Returning to the two individuals that travelled below the harsh sun of the desert, Akame fixated her eyes on Tatsumi one more time, thinking of the events that led to the miraculous survival of her partner. She wanted to organize her memories, so that she was one more time, sure, that the individual before her, wasn't neither a spirit, or a ghost haunting her for the memories of her beloved ones.
A few days before
Akame was laying on a stone-made bed, instead of a coach, she used some straw that she had bought with money, from a nearby village, as for sheet, she used raw fur of Dire wolf, an exotic class of danger beast, normally used to be watch dogs after rigorous training and taming.
Only a few days had passed after she left the Empire capital, asking Najenda to blame her for all the wrongdoings of the Revolutionary army, to blame her name, her existence, to throw her into the path of eternal carnage after the ones chasing her life, and the bounty of her head.
It was already at night and Akame was glad she had found a very isolated ruin to hide herself during night-time, it was pretty common for bandits to try to ambush her in the previous nights, as the places where she had slept gave little to non-existent protection towards nature, assailants, nor even wild animals or unfortunate travelers that she had to eliminate before they alarmed soldiers about her hiding places.
But tonight it was different, tonight, she was certain of having found the perfect place to stay and pass the night, the place, was a desolated ruin inside the desert of Gavahan where it was rumored that a very dangerous monster lived, funny thing Akame found, was that the monster had died a long time ago due starvation and thirst, she was actually fortunate that she had some savings rations in her belongings as the mere odyssey to reach this place had been exhausting.
The breeze of the night softly caressed her hair as she laid her back onto the hand-made bed, at the head of said object, the wooden statue that belonged to Tatsumi was looking at her side, it was a precious object that she keep with her all the time, it gave her strength to carry on, even after discovering that even Leone had parted from this world due a letter sent by Najenda`s hawk, Harpy.
Soon her eyes became heavy, it was normal after all she had barely slept the previous nights, and during the day she was moving constantly so that no one discovered her new "home" even if it was only stone and dust everywhere. So with her last remains of strength she kissed the statue gently and whispered with equal softness.
"Good night, Tatsumi"
Those were her only words of utter happiness as she closed her eyes, and in response, her hearing sense became louder.
"-me!"
And then, the voice began again…
It had become irritating over the past days, it only came at night, and it was frisky, weak, and utterly filled with… despair.
"—ameee!"
The words continued louder, and louder as Akame again tried to drift to sleep for the first time in a long lapse of days without sleeping properly.
"AKAMEEE!"
Akame opened her eyes wide, totally alarmed as the voice became incredibly louder than before, but what alarmed her more, wasn`t the voice, but the person to which said voice belonged. It was without a doubt, Tatsumi`s voice what rang on her ears and forced her to sit on the bed edge.
Soon tears began to form on her eyes and those same drops fell, former little spaces of watered sand as they landed on the ground, before the girl again, started to cry.
She remembered once, about Zank`s words, about the voices of the damned ones, the voices of the people he killed that cornered him into a becoming a mass maniac murder, was her fate the same as his, in the end?
"AKAME BREAK IT!" The voice yelled even louder, as it started to trail a little, frail trace of weakness in it.
"TO BREAK WHAT!" She would yell, again, and again, it was always the same answer, nothingness. "WHAT DO I NEED TO BREAK TO MAKE YOU STOP!" She yelled again and covered her ears trying to suffocate the words that came from apparently nowhere, but were always by her side.
Then, when her cry finally subdued, when she was again, with her heart totally broken and her soul almost giving away to the curse to take her life, she heard it again.
"…The statue…" It said, faintly, as if the person was almost dying.
Without a second thought Akame grabbed the object tightly in her hands, as if trying to squash it with mere brute force, but to no avail the object remained normal not mattering the force she applied, it was a very important thing for her, but after days of hearing it again and again, after thinking that she may never have happiness again unless said artifact was destroyed, she tried to smash it against the bed frame, to her surprise, it didn`t break even after the hit, now she was certain of it, the statue, wasn`t normal, it was a teigu.
"…CONTINUE…" The voice echoed in pain as it yelled harshly, noticing that the smash had produced something inside of it, was it possible, was Tatsumi`s soul inside that thing?
"Tatsumi, is that you?" She asked but she didn`t wait for an answer, instead she grabbed Murasame and readied to slash it, it would be a lone cut, a perfect beheading cut to destroy the thing before her.
