They had been searching for almost four hours when they finally found her. During that time, he determined that the first thing they would do upon finding her was get her a frakking tag. It had been a mistake on his part that it was yet to be done, and he owned that. He had wanted to give her time to acclimate to the idea of all the electronics that were so integrated in the world today. Miranda had pushed for it, of course, but he had resisted. Now they were four hours deep into a search that biometrics could have prevented. He could be empathetic with her newness to everything, and the sheer size of the Citadel was intimidating even for people who had not spent two hundred years in cryo, but the fact remained that they did not have hours to waste searching the entire place for one lost woman.

"Shepard," Garrus' voice broke over the comm, "we found her."

"Finally," he breathed, reaching up to his own headset. He opened the comm with a sharp press against his temple. "Garrus. Good. Where are you?"

"We're in Shalamar Plaza." He felt a sharp spike of irritation at the turian's calm tone. Anything else might have suggested that Sakura had been in danger, compromised somehow, but this calm meant that she was fine. She really was just wasting time.

"And she's OK?" he asked, already knowing the answer. An abrupt turnabout had him walking back towards Shalamar, thankfully between them and the Normandy.

"Of course she's OK," Garrus scoffed mildly, worry a ridiculous notion. Shepard was booking rapid transit when he added, "She's a human tank, after all."

When he caught up to them, Miranda was standing a few paces away, but Garrus was standing just next to Sakura, who was leaning over a counter regarding wares he could not yet see.

The biotic did not glance in his direction, and her tone was carefully modulated, as she said, "I told you." He bit back a sigh. Her tone might be flat, but he could still hear every bit of recrimination in it.

"Yeah, I know," he conceded.

"First thing when we get back on the ship," she spoke as he strode toward the pair standing at the… turian cooking supplies ' shop? Shepard blinked at them, overhearing Sakura as she spoke rather clinically to the attendant.

"The balance in this one feels better than the others, but frankly, it's still quite off. And it's very light- it feels like it would break under too much pressure."

The attendant laughed in gruff amusement, "So you're a food artist, are you? Planning on actually cooking turian meals?" She did not respond, but from her stillness, Shepard could imagine her staring blankly at the turian across the counter while she thought about the answer. The turian coughed, then spoke, "Trust me, this model can handle opening dextro-amino crustaceans from Menae. I'm sure it can handle whatever you have in mind."

Shepard blinked a few more times. Was she really buying weapons from a kitchen store? His stillness caught Garrus' attention more than his initial approach. The turian glanced up, poking Sakura in the shoulder even as he looked to their commander. The young woman turned over her shoulder as well, a shiny silver cleaver held in her deceptively dainty glove.

At the sight of him, her expression flattened in an attempt at stoicism. She knew she was late and that she was holding everyone up. The attempt might have fooled him but for her flushed face. She was still so damned young.

"Senpai," she greeted formally, nodding her head.

Shepard stepped forward and glanced at the knife she was still holding.

"Really, Sakura?" he asked, eyes cutting from her face to the knife and back. She squared her shoulders and frowned defensively.

The attendant glanced between them, from Garrus to Shepard to Sakura, and back to Shepard. He did not miss their armor, nor the small munitions depot that they presented together.

"I'm guessing you guys aren't cooking."

"Senpai, I lost my only knife," she said with heat in her voice, ignoring the attendant. Her fingers clutched the knife more tightly, as if he was about to shut her down and she was prepared to resist. Before waiting to see derision in his face, she glanced away, saying, "And this is my money. I'm not putting it on a Cerberus tab. Whatever I get, I want to hold onto when everything is over."

Shepard glanced at the intended weapon, at her stalwart face. On the counter just behind her was a display tray full of more knives, slender and fat and serrated, and farther behind the counter even more set in safety blocks. None of them were very pretty, but all seemed sharp and functional, he had to give her that much. She was at least going about things the right way, if anachronistically.

A sudden tremor in her fingers carried through the blade, causing it to wobble slightly, and he realized that nothing here was about functioning weapons. She was too steady in battle. She could hold and fire a gun, with moderate accuracy, even. Being without a knife did not inhibit her abilities, her lethality. The problem was that she had come out of that pod, or box, or whatever she wanted to call it, with possessions she could carry in both hands. Her destroyed knife had been one of them. Her only knife, now gone forever. In a series of moves that had saved his life, no less.

She wanted something that was hers, something to replace the connection that the knife had given her to the box, to the time before she had gone into the long sleep. The problem with the knife she was considering was that the umpteeth time she tried to use it in a fight, turian-crustacean-opening-quality or not, with her strength, it would shatter; the same way her original knife had.

All at once the solution came to him. He glanced over his shoulder to Miranda, smirked, and then looked back to Sakura.

"If you want to buy it, buy it, but you're not taking it into combat."

"Why do you not-" she retorted, but he held up a hand. She stopped, controlling her annoyance, her face made blank once more. It was ironic that for anyone else it might mean they were OK, but when Sakura got quiet was when she was the most dangerous, and it usually meant something crazy was about to happen. He didn't know whether to be impressed or concerned.

