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Several years earlier, at the Ninja Academy….

Orion was sitting in his usual seat, three rows from the front of the class, and reading a book on ninjutsu he’d gotten at the library. The book was a little….advanced for his current class level, though he could understand it just fine. Ever since he’d gotten there though, the others had been pestering him about it and his right eyebrow was beginning to twitch. He normally just ignored the other students when they got like this, but it had been going on for several days now and he was sick of it. Shortly after his eyebrow began twitching a young girl from the other side of the room jumped down several flights of stairs before walking the rest of the way toward him. “Oi, Grumpy-san, why so serious?” She asked him sarcastically with a smile on her face.

Orion chose to just ignore her in the hopes she’d go away and leave him to his reading. “Grumpy-san! Don’t be so gloomy, there’s life to live and people to fight!” she continued. Upon hearing this Orion simply turned to look at her and raised his right eyebrow. Before either of them said anything more however, the teacher walked in and the girl went back to her seat. This exchange, her walking over and calling him Grumpy-san until the teacher arrived and him ignoring her, went on for several days until one day, after class, he saw her being confronted by five rather large, compared to her, boys. Orion might not have liked her all that much, but she hadn’t done anything that he’d want to see her get beaten up over. “Sigh, why do I have to be so nice sometimes?” he thought to himself as he went over to stand just behind her and to the right.

“Is there a problem here?” he asked the group. The guy in the center, which was apparently the one in charge, replied “She shoved into me, so now she’s gonna learn some manners.” The girl didn’t even bother defending herself verbally, apparently choosing to rush forward at the speaker instead. He tried to land a punch at her stomach, but she blocked it with her arm. She then rushed forward and, placing her hands on his shoulders, lifted herself up to his height and head-butted him straight in the nose. She then quickly kicked off his stomach before she was crushed under his weight and landed back in the center of the circle in a crouch, with her hand touching the ground as a balance.

As the girl landed one of the two boys who had been standing to the left of the speaker charged her. Noticing this, Orion ran in and intercepted the fool, ducking under the wild punch he aimed at his head and sending his own straight into the bully’s stomach. As he doubled over from the strike, Orion straightened up and brought his right knee up to connect to his face, breaking his nose with a satisfying crunch, and knocked him onto the ground.

Once he was done with his opponent he heard a grunt from behind him. Turning he saw the girl bring her fist forward and punch another of the boys in the collarbone, he could hear the crack of it breaking from where he was. The girl then placed her foot onto his chest and spoke angrily, “That was dishonorable, you disgust me.”

As she stepped off of the boy’s chest, Orion heard movement to his right and turned to see one of the last two bullies charging at him. He ducked the boy’s left handed punch and dodged to the left to avoid his right handed one. Before he had time to retract his arm however, Orion grabbed his wrist and forearm and twisted the boy’s arm behind his back. Adding just a little bit of pressure he easily dislocated his shoulder and then struck him in the back of the neck with his left hand to knock him to the ground to join his follows.

Orion and the girl both turned to the last remaining boy, but before they could do anything the boy, who looked like he was ready to wet himself, ran in the opposite direction. The girl then turned to him, and grumpily stated with her arms crossed, “I didn’t need your help.” Looking at her he replied in a mocking tone “Oh you’re welcome, no need to thank me. And my name is Orion Ekisho, pleasure to meet you.” Apparently choosing to ignore his tone, she answered with a smirk, “The name’s Akiho Hagane, Grumpy-san. And you’re right, the pleasure is yours.” Shaking his head all Orion could think was “About as pleasurable as hugging a cactus.” Outloud he said “Look, I just saw you outnumbered and decided to help. If you want to be ungrateful fine, but wasn’t it you who mentioned honor during the fight? Isn’t part of that being kind to a comrade and ally?”

Akiho seemed to ponder Orion’s words for a second before she relinquished and said, “Yes I suppose.” She paused for a second before finishing her apology, “Sorry about that, fighting is deep in my blood and imprinted on the brain.” This curious wording piqued Orion’s curiosity so he said “Oh? How do you mean?” Akiho grinned and then explained, “My mom was the same way about fighting, and I got her way of fighting in my bones….. Metal ones that is.”

And so began the very close, though very unusual, friendship of Akiho Hagane and Orion Ekisho. Over the years the two would grow closer, both as friends and comrades, and became nearly inseperable.