Disclaimer: I don't own Akame ga Kiru
It was a cool night breeze that disturbed Makoto from his sleep.
At first, Makoto was confused as to where he was, since he was very clearly not sleeping on his bed, but rather on a hard surface, making for an uncomfortable sleep.
This state of mind lasted for about 10 seconds and was then obliterated as he saw the night sky over him.
Memories of the events that led to this situation came rushing back to him, reminding him that he was, in fact, outside his palace, alone, in the night.
...
...
...
"Oh no!" Makoto half-shouted as he turned into a pigeon, terrified by the unexpected turn of events.
In a blink of an eye he was moving through the sky, wings flapping madly to provide acceleration. 'I need to get back' he repeatedly thought to himself, each sentence increasing the sense of urgency in his head. He moved over countless roads, rising higher and higher, until he could see the walls surrounding the palace ahead of him, standing tall as always.
Too tall, in fact.
While ascending over the walls from his balcony was easy, doing the same from the much more distant and lower in altitude, by comparison, rooftop of the building, where he had taken his unexpected nap, was much more difficult for the little pigeon he had transformed into. On top of all that, Makoto's panicked flight was anything but well paced. As such, Makoto quickly found himself unable to muster the strength to keep on flapping his wings to ascend. Unwilling to back down, the shapeshifting child tried to find an air current, a strong wind, anything at all to help him climb further up into the sky, to no avail.
Unable to continue his flight, Makoto was forced to glide back towards the ground. Landing in an empty road near a public square, he switched to his human disguise before realizing how bad an idea that was. During his flight, he had pushed his body more than he had ever done before and now that the adrenaline had started to fade, he could feel his body protesting against his actions. Trying to pay no mind to the sensations, he made his way to the public square, before collapsing on a bench in exhaustion.
As he rested, Makoto couldn't help but feel afraid. He was alone, in the middle of the night, away from his palace, to which he couldn't return due to a lack of strength. At the thought, Makoto felt like a stone had been dropped in his stomach. He couldn't go back. Never before had he felt so trapped. Desperately, he tried to think of any way to prove this not to be true, when it dawned on him. He couldn't go back right now.That wasn't to say he couldn't return ever, he realized, in fact, if he rested for a while he should be able to make it past the walls. The relief that washed over Makoto was like salvation, like a radiant beacon of hope, which assured him that everything would be fine.
It was this feeling of security that led Makoto to another realization. As long as he wasn't tired from prior activities and paced himself, he should be able to make it back to the palace, so he could take this opportunity to explore a little more of the city before leaving. After all, it was already late, so spending more time exploring wouldn't make much of a difference. Mind made, Makoto decided to go and see how the city was at night. Right after he rested a little bit more.
A few minutes later, Makoto rose from the bench, intent on taking a final look at the city. As he moved away from the public square and into the streets, he couldn't help but notice the extreme shift in atmosphere of his surroundings. The streets that were so full of life during the day were now empty, cold, dark. That last one was especially apparent that night, when the new moon was still just a tiny crescent. Combined with the lack of any lamp posts or lit windows to provide light, the entire area was bathed in darkness.
Makoto was feeling nervous now. He could understand logically that the people most likely had returned to their homes for the day, but even he knew that something wasn't right. Even in the palace there were nightly sounds that showed that there was life in there. These streets however did not even have that, that's how absolute the silence that reigned there was. There were no sounds from the nearby buildings, no city guard patrolling, he couldn't even hear the sounds of the animals that were supposed to become active at night.
Feeling the urge to leave within him become stronger with each step he took, Makoto decided to set a goal to himself. Looking around, he spotted the roof of a particularly tall building, protruding from the rest of the houses farther down the road. Since it was a decent distance away from him and it made for a good landmark, he set it as his goal. After he made it there, he would find a nearby alleyway to transform and then fly back to the palace. He hadn't really walked all that much, so he should be able to make it back so long as he kept his cool.
As he came out of his musings, Makoto noticed that he had made it to the building already. "I suppose getting lost in thought can be helpful sometimes", he mumbled to himself. Goal achieved, he looked for an alleyway to make sure that nobody would notice his transformation. Unfortunately for him, the only one he found was decidedly unnerving, as it was shrouded in darkness. Mustering his courage, the young emperor decided to take the plunge and continued down the dark passage.
It was a long alleyway. Makoto hadn't seen earlier due to the darkness, but it apparently curved after a certain point, explaining how it was so dark to begin with. Makoto didn't like it. The limited space and lack of visibility made him feel as if he were about to be attacked by some sort of nightmarish Danger Beast, or something equally as dangerous. Suddenly panicking at the thought, he checked himself again to make sure that he was still disguised. He sighted in relief (and a little shame) when he confirmed with his own eyes that his true appearance was still being kept hidden by Maskerade. For a moment he had been overcome with fear that the Teigu had somehow failed and that Night Raid would suddenly burst from the shadows to end his life. A ridiculous fear, he knew, but he couldn't help it with his current surroundings influencing his thinking.
It was at this point that Makoto learned what was worse than being alone in a dark alley in the middle of the night. Being by yourself in a dark alley in the middle of the night with something else there. This delightful new knowledge was delivered to him by a scream of terror that was soon followed by a deranged laugh, the likes of which he had never heard in his life. These sounds seemed to echo in his head, freezing him in place.
It was moments later, when another scream was heard, that Makoto realized something extremely important. THEY WERE MOVING TOWARDS HIM!
Unable to move out of sheer terror, Makoto could only watch as a young woman rounded the corner and came face to face with him. This was swiftly followed by a pair of silver flashes appearing around her neck, separating her head from the rest of her body. Blood splattered everywhere, including Makoto himself.
