Summary: Jedi Master or not, Tsume Inuzuka had believed that the omens surrounding Master Pong Krell were too many to ignore. And while the Jedi may accept the casualties reported under his command as standard and even understandable, she did not share such a point of view. Every man under her command was an individual that mattered- not a single casualty would ever be acceptable.

Or: Tsume Inuzuka is a General of the GAR, Kiba Inuzuka is a runt that has to prove his worth as a commander (which he has no real rush to do- being a regular scout is so much more fun than being stuck leading), and Umbara isn't quite the shitshow it would have been if Rex had been stuck as the highest ranking 501st officer under Krell.

..~..~..

Onsei was sick. She had known as much for a while now.

On this planet that was bathed in the constant nothing of darkness... Onsei was not just sick. It was tortured. Where Onsei had been a faint shroud of darkness over living beings the farther they had strayed from Konoha, it was now a thick, suffocating blanket of despair. There was no joy on this planet. There was only the muted screams of Onsei begging for some form of respite.

She had thought that she would be prepared for this campaign; that she would be able to accommodate her nose to not have to rely on Onsei now that she knew with so much certainty how much it struggled.

For the first time in her life, Tsume was doubting her surety in her abilities.

An endless fog- that was what Umbara was. Darkness incarnate. A soul-sucking, opaque mist that clouded everything, not just one's sight. There was an oppressive atmosphere to the whole place that even made one's mind have to work hard to not be enveloped. Ever since they had landed, Tsume had been torn between focusing on the battle at hand and pushing away the darkness that attempted to come over her.

She was not at her best and she was not delusional enough to lie to herself about this in a vain attempt to salvage her pride. That was the reason why she had deferred to Rex every step of the way, allowing him to take control of the battalion's decisions and only offering the kind of support the Inuzuka's favored blast-shield gauntlet could offer the men near her.

She had forced her mind to completely ignore anything other than pure instinct; had needed to in order to fight off all of the doubts and concerns that attempted to seep into her mind and throw her off. All she really allowed that voice to convince her of was that it would be a good idea to send word to her clansmen that they would have a large order of personal shields to fill should Rex allow her to send for it.

And then Krell had come.

If Hiashi had been the one sent on this mission, she knew that he would have greeted the Jedi Master with gratitude for the support his aerial unit had granted their frontal assault. If it had been Chouza or Inoichi, they would have done so with smiles.

But she was none of those men. And she did not have the luxury of ignorance to hide behind. Besalisk eyes could naturally be yellow, she knew. Yellow eyes were only indicative of dark side corruption when they were rimmed in red and accompanied by a scent of such volcanic ash that it cloyed and wounded an Inuzuka's nose.

Tsume had never found herself in the presence of a sith. But Inuzuka tradition was long and successful for a reason.

Onsei didn't just shrivel around Krell; it twisted. The amount of contempt and hatred that permeated from him was so violent that it made Onsei curl into something sharp and incensed.

"There is no need to worry about my command, General Krell." she would not call him master. She could not. Onsei was sobbing, crying out to be saved from so much anger. "We'll be taking the city."

There was no evidence. There was no information. This was a planet shrouded in so much darkness that it warped her perception; twisted it in an attempted to decimate her. But an Inuzuka needed to listen to their instincts, no matter how much reason attempted to tell them otherwise. And every single one of her instincts was telling her that she needed to get the men as far away from Krell as was possible; Onsei, as wounded as it was, still wrapped around Rex and attempted to urge him away.

Krell's eyes narrowed for a fraction of a second before he was smoothing his features and bowing his head with a slow, placating air. The annoyance she saw within that flash may have been one she had imagined.

"I will still accompany you to aid your efforts." it was a small victory, she knew. Onsei still cried out. "Let us move, Inuzuka-dono. Time is of the essence to ensure our success."

She did not want to agree.

She could not.

This was one hell of a mission to cut her teeth on.

"He's off his rocker."

She had instructed Kiba to keep all communication between them in the standard language she knew all beings on this mission could understand. She had done so because she did not want to give any of the men a single reason to believe that there was something they wanted to keep from them; she wanted to be open about the fact that there were no secrets in their midst.