"I have a better idea," he calmed her. She hesitated and then nodded. With a wistful look toward the knife, she set it down, nodding respectfully to the turian behind the counter. The quartet began to walk towards the transit service with Miranda bringing up the rear.

Zakera Ward was closer to the ship than the Presidium and they could find what he intended there. Shepard glanced to Garrus and cocked an eyebrow. "I can't believe you were actually going to let her buy something like this for fighting."

"It's amusing to me that you still don't understand exactly what 'human tank' means, Shepard. Besides, I'm not going to come between her fists and something she wants," the turian explained casually. Shepard chuckled while Sakura snorted behind them.

"You all act like I'm some rampaging, bloodthirsty… maniac," she said with some annoyance. Shepard cast a glance behind to see her walking with her arms firmly crossed over her chest. She glared at him petulantly, and he smirked.

"Only on the good days," he replied, facing forward again. Before she could berate a response, he spoke loudly enough for Miranda to hear. "I've got a solution for the tagging problem. We don't need this kind of delay again." He did not need to turn around to see her approval. "It should clear up the biometric location problem as well as Sakura's weapons needs." All in all, he was pretty damned happy with the solution.

"I'm Commander Shepard and this is my favorite store on the Citadel," pinged his ears as the quartet walked into Saronis Applications a few minutes later. Sakura was looking around the small shop warily, eyeballing an elcor in the back display area.

"Electronics?" she asked, warily. Sighing, she added, "You know... A tazer might be fun, but it won't replace a kunai." Her translator blipped and corrected itself. He assumed a kunai was her knife.

"Commander Shepard!" Marab greeted cheerfully, and Sakura turned to look at the salarian while Shepard himself stepped up to the terminal.

"Hey Marab. We're looking for a new omni-tool for my friend here," he said with a gesture towards Sakura. He watched the salarian look her over and then quickly back to Shepard.

"Something introductory, I'll assume," he offered and then took the mirror side of the terminal, quickly typing up a few options. Shepard glanced at Sakura, who met his stare warily as if she did not know exactly what to expect. She was intelligent, but too out of her depth to put the pieces together just yet. He glanced at Miranda, who nodded approvingly, already following his thoughts, and grinned.

"Actually, I have something else in mind."

Three hours later, back in the Normandy's shuttle bay, Sakura was still staring at the deceptively simple black band double-bound to her forearm. It was not permanently attached, for which she was grateful, but it was apparently in vogue to keep one's omni-tool on at all times. Or necessity. Or something. She was still getting used to the fact that the actual tool, and not just its dock, could appear at will. The orange light projected when she moved her arm just so. She practiced walking around the bay, swinging her arms normally, then wildly, and stared at her left appendage, waiting for the machine to trigger unintentionally. She grinned when it did not, taking a few jabs at the air for further testing. Marab had, rather condescendingly, explained that, of course, it would not function out of order or unintentionally, but it was still so cool to see it working.

Apparently, the thing had all kinds of abilities that were still out of her range of expertise; hacking, repairing, decryption. Those were tasks that she was looking forward to learning in this time, mastering eventually, but in the here and now she was impressed with the abilities she was already comfortable with. It dispensed medi-gel automatically, after a quick scan of the intended species and gauging wound severity. She was certain her eyes were glowing with wonder.

Better and better, the most amazing, absolutely mouth-watering feature was the one that apparently all omni-tools were capable of employing, but few did.

She flexed her arm, summoning the orange projection and then flexed her fingers in rapid succession. Like a flexed blade of grass suddenly released, an equally orange blade emerged from the arm's main dock. Only this one weighed with a perfect balance and heaviness that was so pleasant and familiar she thought she might cry.

It was a knife. It was a damned perfect, beautiful, extension-of-her-arm knife. Diamond hard and regenerating, as long as she kept up the omni-tool itself. She had already cut through a crate for practice and watched it split the metal frame like ohashi through soggy ramen.

She understood that Shepard, with Miranda signing off on the purchase, had dished out a huge chunk of change for the machine. After explaining all of its gadgetry and wonder, Marab had begun to fit her arm. When it all had finally sunk in, what she was getting, what she was going to be capable of, she had wept in gratitude and relief, much to the surprise of the alien's and the embarrassment of the humans. Well, Shepard's embarrassment. Miranda had just seemed annoyed.

"I guess it doesn't dispense tissue," she had joked, breaking the tension a little. Screw them, she had always been a crier, and it was an awesome gift.

"Not a gift," Shepard had corrected her. "It's a tool for combat. We're bringing everyone up to snuff for this mission. If you're trying to take out the Collectors with kitchen knives… Uhhh…"

"I'm sure it would be amusing to see," Garrus had interjected. "But probably not the most effective."

Miranda had been quick to try and spoil the party, "This also has biometric scanning so that as long as you're wearing this we'll be able to find you."

OK, so a great reason to take it off, but damn it if she couldn't see herself getting attached to this thing and quickly. If she could learn to do half of what this thing was capable of…

She was going to be unstoppable.