Akari Uchiha

Ch. 47 A Deal

"How did you do that jutsu?" Sara muttered in disbelief at the half-bandaged Uchiha.

"I saw Godmother Emika doing it once," she shrugged. "It's pretty cool! Remind me to do that first thing everytime someone tries to kills us!"

"Not that it matters anymore," Shikamaru interrupted. "Now that the mission is done, and I mean all the missions," he looked at the General accusingly, "we are going home."

"Just in time for the Rinne festival!" Sara exclaimed.

General Mifune before straightening himself up. "We would again dutifully like to thank the Hidden Leaf for all the help they have provided. It was also a pleasure for us to have you as guests..." Akari zoned him out and turned towards Akio.

"This is boring," she mouthed at him.

He simply rolled his eyes in response, looking back at the General.

Akio should become an advisor or diplomat or something in the future. He seemed to genuinely not find this kind of stuff boring.

Akari sighed, glancing around, disappointed. Takeo wasn't here. She didn't get a chance to talk to him after the events of yesterday. As the General's third in command he had a lot of things to take care of after she crashed their tournament.

She had hoped to see him one last time before they set off though.

"... now that you have completed your mission, I suppose this is goodbye. May you enjoy the upcoming Rinne festival and-"

"SAMURAI SENSEI!" he was cut off by the high pitched happy scream that the Uchiha brat in front of him let out. He glanced back to see Takeo walking towards them, waving back in response to her scream.

"I was afraid I'd miss seeing you off," he chuckled.

"I thought you weren't coming!" Akari said happily rushing past the General towards him.

"But I was talking..." Mifune trailed off, sighing as Shikamaru chuckled awkwardly in response.

Akari happily ignored him and looked up at Takeo, grinning at him happily.

"Of course I was coming," he smiled. He held out his fist, Akari happily held out her own to give him a fist bump. "It was part of the deal, after all," he grinned.

Both of them had been doing that for the past week. They made deals like if Akari mastered the flame technique, Takeo would tell her about samurais, or if she shut up about that girl she kept shipping him with, he'd get her an ice cream, etcetera. 

When Akari said shaking there pinky fingers together would mean enforcing the deal, Takeo argued that then there should be a symbol for the deal to have been fulfilled, and suggested a fist bump.

Mifune noticed that but chose to not comment. Getting Takeo motivated was a difficult job among itself, and as long as it was all working out he hadn't interfered.

Ever since he had honored Takeo with the position of being his third-in-command, seeing the young man so relaxed and at peace was rare. He needed him to realize that even though it was a great feat to achieve the rank he received at his age, his rank alone isn't everything. Training Akari for a week somehow seemed to have reminded him of that.

"Thank you for... well... everything," Akari smiled sadly glancing down, before looking up at him, determined again. "I'll see you again! Next time you're near the Leaf Village, do visit! There are lots of amazing places and I'll be your tour guide and lots amazing people that I want you to meet and... and...." 

She trailed off, glancing down, a part of her knowing that that wouldn't be happening. Most probably a long time would pass before he got assigned a mission near the Leaf, and he would've probably forgotten about this incident by then. It wasn't like the Samurai General's third-in-command would-