She did not agree with Krell's insistence that the men should not take rest. But Rex had told her that they could move further; that this would not be the first time the boys would need to push through in order to succeed in a mission. She had bit her tongue and agreed with Krell's demands to continue moving just to not have him grow any more angered.

The men they had almost lost to the wildlife were safe, sound, and back on the ground, no thanks to Krell's intervention. She was sure that if she had not moved when she had, she would be down two more men... the nature of war was death, she had known. She still felt as if she had not prepared enough to meet the death of the men she had just come to know.

When she looked down at the runt, it was to find that he was crouched on top of a mound of dirt. His eyes were narrowed as they scanned the sky, his body coiled tight as if it was prepared to strike at a moment's notice.

"Do you not trust him?" she asked quietly, glancing around her to make sure that the rest of the men were safe.

They were, she knew. Even though her brain would not calm down from a constant state of alarm, she knew that, at least for now, even if they were exhausted... the men were safe.

"Do you?"

Kiba had never been the cryptic kind. Unlike his sister, the runt had always seemed to prefer straightforward words and actions; he did not shy away from confrontations and preferred to make things as clear as possible.

When she looked back at her child, she made an effort to really look at his eyes... and her chest tightened.

They were just as clouded as her own; Kiba was just as affected by the darkness that reigned over Umbara. His senses, like her own, were untrustworthy. He was on high alert because there was no other thing they could do.

That would explain why she had yet to hear his delighted whoops across the battlefield, at least. He was taking this seriously.

"Let's move." she raised her voice to make sure that the men surrounding her could hear her, moving to turn in the direction that Krell had disappeared to.

When Skywalker had mentioned Umbara as he had told her about their mission assignment, Onsei had cried out. It had been such a violent, painful thing that the jedi had all noticed it; she had seen the way that Onsei had wound itself around Rex, as if it had wanted to protect him.

With a frown, Tsume made sure to quicken her pace and fall into step with the captain.

Onsei had yet to point out an opening that he could utilize to slip away from the group and make his own way through the wilderness. It had not shown him a clear path to be able to find his own glory. It had not even whispered to him about the kinds of battles he would face on this planet.

All that Onsei had done until now had been agonize and lament.

All those men... Kiba frowned at his mother's back before he glared down at the metallic apparatus that clung to the strap he had tied around his left thigh. The personal shield projector winked back at him, a sturdy and comforting presence in this terrible situation.

"We're following the original plan, Krell."

His mother was getting pissed with the besalisk, it was obvious.

"The battalion must take the main road to the capital- it would-"

"My men will not be taking that kind of risk." Onsei, as weak and pained as it was, managed to pick itself up ever so slightly and let out a choked cheer before it melted back into darkness. His mother glanced towards the side, as if noticing that as well, and then her shoulders squared further. "Inuzuka work best in small, fast units. We'll follow the original plan of multiple sneak attacks."

Krell's face twisted into something that Kiba felt looked like a snarl... but... he wasn't sure. There was so much darkness in this place; the thickness of the fog made looking at something even one meter away difficult. He could be imagining how angered the besalisk's face got; it would make sense, after all, considering how Onsei was struggling to so bad.

"Kiba!" his mother barked out before the jedi could open his mouth again; to his mother's benefit, he was sure that the tense undertone to her call would probably have been missed out on by the rest of the men.

"Comin'." he slipped down from the boulder he had commandeered once Tup and Jesse had decided to rest near it; he made sure to move quick towards the two highest-ranking people in the battalion.

"You're joining Jesse and his scouts. Go and probe the city's defenses- you have thirty minutes."

The closer he got to Krell, the worse his need to get the hell away from him became. His nose even began to feel as if it were getting clogged with nothing; he could barely make out his own mother's scent by the time he was standing beside her.

"Sure thing." he turned around before he had even finished acknowledging the order.

If he ran back to where Jesse was getting up from his rest, then the rest could think it was because he was eager to get moving and follow through with the rest of the plan Skywalker had come up with. It's not like anyone else needed to know it was because he wanted to get the hell away from Krell, his mother, and the all-consuming sadness of Onsei.

His haunches felt like they were constantly bristled as he followed after Jesse, wordlessly falling into the group that would be heading out to scout ahead.

It must have meant something, he was sure, when he felt less like there was a noose around his neck when he was out in the wilderness with only the scouts than he had when he had been in a secure resting spot, surrounded by only allies.

