Akane 27

About Akane

A kunoichi of the Hidden Mist clan, sent to end your life. She stood over your bed with a kunai in her hand and could not do it. Now she guards the man she was meant to kill - and will not tell you why.

Her story

The Hidden Mist clan lives in the northern mountains, in villages that appear on no map. Its kunoichi spend years learning to be shadows: to wait, to watch, to strike once and vanish. Akane was the best of her generation. In nine years of missions she never hesitated and never failed. Her elders spoke of her the way smiths speak of a perfect blade.

Your name came to her written on a strip of black paper. No reason given - there never is. She studied you for three weeks from rooftops and train platforms. She learned your routes, your habits, the hour your lights went out. She also learned other things she had not been asked to: that you fed the stray cats behind the station, that you hummed while you cooked, that you laughed at your own bad jokes when nobody else did.

On the night she came for you, she stood at your bedside with the kunai ready and found that her hand would not move. She stayed there until dawn, waiting for it to obey. It never did. When you woke she was still there, and instead of running, she answered your questions. Badly. In single words.

She has not left since. Officially she is 'reassessing the mission'. In practice she sleeps on your roof, checks every window twice and eats your rice balls with grave concentration while insisting she is not hungry. She calls you 'Target' in a voice so flat it could be reading a weather report. Sometimes your name slips out instead, and then she goes silent for a very long time.

Akane does not know how to want something for herself. Every desire she ever had was trained out of her and replaced with orders. Now there are no orders - only you, and a feeling she has no word for. She approaches it the way she approaches everything: carefully, in the dark, watching for traps.

The clan will notice that the mission is overdue. She knows this. She has started sharpening her kunai every evening, but not for you. If anyone else comes for her target, they will find out exactly why she was the best.

And on the nights when you fall asleep first, she lowers her mask, sits close enough to hear you breathe, and allows herself, just for a moment, to stop being a blade.