Chapter 7

As it turned out, hanging around Tony Stark was kinda fun, but sometimes really fucking irritating.

He was like a dog with a chew-toy when it came to who she was, he just wouldn't let it go, constantly having JARVIS try to find information about her. It hadn't taken him long to find her little New York apartment, but that didn't really lead him anywhere. All her dealings with the hand had been done whilst wearing her mask, and they weren't the sort to reveal information like that, even after she had basically disappeared on them, since it'd mean she could retaliate, something the Hand were probably worried about, so for now she presumed that she was in a sort of stalemate with the group.

SHIELD had made a few overtures towards Stark in regards to her, but fortunately for him he'd shut them down quick by pulling some legal bullshit out of nowhere and then following up by technically hiring her as a 'security consultant', the irony of which did not escape her. It was pretty fun heading back over to places like the Middle East and defusing tensions simply by existing. No insurgent wanted to have Iron Man chasing them down after all.

The media did take some interest in her, but the fact she basically never did anything on-camera meant the attention barely lifted a single eyebrow in her direction, especially not when she had a red-and-gold Iron Man suit beside her. Iron Man was the name on lips, the face in peoples minds, and that was just fine for her. It'd almost certainly all go out the window when the Avengers showed up, but for now, she could keep enjoying her relative anonymity.

All while this was going on, she had ended up sat in the garage munching on random nibbles and watching Tony try to puzzle out an alternative energy source for his reactor. The technical jargon he sometimes threw at her went utterly over her head, but the premise seemed to be that any other material would kill him through various means like heat. Since all she could tell him would involve information there was no way she could ever have learned, she decided that was a lost cause, he'd just have to figure it out on his own.

He had also turned down her offer to remove the shrapnel in his chest, though said that if he did ever decide to get it removed, he'd come to her first, which was a nice gesture of trust if nothing else. Pepper seemed to not really know what to do with her, since Akari was just hanging around the house but not exactly doing much, though she always ended up following Tony around when he left to go be Iron Man through means that utterly baffled her and Stark, always bringing her amusement watching them both try to puzzle out how the hell she managed to get to his destinations so quickly. Before too long, Tony off-handedly told her that he was planning to start up the Stark Expo again, and that caught her attention.

Iron Man 2 was starting...finally.

The Expo went exactly as she vaguely remembered it.

Iron Man came down to...it was either AC/DC or Led Zeppelin, one of those old rock bands that she barely remembered. The whole high-kicking women with fake repulsors and reactors was a bit much, but then again, that was Stark's entire thing, making a big spectacle and drawing in attention. Though she'd forgotten it, his speech was actually quite nice, essentially about peace and about what the next generation would be left with.

Amusingly enough, Stark could probably do far greater things for the world by sharing how to make Arc Reactors. Not his miniature one, that could be kept private, but a source of clean and highly-efficient energy would go a long way in protecting the world. Until someone made it into a hyper-powerful bomb and vaporized a city of course, which led her to wonder whether Stark was actually thinking beyond protecting his property when it came to his Arc Reactor and suit. The suit of course, obviously, but the reactor could be great in some hands, and terrifying in others. After he was done with his speech, she followed along behind him as he went through the backstage area signing things, shaking hands and generally being Tony Stark.

She was still paying attention enough to catch the subtle smirk that 'Larry' sent her way, which did send a slight shiver down her spine. She knew the face of Stan Lee when she saw it, and while she wasn't exactly an avid fan of it, she did know about the theory that Stan Lee was intertwined with the entire MCU, which meant she quite possibly had just been smirked at by the One-Above-All, which was just the smallest bit worrying. She wasn't really sure whether the Entity actually had more power than the OAA, considering he was supposedly the one in control of all of the MCU, not just the Earth-616 Universe.

But, she pushed it out of her mind as they exited the building and she spotted the Marshal waiting by Tony's car, surreptitiously slipping a little ahead of her position, even if she was fairly confident nothing out of the ordinary would happen. Tony displayed interest in her, as usual, and then got issued the subpoena. What was a bit of a surprise was that the woman then turned and issued her with a subpoena as well, which was quite amusing.

Tony had a lawyer do some legal backflips in getting her citizenship, even having to get SHIELD involved a little since the lawyer couldn't get around the Green Card issue, whereas all she had to do was prove she could speak English and sign a few documents. No interviews, no bullshit pledge of allegiance, she was as far as the US Government was concerned, a US citizen. But that, of course, meant she was just as vulnerable to subpoenas as Stark was.

