Akira, Sasuke, and Naruto spent another day out in the sunny glade, training amongst the trees again. Kakashi and Sakura had left after their little display of talent and returned to guard Tazuna and the bridge. It wasn't until nightfall that Sasuke and Naruto had managed to reach the same height as Sakura and Akira, and Akira had managed to walk up the tree as Kakashi had done a few days ago. It was a miracle that none of them collapsed on the way home, but the way Akira, Naruto and Sasuke were all holding each other at the shoulders gave them enough support to keep moving forwards.
"What've you been up to?" Tazuna said as the three wandered in through the front door. "You look like something the cat dragged in."
"Sasuke and I made it. We made it all the way to the top!" Naruto chuckled.
"Akira?" Sakura asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Managed to walk up," she said breathlessly. "No momentum."
"Good. Now we move on," Kakashi said. "Starting tomorrow, we can all be bodyguards for Tazuna."
Suddenly, Naruto groaned and fell on his backside, dragging Sasuke and Akira down with him. The girl burst out laughing, and while Sasuke was busy telling Naruto he was a loser again, Naruto joined Akira in laughter. Sakura rolled her eyes at them, thinking they'd gone crazy and helped Tsunami set the table for the dinner that was about to be served.
Akira, Sasuke and Naruto wolfed down their food as if they were starved animals getting their first meals in weeks. And while she didn't concern herself with the rippling water problem of hers, she wondered what could possibly happen tomorrow now that all of them were able to control their chakra. There wasn't much to do on the bridge other than watch the workers do their thing—it'd be fun to see what Kakashi had in store for them.
Akira was so lost in thought that she only realised Naruto and Inari were having an argument when Naruto began shouting. Or maybe it was the other way around. In any case, they were shouting at each other, and Akira had to pull her glass off the table, so it didn't spill over as they accidentally hit the table.
"These cool things you all say—they don't mean anything!" Inari was shouting. "No matter what you do, the strong always win, and the weak always lose."
"It won't be like that for me—for us. You got that?"
"Why don't you be quiet? Just looking at you makes me sick!" Inari yelled, tears falling from his eyes. "You don't know anything about this country! You're just butting in! Always laughing and playing around—you don't know what it's like to suffer!"
"Who do you think you are?"
Everyone turned to Akira in surprise. She calmly put her glass back down on the table and continued to eat. She wasn't shouting or shaking in anger like Naruto was, but the way she spoke, commanding and stern, sent a chill down everyone's spine.
"Who do you think you are?" Akira said coldly. "Assuming no one else knows what it is to suffer. Not everyone puts it on display, you know. Some of us smile and goof off, some of us brood, some of us lash out."
Akira stood.
"Thank you for dinner," she told Tsunami. Akira looked over to Inari. "And some of us say thank you for dinner."
Akira's cold gaze detached itself from Inari, and she walked out of the house without another word. The cool evening breeze washed over her, trying to calm down the anger that was bubbling in the pit of her stomach. After staring at the moon's reflection on the water, Akira stalked off towards the forest, back to where she'd been training only a few hours ago. It was dark and foreboding, but there was a sense of peace in the forest's sullen ambience. It calmed her for a moment, but Inari's words came back and, all of a sudden, the anger burst through the dam of self-control.
Akira pressed her palm against one of the trees' rough bark and began pounding on it relentlessly. Just as Inari was earlier, Akira let out all the pent up anger she'd built up during this mission, during the course of her life. Who was that kid to say no one else knew suffering? Akira had suffered too, far more significantly than Inari could ever imagine, and while the repercussions of it weren't blatantly obvious, they were substantial.
Mothers steered their children away from Akira and Sasuke, afraid of the massacre even after all these years. Others swore their entire family line was cursed. And while some respected her, Akira suspected they only did it out of fear, worried that one day she or Sasuke would commit the same crimes that Itachi had. It was a lifetime of loneliness, segregation and of hatred—a fate she'd been suffering for far too long.
It didn't take long for a dent to appear where Akira was letting out her frustrations. The longer she kept punching, the harder each punch became and, soon, pain followed each strike. Akira ignored it, insisting on releasing every single ounce of anger in her body, and she kept punching the tree even as her knuckles split open and blood stained the tree until someone grabbed her hand to stop it.
"Your hands are bleeding," Akira heard Kakashi say softly.
"Your point?" Akira said, her voice strained.
"Usually, when you start to bleed, it means you should stop."
Akira wrung her hand out of Kakashi's and went to punch again, but he put himself between her and her fist and the tree. She hit him square in the chest and paused there for a few seconds, breathing heavily, before her arms fell to her sides.
"Why don't I hate him..."
"Who, Inari?"
"No, not Inari." Akira clenched her fists, and they seared with burning pain. "Itachi."
Kakashi could hear stifled sobs as she turned her face away.
"You know what he did," she said quietly. "I know all the pain he's put me and Sasuke through. And Sasuke hates him, just like Inari hates these thugs and everyone that calls themself a hero. But I can't. I can't hate him, Sensei. No matter how hard I try."
Overcome by the wave of her emotions, Akira broke down entirely. All of her built up defences shattered in a fraction of a second and washed away by salty tears. Kakashi stood there, awkward, not really sure what to do, and when she finally looked back at him, Akira was the picture of grief, of loss, of devastation. It was the face of a girl who had suffered before and had tried to hide it, not sure whether she could ever take pain like that again. He saw the hurt that cut right through her protective layers acquired through forced maturity, her mask of coping gone as if it never existed.
"You really aren't like other Uchiha, huh?"