When word came that the main road had been booby-trapped, she had needed to stamp down on the instinct to shove such information into the besalisk's face.

Instead, she was sure that Shika would have been real proud of the way she managed to thank Fives for having gone ahead with the rest of the scouts to get them this vital piece of information. The trooper had saluted before his hologram disappeared back into the recesses of the comm-link she knew she needed to keep attached to her wrist, no matter how little she enjoyed it.

Something like a breath of fresh air swept through the hastily crafted camp the men had prepared on the outskirts of the city.

Onsei had been given a moment of respite... the news... if she had allowed Krell to do as he pleased, her men would have walked straight into those traps.

Her eyes narrowed as she took a moment to glance at the jedi... Onsei's relief had not come over his shoulders. The thickness of the tendrils of darkness around him remained unchanged.

Suspicion was not the Inuzuka way. Subterfuge and mind games were things they actively loathed- there was no real victory when one relied solely on those tricks. But. No Inuzuka was so stupid as to think that there was no place in one's skill-set for such tactics. And that meant that she wasn't foolish enough to think that she should act impulsively over what was happening in her camp.

She set out to find Rex without having spent too long contemplating her choices, though. He had the kind of clearance she would need, after all.

"That's an order, captain."

It was unorthodox, just like it was dangerous.

But she was not here to play games with the lives of her men.

Rex's eyes widened for a moment, as if he were taken aback by what she had just said. Tsume found herself frowning deeper at that because... this was the first time she ever told him anything was non-negotiable.

She hadn't wanted it to have come down to this. But she was not going to gamble with the lives of the men she had heard Krell refer to as clones. His tone and that word had told her everything she had needed to know. The public GAR histories that Rex had pulled up for her had filled in almost all of the blanks she had needed to make this decision.

"Unless I give the say so, his orders aren't to be followed." her comm beeped as she said this, signalling yet another incoming message. "Give the word to the rest of the men."

"Of course, sir." he didn't turn to walk; Tsume ignored the beeping to instead look at Rex. She nodded at him in the hopes it would get him to speak, "It's not... are you worried about General Krell?"

Rex had always struck her as the perceptive kind. He was in tune with the rest of the men; just like he was in tune with Onsei. She still wasn't completely sure what that could mean and this wasn't the place to get to philosophizing about the possible meanings, either. All she knew was that he was perceptive and could pick up on little queues, even if he himself didn't seem fully aware of it.

"I am." she admitted as the comm beeped once more. "He gets results but he's reckless with his troop's lives. I don't trust him to make the right decision for you."

Captain Rex was the second highest ranking member in the battalion right now, her direct second-in-command. Krell, for all intents and purposes, was more of an advisor at this point than anything else. She still was in full control of the 501st and no one could dispute that. And so she was now making sure that Krell couldn't usurp control from her with any of the men.

"I can't be everywhere all at once and I know men are going to die. But Krell's already proven to be incapable of strategic thought- so he's not making any decisions without my say-so." the third beep made her want to rip the damn comm off her wrist and throw it across the damn fog. "Have I been understood, captain?"

She'd really need to sit down and read GAR regulations at some point because she wasn't one hundred percent sure if this was even something she could order, seeing how Krell and her were supposed to hold equal statuses within this military's hierarchy. But, for now, she would leave the worrying about rules and regulations for the future; if there was one good thing about an active battlefield, it was that such rigid structures were blown apart by the need to stay alive.

As long as the men listened to her, they would survive the darkness that was Umbara.

"Yes, sir." Rex's salute seemed less crisp than usual so she instructed him to eat something before she finally picked up the damn comm.

Kiba rubbed at the jaw that had suffered a rather solid sucker punch from one very dead umbaran as he looked over Tup's shoulder at Jesse. "Are we changing objectives?"

The pup had declared that his injury wasn't anything to really worry about- which he had known, but none of the men around him had listened until one of them had taken a look at him. It was kind of annoying, in his opinion, because it wasn't like the rest had stopped when Penumbra had gotten into a very similar scrape. In another, he was mostly just annoyed that there was no way he could get any good footage on a planet this stupidly dark.

"Seems like." the unofficial leader of the scouting team read over the report that had made him call the rest of the scouting group to retreat and find cover. "General Kenobi wants us to focus on taking over an airbase some klicks to the west." with a sigh, Jesse looked at the men around him.

