"Naruto has somehow convinced me that you are more useful to us alive and talking, though if it weren't for the fact that he holds significant sway within my team with his recent actions and they agreed with him, I would currently be examining your corpses in C-Sec's morgue." Kasumi knew she should have listened to her instincts when she had first heard about the job from Miranda, Jane Shepard now sat across from the pair of them and delivering her view on their actions in the cold detached manner that made it clear that they were both living on borrowed time.
"Not that I am complaining about the whole not killing us thing, thank you for that, but there is no reason we cannot be civil about this. Wine?" Kasumi was weighing up whether or not throwing Miranda under the bus here would help her position or not, the Cerberus woman remarkably composed as she poured herself a glass of the red wine the subject of their espionage had brought them.
"I don't think you are taking this seriously enough, though perhaps you don't understand how serious your situation is..." Commander Shepard, who Kasumi was planning on referring to as politely as possible going forward, was interrupted by the arrival of this Naruto with two bowls of what looked to be some kind of ramen dish.
"She is taking this very seriously Shepard-taichou, you should have seen how her body language changed when I pointed you out, this is obviously her attempt to remain in control of the situation. Besides, I thought we agreed we would only kill one of them as a statement? So why not work on the one who is clearly in the dark about how much trouble their thieving has landed them in." The warm smile on the boy's face was a front, that was all Kasumi could think as Shepard's eyes shot across to her own with an intensity that made her flinch slightly.
"And here I thought you would be the good cop Mr Uzumaki, apologies but with the Alliance records about your military rank being so clearly forged I don't know what rank I should be referring to you as, though the alterations we have made have put into the system put you at the rank of Lieutenant." Miranda's comment made Kasumi throw a mild betrayed glance in her employer's direction, Miranda had mentioned nothing about Naruto's false records in her briefing, it was only something Kasumi had dug up on her own during her preparations.
"Given he is the only one keeping you alive at this point I would definitely say that puts him in the good cop part of this interrogation, though with how you have obviously been digging into his secrets..." Commander Shepard paused as Naruto gave Miranda a thoughtful frown.
"You are the one that has been shoring up my history, Wrex mentioned that someone had been changing things other than him." Naruto held up his hand as Miranda smiled in her usual confident manner, his smile changing to a very serious expression, his gesture stopping her before she could interrupt him.
"If you think that such information helps your case here it doesn't, the fact you were making such modifications means that you know exactly what you were getting your friend here to steal from us, and that means that you are a very clear security risk that needs dealing with." For the first time in the 'conversation' Kasumi saw Miranda lose control for a moment, a slight widening of her eyes at Naruto's blunt dismissal of her 'help' a reaction that would have given Kasumi a giggling fit less than an hour ago, but now all it meant was that the pit forming in her stomach grew that much bigger.
It was clear to Kasumi that she had a choice, though as Shepard's face morphed into a vicious smirk she was uncertain about what the results of her choice would lead to. Whilst giving herself up at this stage to the Spectre's tender mercies might save her from being killed now, on the other hand being handed over to Alliance would merely move her death sentence back by days or weeks at best, her legend was too well known in the underworld for her former targets not to take a chance when it presented itself.
At the same time, Miranda was very clearly losing this argument/interrogation, and the fact she hadn't revealed her Cerberus background yet made it clear that she thought it would make things worse, not better in this situation. There was no way...
"And what would you say if I said that this entire exercise had been planned in order to highlight to you the gaps in your security systems?" The question was a little too haughty, even by Miranda's standards, which was why Kasumi wasn't surprised when Commander Shepard dismissed Miranda's attempt to legitimise their venture with a wave of her hand.
"If there were holes in the Normandy's security systems, then we wouldn't be having this conversation..." Kasumi though was focussed on Naruto's expression, the young man seemingly appraising Miranda for a few seconds before leaning across and whispering something into Shepard's ear, which caused her to scowl before she glanced across at him questioningly.