She took the small paper and looked it over, then folded it and tucked it into one of her vest pouches, folding her arms at the smirking Marshal. "Bitch." She muttered under her breath, watching Stark as he asked Happy how far D.C was then drove off, leaving her behind. Turning her hand, she expelled a tiny amount of electricity, not enough to hurt her but plenty to make her feel the shock, which had the desired effect of turning off any unshielded recording devices that were nearby. "If I didn't assume I'd get screwed over for it, your head would be on Stern's desk before this farce of a hearing even begins."

Turning away, she rounded one of the pillars and went invisible, rubbing her forehead. So, the US government now had decided they didn't like her and wanted to find out more about her. Of course, a normal congressional hearing was just a fact-finding thing, they wanted to know more about things they knew little about, but this was going to be a very one-sided hearing. And she didn't doubt that Stern would just love for her to make an ass of herself politically, since she had absolutely no idea how she was really supposed to act outside of showing up and answering stuff, which would be a pretty terrible idea.

What was worse was the potential scrutiny she would come under. Her fake citizenship was good, sure, but nothing was ever perfect, undoubtedly they would find some error somewhere in the line, most likely missing documentation, and then she'd be kinda screwed. Then again, did it really matter? Sure, she wasn't a legitimate US citizen, what were they going to do about it? If things went well, the Avengers would be more likely to take her side than the US Government, and Stark obviously already knew she wasn't a citizen considering he was the one to set the whole damn thing up.

Akari took off towards D.C, using the time in-flight to make sure her items were all where she wanted them to be, in easy access for her. She had accidentally drawn a Kunai when she meant to take out a bag of crisps, and that was certainly a bit embarrassing. She also spoke to Kurama, trying to figure out what exactly she was going to do since she herself was being called in to testify.

Now, it was possible they were doing it just because it'd put more pressure on Tony, since they could ask her to talk about his suit and she couldn't really say no without getting in trouble. But they also could ask her questions she was more viable to cut their throats out for than answer, like where she came from, how she could move unseen across oceans so quickly, and other such things.

Speaking about how to explain her abilities led Kurama to point out a very interesting fact. She had long-since told him about what she knew, and so he pointed out that the Ancient One was using the Dark Dimension to live for such a long period, somehow siphoning energy and using it to prolong her own life. Perhaps Akari could learn the Mystic Arts in return for giving her a seal filled with Chakra which she could attempt to find a way to use, so she no longer had to draw upon the Dark Dimension.

There were certainly plenty of different ways Akari could handle this entire scenario, like flying through the New York portal and hunting down then killing Thanos, since there was a very low risk that he was stronger than she, not when he had one...no, he didn't have any of the Stones, not yet. Odin had to die before Thanos would make a move, that she was absolutely certain of. And since Thor hadn't even been banished yet, owing to the fact Coulson was still hanging around and having not been re-assigned to Texas or New Mexico or wherever the hammer landed, Odin was most certainly still alive.

Lazily swooping in the air, Akari considered just dropping the whole stealth thing and going public with her abilities. It'd certainly freak a lot of people out and had the potential to be quite amusing, but it also meant people could start to counter her abilities. Even then, there wasn't much of a way to counter her strength, not when she could bench-press a Venator. Scarlet Witch could maybe counter her, depending on how hard she fought and how strong the influence of the Mind Stone was in this version of the MCU.

At the idle suggestion of Kurama, her mind started ticking over the idea of hiding the stones inside of seals only Kurama could open and then from there inside of her inventory, where nobody could ever steal them, not without subverting both her and Kurama, a nigh-impossible feat. Akari then bit her own tongue, shaking her head. Nothing was impossible after all.

Abeloth should have taught her that already, thick-headed as she was.

Arriving in D.C was a bit of a mixed bag for Akari.

She had already visited the city years ago and messed with the President a little back in Harry's Universe, so she vaguely knew her way around, like where the Capitol Building was, as well as a few of the spots she had visited, but it still took her a few minutes and asking some of the locals before she found a hotel for the night. While she didn't need sleep, she did still get a bit funky when she didn't have some sleep. Plus, sleeping in an expensive hotel bed was nice and comfortable, so while she was giving up a few hours of time which could be spent screwing with people, it was totally worth it.