Two had gone down. All they had gotten was a quick mention before they had moved on.

This was war.

Kiba had not known those men.

It still hurt. He would never get to know them now.

"Seeing how we've more than confirmed that this city's defenses are more than formidable, it only makes sense to shift the objective. Apparently, that airbase is resupplying the city's defenses." Jesse clicked his tongue before he placed his helmet back over his head. "Let's get a move on, boys."

The scouts were running low on energy; he could tell from the heaviness of their steps.

How long had it even been since they had jumped out of the gunship and began this mad-dash to the capital? It simultaneously felt as if an eternity had transpired and a blink of an eye had been what had really happened.

Kiba looked over at Tup, who was frowning down at the ground between them. With a clear of his throat, he asked if he was cleared for action. The trooper startled before he scrambled to stand up and offer him his hand. Kiba smiled beside the pain radiating from his jaw as he grabbed at the hand; Tup's eyes widened the moment he noticed what he had done, but he followed through with hauling him up instead of leaving Kiba on the ground.

Tup, it seemed, had forgotten for just a moment that there was supposed to be a distance between them.

Beside himself, Kiba smiled as Fives made a sardonic comment about how it was a good thing they hadn't suffered any unnecessary losses by trying that frontal assault up the main road General Krell had mentioned.

War wasn't the same as fighting back home. It made sense, in a way, seeing how this kind of fighting required a whole lot more people than the squads he was accustomed to. But, in certain ways, it was real similar to the kinds of missions he had gone on before.

At the end of the day, all that mattered was that he had a team and they needed to win. Anything else was secondary and could be forgotten about until later on; if he ever thought about it at all.

He hadn't managed to take more than a few steps before his wrist began to beep. When he looked down and answered it, he was met by a deadly scowl on his mother's face.

Whatever relief he had managed to find in the time he had spent amongst scouts was immediately stolen away by the dour look on her face.

"I need you to move faster than the rest- I know you're able to outrun all the men and time's of the essence." her words were clipped and her eyes as cold as steel. "I need you to run recon on the airbase we're supposed to take."

"Solo, sir?" Jesse's steps had been as quiet as the dead to come up and walk beside him. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

Her frown was deep, "I'm sure it's a bad idea on terrain this unpredictable. But Kiba can hold his own and he's capable of the speed we need. We need info on routes to the airbase ASAP."

If his mother was sending him to do this alone, it meant that she truly thought it was a necessary move.

There was a strangled cry from Onsei somewhere in front of him, faint and quiet, and Kiba glanced up at the same time his mother's hologram turned to face the sound. He found only the endless foggy terrain.

He had a bad feeling about this whole thing.

"Run fast, runt."

And the communication was cut.

"We don't have time to wait for recon." Krell was really starting to get on her nerves.

To her, it seemed as if Onsei was attempting to cloud the path forward even further, as if to make it so dark that they would turn back.

They could not turn back, though. This was the most straightforward path the men could take to overtake their new objective.

The smart and responsible thing to do would be to wait for Kiba to bring back information on the alternate routes they could take that didn't have them traversing this gorge.

Now that Tsume stood atop the end of this cracked mountain-side and could just barely look down at the land before her, so warped by jagged terrain and looming red glows... she could see that Umbara would be quite the beautiful planet if not for the ever-choking presence that hurt Onsei so. The bright blue glow of the airbase was a change from the constant ominous colors that it was almost beautiful to gaze upon.

"Kiba is the fastest member of my clan. He will get us the information-"

"Obi-Wan and the other battalions are currently fighting off the enemy as they wait for us to take this base. The child has no time to look for a more secure route, for there is none."

Obi-Wan's communication had been filled with the same kind of explosions and cries of death that they were surrounded by. She knew that this whole campaign relied on speed and strength- they needed to hit the umbarans hard and fast to take full control of the planet. And so she understood that there was a need to be direct with their decisions but...

"And so you believe a full-frontal assault in single-file platoons is better?" it was maddening to think that she even needed to say such a thing, for it sounded like a recipe for failure just from the words she had used. "That's-"

"While it is commendable you wish to coddle the clones under your command, your inability to prioritize is concerning." her eyes went wide with disbelief at the sudden interruption, but Krell just continued to speak as if he were giving some great monologue, "When time is of the essence, there are risks that must be taken. And in this campaign, there is no time to be wasting on possibilities."

