Akali stopped for what could have been the millionth time that day, pausing to lean heavily against one of the hard worn practice dummies that had more than once felt her Kama slice into it.

Pure electricity as his lips pressed hard against hers, insistent and demanding whilst a sweet question of trust.

She whirled viciously, slicing into the dummy with a movement untraceable with the naked eye, but he could see it. He could follow her exact movements without fail. Her jaw stuck out in a determined attempt to remove him from her mind, she would not let herself think back again.

Her hands moving to roam the sculpted planes of his back whilst his started to explore her body, his calloused hand brushing against the tender underside of her breast.

She groaned in exasperation, realising the futility of this exercise. Normally, she would go and spar with one of the only people who could counter her, who could make her work and actually cause the both of them to reach a stale-mate, but not today, not with him... She did not know how long she had been here now, trying to chase the distracting memories from her mind. A steady bead of perspiration had found a path down her face, her hair plastered to her scalp and her chest was rising heavily, although she did not know whether they were a result of the exercise, or the thoughts racing through her mind. Sadly they were most likely the latter, though it pained her to admit it.

A soft cry escaped from her mouth before he covered it with his own, moving to push her up and allow her to wrap her legs tightly around the hard column that was his body.

She exhaled heavily and left the training room, such demeaning tasks would do little to ease her mind. She began to make her way towards her room, her mind beginning to look forward to the cold shower that would hopefully snap her out of her drone-like state. She had not seen him for days, she could be very elusive when she wanted to be, which was the majority of the time, and so far she had seen no trace of the man that had driven her to madness – though there was no doubt that he could find her if he put his mind to the task. Akali entered her room, and was surprised to see one of her closest friends sitting cheerfully on her bed.

"Heya Kali, you seem down recently, and I know we haven't really seen each other much but I wanted to drop by and just see if you were okay!" Her small, fuzzy friend Kennen was really a joy, and never failed to bring a smile to her normally serene face. Too often had she shown emotion recently, but with her friends she allowed herself a little bit of a leash on the iron grip that she had on her emotions.

"Hey Kenny" Akali said softly, sitting next to the small but deadly yordle.

"You feel so sad Kali" A frown sat heavily on Kennen's face, a shock considering how cheerful her fellow ninja always seemed. "I can feel your sadness, and it's hurting me too. Is this about what happened between you and Shen?" A simple question, but it bought all the memories crashing back down.

Of course he would know, she hardly expected any different, but still his knowledge surprised her. She sighed heavily, and put an arm around Kennen, which then led to him burrowing into her side giving her comfort. The ninjas never let anyone see this side to them, to the rest of the world they were cold-blooded, hard-worn assassins who were only seen by those who they allowed.

"I don't know what you're talking about Kenny-"

A short manic giggle interrupted her, followed by a disbelieving snort.

"Hah! Yeah right Kali, I saw you leave his room, so don't try and deny it." The last sentence was quieter, much more serene than his short outburst. "What happened between you two?"

It was the anniversary of the day when Zed had obliterated everything that Shen had cared about. Akali thought that Shen could do with cheering up, and had simply gone to try and improve his day a little, make sure that he didn't spend it alone.

She knocked softly on the door, a polite request to enter his room though they didn't normally bother with such formalities. They were ninjas, they just appeared without questions. She opened the door, saw the man she considered to be her closest friend sat glumly on his bed, one of the few items of furniture in his room.

"Hey." A short, quiet word that contained so much more than a simple greeting and Shen seemed to notice that. He looked up, his otherwise stoic face containing much more emotion than she had seemed for a long time. It was rare that Shen did not wear the mask that was his identity, but he did so now, showing features that though she had not seen for a long time, Akali would never forget. The simple masculinity of his face had always appealed to Akali's taste, the sharp, angular structure of his jawline dusted with a faint shadow that complimented his defined cheekbones, though she would never say such a thing out loud.

"Hey." He replied, a word that couldn't have sounded more depressed if he had tried. She sat next to him, he had not moved since she had entered this room, and put an arm around him gently.

"Why do you come here Akali? You know I prefer to be alone." Shen had never exactly been a sweet talker, but she knew when her friend was bluffing.

"Sometimes, you're pretty stupid, you know that right? You don't need to suffer alone, you always have me you idiot." A playful insult, but she knew that he wouldn't take it to heart. He never did take anything to heart. A pain filled silence lapsed between the two for a bare moment before he turned his face towards hers.

"Kali," The use of her nickname startled her, for Shen rarely called her anything other than her birth name, "Why do you make me feel Kali?"

Stunned, she leaned back slightly, aware of the implication that Shen had just made.

"Maybe because we're not just ninjas, we are human too, humans that have the capacity to show affection and love for friends."

