Author's notes:

Hey, another chapter is here. I hope you enjoyed a bit slower paced chapters, because... we're returning to the action.

Hope you'll like it :)

As always, thanks for everything, and see you next time :D

Couple minutes later:

Akali tried to relax as much as she possibly could, but something… or maybe someone was bothering her mind. After roughly a minute or so, she jumped off of the bed rapidly. The huntress started to sweat, her eyes went narrow as she was spectating the nearby area. The white-haired woman knew something was off… really off.

The assassin took a couple of deep breaths, she desperately tried to calm her running mind. She needed it to be calm, she needed to be calculated, she needed to be precise.

Without a moment wasted on hesitation, Akali came to the wooden desk. The woman was searching for something. It lasted maybe a fraction of a second. Soon enough, the piece of paper and some pen were grabbed. She started to write down something on it.

Half an hour later:

"Akali?" the pink-haired woman called the huntress when she finally finished taking a shower.

She did not get any response. After waiting for a couple of more moments, she left the bathroom. Her hair was still wet, her slender frame wrapped in a soft fluffy greyish towel. It concerned her that the white-haired woman did not say anything back. It felt like she was not even there.

As soon as Irelia reached the main area of the room she was assigned to, she froze. As she had feared, the huntress was gone. The sheets of the bed had been smoothed out most likely by the white-haired woman.

The officer was cluelessly walking around the room for a couple of moments. Finally, she spotted the piece of paper laying on top of the desk. The pink-haired soldier wondered why the hell it was not noticed sooner.

Without an ounce of hesitation or a single thought, the commando trooper came to the furniture and picked up the note. Irelia was holding the piece of paper with both of her hands which caused the towel to spill off of her frame. The last member of the Xan family was standing still completely naked, but she could not care less about such a minor detail. She started to read a neat cursive text.

`Irelia,

I had to leave sooner than I expected. The situation changed drastically, so our plan must follow the change. I will meet you at your apartment at 10pm. Be there, I will take care of your armour and weapons. You can take a nap, train all day, or do whatever you possibly want, but be there at the right time.

Good luck,

Akali

PS. I borrowed some of your clothes… damn, they are a pretty tight fit, but I like them. It is still better to look like a slut than to walk around the streets naked.`

It took no time for her face to become red as soon as she read the additional note. Nearly instantly, the woman closed the distance to her wardrobe. She needed to know what the assassin took from there. "Maybe… it isn't the best idea, Irelia," her subconsciousness told her.

Soon enough she regrated not listening to her own mind. It appeared that the huntress was not the pickiest person in the entirety of the galaxy. Akali just took everything she needed from the very top of her wardrobe, which meant… clothes to spice up the date.

If the officer was red before… than it would be difficult to describe the colour of her face at that very moment. Her mind just ran off. She started to create imaginary scenes with the said huntress in a prime role. She would have to admit… she liked what her mind came up with, but it was embarrassing as well.

"Fuck!" Irelia cursed loudly. "Why the fuck have I read it?" the soldier asked herself rhetorically.

"I should have listened to my very mind," she sighed when as expected, the answer did not come. "Damn… damn you Akali… for being such a sexy woman," Irelia added after a moment later.

Out of a sudden, a minor detail caught her attention. There was something more written on the note you was holding. The text was specially written in a smaller font than the rest of the file. To make it more challenging to find, it was located in the very corner of the paper, precisely under her thumb. As soon as she noticed it, she tried to read one sentence.

It took her a couple of moments to recognise the letters. When she was finally able to understand the meaning of written words, she blushed even harder, if it was still possible.

` . Do not do anything naughty... I know all too well that you will try to imagine me in those clothes.`

"Damn you, Akali!" Irelia screamed on top of her lungs when the first wave of shook vanished.

Akali's POV (A couple of hours later):

"I must admit, they did a pretty decent job coding that," the white-haired huntress hummed to herself while the last security layer was being breached.

The said woman spent at least 3 - 4 hours sitting on the very top of the council's headquarters to make a breach in the security system. The laptop she had; quite frankly; stolen from one of many IT stores could be described as decent. Still, it would not be enough to perform the required number of operations. She needed to bypass the limitation of the empire's electronics. The assassin managed to do so by attaching a part of her suit to the laptop.

To tell the truth, it would take ages to explain how that self-created system operated. So… instead of it, let's just say that all of the extensive mathematical operations were being executed on the external CPU that was attached to the laptop.

