"Thinking"
"Talking"
"Impactful word"
Location: Exodus Cluster - Asgard System - Asteroid X57 – M35 Mako
Since that little, minor 'disagreement', as Akane called it, with Commander Shepard, neither had spoken much to the other, reaching a silent agreement that it would be tackled after the mission.
Akane wondered if she should apologize, but thought different of it when she saw that Shepard wasn't being angry with her. Although, she was really intrigued as to the reason Shepard reacted the way she did back then. She thought that Alliance soldiers followed similar rules as shinobi did where emotions are considered unnecessary things.
Judging by her experience with Alliance soldiers up until now, she had been in the wrong. Neither Chief Williams nor even the Commander had shown to have full control over their emotions at certain times during a mission. Like Williams had lashed out on Powell at Eden Prime or Shepard letting her guard down in front of the same person who nearly killed her (though out of accident).
Well even if their expertise in modern warfare was admirable, they weren't exactly ninja material, not like Akane had expected them to be anyways.
She really needed to get it into her head that this wasn't her world anymore, and that everything had changed. Or she would risk following the old ways for the rest of her life.
Improvise. Adapt. Overcome.
No matter how short it may be or how hard it was to become. Giving it some thought, she should better start now because the mission wasn't going to get any easier at this point.
They had managed to get rid of the second fusion torch exactly like the first one. Well not exactly because in addition to the usual turrets they had to engage combat with, there were batarians waiting patiently outside of the facility all thanks to these damned blasting caps Simon had warned them about.
The lack of cover didn't make it an easy fight, for Akane at least, yet nothing her Shunshin no Jutsu couldn't handle. As expected, their actions weren't left unnoticed. During another transmission, the batarians had found Kate and by the sound of a gunshot, killed her. She hadn't sold them out even with her life threatened. A noble sacrifice Akane wouldn't have guessed from a civilian. Now it was up to them to make the sacrifice worth it.
They were nearing the third and last fusion torch. Having already encountered the same defence system on the second fusion torch, they destroyed it within minutes though they had to make a quick repairing of the Mako because, while the Commander managed to avoid most of the turret shots, there were some that had hit their mark.
Fortunately, there were no blasting caps present to ruin the day (or Akane's mood), though the lack of outside resistance was compensated by the batarians with at least a dozen hungry varrens waiting on them on the inside of the infrastructure.
A good thing that the war beasts weren't the smartest sort of animal so the overall problem with them was minimal. The batarians had occupied better positions which resulted in Shepard's fraction splitting up to scatter their attention all around the place. It was a tough fight, especially when they had to wait for their weapons to cool down from all the shooting or worse... when their shields were breached.
Akane supported them as best as she could but it was even hard for her to move without getting caught in the wild crossfire. She didn't have the luxury of having shields to protect her from the bullets, though that, by all means, was her fault for her negligence of proper armour. The battle was over when nothing else than Shepard's party stirred within the structure.
They took a short pause to quickly fix some injuries they had obtained during battle. It was nothing too serious, nothing that couldn't be fixed with medi-gel before they set out to disable the last fusion torch.
However, upon leaving, the party was faced with a much unexpected sight. A group of batarians was waiting for them as soon as they descended the upper level of the building, their aim set on them yet not shooting.
"Hold it right there. This doesn't have to end in bloodshed." One of the batarians, the leader Akane assumed, yelled at them.
The Commander stopped for a second, unsure of how to respond. Akane didn't trust this but thought twice about taking action. She had to remind herself that she was now under command, not at it; quite the hard thing to do for someone who had spent the last two years on her own. Or had been prone to be in charge even before that.
The Commander's face held a wary look, but she lowered her weapon, gesturing for the other's to do as well. The young Uchiha reluctantly lowered her swords as they cautiously closed the distance between them and the batarians.
"Don't come any closer." The one in the middle, in a worn-out crimson red armour, spoke up to them. His deep guttural voice lacked the usual repugnance his species used to talk to other occupants of the galaxy and he didn't bare his needle-like teeth as an act of aggressiveness.
"We can do this the hard way... or we can end this peacefully." Akane wasn't sure if that was meant to be an offer or a warning, but she was more than suspicious of the batarian's intention.
"I didn't think you batarians knew the meaning of the word." The Commander held her stern façade, her greenish eyes fixed on the batarians with such a piercing glare that any normal person, human or not, would squirm under.
"Look, I'm just doing my job here. Hijacking this rock wasn't my idea," he clarified. As though saying out loud was making the situation any better for them.
"I signed on to make a little profit. A quick slave grab. Nothing more." Wrex snorted as if he was expecting it while Garrus simply shook his head in disapproval.
Akane pushed down the urge to comment. Slavery was something Akane was glad to have not witnessed from up close. The Reapers didn't hold civilization as slaves. That option might have been a kinder fate than what they truly had in store for their victims.
"This isn't just a slave grab anymore. Millions of people are going to die." The Commander replied accusingly.
