Revised Beginning Chapter 2

"Argh… wha…?" Tatsumi groaned, stubbornly clinging to his sleep. "What's goin' on?"

Tatsumi groggily attempted to rise up but something or rather, two somethings, were weighing down his arms. The boy, puzzled, glanced at the two bulks on his arms and was left in bewilderment when his brain finally decided to process the info. Akame and Kurome were both clutching arms and didn't seem like that they wanted to let go. Akame was sleeping on side and just had one arm hooked around his elbow and was laying straighter then her younger sister. Kurome curled around his entire arm like a body pillow.

'Whatwhatwhatwhatwhaaaaa!' Tatsumi was screaming mentally, but reigned himself in. 'You're a man Tatsumi, get a grip! Stop panicking and think! How the heck am I going to get out of here without waking them up?!' Tatsumi was frantically scraping his mind for a way out and luckily, Tatsumi was able to swiftly extract his body from the potentially lethal trap.

'NICE! I have got to be an ultra-expert, awesome, butt-kicking ninja after that!' Tatsumi felt like he deserved a round of self-appraising after that fiasco. 'Still, I wonder how they get me tangled up in that mess.'

The self-claimed ninja thought about the events before he went to bed. He remembered gathering an abundant amount of wood near the borders of the clearing, and the two sisters went to gather some berries that Tatsumi told him were edible. After all three of them had gathered an acceptable amount of supplies they rendezvoused back at the clearing.

"Hey, where are the berries?" Tatsumi, expecting at least a cloak-full of berries, looked up and down at the siblings, trying to find the berries.

"U-um… we just couldn't find any… It's dark so we couldn't see anything." Akame bashfully looked downward and replied weakly.

'Y-yah! Don't be mad at me and Akame for eating the Berries on the way here, they were delicious!" Kurome blurted out, then she realized her blunder, her face reddened and she covered her mouth with a gasp.

"So you ate all of the berries… Are there any nearby bushes that you didn't pick?" Tatsumi asked hopefully, but deep down he knew the answer.

"No…"

"Nope!"

The siblings replied in unison. Silence reigned in the forest for a moment but Tatsumi's voice broke through.

"Noooooooo… But I'm so hungry…" Tatsumi feeble voice was scarcely heard by Akame and Kurome. The boy's posture was hunched over in defeat and his cowlick fell down in front of his face.

"We're really sorry Tatsumi! Here we can go look for more" Akame offered in a desperate attempt to cheer up the boy.

"That would be nice… but… you should just stay here, it's getting dark." Tatsumi sighed and straightened his posture. He turned to start the fire but Akame asked him a question.

"You're not mad Tatsumi?" Akame fearfully called out from behind him. She was astonished at his self-control, if it were her, she would be really upset.

"Nah… I'm not angry anymore… My old man told me that if I'm to do anything in life, it's to treat girls right or he would kick my butt." Tatsumi exhaled loudly "Just… Please leave me a couple berries next time, alright?"

"Wellllllllll, I think me and sis can make an exception for you Tatsumi, just because you asked so nicely~" Kurome smiled teasingly and Akame bobbed her head in agreement.

Tatsumi shook his head "Well if you put it like that, I can't really stay mad, now can I?"

"You should be grateful that we even apologized, you idiot! Those berries were really delicious!" Kurome looked at the boy disapprovingly.

"WELL I WOUDN"T KNOW BECAUSE YOU ATE THEM ALL!" Tatsumi retaliated in kind to Kurome's attack.

Akame just looked between her sister and Tatsumi, laughing at their argument, but not knowing which side she should take, so she kept silent.

After a minute or two Akame firmly told them to 'knock it off' and reminded them that it was getting dark, so Tatsumi should start the fire. Tatsumi and her sister both resembled deer caught in a headlight. They returned to their respective duties in humiliation.

After the fire was started, Kurome said that she wanted to sleep now. She gave a large yawn and her eyes were drooping. The other two were in agreement, all the running had exhausted all the energy that young children usually possessed .But Tatsumi wondered how they were going to sleep, he usually slept alone in his own hut the old man built for him, so this was an abnormal situation for him to be in.

"I think that we should sleep next to each other, this way we can keep each other warm. Also we should sleep away from the fire because it might get windy and one of the embers might start a fire near us." Akame offered her opinion and Kurome said that she was fine with anything her sister wanted to do.

"So you girls wouldn't mind me sleeping near you?" Tatsumi was surprised and secretly pleased, the girls were very practical and not fussy like he thought most girls to be.