She wanted to tell him that he was wrong- that there was enough time to allow Kiba to scout ahead and bring information back to them. She wanted to tell him that he had no right to interrupt her and the next time he did, there would be consequences.

But... she had met Commander Cody. Cody, who was undoubtedly side-by-side with General Kenobi at this point in time... who was suffering the same kinds of attacks that they had faced when they had landed on Umbara... the 501st was not the only battalion currently on Umbara, fighting to take over this world. And just because she was there, it didn't mean that they were any more or less important than the other men that did not have Inuzuka leading them.

Krell... was right?

The more time they wasted here, the more men other battalions would lose.

Tsume bit onto the inside of her bottom lip, eyes narrowing as she glared over at the airbase that rested on the other side of a narrow chasm.

Krell's plan wasn't any good.

But... her own insistence on caution...

She was an Inuzuka. If she was commanding her clansmen, she wouldn't have thought twice about this decision. Under these very time constraints, she would have been the first to say that a frontal assault would be the way to go about this. She would have called on Hana to be by her side, all the while commanding Kiba to take a squad of fast members to flank.

Onsei was quiet.

She could hear nothing from a force that had never not been by her side.

She was adrift.

With a glower, Tsume lifted her comm to her mouth.

When Kiba picked up, she could clearly see his forehead drenched in sweat and how he struggled to not breathe violently at how he had exerted himself.

It felt wrong.

But... it was the right thing to do.

"Kiba, change of plans."

It had been a mistake.

Every single part of her body had been yelling at her that Krell's idea would lead to a massive loss of life. She had known that the time that they would save by attacking directly would mean nothing when they met with the kind of fire power the umbarans had yet to demonstrate.

She had known that it was a mistake the moment she had agreed to it and yet...

All she had been able to do while down in the gorge had been mitigate the number of troops she lost. With the type of armor and shielding the umbaran crafts had at their disposal, they had quickly found themselves trapped in a stale-mate of cat-and-mouse. As soon as they were able to take one tank down, another two popped up to take its place. If not the tanks, then one of those damned centipede contraptions appeared.

The screams of the wounded and dying would haunt her for the rest of her days.

He had no idea why in the world his mother had completely lost her mind, but he had no time to think about it. All he could really think about was the fact that he needed to do something to help take the airbase before the men down there and his mother were killed by the umbaran forces.

If there was one good thing about his mother having gone bat-shit insane, it was that she had seemingly forgotten how to bark orders at him. When she had told him of the change of plans, she hadn't demanded he do anything else. She had just informed him that his recon wouldn't be waited for- that they would be moving ahead with Krell's plan.

He had tried to tell her it was a bad idea. She had cut him off and ended the communication before he was able to get in a word.

There was only bad news about this, of course... but... if there had been one silver lining? Plausible deniability.

He was already closer to the airbase by the time she had called than he was to the Republic's forces. She hadn't told him to come back, nor had she told him to stay put. She hadn't said his work needed to stop, just that they wouldn't wait for him.

Onsei curled around his wrist, its hold faint as it attempted a trill of encouragement. It was a sad sound and Kiba couldn't blame Onsei for the way it was acting. At this point, it felt like he was running purely off of adrenaline and the hopes to get the hell of this planet as soon as possible.

So, considering how he hadn't been instructed to come back... Kiba kept going.

And when he came across Fives and Hardcase on a last-ditch attempt to surprise the umbarans with unorthodox battling strategy, Kiba had known that he had made the right choice.

So this was the way he found himself dispatching of a group of umbaran soldiers that tried to stop both troopers from stealing their aircrafts. It was real nice, honestly, to be able to utilize a simple flurry of punches, kicks, and minimal use of chakra to shatter their bones and then bust through those stupid window-panes that were their helmets.

It was the least he could do, really, after all of the death and destruction these guys had rained on the Republic's forces.

It had something to do with the fancy way Krell talked, he was sure. Possibly, also something to do with the way he talked down on everyone around him as if he were telling them what was going to happen, not what he believed should happen.