"Let's be honest Shepard-taichou, if it weren't for MY security systems on the ship, we wouldn't be having this conversation and they would be in the wind regardless of their end intentions. We can't trust that I have found every flaw in the systems aboard the ship, and given the information that pretty-chan has implied she is aware of we can't just get rid of her, I would bet that she isn't the only one with that information." Miranda flushed angrily at the nickname Naruto gave her and Kasumi logged it mentally if she managed to get out of this situation, it seemed the young man in front of her was very skilled at picking away at people's weak points even if he had only met the pair of them for 20 or so minutes.
Then her mind caught up with the rest of what he had said and she started to panic, given his earlier words about making an example out of one of them, then if Miranda was indispensable due to her knowledge and connections...
"Anything to add hood-chan? Even with the outfit your emotions are remarkably easy to read..." Kasumi's eyes widened as Naruto's smiling face turned to hers, the expression similar to the phrase she had heard in her childhood of 'the cat and the cream' as he identified her emotional weakness with terrifying ease.
She wasn't proud to admit that one of the reasons she had developed her flirty and upfront manner to disguise the secret that he had so casually revealed, as well as the hood that she used to hide her upper face everywhere but in her most secure hideaways. Even Keiji had taken over a year of working with her to earn her trust enough for her to remove the hood in front of him, though thankfully he had talked her into removing the face mask she had originally worn before she had started working with him.
"I'm very good at what I do, be it hacking, infiltrating an area or retrieving certain items Naruto-sama, and did I mention that I am on the market for jobs? My rate is extremely reasonable, I don't mind working long hours and that red and yellow are my favourite colours?" Probably a little too deferential for the situation, but as long as it got her out of being killed or handed over to the Council she wasn't that prideful.
Naruto cast a long look at Commander Shepard's hair when the Spectre looked slightly confused about her comments on colours, the man openly chuckling when it seemed to finally twig what Kasumi had been referencing in Commander Shepard's head, the Spectre surprisingly glaring at Naruto instead of her.
"She has your terrible sense of humour, adds those little bits onto the ends of people's names and has now got the same history of making my security teams look bad. Are you sure that you aren't 'related'?" There was an extra inflection upon the final word wasn't something that Kasumi understood the importance of, but it seemed to be understood by the other three sat at the table, Naruto laughing once more but this time with a serious look in his eyes.
"Not one of mine, though if she is offering to work for us then I wouldn't mind taking her up on the offer, assuming of course that she plans on giving us back the files she 'retrieved'. I can't be everywhere at once after all and she certainly has enough skills to keep away from the usual shadows." The last sentence surprisingly brought a small smile to Miranda's face, something she flattened into her usual neutral expression the moment she realised it was there, but it seemed to be what Naruto was waiting on as he gestured to her victoriously.
"So you do know... but Hood-chan doesn't, how very callous of you Pretty-chan. Shepard-taichou, Pretty-chan seems to be the only one we need to worry about, though I think we can make use of Hood-chan's offer in tracking down a few things with Saren. Neither of them seem to have lied, but if we get them back to the ship then Ino-chan will be able to confirm that, and if there is anything else they are hiding from us." It wasn't an offer, but it was better than being handed over to C-Sec or 'dealt with' in a more abrupt manner, and given the fact that Miranda had all of her Cerberus secrets to hide then hopefully the focus would be on her instead of herself...
!"£$%^&*()+_
"It seems Pretty-chan wasn't by herself after all, either that or we aren't the only one interested in what she managed to get from the ship." The comment from Naruto made Jane groan internally, even as her 6th sense went from a mild discomforting sensation to screaming at her, Naruto stepping in front of their group as a dozen armed and fully armoured human men and women subtly blocked the passage they were using to return to the main area of the Presidium.
"Similar number behind us, and the area means there are probably some providing overwatch from above as well." Garrus' comment meant that this ambush had been thought out particularly well, and Jane was frustrated enough with how the day was going that she was tempted to go straight to the violent solution to let off some steam, even if they were outnumbered and out positioned.
"Commander Shepard, apologies for the delay in your no doubt important journey, but our boss just wishes for a moment of your time..." The voice came from the one nearest to them, dressed in blood red armour and with a sword of all things strapped to his back.
He spoke with the sort of modulated tone that gave away nothing regarding his emotions, though he held himself in a haughty manner that made her anger flare.
