A Black and White Cross

Chapter 4

Factions

Alba smelled smoke and opened his eyes. He was where he usually was, in his library, the gothic tower on the mountainside overlooking the village where he had grown up, and was hated. He shook his head, pale hair falling into his eyes. It was bad to think such thoughts in the morning. He yawned and stretched, he had fallen asleep on the floor again and his back popped several times before he let out a contented sigh. Around him on the rug he had fallen asleep on were scattered books and scrolls. He yawned again as he headed over to the window to see what the heck was going on that smoke reached all the way up to his perch.

He threw open the window only to be greeted by a wall of heat and smoke that forced him to retreat, coughing. He squinted and went back to the window to see the town burning. Shady figures moved around in the smoke and flames, some chasing others, others running around in a panic. Through it all he could hear the screams, getting louder and louder until he had to cover his ears. He let out his own shriek.


He shot up in bed, covered in a cold sweat, and he still smelled smoke. He didn't recognize the room he was in either. It was plain and simple with tan stone supporting a low wood-board ceiling. His eyes eventually fell on a woman sitting next to his bed. She had boyish looks, with short silver hair and a purple left eye, the other's position being covered by an eye patch. Only an idiot would mistake her for a boy though, she had a womanly figure that rivaled Esdese'. Like Akame he recognized her from the wanted posters around town as Najenda, leader of the outlaw group Night Raid. His eyes narrowed and his breathing steadied. She was probably the only member of the group that he could beat in a fight.

She continued to eat an apple and looked back at him with a calculating look. She munched for a while, simply looking at him. She ate loudly and the sound began to get on his nerves. It was a standard interrogation tactic to put a prisoner on edge, but Alba was determined to overcome it. He continued to stare down the ex-general while his mind wondered elsewhere. The only happy place he could find was back with Esdese. He pictured her ice-blue features in his mind and focused entirely on them, submersing himself.

She eventually put down the finished apple core on the bed stand next to Alba, eyes never breaking with his. She brushed her hands off and started speaking.

"So what's your name?" She asked in a conversational tone.

"Alba Tapaidh" He replied, tone perfectly level.

"Where you from?"

"Aachen, Province of the Lioness." She closed her one good eye and nodded her head in thought.

"How'd you get out?" She asked eventually.

"What's burning?" He shot back.

"About four or five acres of forest." She said, still in a conversational tone, "One of your teammates attacked us last night." Alba raised an eyebrow at that.

"Which one?"

"Some asshole in a lab coat." She replied with a wry look. Alba snorted.

"Dr. 'Stylish', heh, he really was an asshole, he deserved whatever he got." She chuckled at that before continuing.

"Even though he was an asshole, he made quite a racket. We're going to have to relocate now, and I was just getting to like this place." She said nostalgically, putting her head in her mechanical right hand.

"Well, I'm sorry about that." He said in apology. She let out another short chuckle.

"No helping it now." She said, lifting her head back up. "What were you doing out that far from the capital anyway?"

"I was on a hunting trip."

"Hunting what?" She asked. He lifted his head up a fraction of an inch, determined not to let this go any farther. She smiled wryly at him. "Listen, all we know is that you were in an Imperial Army uniform, with an Imperial Arms user assigned to the same team that attacked us last night, on the estate of a sadist proven guilty of kidnapping, murder, and torture by a people's court of the Revolutionary Army. It's in your best interest to cooperate."

Alba never heard the end of her statement, his mind fixating on the memories of the day before just before he passed out brought up at the mention of the sadist. He bile rose and he started to throw up again, but he pushed it down. He looked away from Najenda and tried to pass off his sudden convulsions as a small coughing fit, but she wasn't fooled. She had seen the pain and horror in his eyes.

"You know, stuff like that is common in the Capital now. Sadism is popular among the upper classes, while drugs and prostitution circulate amongst the lower class like a disease." She said, her voice attaining a deeper and far more foreboding air.

"And that's why you fight."

"And that's why we fight."

Alba looked back to see how serious her eyes were, how much she believed what she was doing was right and just. She looked at him and saw nothing but a cold wall. She nodded.

"You immobilized Tatsumi in a fair fight and detected Incursio even though it was invisible, neither of which is a small feat." She said, back to a conversational tone of voice. "So I am willing to offer you a position in Night Raid if you so choose."

"No." Her eyebrows went up at the seriousness and confidence of the immediate answer, he hadn't even thought about it. "My loyalties lie with another."

"I'm sorry to hear that." She said as she started to get up.

"What I can do," He said forcefully so that she would sit back down, "is get her to support your cause, even if it's just subliminally. You can even afford to let me go, as you're moving hideouts anyway." She sat in thought for a moment before responding.

"What makes you think we need her support?" He gave her predatory smile as she said it. The temperature in the room dropped a few degrees and Najenda suddenly knew who 'She' was.

"Her loyalties lie with the Empire." She growled.

"No, her loyalties lie with the god of war." He replied, "If the current situation was presented properly, while she wouldn't switch sides entirely, a new equation could be created."

While she couldn't quite tell what was going on behind those pale eyes, she could see the gears turning. She could see neither deceit nor treachery either, and her instincts screamed at her to agree with him.

"How do I know I can trust you?"

"You can't"

It was a simple, honest answer like every single one he had given up until that point. She got up.

"I'll think about it, while I do you need to get something to eat. Lunch will be ready in a few moments, if Akame doesn't eat everything." She chuckled a bit as she walked out of the room, she stopped at the doorway and popped her head as if suddenly remembering something, "Oh! You might not want to mention your hometown around the other members, and put some clothes on." She winked at him as she closed the door.