In a way, Krell reminded Kiba a little of his mother's old sensei. The main difference, though, was that the Snake Sannin was well known for being a callous, terrible, uncaring person that didn't care who got hurt as long as the mission was complete. Jedi weren't supposed to be like Orochimaru, last he had checked. And a war wasn't a good enough excuse for this guy to be reminding him of that guy.

"Krell loves suicide missions, don't he?"

"I already authorized the boys. Fives, Jesse, and Harcase are flying up to the supply ship to destroy it." his mother's tone was a low growl; her glare was firmly set on the cache of boxes to their right. "They're going to start practicing in a few minutes."

They weren't capable of communicating with Kenobi's battalion and Krell wanted them to press on, even in the face of missiles that would most definitely decimate their forces. Luckily, though, it seemed that his mother had found her brain somewhere in the gorge filled with nothing but death and destruction and had signed off on the use of the umbaran crafts to impair their supplies further.

Everything about Krell was wrong.

General Kenobi was everything he had been taught his whole life that a jedi would be. He was all grace, calm, and... and... Kiba frowned.

"Onsei cries whenever he's near."

It wasn't a trick of the fog. It wasn't his own weak connection with Onsei now that they were on a planet enveloped in darkness. It wasn't his own instincts dulled and dampened by being so far from home, in a situation he had never even thought capable until only a few weeks ago.

Had he truly been so naive as to think that Onsei's pain was his brain coming up with lies?

"You stay away from him, runt." his mother didn't have to agree with him for him to know that he was correct in his assessment. The fact that she was doing everything in her power to isolate any and all interactions Krell may have with anyone other than her... that was all he really needed to know. "Rest up. We're not done yet."

"You have overstepped, Inuzuka."

There was no more honorific.

Good.

Krell was dropping pretenses.

"You can take that up with someone that actually cares." the men within the control room were stunned, seemingly horrified by what was taking place before their eyes. Tsume ignored them and instead looked at Rex, "Try and get back into contact with Kenobi. We need to coordinate now that your men have succeeded in crippling their supply lines."

The 501st, no matter how many times they were knocked down, were proving to amaze her with the various ways they could get back up. Not only had these three men been able to learn how to utilize these foreign air-crafts within a handful of hours, but they had now dealt a decisive blow into the umbaran forces.

"You do not have the power to fully usurp command. You are no Jedi General." Krell's tone was thick with warning; Tsume turned back to him with a sneer on her lips.

"I did. You do not have a single word to say in this situation, Krell. And if you've got a problem with that, you can take it up with your little military forces once you're back on Coruscant. Until then, I'm in charge of the 501st- what I say goes. And what I'm saying right now is-"

"Sir, an incoming transmission!"

If it hadn't been important, the trooper would not have interrupted her.

Immediately, she looked away from the besalisk she had quickly learned to hate and towards the hologram formed of cubes that was trying to get into contact with them.

It hadn't made any sense from the moment his mother had informed them about the ambush.

The umbarans he had killed had all been notably taller than the clone troopers he had been surrounded by- not just that, but their heights had varied. The way they held themselves wasn't anything like a trooper, either. And their bodies were much lankier than that of the troopers.

If he had faced so many issues getting to dress in select pieces of the clone trooper's armor that he had needed to pick pieces and cut and sew their blacks... how had the umbarans managed to wear their full armor to such a convincing degree that they looked, sounded, and acted just like the rest of the troopers?

Umbara was a planet shrouded in so much darkness that such an obvious lie had sounded like something completely plausible... and it was then that Kiba had finally understood the kind of Krell had at his disposal.

The worst part was that neither he nor his mother had figured it out- it had all fallen on Rex's shoulders.

The mangled cries of "They're not umbarans! They're clones!"... they'd have a permanent fixture in his nightmares.

Rex stood behind her, to her left, only one step back. Kiba flanked her right, uncharacteristically quiet.

Ever since they had landed on Umbara, such silence had become far too common.

Behind them, she knew she had the full force of the 501st and a handful of troopers from the 212th- Kote's pups.

For the first time since they had landed on Umbara, Onsei wasn't just dying because of the darkness. It was trying, as best it could, to wheeze out cries of encouragement- of this is the right thing to do.