"Don't you think I know that," he raised his voice a little until he thought better of it and calmed himself, "I'm just following orders here. If it were up to me, we'd have already left."
"Well, it's not too late. You can still leave." Shepard offered them something Akane hadn't expected her to - a way out. If out of self-interest or mercy, Akane didn't know, though she guessed the latter (if the information she had read about the Commander were to be trusted).
If Akane were in charge, he would be dead on spot. Not because they were slavers, not even because of how they had brutally slain the human engineers, but because he posed a threat and Akane wasn't someone to rely on trust or luck; much less of a criminal.
"I don't think so. Balak would skin me alive and sell my hide out of spite. Crazy bastard. This whole mission's gone to hell and I'm gonna pay for it." The batarian responded with no small amount of fear and respect for his first-in-command. It was enough for Akane to know of the person they would have to deal with.
"So why do you listen to him?" Shepard simply inquired. Akane now understood why Jane hadn't met the batarian with hostility. She wanted to persuade them not to begin a fight they would inevitably lose. They wouldn't have been nearly as lucky with Akane as Buntaichō.
"Good question. I had a bad feeling about this from the moment we landed. Now Balak wants you dead. And what Balak wants, Balak gets. I can't change that," he said a bit hopeless, but the Commander pressed further.
"Do you always want to be second-in-command? Get me out of here and I'll take care of Balak. Then you can start giving the orders." Akane ought to be wary of the Commander's persuasive charm in the future.
"An, uh, interesting proposal." The batarian seemed to regard the notion, "It certainly has benefits over the current situation."
With 'benefits', Akane knew he actually meant that Shepard's group would take care of his problem - this Balak guy. After short consideration, the batarian relented and ordered his men to prepare for a retreat with Shepard successfully convincing them to leave the asteroid peacefully, ending the negotiations in favour of both parties. Akane was genuinely impressed by the Commander.
"It seems that she is as deadly with her words as she is with her gun on the battlefield," Akane noted with no small amount of wonder.
She wasn't someone to be impressed with easily, yet the Commander did it effortlessly. It further assured Akane that she had made the right decision to follow Shepard on her endeavour.
"I hope you're as quick with a gun as you are with your promises. For both our sakes."
Shepard smirked at the worried batarian that bordered on cockiness. "Balak will get what's coming to him. And so will you if I ever catch you in human territory again. Are we clear?" She set a menacing gaze on the group, shooting off one last final warning for them.
"Perfectly." He nodded. "Balak's holed up in the main facility. You'll need this to get in."
With that, he provided Shepard with a pass to the main facility and took off with his followers.
They made their way out of the structure and straight to the Mako; their objective clear with the 'final boss' waiting for them. To make it sound more dramatic.
The Normandy's VI informed them that they had two out of four hours left to save the colony when they arrived and the main facility or more precisely, underground facility. Upon entering, it brought on some memories to Akane's mind she would rather not think of at the moment.
(Flashback)
Location: SSA Main Facility
Time: First day of the Reaper Invasion
Akane's feet were fuelled by sadness and rage as she ran as fast as her feet could carry her. Clutching the hand of the weeping Shirone in her left and dragging their traumatised father in her right through the apocalyptic Konoha. The wounds of her mother's death lasted heavily on their hearts, but she somehow kept it all together as they made their way towards the entrance to the underground facility. They were most likely the last to make it because Akane hadn't passed anyone during their long run to safety.
By the looks of it, two guards were keeping watch at the hidden entrance to some sort of underground tunnel. Akane didn't pay them much attention while she was getting past the gate. Her body gave out almost immediately, loosening her grip entirely as she couldn't hear anything besides the frantic beating of her heart. She had never run so much in her life, so she wasn't surprised when her legs felt sore or her lungs burnt.
Shirone recovered in no time, being the sporty type in the family while Akane was still a panting mess.
"Akane..."
She almost teared up at the broken sound of Shirone's voice. Ignoring the disapproving pain in her muscles, Akane stood up and embraced her twin in a strong embrace.
"I know," Akane cast her gaze on the ground. She couldn't bring herself to look her own twin in the eyes! So much guilt weighed on her mind that she couldn't voice more than two words out of her dry mouth.
Her thoughts sounded clear in her mind. If she had been one step faster, maybe her mother wouldn't have gotten caught under the falling piece of metal. If she had been stronger she would have lifted the debris from her mother before that monster crushed her under its foot in a matter of seconds.
WEAK.
After the two guards took a quick look for any other survivors, they closed the automatic gate through the interface. Akane tried to distinguish the look on their faces but found her vision weary of all sudden. The red-dyed vision she had since after watching her mother die changed back to normal and she missed the way the guard's eyebrows shot up as they took notice of Akane's eyes.
"Follow us." The pair began walking in front of them at an unhurried pace so they could follow. At this point, Akane all but dragged her feet from under herself to keep walking. She tried to hide it, though she suspected it was quite obvious, that she was on the verge of losing consciousness.
