Shattered Wakizashi (//KPT only)

[Ramke]

All seemed unnaturally calm for Kyosha-3, though being kept in the dark, on a tight leash by the Kempei captain and working alongside the Exiles made the entire situation extremely uncomfortable. Must be the calm before the storm, a thought entered her mind at random. Airi felt confident in the captain's plans and didn't expect much danger to appear, aside from a chance of encountering a few pirates on the way.

The radio silence of the surrounding area and traversing through a lot of ground unencountered only proved her line of thinking, the Kempeitai always made sure operations were undisturbed by the ones that needn't disturb it. That is, until the KSP patrol exited from the trade lane.

"This.. isn't going to be an easy situation to get out of. I hope the captain has something good in mind by doing this..." Kurokawa spoke to the internal Kyosha channel, and waited to witness the situation unfold.

Then the order came to assassinate the Police patrol. Unlike Karasu, Airi stayed silent and hoped for others to voice their disapproval, all while ignoring Kyosha-1 and the captain's orders to attack the innocent Police patrol. Attacking the innocent people who work and ensure safety within the Republic alongside the Exiles was something she wouldn't have dreamt of doing before sitting inside her fighter at the start of the operation. Her doubts and internal moral conflict with the situation were rendered silent by a large light flying right past her ship from behind and hitting one of the KSP, witnessing the ship absolutely crippled in a large fireball. The sight sent shivers down the agent's spine and froze due to fear and surprise.

Kurokawa's actions were delayed to the sudden betrayal, dropping countermeasures and breaking a hard right a second before a gunboat missile would've decimated the fighter. The "Incoming Missile" message was clouded by various comm chatter from both the wing, the Exiles and the police patrol, yelling and shock from Yamaguchi's fire on the police ship, along with the vision-shattering scenario that was taking place right before her. If not for Karasu's timely warning, Kurokawa's ship would be lost and her life extinguished.

The missile directly hit the countermeasure and exploded less than a hundred meters away from the ship, causing shockwaves that the shield could barely withstand and causing the ship to recoil, disorienting the pilot.

Getting her wits back together and seeing Karasu being targetted as well, she quickly reverted the changes to her IF/F back to transmitting Kempeitai signatures.

"This is unbelievable! Everyone who doesn't want to get massacred for this nonsense, revert your IF/F so we can distinguish ourselves from those backstabbers!" she reluctantly yelled into the internal Kyosha wing and local communications, hoping to see other green lights starting to ping in her ship's entity list.

With a glance on the list, however, things suddenly gotten so much worse with many Exile ships she hadn't noticed on the way suddenly appearing in the list. Airi wasn't aware that the Yamaguchi housed an entire wing of fighters.

Following Karasu's suite, she started doing evasive maneuvers, waiting to see how many would follow her suggestion and for someone to take the first step. Would the other Kempeitai wings react or still follow their orders, considering they still have a choice on their allegiance?

---