for some reason she finds that comforting.
Gradually her eyes adjust to the darkness, but it isn't much. It's barely enough to make out the slight boy's figure in front of her, and certainly not enough to safely climb out of the chasm into which they've fallen.
Shen shifts, and stands. "He's dead."
Akali raises her eyes again to the top of the pit, but nothing has changed. She can analyze the situation right away, just like her mother would tell her to. There's no safe way for them to get up and out, no point in exerting themselves trying to do so.
"The sun will rise in five hours," she says aloud.
He nods, understanding.
Separately they sit down on the rough floor. Still the water drips away, the body of the bandit cools behind them, and Akali closes her eyes.
He suddenly speaks.
"You're the next Fist of Shadow, aren't you?"
She looks up, and sees that his golden eyes are focused on her.
"Yes."
Everyone knows who Shen is, of course. The master's son, the next Eye of Twilight. He works harder than the most senior Kinkou.
He briefly lapses into silence, before speaking again and nearly startling her. "You're very good. You disabled him in seconds."
"You're better than I am," she tells him. "I should be the shadow, but you finished him before I could myself."
"Sometimes, to protect a life, you must take another's."
He sounds so calm. She's not surprised, though.
"In the future," he continues, "I would like it…if we could train together."
Akali blinks, looks up.
"You seem to be able to test my limits. ...I am not often allowed to associate with people my age, either. If your mother would permit it, I'm sure my father would not mind."
A compliment. Akali smiles in the dark.
"Yes. I hope so too."
They grow up together, after that. He gives her more cuts and bruises than she can count. Her mother stands by and shakes her head and tells her to return the favor, so she does.
But they get older. His father demands more. And he grows busier, with other duties, more and more to learn and reflect upon.
Shen isn't the only young ninja around, though.
"Hey. Hey, Akali."
Zed's voice breaks her concentration. She blinks, looking away from the distant, solitary figure going through the graceful motions of Ionian swordsmanship in the lateral training field, and twists around the tree trunk to look at him. "What?"
"I want to show you a place I found a few days ago. A cave. It's got something interesting inside I want you to take a look at."
"Something interesting?" Akali echoes skeptically. "Rock formations, stalagmites?"
Zed frowns at her, but disregards her flippant statement. He leaps down from the branch he is standing on and looks up at her expectantly. "Well? It's a walk."
Akali determinedly does not cast one last look over her shoulder and follows him to the ground. "All right, all right."
The temple and village soon disappear in the distance behind them. Akali trails behind Zed and vaguely resents how much taller he already is. "Why did you skip training yesterday?" she asks him.
"Oh," comes a sigh and a slight tilt of his head without turning back, "you know. Why bother? Besides, you skipped, too."
Akali closes her mouth and scowls. Fair enough.
She pulls even with him and gives him a sidelong look. Zed still keeps his hair much longer than standard – not that he cares about the grumblings of the elders. His dark eyes are steadily fixed ahead, either oblivious or disregarding her scrutiny. Some are put off by his peculiar stare. Akali found it interesting, which is maybe how they became friends.
They're both so lonely, anyway.
Akali won't pretend that Zed can't be irritatingly absent-minded, childishly stubborn, self-absorbed to a point and annoyingly proud, but she knows not to expect much. He's the closest thing she has to a confidante and he's not even a girl. As for a training partner…he's not bad.
Second best, though she'll never say it to his face.
"Go on," he says. "Keep staring."
Of course Akali does the exact opposite. Zed really can be insufferable. Some people say that if he wasn't so almost aggressively insubordinate all the time, the Council would be more eager to choose him as the next Heart of the Tempest. And it's a shame, because he certainly has the skill for the position. His focus, on the other hand, is – put very gently – lacking. Maybe that is part of the reason Akali finds him so interesting.
They walk in silence for the next ten minutes because ninjas aren't very chatty people just by nature. The woods are thinning a little, and Akali is starting to think that this all looks a tiny bit familiar.
Then Zed walks into a clearing and stops in front of a hole and she knows it's familiar, because she's been here before seven years ago. She and Shen fell down that hole chasing and killing a bandit that had been terrorizing a village nearby. He was ten years old then, she was six.
Now…Akali clears her throat thinking about it, because now he's seventeen and tall and spectacularly handsome when he bothers to take off his mask, which is essentially never.
Zed is quite handsome too, with sharp graceful cheekbones and those piercing eyes, but he smiles all the time. When – when Shen smiles, Akali wants to do anything he asks.
It'll be like that one day anyway, when she becomes his Fist of Shadow.