"And why shouldn't I just cut you down where you stand? I assume she is one of yours?" Jane gestured over her shoulder to where she had left Wrex looking after the woman that Naruto had taken to calling 'pretty-chan'.
"Because Spectre, this is a meeting that you have wanted for years, even if your version would have me here in person rather than as a holo-projection..." The appearance of a projection had Naruto raise his weapons before Jane stepped up and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
The hand was there as much to prevent her own emotions boiling over as it was anything else, as there was only one human with this kind of power and ability that she wanted to meet, and by 'meet' she meant 'put into the ground with her own hands'.
"Cerberus..." It was lucky that Naruto had unintentionally been forcing her to contain her instinctive reactions with his secrets and antics, otherwise she would have started the fight right there regardless of the odds instead of growling out the word as if it were granite in her mouth.
"I have followed your rise closely Commander, your successes even before Eden Prime were most impressive, though it is what you discovered there that has lead to this encounter as I know you take a dim view of my organisation..." Memories of her old N7 barracks, with bodies of her teammates where they were cut down in the carnage following the attempted arrest of the traitor came to her as clearly as they did in her nightmares.
"Ano, I have no idea who you are Ji-san, but I can tell you that Jane-taichou is about three seconds from trying to blow your head off. Perhaps you should tell us what you are offering in this exchange before she really loses her temper and gets everyone here killed." Naruto was still wary of her after her earlier... Remonstration of his actions of the Citadel, but he was also somehow being the mature one despite her being almost a decade older than him, which worked remarkably well at cooling her temper.
"You have quite the way of breaking the tension Mr Uzumaki, though having seen you go to town on those idiots on the Council I am not overly surprised. The reason that I have not moved onto my offer yet, is because Commander Shepard will not accept the deal as things stand due to past interactions she has had with our organisation, so we must discuss that before we can hope to make any further headway." The calm manner in which the Illusive man was giving her the opportunity to let loose emotions she had long since buried merely made the situation all the more infuriating, but at the same time it helped her remain somewhat focussed as she spoke about something she had kept buried for a long time.
"And you expect us to have a quick conversation about how one of you Cerberus bastards slaughtered my unit and that will make everything okay again? You think that having a literal gun to my head and threatening my team is somehow going to make me forgive what you bastards have done to me?" Now that she was stood here, her self styled nemesis 'stood' before her, Jane couldn't help but feel a little cheated at his solemn expression even as his minions flinched at her outburst.
"And yet, despite the fact that Agent Pembrook was a member of that particular N7 group for almost 5 years, there was no evidence that he had done or acted in any way that would have hindered the Alliance or put you or your team in danger. Does it not strike you as odd that despite the fact that there was no evidence even after the... regrettable incident where the Alliance tried to capture him, the Council knew exactly who the traitor in your group was and made the Alliance act so hurriedly in their attempt to subdue him?" If it weren't for having dealt with the Council and Naruto's insinuations about them supporting Saren's attempts to destabilise the Alliance, Jane wouldn't even have given it a second thought before dismissing the Illusive man's obvious attempt to make her second guess what had gone on in her past.
But now, forcing herself to relive memories she had tried so hard to bury, she could already see what the Illusive man was driving at, Pembrook taking her under his wing despite his gruff and uncompromising exterior, pushing her to improve her skills further when the other members of Alliance command would have had her doing publicity stunts and 'networking.'
"It doesn't matter what he was there to do or not do, he still killed two of my team and left two others crippled along with a dozen marines and MPs. Or does that not matter to you as you move your minions around like chess pieces, awaiting the day where you discard them and those they slaughter in your name for 'the greater good'?" That provoked a reaction, not just from the Illusive man but the other members of Cerberus as they raised their weapons angrily, the sword armed man drawing his blade as Naruto summoned his spear defensively.
"Jane-Taichou, as much as I want to teach the Samurai-wannabe a few things, can you and the nice Ji-san calm down a bit? Given that everyone bar hood-chan is already in the know, I wouldn't have to hold back for once, but that will get messy and I can't promise there won't be casualties." It was a threat to the Illusive man, a plea for her to calm down, and a way of winding up whoever the head operative was with the sword.