"Why would we be? It's just sleeping after all." Akame said innocently, not knowing the adult implications of sleeping near a man.

"Your right, there's nothing wrong. Let's go to sleep, I'm beat." Tatsumi stretched his right arm above his head and yawned audibly. Both sisters were eager to go to bed and followed him to a rather comfortable patch of grass.

"Gnight guys" Tatsumi mumbled out, sleep already taking him

"Goodnight Tatsumi" Akame replied

"'Night" Kurome yawned.

'So that's how it happened' Tatsumi smiled wistfully 'BUT MAN IM SO HUNGRYY!' His stomach howled, begging Tatsumi to consume SOMETHING. 'Awww, shoot! With any luck Akame and Kurome missed some berries or this day isn't gonna be a good one!'

Tatsumi instantly ran for some of the nearby berry bushes he saw while searching for some tinder. Fortunately Tatsumi had managed to scrounge up a handful of berries that the sisters missed last night.

"Wow! These are good; no wonder the girls ate them all, I wish I could pack some for later on!" Tatsumi enthusiastically scarfed down the juicy berries, relishing the feeling of having a full belly in the morning.

"Whew! Thank god for berries, but I should probably get back, wouldn't want to worry those two…" Tatsumi shuddered at the thought of what would Kurome do if he angered her, not to mention her older sister.

Tatsumi tore towards the clearing, already memorized the way back. In a few minutes he arrived at the clearing and was glad that the siblings were still sound slumbering on the ground. They both held each other in replacement of the boy. Tatsumi would have found it quite adorable if he was older, but he still had issues with girls or other children in general, so he just settled on climbing another tree to see if they were near the camp.

Scaling the tree was oddly easier the second time, allowing Tatsumi to rapidly climbed the lanky tree. When he breached the layer of leaves, he committed to memory the lay out of the remaining forest. There were some clearings on the way; Tatsumi thought that they could camp in those clearings if they got held up for some reason. But the camp was less than a day away so they shouldn't have any need for those clearings, though it was always better to be prepared than caught off guard. Then Tatsumi noticed that a line of trees were missing from the forest, it was also in the way of the camp.

"That's probably a river or a canyon of some sort… I hope it's not too deep because we can't go around that line, it stretches on forever." Tatsumi was rather nervous of the obstacle ahead but was jarred out of his planning when a voice called out to him.

"What did you say Tatsumi?" The leaves rustled for a bit, and then Akame's head popped out of the crown of leaves. She shook her head rigorously to get rid of the leaves on top of her head.

"Err, its about that line of missing trees over there." Tatsumi gestured to what he was talking about "Also, how did you get up here?"

"I climbed up here," Akame calmly stated, and looked at Tatsumi curiously, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. She then followed the direction of Tatsumi's finger. "Ah, I saw what you're talking about! I think that's either a river or a valley, but I can't say for sure." Akame pouted at the end.

"No, uh… what I meant was… Never mind…" Tatsumi voice trailed off, but before the atmosphere got awkward, he recovered "I agree with you, it's probably water or a canyon, both are going to be hard to get across if they're really deep."

"Your right, but there's nothing we can do until we get there, so let's just stop worrying about it" Akame sagely advised. She was now just gazing at the landscape in front of her.

Tatsumi on the other hand was observing Akame. He didn't get a chance to really observe her earlier; he was more focused on surviving and trying to get out of the forest. Her ink-black hair was still straight and fluttering in the breeze, even after sleeping on the ground and climbing up a tree. Her cream white skin was highlighted due to the russet colored cloak she was wearing. The light glittered and glinted around in her eyes, which Tatsumi compared them to a polished ruby he once saw on a ring of a merchant that regularly came stopped at his village.

"What a nice view…" Tatsumi unconsciously voiced his thoughts, entranced by her beauty.

"Yeah, the trees here are really tall so you get to see a lot. I wish I could just look around for a bit longer" She gave off a closed-mouth smile, still staring at the scenery. "But, we should climb back down, before Kurome wakes up." She said while looking at me, and then disappeared beneath the canopy.

"Hey, wait for me!" Tatsumi wildly dove after her, not wanting to be left behind.

When they reached the floor (Surprisingly at the same time), they saw that Kurome was rousing from her sleep. As the younger sibling rubbed the sleep from her eyes, Akame greeted her.

"Hey sis… How was your sleep?" Akame gently asked. She walked over to where her sister was sitting and crouched beside her and stroked her back softly.

"Sis…? Ugh… Need more sleep… 10 more minutes" The younger sibling moaned, failing to resisting the urge to fall back to sleep

"C'mon, we need to get moving so we get out of this forest. You do want to stop getting chased by wolfs right?" Akame coolly reasoned with her drowsy sister.