And then, as if to rub salt on the gaping mental wound the ordeal inflicted on Makoto, he appeared. He was massive, a literal giant in comparison to Makoto. He was easily heads and shoulders above most adults (often both in height and in the sense that they no longer had a head). He was dressed in a grey trenchcoat (now drenched in blood), that covered most of his body. Glancing at his head, he could see the pair of hand blades poking out from under the sleeves, the source of the flash he had seen moments before. However, what was the most eye catching about him, was a weird green third eye attached to his forehead. All things considered, the man before him was terrifying.
"Well, well, how delightful", he said, his voice a twisted attempt at a gentlemanly speech to hide the insanity hidden beneath the man, "another victim has appeared before me. And so fast too!". If his first words were said under the mask of a gentleman, that flimsy illusion was shattered, as his words took weird pitches every so often, as if he was trying not to laugh at a joke only he found amusing.
"You've been a very naughty boy tonight kid, walking outside at this hour. What are your parents going to think when they hear about this? ". It wasn't a question, it was a cruel joke, perhaps an intimidation tactic. However, despite the terror that kept him locked in place, a part of Makoto couldn't help but feel pained at the mention of his parents.
A gleam suddenly appeared in the killer's natural eyes, as a nightmarish expression, that could only be loosely interpreted as a grin, threatened to split his face in half. "Ahhh, so they are deceased", he said, his amusement clear for the world to see. "Well don't you worry kid", he said, as he started slowly walking towards Makoto, "You will be reunited with them soon enough!". At that instant, Makoto didn't think, couldn't think, he just reacted on instinct and turned around and ran as fast as he could.
A hand suddenly gripped his left shoulder, stopping him dead in his tracks, "Now now, don't be rude, we weren't finished with our talk yet" the killer whispered to his ear from behind him. "Why don't we continue where we left off? I am in the mood for a little conversation".
There are a lot of things that one could call Makoto, but unobservant was not one of them. He was quite certain that the so-called talk wouldn't involve any words leaving his mouth. In front of such a tremendous threat, he had only one option to keep himself alive. Throw caution to the wind.
With but a thought sharp spikes grew rapidly from his shoulder, impaling the hand holding him in place, before being ejected like projectiles through the offending hand and into the sky. Caught by surprise, the killer drew back his left hand with a surprised shout, before his right shot forward in a flash, his blade out and ready to sever another head.
Fortunately, he struck nothing but air as the young boy had turned into a black cat running full speed to get away.
Makoto was running away as fast as he could, eyes locked on the end of the alley, when he felt instincts, he didn't know he had, screaming at him. In an instance, the black cat leaped into the air and turned into a snake, body bending to avoid the source of sheer death he felt behind him, just in time to avoid a deadly stab by the enraged murderer.
The man didn't waste any time, as his other hand was now moving to slice the snake Makoto in half, only to fail once again as the snake had changed into a pidgeon flapping its wings to escape to the sky.
Makoto was almost there, he just had to clear the buildings surrunding him and he would be safe. Unfortunately, his plans were foiled, as a giant, grinning, hand blade wielding shadow appeared above him, looking down on him with a mad look in his eyes. "Not so fast", the giant shouted as he moved to slice Makoto in half. His choices limited, Makoto chose to become something no self-respecting emperor would ever allow themselves to be called. An insect.
In an instant, the pigeon's place was taken by a small fly which easily evaded the now gigantic hand blade, before two hands attempted to sandwich him in a now very deadly clap. Thankfully, a switch into a balled up hedgehog seemed to render the move rather self-destructive, as the soon to follow pained shout of the man proved.
Scared, hurt and dizzy from the rather powerful clap he received and running basically on auto-pilot, Makoto switched into a merlin, for the extra speed of the small falcon and somehow managed to disengage by flying straight up and out of the killer's grasp. Curiousity overwhelming him for a split second, he looked down and managed to see the killer's face, as gravity kicked in and pulled him towards the ground and away from Makoto, although the young emperor regretted it immediately.
While Maskerade didn't have any ability to predict the future, Makoto knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that that exression would haunt his nightmares for a long time. The look of pure rage on his face, mixed with the madness now clear as day in his eyes was perhaps the scariest thing he had seen in his life so far.
With screams of rage sounding behind him, Makoto decided to make absolutely sure that the madman wouldn't be able to track him down and flew in as fast a pace as possible, while also trying not to crash into something and to keep the terror he still felt from consuming him.
30 minutes later
He had made sure he wasn't folllowed back in any way. He had flown around randomly, many times swooping down into empty alleys and changing into other animals, sometimes birds, others mammals and always keeping a dark colour dominant throughout the forms he took, in order to blend in with his surroundings, be it the night sky or a dark street.
Eventually, he had been satisfied that nobody could track him down now and had decided to take a little break to rest and then try his luck at going back to the palace. Having said that, the small break he had intended to take, had turned into a much longer one than originally intended, taking up about as much time as his attempts to avoid possible tracking.
Which leads us to our current situation, where Makoto was once again approaching the walls surrounding the palace, this time forcing his now merlin body to maintain a steady pace, so as not to tire himself out like before.
The joy Makoto felt as he passed over the walls and gazed upon the palace was not unlike that of a man returning to his home, after spending years unable to return. Within moments he found his balcony and gleefully landed, the act now feeling much more natural than when he left that morning. Switching back to his true form, Makoto took a moment to appreciate the irony of his choice in apparel for that outing, amused slightly by the fact that he had not once revealed it, despite all the time agonizing over which of his clothes could possibly help him blend in with the people (the true answer, as he had learned, was none of them).
Relieved to be back, scared out of his mind by the close encounter he went through and tired beyond belief, Makoto made his way inside his quarters and promptly collapsed onto his bed, not even bothering to try and undress beforehand.
He fell asleep before his head even reached the pillow.
