Disclaimer: Akame Ga Kill is the intellectual property of Tetsuya Takahiro. The anime belongs to White Fox. Please be clear that I am not nor claim to be the owner of this series. Please support the legitimate owners and thank you all for reading.
Ideas for this fanfic: The Emperor is really a victim and not a villain in the show depending on how you look at it. While a lot of other stories seem to feature our beloved protagonists, what if our loyal antagonist finds a new coach?
Midnight:
Prologue
Cold beads of sweat burned like acid on his feverish forehead.
That acidic power was fear which now corroded beyond the cranium into his brain.
Already his mind had written a horror masterpiece of his subsequent torture that will occupy all the library in the Empire and still never finish or have a definitive ending.
His ears developed a will of their own and gave him vivid, audial hallucinations of his own screams echoing for an eternity in this endless cave.
Social pride fooled him into the belief that no human, strong, weak, old, young, man, woman, peasant, and assassin nor would warrior dare to touch a hair of his royal body full of sacred blood.
He had seen Danger Beasts despite their gigantic size and threatening fangs, still taken down by the coordinated efforts of soldiers. Mighty but dumb.
Yet the child part of him sensed the screeching traces of features of this unnatural sapience concealed by shadows to be anything but a human being or a mortal bound animal. Those cryptic grotesqueness were as troubling as a badly played violin; one that was screaming and not producing soothing music.
Human instinct in him knew that Emperor or not, this demon won't care….
As with all the ivory bones petrified on the cave bed and grinning animal skulls welcoming him into their club.
The branches of shadows were casted onto his legs, holding him like feet-cuffs in this hostile black dungeon while he extended his head behind a small wall to espionage on his foe.
Burp.
The thing put bony old fingers to its mouth as if to excuse its rude eating behaviour, or perhaps….the Emperor feared, it was excusing itself because it knew it was not alone in the cave.
His timid whimper was lost to the air when the evil in the black robes stretched and stood with so much arthritic cramps so tight that it shouldn't have been alive and animate at all.
The silhouette sharply twisted its head towards the direction of the sound at the same second as he retracted his head.
If I can see it, it can see me.
The golden rule of hide and seek repeated as his only chance of seeing dawn again.
What came next from the monster was sort of a sniff but so prolonged that he thought a part of his soul had already been sucked into this thing's nostrils.
Another sniff-inhalation.
Silence.
He dared not to directly poke his head out. Nonetheless curiosity made it go out bit by bit like the ticking of a watch dial.
The humanoid or rather hag it seemed to be, had sat down again, and whisking that cauldron of stew, occasionally taking a sip with the spoon.
The emperor signed with such an endless reserve of air knowing he can extinguish an army of candles with that breath of relief. He tried to take in a breath when-
'ACHOOO!' He was infuriated at this nose's betrayal. That speck of dust had forever doomed the emperor and his kingdom.
He retreated and was sure that he made it but everything went in slow motion as he did so.
In that time he caught a glimpse.
The hag did not jump up in surprise and claw at everything like a typical horror fairy tale to children.
Rather it nodded subtly.
Seemingly confident in the knowledge that it didn't have to haste because the boy can run, he can hide but neither will be of any success against it.
It toyed with him by really calm and slow actions.
It or she extended upwards like a black smoke or an evil tree growing from the earth that spooked this gloomy cave back to life.
Clunk. An unmistakable footstep.
Clunk. His survival flight or fight response didn't seemed to have considered the possibility that the Emperor will choose the useless third option of freeze.
Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.
Life flashed before the Emperor's eyes.
There was stillness and a strange tranquillity.
CLUNK!
'Found you.' A soft but cold whisper came.