"Here it is," Zed says, snapping her from her thoughts. "It's not a far drop."
It seemed like one when she was six, but Akali has grown about a foot and a half since then and she's about twenty times stronger, too. She follows him down into the gap and lands smoothly on her feet.
Quiet. Dust filters through the air, glimmering in the shafts of sunlight that slant down inside. Zed doesn't wait, but begins walking deeper inside, where she hadn't bothered looking seven years ago.
"Come on," he says after a while, because she's just standing there looking around, remembering Shen's cool golden eyes in the dark watching her that night even when he thought she wasn't paying attention.
Akali walks over to him. It's dark and cold beyond just a physical feeling that tells her there is some sort of magic lingering here. Not good magic, either. Her mother would be furious if she knew she was here – but she's tired of doing her duty all the time. She wonders if Shen ever feels the same way.
Probably not.
She moves closer and brushes her fingers over the lines etched deeply into the stone. "What language is this? I can't read it."
"I don't know," Zed admits. "I'm going to do some research on it, though. I've got this feeling that it's about something powerful. Something I can use."
Akali doesn't really know what to say to that, because all her life she's been told that all one needs to be strong is what one holds inside, what can be trained and molded. She drops her hand, suddenly uncomfortable. She really has no business being here.
Zed doesn't notice. He's staring at the markings with an unsettling look in his eyes and she knows what he will say next can't be good.
"Have you ever thought," he voices slowly, "that there could be another path? Beside the path of balance?"
"There are many paths within the one of balance." Even she can see that.
He flicks his gaze to her, almost looking heated. It's so rare for Zed to lose his temper. The only time he gets really angry is when he can't win a duel, and that doesn't happen unless he's facing the master's son.
He curls his lip. "You sound just like them."
"Of course I do." Akali can't help snapping in return. "I am one of them."
"Well, maybe I am not," he hisses, and Akali steps back. It's silly of her to forget he is an orphan, especially when he must be reminded of it all the time.
"I can get you into the inner part of the archives," she tells him, suddenly feeling apologetic.
Zed's head snaps up, and he looks at her carefully. "What?"
"For your research. I'll help you figure out what this says."
The young man studies her face. Then he smiles. "Thank you, Akali."
Akali knows she's being manipulated, but she doesn't care. "It's nothing. I'm curious, too."
"Maybe I should give you a kiss," he muses, tilting his head. "You've been so good today."
She wrinkles her nose. Gross. "I'm thirteen, Zed."
"That hasn't stopped me before with other girls," he informs her smugly, and Akali politely tries not to gag.
Now he's staring at her again with an impenetrable look on his face. Akali touches the back of her neck uncomfortably and begins to move back towards the lit end of the cave. "What?"
"I hope you'll come around someday."
"To kissing you? Please."
"No," he says seriously, striding past her, "to everything."
Akali watches him lithely climb his way up the wall, and can't help but feel a strange tension settling in her veins. This is wrong, all wrong, she knew that coming into this, but it seems even worse than she thought it would be. She shakes her head, but the ugly clinging sense of unease doesn't dissipate.
"You coming?" Zed's mocking voice travels downward. "Or shall I let your mother know you've decided to live in a hole from now on?"
Grimacing, Akali hoists herself up and sets her feet on the grass. She dusts dirt from her legs and starts walking. Zed watches her as she passes by him.
"Are you angry?" he asks curiously.
"No," Akali says shortly. "But I'm not in the mood to talk to you anymore."
For the rest of the way back they don't speak to each other as she asked. They part ways once they return to the village because they both have training in separate areas, and agree to meet up the next day to go the archives.
Before they go, though, Zed grabs her forearm and looks her in the eye.
"Don't tell anyone about this."
Akali wrenches her arm away and scowls at him. "I wasn't planning to."
"Especially not…" Zed pauses and looks down at her face as if searching her eyes. He steps back. "Nevermind."
Akali narrows her eyes, because she knows whose name he was about to speak. She turns abruptly without saying more and walks away.
Zed watches her go. The corners of his mouth curve downward like he's thought of something unpleasant.
In five years' time –
Two figures stand at the top of the knoll, gazing down on the quiet village spread out below, and the temple rising in the distance behind it.
The woman clad in black asks quietly, "What would you have me do?"
"Stay here," responds the man in scarlet. "Rei and the second squad will follow your command. We do not know if they will attempt to resist. Should you see something go wrong, be ready to act."
"I understand."
"He's waiting for me," mutters Zed. "I don't know what this could mean. A challenge?"