He stared at her for a moment, before angling his body towards her. His hand rose slowly to cup her face, as he began to move closer with his own.

"What if I wanted to be more than friends Kali?"

Heart thudding almost painfully, she panicked. She could escape right now, she could end this before it began – she was the shadows. But she couldn't. Convincing herself that this was a friend who needed a little comfort, she moved to meet his lips with her own, and was completely unsuspecting of the sudden need that rushed through her veins. An arc of electricity surged through her veins as Shen pushed harder against her, as the hard demand of his body melded into her own. His lips moved roughly against hers as the fierce need that was coursing through both of their bodies demanded to be sated. The hand that had rested on her face began to make a determined journey southwards, stopping to rest on the unwary temptation that was Akali's breasts.

"Oh Kali," Shen moaned into their kiss, "I've needed this for so long!" His last words were captured by her mouth, not wanting to process his words as the sexual haze already began to cloud Akali's brain. The ninja inside of her was telling her to stop, that this was not the way of the kinkou. The woman inside of her however was very much at the fore front of her mind, and it was very responsive to the beautiful man that was so very appealing in front of her.

She did not know when they moved off of the bed, but suddenly they were standing and she was slowly being pressed into the wall. She had never realised until this moment just how small she was compared to Shen, how his body dwarfed her own, but never before had they been in such intimate circumstances. Her head came to the top of his breastbone, a fact that had never impacted their training. Shen noticed this, and before she could react his strong hands were nudging her up, pushing up her thighs until this rested around his waist and his hard body was pressing her own into the wall. Like this, her hands could roam freely on the perfect sculpture that was his body, feeling and learning every inch of his delectable physique. Shen squeezed one hand gently on her confined breasts.

"Oh god!"

A cry that erupted from her throat as she arched forward into the touch, her full breasts rising towards him in pure temptation. She took a moment to look at his face and was taken aback by the stark nakedness of the emotions that were riding him so hard. An unhidden lust was apparent in his eyes, and for a moment the shock of seeing that emotion of his face was almost enough to snap Akali out of this madness.

Shen's hand moved to the neglected breast, fondling and shaping it through the confines of the clothing she would not be seen without, bringing her straight back into the overpowering sexual hunger. Suddenly, she felt too confined. This clothing was too much and she had to be rid of it. Almost as if Shen read her mind, he began to remove her clothes, taking whatever they were doing to an entirely new level. Instead of the embarrassment she had expected at going through such an act, Akali had never felt more alive, sexier than she did right at that moment. Shen began to grind softly against her, the demanding proof of his arousal nudging at the entrance to her body through their clothing.

"Oh Kali," he whispered, "I've wanted you to be mine for so long."

And just like that, everything change. Akali's mind ignored the demanding sexual haze that had overcome it, going back to a day years ago when she had been a naive little girl.

"Hey Kali," a mischievous grin from a boy who had grown into a man that had betrayed them all, "Someday, you're gonna be mine!" Zed smiled cheerfully.

"Maybe Zed, after we're finished being ninjas and stuff we can be together and do adult stuff!" A young Akali said with the innocent thoughts of a child. Zed was her best friend, of course they would be together forever!

Her mind raced back to the present, the distant memory an ice-cold freezer on the sudden warmth that Shen had bought. The last time she trusted her heart to another, it had been maliciously torn to shreds in the most vicious of ways.

"Oh, God!" An exclamation, and this time not out of explicit pleasure. "What are we doing?" She pushed him away from her, her actions startling him. Hurt replaced the lust in his eyes.

"Kali," he stepped forward, but she vanished, reappearing outside his bedroom door.

"I am so sorry Shen." She whispered the words but she knew he heard them through his door. "I'm sorry that I can't give you what you deserve." She was a bitch; she knew that Shen was a perfect man, that he could give her what a woman needed. But she wasn't a woman. She was a kinkou ninja, and her sole purpose was a life of shadows. What had started off as giving a friend the comfort she thought they had needed turned into an unrestrained lust that had the power to destroy them both.

She had walked away, a choice that could possibly have been one of the worst in her life. She had left her friend when he needed her, had left him with even more to worry about on a day when his mind was already so troubled. She returned to her room and for the first time in years, she wept. Not for herself, but for the guilty thought that had never once left her mind since that day. She had left him, alone.

"Hello? Kali? Are you there?" Kennen was speaking in a rapid fire of yordle babble as he tried to get Akali's attention back to him, his short fuzzy form bouncing around demonically in front of her line of sight. She came back from the memory with a shudder, not looking at Kennen. Her eyes betrayed too much and Kennen saw too clearly. She turned to finally look at him, to find the furry menace 2 inches from her face.