Even though the technology of her people was more advanced than the empire's tech, it was not exactly an easy task to create a breach on all 12 layers of the security system. To slow the process even further, the alert could not be triggered by any part of the system. If it was to happen, the entirety of the access tunnel would be shut down in an instant.

The white-haired woman was slowly losing her patience. Even for her, hours spent in front of the nearly endless blocks of data were exhausting. From time to time, the huntress allowed herself to curse. Slowly she was becoming furious.

After what felt like an eternity, the access codes that she wanted, were obtained. With a heavy sigh, the assassin rose up, deleting any signs of what she was doing on the computer before throwing it off of the building's edge.

"Let's proceed to the second phase," Akali whispered to herself.

Akali's POV (An hour later):

"Damn it," the white-haired huntress cursed silently. "I have just borrowed those clothes… fucking vents," she nagged.

"Oh… and here is my next prey," Akali whispered when a short, decently muscular man appeared in her sight.

The assassin allowed the security guard to make exactly 10 more steps before she jumped at him. To say that the man was surprised would be a laughable understatement. In a matter of fractions of a second, he got knocked off. They were off of cameras, all of them had a deadlock at the areas the man was attacked. It was effortless for the woman to pull the stunned guard into the vents. As soon as she managed to do so, she reached for the short blade that was hanging beside her belt.

Akali drew the steel while leaning it. It would be just one quick slash and then a lot of blood, nothing more. When the blade was put onto the man's throat, something unexcepted happened.

The huntress was not able to press the knife forward, she was physically unable to slit through the soft tissue, skin and fat.

For the very first time since… since ever, the white-haired woman hesitated before killing a prey. Some soft voice that she was sure she knew or at least heard before tried to avert the assassin from killing the man.

If anyone could see her at that very moment, that person would probably describe her as a complete frozen. She could not move a single muscle, she could not finish the job. It was pathetic.

Akali would not be able to say how much that state was maintained, but… because of it, the job was fucked up.

The crimson-red-eyed huntress was brought back to reality when the loud, horrific scream reached her ears. For the trained assassin all, it took to locate the source was one single glance of her clod eyes.

It appeared that the member of security guard woke up. With a curse on her lips, she slit his throat as soon as she regained control over her own body.

In the very end, the man met the same fate. His bleeding body was left in the vents, but the environment around the kill changed drastically. Even though the cameras could not have registered the kill, the scream was captured. Just like in an action movie, the corridor below the woman was filled with red lights emanating from the alerts.

"Fuck!" the assassin cursed. "I have fucked up," she added while running through the nearly endless passage.

Akali had a minimal amount of time currently. If she did not manage to reach the armoury, the system would likely shut it down in a few minutes. She did not care anymore if someone saw her, there was no time for that.

The white-haired woman had to run full steam ahead, but to be perfectly frank, she could not.

The security team needed less than 2 minutes to locate her and sent additional soldiers after her. Soon enough, Akali's path was blocked by two massive men armed with electric swords. Based on their appearance, the huntress could say that they participated in quite a few fights before. Still, their experience would not be enough to take her down. Oh… who was she kidding, they would not be enough to slow her down for more than a couple of moments.

Some would say that being overconfident is the very first step of a downfall, but Akali was an exception to that rule. She was so confident because she was thrown into the most dangerous places across the galaxy and survived.

Without slowing down, the assassin attacked. Her speed was unmatched, for most of the people, all it took was a single precise blow. The current situation was not so different from that. The first guard was cut in half before he could even block the blade of the woman. The unpleasant sound of meat being chopped off of the body filled the room in no time. The man's blood was spilt all over the corridor.

The huntress did not stop. As soon as her blade left the body of the first guard, she rushed toward the second one.

This time, the soldier managed to block off her first attack. He smiled with superiority, he thought that all she got was just speed — a grave mistake. Akali punished him nearly instantly. With only a fraction of her strength, the white-haired woman pushed at him. Inch by inch, the man was forced to give the ground to the assassin. Soon enough, his back hit the wall. For a moment shorter than a blink of an eye, the soldier hesitated. It was his last mistake. Before he could regain his composure, he was dead. The huntress twisted his armed hand, then cut it off without breaking the eye contact. The piercing cry of pain ripped out of the man's throat. He closed his eyes, he tried to run away, it was just a futile effort. The white-haired huntress chopped off his remaining arm and both legs before beheading him. Then, as a sign of despise, she kicked still bleeding abrasive a couple of time.

"It was stupid," she complained to herself. "You have just wasted a lot of time," Akali continued while running full speed ahead.