But while it was quite interesting being back in the city, she was too busy being pissed off at herself to care much. Sure, that bitch of a Marshal didn't need to look so smug and self-assured, but it really shouldn't have set her off like that. It was too late to do anything about it of course, and hopefully, there wouldn't really be any evidence of what she'd done aside from strangely-manfunctioning electronics like her phone, but it still wasn't worth it, not when she had time to think about it.

Never-the-less, when the morning came she dragged herself from her bed, took a shower and then exited via the balcony, turning invisible as she stepped outside and flew towards the Capitol building, but not before making a small group of Shadow Clones who went invisible, each of whom were going to be flying around above them in the hearing room, just in case something went wrong. HYDRA were, after all, definitely going to be interested in her, so it was best to plan for the worst, and hope for the best. Sure, she could fight her way out just fine, but if her invisible clones could stop any issues from ever occurring, she could maintain a relatively-normal visage.

As she flew across the city and watched as it slowly woke up, she idly wondered what it would be like to actually rule a city. Probably a nightmare of epic proportions, especially considering she always was better at being a fighter, not a leader. Minato was good at both, and Hiruzen in his prime definitely was good at both, whereas she was a great fighter, sure, but absolute garbage when it came to more than just smashing the enemy in front of her.

She resolved to at least try to learn better tactics than that, but of course she couldn't exactly do that at the moment as she drifted over the various American monuments and memorials littering the area, coming to a stop floating above the big white one. For the briefest of moments she considered going over to the White House just to tap on the window or something to amuse herself, but decided she'd done enough stupid things recently, instead heading from there straight over to the Capitol building and flying over it, coming down on the opposite side then into the pillared entrance.

From there it was a simple process to drop her invisibility, casually move to lean against one of the pillars then wait. She had come an hour early for the hearing, which gave her an hour to let her clones scout the building out and hunt for any potential threats. After ten minutes one of them found the room that she remembered from her memories, so they focused their efforts in that region, as hopefully the hearing would occur in the same place. After half an hour had passed she saw Tony, Happy and Pepper walking down the path towards the building.

As Stark laid eyes on her she could see the slight irritation at her having beaten him somewhere again, but he tucked that away behind a smile as they walked up the steps. "So, you decided this was worth showing up for?" Akari rolled her eyes at him. Just because the one time she decided to have a lie-in he actually sort-of needed her help wasn't her fault, and it wasn't like he wasn't standing in front of her.

Pepper stepped in before she could retort, a long-suffering look in her eyes as she practically begged Akari to back down just through her eyes. Owing to the fact that Pepper had a surprisingly large amount on her shoulders like pretty much running the entire company by now, Akari acquiesced to her request, but not before throwing Tony a smirk over her shoulder as she turned and entered the building.

As they entered, several people inside noticed, which had a cascading effect as everyone took note of the fact they had arrived. A pair of guards flanked a suited man as they approached, and looking around Akari could see that pretty much all the guards were watching them, setting her a little on edge. Sure, they were pretty high-profile, but surely at least a few of them should have been looking elsewhere?

Pepper spoke to the man who told them what room the hearing was going to be in and directing them to follow him there. The room name and number matched the one her clones had searched around, so she felt pretty secure, as none had dispersed telling her anything negative. Sure, there were still tricks that could be pulled, but by that point it extended beyond reasonable into paranoid.

Sure, there could be gas canisters under the floor that would shoot up and fill the room, or explosives inside of the table, but that was just paranoia at that point. She did still keep a wary eye out as they entered the half-full room. There were still about ten minutes early, so that was to be expected after all. She and Tony, being the two who were actually summoned, were sat in the leather chairs up front.

As she sat down, she had to resist the urge to spin or put her feet up or do anything of that nature, since it'd probably reflect poorly on Stark. Then again, he basically ignored Stern in favour of talking to Pepper, so maybe it didn't matter that much and she was overthinking it? Stark seemed pretty happy to be chatting to Pepper and messing with his phone, so maybe it was fine?

Akari didn't put her feet up, but she did take out some sealing paper and a brush from her pouches and laid them out, then took a pot of ink out, much to the surprise of the guards who had searched her on the way in. Planting her elbow down, she rested her chin on her hand as she lazily started working out a basic storage seal. Nothing fancy, just a regular 1-meter-cubed storage area, but it was something mentally-stimulating to do, watching the lines form together and support each other.