"Sorry," Akira hiccoughed, wiping away her tears.
"Don't apologise, Akira," Kakashi said, putting his hand on her head. "Sometimes you just gotta let it out."
"I was referring to punching you," the girl said with a small laugh.
"Oh, don't be sorry for that either; I interrupted your self-therapy. Besides, it's not like you punched hard enough to hurt me."
"Hey, my hand is messed up."
"That's not my problem, is it?"
Akira rolled her eyes and walked off. Kakashi's fingers slipped through her hair as she went, and he laughed, much to the girl's annoyance, but she came back to Tazuna's much calmer, excited for tomorrow to arrive.
The gulls were squawking early the next morning, and they slowly woke Akira up from her deep slumber. She stared out the window through squinted eyes, silently cursing the birds, and then to her left to find Sakura's roll-out bed empty. A small shuffling sound behind her made Akira turn her head, and she spotted Sakura in front of a small mirror, all dressed and ready as she fixed the Leaf bandanna in her hair.
"You're finally awake," she said, looking over at Akira. "I was going to wake you before I left the room."
"The seagulls woke me up," Akira said. She sat up and stretched her arms above her head, turning to look outside. "I wonder why they're so active this morning."
When Sakura provided no answer, Akira turned back to look at her. She was staring at Akira's battered and bruised hands with great concern. Akira put her hands under the blankets and out of sight.
"It's nothing, really," she said with a smile.
"All right," Sakura said, sounding unsure. "I'll be downstairs."
"Yell for me when breakfast is up if I'm not there.
As Sakura exited the room, Akira stood with a sigh. She shrugged off her nightclothes and got dressed for the day, then washed off all the dried blood and tree bark she couldn't get off without waking Sakura last night. Akira wrapped her hands in bandages after drying them, then went downstairs and greeted everyone except Naruto, who was still sleeping and recovering from yesterday's training. Sakura gave her one last worried glance before pretending everything was normal, and they all ate breakfast before setting out with Tazuna.
They made their way along the road and then down to the pier where they took a boat out to the bridge. They climbed up a fairly steep hill and, upon reaching the bridge, everyone's peaceful demeanour vanished. Worry and fear set in as the ninjas laid their eyes on Tazuna's crew, that had been beaten up until they dropped into unconsciousness. The nauseating feeling Akira had been feeling the last few days suddenly came back and, just as it settled in the pit of her stomach, a strangely thick mist began creeping along the edges of the bridge.
"Akira, Sasuke, Sakura—get ready!" Kakashi said quickly.
The four ninjas surrounded Tazuna. Akira pulled out her tachi and flicked them open, and Sasuke and Sakura pulled out a few kunai to defend themselves with. Everyone knew it as well as Kakashi; if the mist was there, so was Zabuza, and that meant they had been right about him and the tracker working together.
"Sorry I kept you waiting, Kakashi," said a rough voice somewhere in the mist. "I see you still have those brats with you... and that punk with the swords."
Akira's hands gripped her swords tighter and solidified her stance. This time, as the mist crept in and her field of vision decreased, Akira's eyes darted around, but there wasn't any fear.
"That one is trembling," Zabuza continued. "Pity."
All of a sudden there were over a dozen of Zabuza clones surrounding them. Akira wasn't any less worried; judging from past experience, the clones were no less deadly than the real deal. However, their appearance made Sasuke chuckle and, looking at his face, Akira couldn't help but smile too. The clone in front of them took a wary step back.
"I'm trembling... with excitement," Sasuke said.
"Go on, you two," Kakashi said, nodding towards the clones.
Akira and Sasuke took the clones by surprise. As fast as they'd appeared, the clones vanished, sliced by the siblings' blades. They returned to their spots simultaneously, and the water clones fell into an unceremonious puddle.
"Oh, so you could see they were water clones, huh?" Zabuza said in a mocking tone. "The brats are improving. Looks like you've got rivals, Haku."
"So it seems."
Akira recognised the voice immediately. It was the same emotionless tone that had spoken from behind the tracker mask a few days ago.
"Well, well," Kakashi said, as Zabuza and Haku appeared from within the mist. "It seems we had it right. It was all just an act with a cute little mask."
"So, I guess all that about being a tracker ninja was just a load of bull, huh?" Tazuna scoffed.
"They look pretty friendly to me. They've probably been pulling scams like this for a long time."
"He's got some nerve facing us after he pulled that trick," Sakura said snidely.
"And hiding behind a fake ANBU mask," Akira scoffed. "Who does he think he's fooling?"
"That's it, I'm taking him out," Sasuke said. "Who does he think he's fooling hiding behind that mask like some sort of clown?"
"Sasuke, you're so cool!" Sakura giggled.
Akira turned to Sakura, a deadpan expression on her face.
"That's literally what I just said."
Kakashi patted Akira's shoulder as neither Sakura nor Sasuke paid her any attention. Just as she turned back to Zabuza and Haku, the latter came at them fast, spinning in some kind of a whirlwind. He was headed straight for Sasuke, who braced himself for an attack and to counter. Haku lunged at Sasuke with one of his needles, but Sasuke blocked it with a kunai quite easily.
"Akira, Sakura, cover Tazuna and stay close to me," Kakashi said. "Let Sasuke handle this for now."
"Sensei—"
"Akira, no. Stay with Sakura and Tazuna."
Akira frowned and gazed at Sasuke for a moment before taking a position beside Tazuna. She pointed one of her swords ahead and another to the side, ready to attack and swing at an enemy from any angle. Who knew what Zabuza and Haku were planning to do this time...