Akali's POV (A couple of minutes later):

The assassin was not able to tell for how long the security team allowed her to run freely. But… to be perfectly honest, it would not be an extended period. For her… it seemed as if at every corner, the new enemies were awaiting her. She needed to admit it… with every single fight, she was becoming more and more exhausted, her strength was failing her.

"Akali… just a couple of more minutes," she groaned through the shallow breaths.

With what was left of her energy, she kept running forward as if her life depended on it. To some extent, it was the truth.

Akali's POV (A couple of minutes later):

The armoury floor was a mess. The white-haired woman was not sure whether the word 'mess' was sufficient to describe what she was currently seeing. Every inch of the floor, walls, or even celling was covered in blood and guts.

The guards decided to defend the armoury with a team consisted of 10 men. All of them were armed with rifles and melee weapons. All of them with hell lot of experience with killing. But… in the end, they failed. One by one, the huntress killed all of them. Akali must gave them that… it was not an easy fight, hell no. If she was still human, she would die there, there would not be any chances for her to make it out alive.

With her cold eyes, the assassin was watching the scene of the massacre. She was not proud of what she had done, in fact, she did not feel anything, not a single emotion.

Nearly all of the guards were cut into little pieces. So it was a pretty common sight to spot the head or other limb laying dozens of meters away from the rest of massacred body.

She had only two tasks left. First of all, Irelia's equipment must be obtained, then she would have to get out of this freaking fortress.

Akali heard the footsteps behind her. In an instant, her entire frame tensed once again. With little to none effort, she pulled out the dagger from the packet and threw it in the direction of the sound. It reached its target. The sound of a steel piercing through the flesh reached her ears. She missed the spot, though. Instead of agonal groan, the screams of pain and a few curses soon filled the room.

The white-haired huntress drew the blade and charged at her opponent. This time, it was a young blond woman in medium armour and armed with a combat rifle. Akali could clearly see the fear that was lingering in the green eyes of the lone survivor.

The soldier opened the fire. A bullet after a bullet was being dodged by the exhausted assassin. The truth was that the huntress needed to focus on every single projectile in order to avoid it, something that usually would not be the case.

Closing the gap between them took the white-haired woman maybe 2 seconds, 1 second given or taken. With no emotions shown of her face, she cut off the arm of the soldier. The green-eyed woman was trying to crawl her way out of the room, but Akali grabbed her by hair threw into the nearest wall. For the guar maybe it seemed effortless, but for the assassin… she was on her drop of fuel. The blond slipped down the wall, hitting the floor a second later.

The soldier was weeping, whining openly. She must have been in a lot of pain, but Akali did not care. With the blade still drawn, the white-haired huntress came to the wounded guard. She wanted nothing more than to kill her already, grab required equipment, and leave that place. But… as soon as she rose the sword, she froze again.

It was like Deja Vue. Akali could not move a single muscle, she could not kill the woman in front of her. She was powerless.

The calm voice was ringing inside of her mind. As if it was recorded, it was repeating time after time the same sentence.

"You can't kill her. You're still partially human, you still have emotions, don't try to kill them. You don't need to kill her, spare her life, she isn't able to cause you any harm."

The sound of that monotonous voice was driving the assassin insane. She wanted back control over her body. And she wanted it back now.

As through the closed door, Akali heard the shoots. In the very next moment, she felt the familiar metallic aftertaste inside her mouth. She immediately felt weak, and it was getting worse and worse with every passing second.

As through the mist, she saw the wounded soldier trying to fire again, but the mag was empty. Without ejections, without anger, without emotions, without hesitation, she killed the blond with a single slash of the sword.

Akali fell onto her knees. She started to cough with blood. She felt dizzy, her sight was a bit fuzzy. With all remaining energy, the white-haired huntress forced herself to stand up, to spit with the blood that was inside of her mouth, and get back to the last tasks.

Akali's POV (An hour later):

When Akali entered the apartment of the officer, she was at a brink of crumbling. She needed to regain at least some of her strength before going back to the slums. With some effort, she somehow managed to slip through the security in the building in her current state. The assassin was beyond exhausted.

"Akali?" the soft voice of Irelia called her.

"No way… it can not be!" Akali screamed in her mind.

"What's going on?" the officer asked.

"I… I… I…," the huntress started to stutter.

"What the hell happened to you?!" the pink-haired soldier screamed.

"I… I got your stuff back…" the assassin managed to mumbled before collapsing onto the floor.

"Akali, Akali, Akali!" Irelia started to shout while trying to pick up the white-haired woman from the ground.

"It was her," the lone whispered sentence filled the room.