They have walked a few hundred metres in absolute silence before reaching a vast area of space where the other survivors were huddled together. More specifically, the place was big enough to harbour what she guessed was more than a dozen people in its centre. Or was she seeing double? There were also many medic stalls for the wounded yet it felt hard for Akane to look at the scenery without feeling worse than she already felt.
She even lost track of the two guards that had been leading them for a short amount of time. Deciding it was no use to look for them with her sorry vision, she joined the refugees with her family. There was a small glimmer of hope left within her jet-black orbs as she searched for familiar faces together with her twin.
There was not a single one left. The revelation brought a tear from her eyelids from not being able to hold it inside anymore. Shirone, what a gentle soul, noticed her emotional distraught and crushed the twin with her lean but strong arms in an embrace. Akane's body shook violently, trying to calm down her sobs and hiccups that increased the longer she wept. That was when it hit her.
She may have lost her home, friends, relatives, mother and so much else. But there was still one thing left in this world that was worth it for her to continue living. And that was the person in whose arms she currently found herself.
Shirone Uchiha.
She was that one light that would continue to shine her path through the darkness she was about to face in the future. It filled her with peace, knowing that everything she would be doing from this point on wouldn't be in vain as long as it contributed to her twin's well-being. But also a fierce drive to protect her, so no harm would ever come to her. She couldn't even bear the thought of it.
She was so deep in thoughts that she didn't perceive how the masses quieted down around them until Shirone eased off the embrace and her gaze rested on something else. Akane trained her orbs at some figures in the distance and it took her great effort to focus on them.
There were two middle-aged men standing on a higher platform. Murmurs broke out among the crowd of survivors and it prompted Akane's memory to fill in the blanks eventually. Who wouldn't recognize the Right and Left Hand of the Hokage? Two of the most influential figures in the Land of Fire. The one on the right was Tarozaemon Tani – the head of the Konoha Keimu Butai and next to him stood Shigetoki Ijima – the candidate for the Fire Daimyō and Chief Advisor to the Hokage.
Akane memorized their faces by frequently keeping track of the news and political situation in Konoha. The two of them were contradicting in personalities or at least from what they'd choose to show on camera. Tani had always had that cold aura around him that made him seem heartless most of the time, probably because of his function as the head of the military. He had to maintain authority and discipline somehow after all, not that his intimidating persona and appearance didn't play a large part in it already.
He was a man in his mid-forties, around the same age as Ijima. His chestnut-brown mixed with some grey locks were styled into a regulation cut and he always held his beard closely trimmed. He was broader in figure but not as someone Akane would associate with the word 'bulky'. Akane only now noticed that he had been wearing the same type of uniform as the two guards she had met earlier, albeit slightly different. The man wore a green flak jacket, along with a black long-sleeve shirt and pants with an open-front apron on the bottom. His style felt overly familiar to Akane, she had seen it somewhere before but stopped her attempt to remember in order to prevent a fierce headache from arising in her head.
Ijima had a lighter complexion. His shiny silver hair was slicked back and he had relaxed features on his face. His body was overall lean and he was a little bit shorter in height than Tani. He wore a modern dark blue suit with a vivid red tie. On closer inspection, they both did look out of place with their untarnished clothing while most of the people present looked close to beggars.
Nevertheless, Akane for once, couldn't find it within herself to listen to their speech because her tired eyes were captured by something behind the scene. Or to be more precise... someone. He looked older than her but not enough to be an adult. Akane's gaze didn't leave him. Not even for a second, analysing his appearance on a comprehensive scale.
She felt attracted to his short unkempt hair that perfectly matched hers in colour and well-defined eyelashes. But what really kept her gaze glued on him were his eyes. The feeling only intensified when he somehow sensed that he was being stared upon and turned in Akane's direction to meet her gaze.
His eyes matched the way he felt towards the world: dark and cold, yet still somehow familiar. The whites of his eyes contrasted sharply with the pitch-black iris that sunk deep into his head. Its depth resembled that of a black hole in space, an air of eeriness and unsettling coldness emanating from his gaze. They were black, not soulless nor lifeless. Instead, they were like two pristine stones of onyx, which lit up a shade lighter when touched by the artificial light.
"Hereby we declare the Second Shinobi Alliance and the reinsertion of Shinobi as official!" bellowed the two middle-aged men in unison, resulting in a rambunctious round of applause and cheers from the masses that interrupted Akane's concentration slightly elsewhere so they were no longer fixed on the boy. After the applause cooled down, she returned her eyes to the exact spot where he had been standing the whole time, only to find out, he was no longer there.
(Flashback end)
Words dictionary:
SSA = Second Shinobi Alliance
Daimyō 大名 / Feudal Lord = Is the political leader of a country. A daimyō is responsible for all decisions concerning their country, from alliances to the annual budget to the privileges allowed to the country's hidden village. Daimyō are therefore one of the single most important individuals in the entire country and hold the highest degree of political power.
Konoha Keimu Butai 木ノ葉警務部隊 / Konoha Military Police Force = Is the judicial organisation of Konohagakure which purpose was to maintain the law in the city.