"ARGG! Just… give me a minute." Kurome groaned loudly, shrugged off her sister and continued to rub her eyes.

Akame just smiled faintly and walked back to where Tatsumi was mutely standing.

"She's not a mornin person huh?" Tatsumi grinned cheekily, putting his hands on his hips.

"Yes, she's cranky in the morning, but she just needs a few minutes to get back to her normal self" Tatsumi's smile was infectious and Akame couldn't help but smile back.

"We should really hurry though, if we leave soon, we might be able to get to the camp before it gets dark"

"Sure, let's hope that nothing too crazy bothers us on the way there." Akame said agreeably

"What the worst that can happen?" Tatsumi ignorantly asked the ultimate forbidden phrase. He didn't know that just by uttering that simple phrase doomed his hopes of an uneventful journey to the camp.

'Hey, that wasn't too bad! I was right, what could possibly go wrong?' Tatsumi thought optimistically.

They had left the clearing about 3 hours ago, the first two and a half hours were just full of lackluster traveling. They took breaks once in a while but they mostly trekked through the forest uninterrupted. But during one of those breaks, Tatsumi decided to check their location, so once again he scaled the only vantage point there was: a tree.

'I think I've been climbing trees way too much, my palms feel like I got a shinai jammed into my palms 100 times.' Tatsumi complained in his head.

Once he got to the top, he saw that they were at the mysterious line of missing trees; he also noticed that the camp was just a couple more hours of traveling left.

The boy sighed "Thank god that it's almost over, traveling sucks…"

The boy just wanted to get to this camp ASAP, so he descended the tree and ran back to the two siblings.

"Whatcha see up there Tatsumi" Kurome curiously questioned, her head tilting a bit.

"Well you weren't awake for this, but when I woke up I climbed one of the tree around the clearing where we slept, and I saw that there was break in the forest. Well we're just in front of the break and I was planning on checking out what it is." Tatsumi described his plan to his companions.

"That sounds like a good idea, let's get going." Akame took the reins of the operation and lead her group towards the break.

What they saw severely disappointed them. It was just a tranquil stream, rather wide, but very shallow and flowing languidly.

They had crossed the body of water with little trouble. Tatsumi noted that the rocks were smooth under his feet, thinking that if he had the time, he would come back and relax and the edge of the stream. The light that fell onto the water glistened and glittered on the surface.

"Well, this sucks, I was imagining it to be a crazy river, or a suuuuper deep crack in the ground, this…. This is kind lame…" Tatsumi shook his head in disapproval and sighed. The brook was already a ways behind them.

"Oh, stop being so annoying Tatsumi! If it were those things it would be really dangerous to try to get over them, and you said that the camp was just over this stream!" Kurome was so infuriated at Tatsumi she cocked back her left arm and smashed it into the back of his head.

"OWOWOWOW! K-K-KUROME! Why did you do that for?!" The back of his head and Kurome's fist were both smoldering. Tatsumi was crouched on the ground, clutching his injured head and sobbing comically.

"THAT's what you get for being a huge idiot, and another thi-!" Kurome's scolding was interrupted by a harsh shriek. All three of them turned towards the direction of the sound. Then another yell cut through what was a silent forest.

"Guys, I think we should check that out, Come on follow me!" Tatsumi instantly recovered from his 'injury' and was already dashing towards the sounds of distress. Akame and Kurome stood there stunned for a moment, but regained their senses and caught up the boy.

After a bit of running "I think this is where we heard the yells but I don't see any thi-." Tatsumi was interrupted by a cloud of dust erupting a few meters to his right.

"Wha-what is that!?" Kurome stuttered out and she cowered behind her bigger sister.

"That's a Centipede… a very aggressive insect that usually hunts bugs, but now… I think it can start looking for bigger meals..." The last part was mumbled quietly to not distress his companions.

The centipede swayed back in forth for a moment but then charged off into the direction of the screams. Tatsumi connected the dots, and barely resisted the urge to throw up. He visibly blanched and leaned on a tree to keep him from falling.

"Tatsumi! Are you alright? What's wrong?" Akame worriedly rushed over to Tatsumi's hunched form. She looked like she wanted to comfort him but didn't know just how to do so.

Tatsumi panted "Yeah I'm fine… just… gimme a second" The boy tried to rein in his breathing but to no avail.

"Hey, you look sick; we should get out of her and get to someplace where we can rest." Kurome restlessly said behind her sister. She was fidgeting with Akame's cloak but she looked at Tatsumi with concern.