"I assume you already have your clones en-route to counter-ambush us? Or are you implying there are other powers that you have that I am unaware of?" The Illusive man broke off from his thoughtful frown to look inquisitively in Naruto's direction, shaking his head and turning back to Jane a moment later.
"I will admit that I don't want to find out given what I have seen and heard of what you can do to the Geth Mr Uzumaki, but you are right and I will skip straight to the meat of this little impasse, lest our tempers fray any further. I have information to trade for my agent's release, information both on Saren's activities and pertinent personal information that some members of your crew will find interesting. As a sign of goodwill, as well as to show the general level of information I am talking about, I am forwarding one of these personal pieces of information to you now."
The urge to say no was eating at her even as her omni-tool lit up a moment later to show a new message with a dozen documents attached to it. She had barely read the first couple of lines before her eyes shot up to glare at the Illusive man with every ounce of hate she could muster.
"If this is a trick..." But even if was she couldn't take the chance, the anger in her stomach freezing over into cold, hard hatred even as the Illusive man shook his head.
"Only confirmed a week ago and I managed to stifle the information for now, the ward address is listed as well as the affiliations of those she was rescued from. Even if you hadn't been... Amicable at this meeting, I would have ensured that Mr Uzumaki's network 'found' that information before the end of the day." Given the fact that Naruto hadn't spoken up since his intervention to prevent a brawl breaking out, Jane assumed that either he couldn't tell or that he thought the Illusive man was being honest.
Either way, it was a deal with the devil. Either she refused good information for the sake of her personal grudges, and potentially get some of her team wounded or killed as well as making another powerful enemy to strike at her from the shadows, or she released what could be their biggest information opportunity on Cerberus in years and leave herself open to blackmail if the Illusive man threatened to let people know of the incident.
"I notice you are only bargaining for Pretty-chan, that's a little cold of you given Hood-chan has been quite the good contractor for you Ji-san. Either that or you allowing us to utilise her skills without trying to attach any strings from your end..." It was probably the most uncertain Naruto had ever sounded when spelling out his opponents attempted machinations, something that was the equivalent of the young ninja tipping his hat to the Illusive man's negotiating skills.
"Make of it what you will Mr Uzumaki, I wouldn't want to give things away to a future sparring partner after all, and you still have a lot to learn about the... more delicate matters of diplomacy." The unspoken invitation that the Illusive man would be contacting them in the future was enough to make up Jane's mind, the man was known to be one of the most powerful men in the galaxy after all.
If preventing Saren from wiping out humanity meant strangling her sense of outrage that came with her logical approach, then so be it...
!"£$%^&*()_+
They had made it to the Cerberus transport on the other side of the Citadel, a non-descript transport hauler that was perfect for the purposes of allowing people to move from one place to another, before Miranda finally built up the courage to speak her mind to him through the communicator 2 of his operatives were still transporting.
"You knew that they would catch me." The statement held the kind of furious undertone that the Illusive man had only heard Miranda use when referring to her father before now, so whilst he could have tried to be vague and deflecting about the incident that he had just managed to prevent from escalating, instead he decided to take what he was going to start terming 'The Uzumaki approach'.
"Uzumaki was an unknown with powers that he has probably not even started to reveal the extent of, even to his own team, so I prepared for the possibility that your overconfidence would lead to this situation. Would you have prefered it if I had left you to Commander Shepard's mercy when Goto invariably revealed your membership to Cerberus?" Miranda's glare lessened slightly at his rather obvious verbal slap on the wrist, her face showing that she was imagining what the rather hot-headed Spectre would have done to her in that circumstance.
"We will de-brief you properly when we return to base Theta-3, but despite your failure with the original mission objectives I am pleased with how things turned out." There had always been the risk that Shepard wasn't prepared to listen to him, in fact it was mostly due to Uzumaki's influence that she hadn't instigated that bloodbath, but with the data he had passed over to them and the releasing of Ms Goto into their service there was now something he hadn't considered when arranging the stand off.
