Akari means light.
Light meaning the only array of hope given to the Ayumu nation. One of the largest empires known to mankind.
When the empire suddenly disappears on the young girl's seventh birthday, an invasion erasing the nation forever, causing...
My eyes hold frozen as I stare at the three fallen shinobi.
Silently, I close my eyes and yank my fan from the ground. I click it open, fresh blood cleaned off the silver.
As I stare down into the reflecting metal, I catch sight of the glowing moon. "Forgive me," I say.
I do not know who I want forgiveness from, or if I mean it.
And within a flicker of wind, I disappear.
...............
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It is nearly impossible to register all that happened within the past few seconds. Hours earlier, Shikamaru remembers begrudgingly waking up just a moment before his alarm clock, he remembers dragging himself to this seemingly bothersome exam—and he remembers accusing his teammate of ingenuity, and...paranoia.
Of course, when he finds himself sprawled underneath a clear dome of dripping ice that could only be made by the new girl, and the only thing noticeable through said dome being the grasping palms that press against it, the bright circles of fire that engulf her much smaller body, the explosions...that would have reached them as well.
He didn't know why he said hurtful things. How could he feel guilty when she has done much worse? She is cold, pretentious, and rude. Even through that mask of hers he'd thought that one day he'd see something of her. But he couldn't, for even the eyes that peek out through the small holes of her mask were to show life, and tranquility, only hole the deep endless waters of absolutely nothing. How could he care for what he said when she didn't as well?
Although, when he stares into the only thing left peeking through the hot and fiery bombs, her eyes. For the first time, something may have been there.
Even if it was a hallucination through his self panic, a small flicker of worry or fear. Even if that glint was otherwise bland, and dull eyes had never existed. He still stretches out his arms—
And calls her name.
"Akari!-"
He sits in eerie silence moments after the explosions had ignited, his equally as frazzled teammates by his side. Despite the cold of the dome that had pierced slits into his skin the first time, his chest heaves, and his forehead drips of sweat.
A heart that beats loud enough through his ears, his palms that rattle down like a broken toy, and a face that hurts from the amount of time he holds it in a furrowed position.
Through the silence, an entrapment just like the mighty dome, someone broke him out. Or at least he would've hoped to. "Oh my god what just happened-" Ino murmurs from her much dryer voice, perhaps nothing compared to how she speaks most of the time.