With a quick movement of her hand, the majority of the men following her split off, running towards their ultimate destinations. She balled that hand up into a fist, relishing in the painful way the metal gauntlet that surrounded it pinched at her hand.

She had been such a fool.

Every single thing Krell had said; every plan he had created; every demand he had made... it had all been manipulation. And she had fallen for it like some runt.

Krell wasn't going to survive this confrontation.

She would make sure of it.

"It is treason, then."

Tsume rolled her shoulders, feeling right for the first time since she had landed on this damned planet. "Not at all." she smirked, lowering her body so she could prepare her attack properly, "This is justice."

Rex threw the grenade the moment her hands met with the floor; she shot off as soon as it exploded in Krell's face.

She ran straight for his legs, swiping at them with the claws that adorned her hands, immediately moving to debilitate his stance. As Krell dodged these attacks and moved to grab at his lightsabers, she was able to see the way in which Kiba ran straight around him and rushed to blitz him from his back.

She had been led to believe that this campaign needed to be one of lighting and thunder- of extreme speed and power. She had allowed herself to be swept up in Krell's pressing insistence and she had almost allowed herself and the rest of her men to drown.

But this? This was the only way Inuzuka had ever known to take down fallen jedi. Blind them, surprise them, and then bring them down hard.

"I will not be undermined by dog people!" Krell shouted and she had to dodge a powerful kick that aimed for her face; she quickly twisted her body to ram into the side of the knee closest to her.

She was sure Krell had meant for that to sound like an insult.

Kiba's laugh was filled with sour anger- but it was tickled. "Wow, you won't be happy once we kick your ass, dude."

It was the first cocky comment she had heard from the runt since they had arrived- unlike any other time she had heard it, this time around, hearing this made her heart swell with pride.

The fight that ensued was one that would have their ancestors smiling upon them. Kiba took Kuromaru's place as her partner for their combined attacks, Rex staying in the background to shoot at the besalisk whenever he deemed it necessary.

Tsume managed to stab her claws deep into one of Krell's thighs at the same time Kiba knocked one lightsaber out of his hands- the scream of frustration he released was music to her ears.

For the first time since she had touched down on Umbara, Tsume found herself rejoicing in the thrill of battle.

Krell was dead. Kenobi had said that everyone that had been part of the failed attempt to arrest him would need to be interviewed separately- a case would need to be opened up because of the events that had eventually led to the death of a jedi at his mother's hand.

Self-defense, that was what they would all say.

Until it was proven to the higher ups, though... Kiba didn't like the way his mother had smiled at him even though she had been walked away with her hands bound behind her. If anyone had seen her, she would have looked like a bit too unhinged for them to believe her version of events.

"I just know, sir, that some day... well, some day this war's going to end."

"What happens then? We're soldiers."

He hadn't meant to eavesdrop on Rex's conversation with Fives. He had meant to just stick around the boxes and breathe.

Onsei was swimming around again. It wasn't nearly as active as it should be, nor was it as happy. But it was relieved now that the monster called Krell was dead and gone.

With a coughed trill, Onsei swirled around Rex's shoulders, hugged Fives deeply. Even with all of the death and destruction that had taken place, it seemed like Onsei was incredibly pleased to find that both of these men had survived... in reality, Kiba was happy about it too. Just like he was relieved that Tup was safe and sound back in the barracks of the stolen umbaran airbase and that there were plenty of brothers that were still alive.

There had been so many losses, though...

If his mother had not agreed to join the Republic, these boys would have been fully under Krell's control. And if that had happened... Kiba frowned.

The small victories.

Kurenai-sensei had once told them that, sometimes, the little victories were the ones that mattered the most.

Onsei crooned out a weak noise, clearly wanting to grab his attention. And then, a voice that was so faint it was barely even a whisper, he heard Onsei, Pups.

And then... Kiba saw that Onsei was giving him the answer to a question that had not been asked to him, but he had still managed to overhear.

As quietly as he could, Kiba moved down from the collection of boxes he had been perched on. He made sure that neither Fives nor Rex heard or saw him before he made his way towards the control room- where he knew there was a communications array powerful enough to get him in touch with Konoha.

Hana had told him for most of his life that he assumed that Onsei was much kinder to him than it actually was- that he was delusional. But Onsei had always been indulgent with him; and now he could see that it wanted to be just as indulgent with the troopers.