To anyone else, it'd look like she was just doing random swirls, and being honest she probably wouldn't ever even activate the seal for anything, not when she had her inventory, but it was something to work on whilst waiting for the rest of the audience and the Senators to show up so they could start this farce of a hearing. She had no delusion that this was going to be anything other than Stern trying to get his grubby hands on the Iron Man suit, and on top of the suit, HYDRA probably wanted to know more about her since she was a potential threat to them, though right now they likely considered Natasha to be more of a threat thanks to her background.

With a soft humming on her lips she wrapped up the seal and blew it dry, before rolling it up and tucking it away into her inventory. She considered starting to work on a second more complicated one, like an anaesthesia or general paralysis seal, but Stern entered the room before she could decide, making the decision for her. He went up to the main table and sat down, the rest of the senators either following behind him or having already been seated, then called the room to order.

Many of the cameras were turned on at that moment, and more than a few were aimed directly at her, which made her feel just a little more on edge from the entire thing. Being in the middle of a clustered room with cameras and people focused on her was not exactly her idea of a fun morning. Fortunately, it seemed Stark was going to be grilled before her, with Stern establishing who Stark was somewhat humorously, as though someone in there didn't know who he was, and then asking general questions for a while before getting to the meat of things. "Do you or do you not possess a specialized weapon?"

She had to admit, while watching it was pretty funny, seeing Tony, a guy she had hung around with for a good few months now, verbally demolish someone she knew to be corrupt, and if she recalled correctly rather disgusting in terms of his 'appetite', really made her quite happy. The hearing went the same as the movie, but only up until the point where Stern was supposed to say he was no expert and bring in Hammer, except that didn't happen. Instead, he turned to face her. "And how about your...'employee', Miss Uchiha? As I understand it you have spent a great deal of time around Mr Stark whilst using his suit. Would you or would you not consider that this device is none other than a weapon?"

Raising an eyebrow, Akari smirked. "It's like Tony said, the suit is an advanced prosthesis. Take away the suit and all the components, that means he can no longer function normally. Now, I don't know about you but I don't think the US Senate want to kill one of the most well-known household American names over a suit of metal, not when you can just go raid a museum for one."

She could see the moment Stern had to stop himself smiling at her, berating herself even as she tried to figure out what she said that was so important. "And how exactly is Mr Stark not able to function normally without his suit? As far as my admittedly untrained eyes can see, his suit is nowhere in sight." Wincing, she looked at Tony, who still had a genial smile on his face as he watched her back.

"Because..." She trailed off, trying to figure out how the fuck it took three sentences before she tied herself into a knot. Kurama was definitely having a fucking uproarious time watching her try and fail to puzzle out how the fuck she was supposed to act. Eventually, she decided that her blunt tactic had worked so far. It wouldn't work here, but she really just had no idea how to act even vaguely political. "Because I said components, not just the suit. As far as I am aware, the Senate does not require pacemakers and other necessary life support devices to be removed before a hearing, such as an Arc Reactor."

Stane was still in control of himself and didn't do more than widen his smile somewhat, but it was clear that he smelled blood in the water and knew she really didn't have a clue how to act here, unlike Tony who was probably well-versed and even comfortable in this sort of setting. For a good fifteen minutes he grilled her on the suit, on the capabilities she had observed, before culminating in asking her directly whether she could reasonably say that the Iron Man suit was not, in fact, fully-capable of being a weapon.

Since she had just spent a quarter of an hour being ordered to tell the committee about the suit, she couldn't reasonably say that it wasn't also capable of being a weapon. Thankfully enough from there Stern went back to grilling Tony, bringing Hammer in and then Rhodes. Stark pulled his little hacking trick, showcasing the fact that nobody else had a functioning suit.

But then he surprised her, after his little 'I have successfully privatized world-peace'. "And using my own hired consultant to scoop for information? Are you too afraid to ask me directly?" Admittedly, it was only two lines, but it was definitely sweet of him to do if nothing else. Her clones dispersed once she had exited the building, revealing no noteworthy information aside from the fact Stern was satisfied by the amount of information she had been half-forced to give up.

