Ultima Ratio

Chapter 24: An Arm and a Leg

Twelve hours later, the battle was won, and the Aegis Squad was physically safe at Base; mentally, Akira was still back in Patna, replaying the memories of the day behind her. While the rest of Pearl Harbor was dark and quiet with sleep, her studio apartment was a battlefield of the war against her mind as she fought for rest.

Her bed was a haphazard mess, the exposed gray sheets wrinkled and partially pulled off the mattress corners. Its pillow sat abandoned on the worn blue couch, Akira's favored bed, replacing the pile of formerly clean laundry that previously sat on the cushions. A handful of those clothes were piled in a small mound on the kitchen bar counter, the peak flattened where Akira's head had been, with a blanket draped on the stool's backrest. The remainder of the clothes sat beside her on the floor where they just finished their shift as her latest pillow, save for one oversized T-shirt that had been transferred to blanket duty.

A chill shuddered through Akira's body; Akira demoted the T-shirt from blanket duty to towel service to wipe the cold sweat from her neck.

The simple movement ached, but Akira was fine with it. The pain was familiar and comforting; it only turned into a slight inconvenience when her right shoulder locked up, but she quickly relieved the setback with firm, well-placed punches from her left hand.

By then, sleeping was taking just as much effort as staying awake, and Akira knew which of the two her luck would ultimately favor. With that, she got to her feet, threw on an oversized sweater to compliment her wrinkled running shorts, and headed to the mess hall.

Akira both expected and hoped no one would be there. It was a little after one in the morning, just late enough for the base's offgoing shift to have left, and much too early for the next oncoming shift to have arrived. The kitchen staff should also be gone, especially since Akira's dad always insisted that cooks could only make good food with good rest. And when Akira approached the front doors, she figured the handful of illuminated lights were to guide the occasional night owl in search of coffee or a granola bar.

She didn't expect to hear a subtle ruckus in the kitchen and the soft humming that accompanied it.

As strange as it was, Akira couldn't fathom that the source was a dangerous threat—or she was just too tired to care. She let herself into the kitchen, poking her head slowly around corners so as to not startle some unsuspecting staff member.

It wasn't long before Akira found Danya emerging from the freezer with three tubs of ice cream cradled in her arms.

"Perfect timing," Danya said without even glancing in Akira's direction. "You can help me wash dishes."

"That's your mess, not mine," Akira automatically replied.

Only then did Akira think to examine the rest of the scene.

Everything still seemed relatively tidy in Akira's opinion. The only item out of place was a large plastic food container on the metal counter with an odd mound of food-like substances piled within it, along with a handful of metal utensils in one of the sinks.

"That's fine," Danya said as she set the ice cream down next to her hoard of food. "I can do it. Then you're free to tell me what happened between you and your ex."

Two seconds of silence later, Akira headed straight for the sink without another word.

Danya hummed thoughtfully. "Keep this up, and I'll think you want out of our deal."

Actually, that was the last thing that Akira wanted. She knew she would much rather tell Danya the truth; after all, winning the war was easily more important than Akira's personal issues.

As Akira slowly washed the dishes by hand, she contemplated her options and the resulting scenarios. If she told the truth, Danya could lose faith in her abilities and decide Akira was no longer worthy of her allegiance. But if Akira stayed quiet, Danya would still back out of their deal over the lack of trust. And lying was clearly out of the question when Danya had easily read through Akira's past attempts.