"Do you think Commander Shepard will be prepared to accommodate future agreements between us Mr Uzumaki? Or do you think I need to show some more good will before she accepts that I am on her side?" His statement, seemingly to the room at large, had all of his operatives reaching for their weapons defensively before his waved hand made them go back to what they were doing before.
"I would ask how you knew I was here, but given how much you seem to know about me means that everything Udina and the Alliance know probably ends up getting to your ears shortly afterwards." He could tell that the Uzumaki's appearance startled more than one member of his team, the young ninja dropping down from the roof of his ship to stand in front of his projection with no sign of concern at the weapons being pointed at him.
"But back to your question Ji-san, the boss will make damn sure that she never falls for the trap of you being on 'our side'. No offence Ji-San, but I don't think even you know what side you and this Cerberus organisation are on..." The blunt points made the young man in front of him seem less politically adept than he actually was, which when combined with his rather rash and boisterous personality made him quite the interesting sparring partner, even if some of Naruto's lack of knowledge was clearly real rather than faked as he liked to pretend.
"Interesting, I don't think I have had someone accuse us of being Bismarckian before... It means constantly shifting and changing your allegiances in order to gain the best possible outcome..." The slight confusion had been barely noticeable in Naruto's face, but even if he was somewhat skilled at detecting falsehoods the Illusive man was decades ahead of him in terms of reading people still.
"Huh, not quite what I meant Ji-san but close enough. Still, given the ship's about to take off I need to get going, as much fun as you and Pretty-chan would be Shepard-taichou is pissed enough with me as it is." Kai looked like he wanted to stop Naruto, but with a mere shake of the head the Illusive man dismissed that possibility from the man's mind, one of the characteristics that made him such a good operative in the field.
"Before you do Uzumaki-san, I hope you will take this communicator back with you..." It was a little spontaneous as decisions he made went, but something about Naruto's words had lit something of a fire inside of him.
For all that people decried him and his organisation as terrorists and warmongers, no-one had ever accused them of lacking direction and reliability so succinctly before now, and even his own example of surmising the young man's accusation had made him consider the 20th century politician that he had referenced. Bismarck had been a great politician in leading , and an even better diplomat given how successfully he switched from one alliance to another at the drop of a hat, but eventually he had run into the brick wall that came with alienating so many potential allies for short term gains and was one of the contributory causes for the 2 greatest wars in Earth's history.
Judging by the calculating look on not only Naruto's face but Miranda's as well he suddenly felt a lot better about his sudden decision. If he played this right not only could he gain an inside path into contacting both Naruto and Commander Shepard once more, but he could make it seem like that had been his plan all along...
A/N: We will leave it there for this chapter I think, primarily because this has been a giant pain in the ass to write. It's one of those moments in writing, where you have started to put more and more of your own elements into a fanfiction, only to hit a story-breaking snag as one of them massively affects another in a way you didn't anticipate.
Ino's inclusion was intended originally to help with the deciphering of the Prothean warning, even her limited mind walking abilities would far outstrip the Asari method in terms of usefulness in this case. Likewise, Cerberus' earlier inclusion was both to showcase how embedded they are in the Alliance circles of power but also to provide an in for Kasumi to get involved with Naruto earlier (NOT that way... maybe... :P).
However, if Miranda had made it back to the Normandy, then all of a sudden our intrepid heroes not only make a probably permanent enemy in Miranda for 'pillaging' her mind (As much as I like her when she lightens up a bit, vindictive is probably one of the top three words I have for her), but also destabilise Cerberus and potentially cause something of a 'secret' Alliance civil war at exactly the wrong time.
So, if the Illusive man's 'rescue' seems a bit Deus Ex, then I apologise. It was always intended to happen, both to show that he is a level above even Miranda and Jane in terms of strategically thinking ahead, as well as to provide a bit more character development for my Jane.
Meh, I don't think people will mind too much, as otherwise my story was dead in the water.
Did people like what I did at the end there? I don't want this to be a 'Cerberus are a-okay' all of a sudden, and I think this particular angle is one I haven't seen taken before.
Anyway, long A/N over with, hope you guys enjoy!
Defias