"Kali, don't you DARE put distance between us when you're hurting. I've been so alone these past days, Shen won't talk to me and neither will you! Both of you are sad, and mad, maybe both, but please stop!" His high pitched voice was exasperated and the stress that this had put on him had obviously been more than Akali suspected. She leaned forward, pressing her cheek against Kennen's as she pulled him into a fierce embrace.

"I'll be okay Kenny, really, I just need some time." She sighed, so desperately wanting to just explode and tell Kennen the truth, but the ninja within silenced her. She contemplated. "I think I need to be alone, I might walk around the grounds for a while, the beauty might calm my emotions."

Kennen looked sad but he nodded, not wanting to press Akali too hard. It was obvious he wanted to comfort her but he did not want to upset her further. The ninja left the room in an uncharacteristically slow manner, and soon after Akali followed in rather the same manner. She did not know how long she had been walking, but she found herself outside. The crisp winter air bit sharply at her exposed face, for she had decided to leave her ninja attire behind. She came out here to discover Akali, not the ninja, but the woman. The beauty of the temple never failed to amaze her, and she swore that every time she came out her she discovered another feature to the ornately carved statues and tapestries. She loved the peace and the tranquillity she felt her, despite the bloodshed that had occurred in a not too distant past.

So much had changed since then. Shen's father, Zed, the fierce vow that the kinkou ninjas had made to one another. No matter what, Akali would always stand strong behind the way of the kinkou; she had no other way to follow. It pained her to admit it, but with the life that had been carved for her, she feared she would be another faceless citizen with no more meaning than a loaf of bread. She moaned, and rubbed her face with her hands to try and stimulate her rapidly cooling cheeks. No matter which course of action she chose, all of them would take her back to the Kinkou and to Shen. She didn't know what to do. The skilled honed assassin thwarted by a man's desires. She laughed at how silly that sounded, and for a moment almost got lost in her laughter.

A dark form materialized behind her, and she acted as fast as her mind could process. She swung out blindly, twisting her body around and bringing her other arm to block any offensive that the form might make. What she did not anticipate was for her body to be encaged by a hard slab of male flesh, her arms pinned to her side and her face inches from that of a man who she had been avoiding for days.

"Why did you run from me Kali?" Shen murmured, his voice dropping into bedroom territory. He stooped low to nuzzle his way into the exposed curve of Akali's neck, almost stopping her heart by doing so.

"What are you doing Shen, I don't need this, I don't need y-"

He interrupted her, swallowing whatever words she had been about to fathom with his own mouth, and without thinking she kissed him back, allowing her tongue to taste his lower lip before she reined in her senses. He grinned.

"You can't deny this either, it's eating me alive. I've never wanted anything this bad Kali, don't you know just how tempting you are to me?" Shen's voice dropped another octave, his low speech almost a purr against Akali's lips. She visibly shuddered at the way he pronounced tempting, his speech a slow masculine drawl that made anticipation bloom in a very feminine place.

"Please Akali..." She froze; she had not heard Shen ever ask for something, not since the day that his father was slain. "Please love me..."

Her heart just about splintered into a thousand tiny fragments at the loneliness in those few words, and at the despair that laced every murmur. She bought up a hand to stroke his face, and finally released the reins on whatever stupid reason had been holding her back. Of course she wanted this, her body was an obvious traitor to her wants. She hoped her eyes portrayed exactly how strongly she felt, for she could not find the words to comfort him. She could only mouth a breathless "yes" before resuming the task that he had started before, exploring his mouth again with her own. She didn't realise how perfect this would be, how their mouths almost moulded together, as if they were made for each other. They were backed up against the wall of the temple now, and much like before, her legs were wrapped tightly around his waist.

"Akali, let me love you."

A short pause, anticipation.

"I'll look after you. Do whatever you want, heck I'll even cle-"

She put a finger to his lips, hushing whatever bumbling words had been about to spill from his mouth. She kissed him gingerly, a lingering kiss that spoke of affection and of trust.

"Take me Shen, make me feel alive." Because whatever this was, Akali had never felt more alive in her entire life. Not when she was training hard every day to become the woman that most men feared. Not when she fought side by side by the brilliant man who had become so much to her. Not even when she had promised herself to Zed. Shen began to remove her top, removing his own at the same time as he lay them both down gently on the soft grass. He took such delicate care, though the pulsating need that emanated from him demanded that he be the exact opposite. There were no more clothes, no more physical barriers. Akali could now see the beautiful man, and it was obvious that he more than appreciated her naked figure. He only stammered "wow" before gorging on her breasts, teasing them both with his hands and his mouth.

Playtime was over. Akali pushed at him to go down her body, until they were positioned, until there was no more barriers between the two.

"Are you sure you want this?" A final question, no going back.

Akali would never do that to this man. "There's no other." And her entire world fragmented as Shen made her feel like no other had done before.