A chance for conciliation, Akali thinks. "He wants to speak with you."
"Hm," Zed says, disdainful. "The box will be mine."
Akali sees the faraway, glazed look in his dark eyes, and turns away. "Till we meet again, then."
"Till then, little shadow," he says in that stupid mocking way of his, and disappears into the night.
Akali breathes in the pure air that reminds her of brighter days, and waits.
She can hear Zed's scream of pain from here.
This is it, her mind is already saying. Somehow she already knows. It's over.
Everyone is silent. The squad with her, the Kinkou students assembled before the temple below. That frozen moment stretches on for what seems like breathless minutes, and then the gates open.
A chill seems to invade Akali's skin, cloud her senses. Darkness curls at the edges of her vision. And Zed walks forward and throws something carelessly to the ground before Shen's feet.
Blood. The master's eyes stare blankly up into the night sky.
"Kill them all," snarls Zed, and suddenly the shadows are everywhere.
Akali knows what she has to do.
She looks to Rei at her side. She has spent the last four years traveling with this girl. Her skill with the kunai is pretty unparalleled, and she has the funniest laugh.
Akali slits her throat. The rest of the second squad are quick to fall to her blades. She's not Zed's favorite student for nothing.
So many screams. Akali wipes blood from her temple and hurries down to lower ground. She stabs a fellow student from behind, cuts down many more who get in her way. Finally she finds who she was looking for, slices down the ninja flanking him without a thought and puts her back against his.
Shadows flit at the edge of her vision. She tenses, but says nothing.
"You're one of the best fighters I know, Akali," Shen says cordially.
She fumbles for words and can't find any.
"I hope you've picked up some new things in the past few years you've been gone," he continues.
That is easier. "Follow me," she says, and dashes forward.
The rest of the night is a blur. She kills many, many of her fellow shadow disciples, but it's not enough to stop Zed. The Order falls (her mind can't quite wrap her head around this). The remaining students escape and seek shelter in the Placidium. She stays behind with Shen to ensure as many have fled as possible with Kennen's guidance until the sun rises and everyone else is gone but them.
The little corner of the forest they've found to themselves is quiet then, peaceful even, as if bloodshed and death had not been wrought nearby just hours ago. Suddenly the adrenaline fueling her veins is all but gone and she is highly aware that they are alone.
He looks tired. Something about the tilt of his shoulders. Kneeling by the stream, he pulls off his mask and Akali's breath catches sharply in her throat despite herself.
He's better looking than she remembered. Yet even as she admires him, something about the absolute serenity of his features makes her feel small, ashamed.
Shen splashes water in his face and stands, turning to look at her. Akali tries not to avert her gaze and wonders when his eyes became so bright.
"Thank you."
Horrible emotions bubble up inside her and words start spilling from her mouth before she can stop herself. "I thought I could keep him in check, learn his methods and how they could be countered, that's the reason I chose to go with him the first place – I didn't think he would snap like that, I never thought…this would happen – Shen, I'm so sorry – "
"I know," he says simply.
Some mad feeling rises in her chest. Pure irrationality. She wishes he would rage at her, tear her to pieces, punish her mercilessly. Instead he looks at her with the composure of a saint.
Like he can sense her frustration, he tells her, "We need you, Akali. Kennen and I can't restore the Order alone. Your mother and my father are gone, but the equilibrium must be maintained. We've lived our entire lives for this one purpose."
Yes, yes, she thinks frantically. A need, not a want. She has utility. Shadows and blood and deception. But not worth beyond that.
Still – there is a part of her that doesn't want to drown in self-hatred. To give up on hope. To lose this one last chance she has, because afterwards nothing will be the same.
"Wait," it makes her blurt out before she can stop herself. He turns to her and she greedily drinks in the sight of his face, licking dry lips. "Before we go. Can I ask you…one last thing? What – was it like, these past four years?"
Shen regards her in silence for a moment as if contemplating whether or not he should answer. Akali knows he will, though. He's always been too soft on her. And he hasn't changed.
"It was like something important was missing," he explains, tone gentle in a way it shouldn't be. "I would look for your face in crowds and not find it. Think of a technique I wanted to test against you before remembering you were gone. Wonder why I had taken the time you were here for granted. I was…distracted. My father knew, and chided me for it."
Akali turns away, clenching her fists till they shake. "You are the Eye of Twilight," she says in a voice that sounds strange to herself.
Shen pulls his mask back down over his face. "Yes," he agrees. "Our collaboration will be effective."