He looked down, finally noticing he wore nothing but a pair of briefs he didn't recognize and he almost missed her cryptic comment in his ensuing embarrassment. He got out of bed put on the fatigues he had worn the day before, which had been washed and pressed. A knock at the door came as he was lacing up the boots.

"Come in." Alba said. The green-haired boy, Lubbock came in and gave him a smile.

"The Boss wanted me to escort you to lunch." He replied apologetically. Alba stood up and gestures out the door.

"Lead the way." They walked out into the hallway. It was as plain as the room he had slept in and offered little in the way of observation as the pair walked through the maze. At one intersection they heard a deep laughter as the blonde woman he had seen the day before and at the tournament crossed ahead of them. She seemed to be laughing at Tatsumi's indignant pout, whom she had tucked under a breast as big as the boy's head. As she looked up at them her laughter died out and her eyes became haunted. She instinctively held Tatsumi closer and quickened her pace away.

"What was that all about?" Alba mumbled.

"Who, Leone? She always does that with Tatsumi, lucky bastard." Lubbock replied.

"Hmmm" Alba said subconsciously as he gazed after them. Although his loyalty to Esdese didn't allow him to agree with Lubbock's comment, that wasn't what he had been referring to. The rest of the way to lunch passed in silence. Lubbock led him to a servant's dining room adjacent to the kitchen, where Akame and Tatsumi were preparing salted meat and cheese. Leone and the pink-haired girl from the day before sat chatting at the table and Najenda sat with them in silence. She nodded to him as he entered and took a seat across from the two girls who showed no reaction to his presence. Lubbock sat between him and Najenda as Akame and Tatsumi brought out two platters loaded with sandwiches. Alba suddenly realized that he hadn't eaten since the morning before and that that meal had been… rejected. He eyed the sandwiches hungrily. The meal passed in friendly conversation between the members of Night Raid, with only Najenda and Alba staying silent. Akame didn't say anything either but Alba assumed that that was more because her mouth was occupied by sandwich after sandwich than anything else. Everyone began to file out as they finished their lunches. Lubbock looked at Najenda for permission to leave before going. After the others had left Akame and Tatsumi began to gather the plates but Najenda waved them off. After that it was just her and Alba, gauging each other diagonally across the table.

"You only ate one sandwich?" She asked.

"I was afraid Akame might attack me if I got another." He replied. She chuckled at that and shook her head.

"She might have, she might have." She said, her voice trailing off, "We were there you know, at Aachen."

The sudden comment caught him off guard. Had she known what he was dreaming about earlier?

"Someone told the Prime Minister that the town was housing soldiers for the Revolutionary Army, so he sent a band of mercenaries to burn it to the ground. It wasn't true of course, but if we let every town that was suspect get razed then no one would actually help us, so Night Raid was sent as a kinda… quick-reaction force. Only thing was that we weren't quick enough. By the time we got there the town was already in flames and all of the residents slaughtered. We killed the mercenaries, but that didn't bring any of the villagers back. We looked for survivors but we couldn't find any, only charred corpses." Her eyes had grown haunted with memory.

"I lived in the library up on the side of the mountain. After I saw what was happening I hid in a secret cellar. I heard people come in but I thought they were the mercenaries." He said clinically. That night had been nearly two years ago.

"I remember that library. We got all the books, you know. They're at the Revolutionary Army's headquarters." She said, a small smile creasing her face before failing again.

"I'm glad to know that they're ok." He said, the comment lost on Najenda.

"The only ones from that night that are still with us are Leone and Mine. It always hits Leone especially hard." Alba nodded as he comprehended the woman's reaction to him. Najenda looked at him for another long moment before speaking again.

"I've decided to go along with your plan, the chance to get Esdese on our side is just too much to pass up. Akame will escort you back to the Capital and keep an eye on you; if you default on our deal she has orders to kill you." She said in a cool business tone.

"I understand." He said as they shook hands.


Alba stood waiting outside the main gates to the palace. The guard had left nearly twenty minutes before and Alba was getting impatient. Suddenly the massive gates began to open and he caught a glimpse of Esdese walking out, trailing a guard trying to put a brave face on being terrified. Alba started to smile until he saw her face, cold and hard as steel. He quickly shut his own emotions down with practiced efficiency and put on a neutral expression. She approached at a brisk walk and looked him up and down.

"Come with me." She said, sending an icicle through his heart. Even though they had been together for only a short time, they had shared some of the most intimate moments humans could. In the end the fact remained that they had been together for less than a week and Alba really knew nothing about Esdese, so the doubt that he could have misjudged her remained. He followed obediently. She led him on the ten minute journey back to her wing in silence. Alba could have sworn that the air was colder than it had been outside the palace and a fogged breath seemed verify that. Others avoided the couple and didn't approach within ten meters. One pore sod who did got a glare from Esdese and he nearly peed his pants. They eventually got to her wing and went straight to the bedroom, ignoring a confused and shy looking Bols and Wave who was walking with an awkward limp. She closed the doors behind her. He turned to her and prepared to take whatever she threw at him, or so he thought. She was head and shoulders taller than Alba and so when she grabbed him and pulled him into her he was nearly suffocated in her ample chest. He was more surprised by the tears he felt on his head as she pressed her face into his hair.

"I thought you were gone." She said under her breath.

"Shhhh," He said as he held her tight to him, "I will never leave you."

They stood together for a while, simply being together.