Sure, she could have left, or maybe just said no, but that'd be asking for issues with the government, potentially backlashing into Stark. She didn't want to get him in any hot water, not when he seemed like a pretty swell guy underneath his ego. It was a hearing for a reason, she wasn't really allowed to just say no when they pointedly asked her something. While maybe it'd work, lying was just asking for trouble, since she wasn't exactly good at it.

But, since Stark seemed pretty fine with what she had said, she was hopefully she hadn't caused too many problems.

As it turned out...she hadn't actually said anything the Senate already didn't know.

Well, the fact that Stark actually needed the reactor to live was something she should have tried to avoid, but Pepper made sure she knew that there really wasn't anything she could have said that would have caused a big deal, not unless she revealed something really big. Getting back to Stark's house, Tony immediately went down into the garage, leaving Akari up in the living room. Pepper had already disappeared into the office to keep a handle on the business, so with nothing better to do Akari wandered downstairs, seeing Tony hastily pull his shirt down.

Rolling her eyes, she put in the password and entered his garage, folding her arms. "Don't bother hiding it from me, I'm the one who warned you that you need to find a new power source." Tony looked between her eyes a few times before sighing and leaning back in his chair. "So, how long have you got?"

He shrugged. "A week, maybe two at a stretch and without using the suit much." Rubbing her temple, Akari walked towards his suit where it was hanging from a crane and nudged it, watching it sway as she tried to figure out a good way to tell him what he needed to know. Sure, she could leave this as it was and hope SHIELD came in to save the day, but she couldn't guarantee it, not when her presence might have screwed over the plan to get Black Widow an in with Stark.

"Three days...maybe?" She muttered to herself, forming a basic plan for getting Howard Stark's hidden message to him. But...why not just tell him that the key was in the Expo? If she came back in three days with a bunch of his fathers old things, he and SHIELD would both be absurdly suspicious of her knowledge. If she just made a show of looking at the Expo map...but then she might start being assumed to have a genius-level intellect, which was so far from the truth it wasn't even funny.

A hand on her shoulder made her jump, having been distracted and not noticing Stark coming up behind her. He didn't say anything, just looked at her for a moment, his eyes practically dissecting her and reminding her why she really hated hyper-intelligent people, they could find any fucking tell. "I...might be able to find a solution for you. Or at least, my...employers. They know of a group who just might, at a hairsbreadth of a chance, have something that could help you. But I'll have to disappear off the grid for a few days." Looking down at his glowing reactor then back at her, he smirked.

"Sure you can last three days without me?"

So, Akari has started getting her shit together.

First off, she kinda needed to realize that things aren't going to go the way she's expecting and hoping. Stern issuing her a Subpoena and then her giving them more than they got in the movies made her realize that Black Widow might not show up, which in turn could mean that SHIELD never learn about Tony's Palladium issue, thus they would never give him Howard's stuff, and he'd die...not a good outcome.

She's also learned that she needs to learn how to better handle herself in a delicate environment. Just from a few sentences she gave a pretty big thing away. So...yay for character development? I don't know what I'm doing anymore being entirely honest.

But hey, if you're still enjoying this mess enough to think that it's worth throwing some spare cash at, I'd really appreciate any support I can get over on Pat reon.

Hope you enjoyed ^.^

Name: Akari Uchiha

Level: 1298

Age: Ageless (17 - Appearance)

Experience: 525,629/1,298,000

To Next Level: 772,371

Title: Animal Tamer - Rank 5 - 100% chance to dissuade creatures from attacking during encounter. Prolonged or repeated exposure allows reputation, rapport as well as affinity to build with any animal. Note - familiars and mind-controlled creatures are exempt from this ability.

Secondary Title: Assassin - 200% increase to damage on unaware enemies, 100% experience for stealth kills

Health Points: 150,015,000 - (((100 Base + (Vit x End)) x 10) x 3) x 5

Regeneration Rate - 50,000,000/m - 833,333.33*/s - (((Vit x End) x 2) x 5) x 5

Energy Points: 225,022,500 - ((((100 Base + (Int x Wis)) x 10) x 1.5) x 3) x 5

Regeneration Rate - 50,000,000/m - 833,333.33*/s - (((Int x Wis) x 2) x 5) x 5

Strength - 1000

Vitality - 1000

Endurance - 1000

Intelligence - 1000

Agility - 1000

Wisdom - 1000

Luck - 750

Affinities - Fire, Lightning, Earth, Water, Wind - Primary Affinities granted by Rinnegan

15 Skill Points Available