"No… I need… to stop those things…" Tatsumi ground out, forcibly trying to quell his turbulent stomach. "Akame can you please give me your knife?" He extended his hand out towards the girl and motioned for her to hand him the blade.

Akame was stunned into silence, not saying for a few moments, but she snapped out of her daze and said "T-T-Tatsumi?! What are you saying?" She was still in a state of confusion because of Tatsumi's words.

"Yeah, what do you mean 'Stop those things'? Didn't you notice how huge they were?!" Kurome rapidly backed up her sister "We should just leave! We can't fight those things, but we can go around them and get to the camp!" Kurome's fearfulness disappeared and was replaced by simple logic.

Tatsumi shook his head slowly and pushed off the tree he was leaning on, "But we can't just leave them! We should go help them, they're in danger!" Tatsumi pigheadedly retorted. His face was contorted into a grim scowl, not giving up any ground.

"Tatsumi… Kurome is right; we shouldn't risk our life for people we don't know…" Akame tried to coax the boy from throwing away his life, her worried eyes pleaded from him to listen to reason. But Tatsumi wouldn't have it.

"But you did it for me!" Tatsumi fired back.

"That's because it was just one wolf, Tatsumi. But there is going to be a lot more of those things if you try to stop them. Plus I'm not risking Kurome's life on a whim." Akame grimly stated.

Tatsumi ground his teeth harshly, and clenched his fist in obvious frustration. His body trembled and his breathing was uneven. His hair covered his eyes and he hung his head down.

"Tatsumi… we should go..." Akame softly whispered, and moved to grab him. Her hand was a few centimeters from his shoulders, but she jolted it back when abruptly looked at her

"No…I can't accept that! If lives are in danger and I can help, I will! Those kids were just like me, and I don't want anyone else feeling that hopelessness. You don't have to come… I wouldn't ask you to leave Kurome; I know you love her a lot. But please, help me help them! Please trust in me, I'll stop those monsters and come back before it gets dark. Just wait for me in a clearing, there's one over there." He pointed towards his left. "Please Akame, Kurome, I'm begging you!"

Tatsumi shut his eyes once more and bowed deeply, imploring for the girls to help him.

"…" Both sisters were shocked once again, not expecting Tatsumi to be so obstinate on this matter. They both felt that he was a fairly logically person, and thought that he would listen to them on this one. The moments of silence stretched on for a moment, but Akame was the one to speak up.

"… Okay Tatsumi, you win… Just… Promise us that you'll come back to us, no matter what" Akame softly relented and produced her knife from her cloak. She held it out in front of Tatsumi and smiled angelically. Deep down she knew he wouldn't stop trying to save those kids, so she wanted to give him as much aid as possible.

Tatsumi lifted his head and gazed at Akame. Then he smiled gratefully. "Now I have no choice but to come back, don't worry guys, just wait for me!" Tatsumi forced himself to say bravely, he didn't want them to think he was terrified. He then pivoted around and raced after the centipede, leaving the two sisters.

"… Sis… do you think he'll really come back?" Kurome nervously asked, after she couldn't see Tatsumi through the forest.

"Don't worry Kurome, he promised us. All we have to do now, is trust him." She wrapped her arm around her sisters shoulders reassuringly "Come on, let's go to that clearing Tatsumi was talking about and wait for him there."

"Okay…" The younger sister didn't protest, allowing her sister to guide her.

'Please come back safe Tatsumi…' The thought was unnecessary though, Akame was confident he would return, He did promise after all.

TO BE CONTINUED

Disclaimer: Don't own AGK.

AN: Holy moly guys! 9 follows and favorites and 7 reviews! I wasn't expecting too many people to see this story but those reviews are making me pumped up! I hope you guys enjoyed this chap, it was kind of headache for me.

I tried to have the scene of Tatsumi wanting to save the other kids as reasonable as possible, but I think I did a decent job. Let me know what you guys think of Akame's acceptance and that scene all together; it will help me a lot.

Sentinel07, DemonFoxBK201, godbob111, , Ahour, Luna and Fatshadow1; Thank you for giving this story a shot and have the time to actually review! Keep this up and I'm tempted to get started on the next chapter XD.

Also since a majority of the people asked me if Kurome was going to be separated or not. The answer is yes, she will be. The reason why is because, she still relied on her sister and on Tatsumi. She didn't do much. But that doesn't mean that she'll be ignored, I'm going to get the group back together in future chapters. So look out for those : ).

Shootingmavi.