"Tatsumi if you can hear me, stay down don`t lift your head!" She shouted and then almost instantly she cut the statue with a lighting speed slash, beheading the artifact almost instantly before sheating Murasame again, remaining motionless.
Minutes passed as she remained the same, but inside of her, her heart started to crumble, was her mind playing tricks on her? Or did she actually succeed and she had freed his soul? Then why he didn`t thank him, Why?
As her legs gave in and she started to fall to the floor on her knees a pair of hands suddenly supported her, embracing her little frame tightly into a warm hug, she remembered such warm, but she was actually to shy to look at the source, as she was actually sure by this time who was covering her vision with his nude torso. It was Tatsumi.
Present day, desert road.
Akame remembered those events as clearly as if they were just yesterday, being the fact that almost a month had already passed between said event and nowadays, she still remember his stomach sounds as she was voracious, and almost starved due being captured by the teigu, but the most important thing was the cold his body was suffering, he had his life to thank to his savior as if it wasn't for her, he would have died that day, but Akame, felt the same, if it wasn't for his presence she would have lost her will to carry on, after all, it seemed to be too comfortably to be with her most beloved ones… but now that her most beloved one was here, it was a whole different thing.
"Is something wrong, Akame?" Tatsumi asked as he looked at her eyes gently making the girl look to another side just to avoid his penetrating gaze as she blushed gently.
"I, I am just glad you are here, Tatsumi" She said as she tenderly hugged him from behind. "I have lost some many people precious to me, I am hated by so many others that I gave my life to protect, that if I continued against the world alone, I would have lost my will to fight by today"
Tatsumi understood her words, after all he knew that Akame was a very kind individual, even if she always had a mirror of nothingness, he had long ago realized the burning kindness that enveloped her rather, hot figure, ehem, gently frames.
The duo remained silent for a while, covering their skin from the sun with the fur cloaks Tatsumi had bought from the same nearby village Akame visited in order to buy straw and other things the previous month, yet, by now, her wanted poster was already pasted in the streets, and that meant problems for her again if she dared to enter there.
As they remained silent, Tatsumi`s flow of thought rushed to find some words to cheer her up, it was the only thing he could said to his savior after all, but suddenly Akame released her grip on his waist and trotted forward as a pretty large bird came into view. "Its Harpy" she said as the giant hawk opened her mouth to let a letter fly towards her hands.
"I have to say that its surprising how fast that bird can track us down" Tatsumi said a bit amazed as the bird, after letting Akame pet his head started to flap her wings in order to depart again towards its owner. "What does the letter says, Akame?"
Akame was reading at it really intently, it seemed that the message was rather important for her, or better to say, for them, yet what Tatsumi couldn't tell, wasn't the letter contents, but rather, when Akame had moved to his side and pushed him into a sand dune, making them roll on it, just in time to same him from an incoming cannonball that crashed on the spot where he was standing micro seconds before.
"What the letter said was that the mercenaries were in reality 13 members, and that the previous members we killed recently were just a bait to gauge our fighting potential" she yelled as they continued rolling, until they landed into an oasis that covered them from the sights of their hunters.
"Heh, they are really lucky brats, specially if they could dodge that shot in the nick of the time" Said a very muscular man that looked a bit irritated as he waved his curly brown hair back so he could see better with his light brown eyes trying to scan the area, to not avail as the oasis covered them.
There were two cloaked figures by his side who simply looked down as if they were analyzing the situation and then they patted the shoulder of the only uncovered male.
"it's a fact they are alive, if we go there, we will become their next prey, its wiser for us to wait. Also we need to inform the soldiers, about their location, they wont move from there, I can assure you that, the girl, hit her head with a stone when she landed after saving her partner"
With the reassuring words of his partner the muscular male softly relaxed and soon he rested his weird looking teigu on his shoulder as they decided to fall back, meanwhile inside the oasis, as the other male had said, Akame was bleeding from her head, due having hurt herself with a stone, Tatsumi on the other hand, was horrorized and stared at her trying to not to make a sound.
Well this is it for chapter 1, part A and B, I want to encourage people to send me two OCs for the 2 resting mercenaries, take into consideration that one of them use Spectator as a teigu, the other is free charge for anybody to give ideas, I have mine already though I just want to see your opinions, ahh by the way the last mercenary that we don`t know anything about, is a girl.
