Author Notes: If you want to know what Najenda learned from Gainen- it will be revealed in the next chapter. This is both a tragic and dramatic chapter. Just a spoiler warning, this isn't the end of Najenda in a technical sense. More will be revealed in later chapters.

Chapter 9: Awakening of the Sleeping Mind


A few milliseconds earlier

Just as Najenda prepared for the worst, the door suddenly swung open to reveal the Lord who looked drastically different from before. His eyes glowed white and from his body, generated a white spherical barrier that enveloped the woman and her two adopted children in the room.

The pink wave of light then enveloped the capital.


One of the elegant white armored figures spoke in a cruel and condescending way in a smarmy polite voice, "Anyone who can't serve a purpose is garbage, so isn't it alright to kill them?" His large black iris eyes peered from the inside of his bee shaped helmet. Najenda found the look disgustingly familiar, she had seen it on Esdeath when she admitted to caring for her men only a little during the final battle.

She took a breath and said something that made them lose composure slightly as it was something they had not expected her to say.

"You knew Esdeath when she was alive didn't you? There's only a few people that naturally pull off a look like that so well.," Najenda said with a mocking laugh. The bee helmeted one's eyes seem to twitch when she mentioned that fact as if it were something that was never meant to be known by anyone than his group.

The majority of the group immediately decided to rush towards Najenda, only to stopped when one of the smaller members stepped forward. As the helmet was removed, it was revealed that the face of was a small teenage girl of medium height and slightly younger than Akame. She had very long black hair styled in drill-like pigtails, with smaller locks framing her face. The irises of her eyes are red and pure white respectively. She emitted a somewhat amiable presence that contrasted with her stoic or vile compatriots. Something that took Najenda by surprise, she had not expected this kind of person to be apart of this group. There was also something that reminded her of Akame and Kurome for some reason while looking at the girl's face.

"Tadah! I'm Shirome, I'm the Student Council President for the White Faction's Undead Faction and one of the Fourteen Akujin Races' White Elite Prefects! Or at least, the acting Prefects until the real ones show up eventually. The real ones are much stronger than the group that's here right now. Did I saw that out loud?," the girl said in a cheerful manner that confused Najenda, her adopted children and the Lord. Gainen was more hesitant around the girl, knowing something wrong with her, but refused to explain what exactly it was. Najenda was surprised about the statement that Shirome had uttered about them being stand ins, meaning that they weren't the ones that the blue/red eyed girl had mentioned. This made the eyepatch wearing woman imagine how terrifying they were if one of their members who devastated the capital was considered inferior to their might.

So their successors sent in their potential successors to complete their long awaited objective. They're under the assumption with the Teigu gone, they'll be the sole rulers of this world with no one to oppose them." Gainen thought with a snarky tone to her voice. She knew about how their organization was handed, but refused to elaborate on this to Najenda for unknown reasons.

"So you're the White Faction that Gainen spoke about, she told me how you were inherently cowardly and underhanded. In spite of that, you're strong- you're all essentially the corrupt nobles I dealt back when I was an assassin, except you have the godlike power to back up your claims.," Najenda spoke to the group mockingly as she quietly signaled the Lord to take the two children as far as possible from the fight. In Gainen's case, she wasn't sure if she was an ally or not, but assumed that the Lord would take her as well as soon as Riff and Coila were safe.

After a brief silence, Najenda spoke again to draw their attention in a discerning tone of voice, "Your other group said that it would be six days, but you decided to attack us on the same day they announced it. Why are you here?"

They remained silent until one of them decided to speak on behalf of the group.


"You're about to die so it wouldn't hurt to be informed of why we're here...unless you already know from the little dwarf who can't die. Did you know about that fact or was she keeping things from you?," said a stoic and sarcastic voice from one of the armored members of the group. His yellow iris eyes peered from behind his rat themed helmet with multiple holes in his visor. Najenda felt like he along with the Shirome girl were the most approachable of the group thus far. He proved perceptive enough to guess her hesitation to trust Gainen completely with no prior observations. It hinted that the other 13 were likely just as intelligent as he was.

"Yeah, I didn't believe it until you decided to wipe out the entire capital. The First Emperor apparently established his rule when he overthrew the Hell King and took...his mind.," Najenda replied with a narrow gaze from her single eye. Najenda didn't understand the exact situation that occurred, but apparently got the gist of it. The "mind" they were looking for was underneath the capital and they had likely destroyed the surface to make the search easier. However, she had planned to fight in order to show them they wouldn't have such an easy time with their planned objective.

"Don't try and act tough. We told you your lizard, pink haired pip-squeak and the fish guy's dead. Also your glove wearing doctor guy's dead too...meaning there's no more weapons you can hide behind. So just kill yourself already.," said the ill tempered and teasing girl who was hit earlier in a snide tone of spite. She decided to remove her helmet as well to reveal a petite girl with wave pink hair and golden iris eyes; her face was adorned with ancient looking markings of golden color. This celestial appearance contrasted with her nasty behavior by a wide degree as her childishness overshadowed whatever angelic atmosphere she seemed to have. The revelation that not only Tatsumi, Wave and Mine were dead, but the doctor he had sent to take care of Kurome was murdered as well, weighed heavily on her heart. It hardened her resolve to defeat them more than it had been initially. Even if she were to be obliterated as easily as the capital was, she'd at least get one good punch thrown in.


"I'm Stella, the Student Council President of the White Faction's Divine Beast faction one of the Fourteen Akujin Race's White Elite Prefect...stand in...how dare cattle like you strike a divine being like me.," she continued with her tongue sticking out in an insulting gesture as she pulled down the lower lid of her right eye with her finger. Her words reminded her of a report that Leone had submitted...one concerning that of the depraved noble girl, Aria and her family who tortured those from the countryside for their sadistic pleasure to promote their elitism over the lower class.

"Cattle...a friend of mine said she met a person who said that word once...she was also a sadistic little girl who tortured common folk. She's been dead for a while now...like you are gonna be.," Najenda told the girl as she prepared a battle stance. To her surprise, this girl did not make an attempt to fight as if knowing someone else had volunteered in her place to fight Najenda.

"How can you do that when you don't have that one good arm?," said a cheerful yet overtly psychotic voice who was holding something in one of his hands...Najenda's own green mechanical arm to her utter shock. The gray haired woman then noticed that it had been cut clean off without her even noticing that it had separated from her body. Before she could react, she was slashed through the chest with the two children along with the Lord following shortly after in the span of an instant. Gainen was spared for some reason as she looked at the fallen Najenda with a placid expression with no attempt to aid her. All of them fell to the ground in a pool of their own blood, limp and helpless to do anything meaningful.

These guys are strong like Esdeath...no I think they're stronger if that were possible!, Najenda thought to herself as she tried to keep conscious. Desperate, she attempted one of her two last resorts in case she was all out of options. One involved activating the detonation button molar she had installed in her teeth by the Perfector user, it would serve as the catalyst to activate the highly combustive Orichalcum she had built into the bulky shoulder part of her green, artificial arm. She had built into her after the fall of the Empire in case of a wide scale invasion from a hostile nation that would take advantage of the recovering capital, with the thought of at least sparing the country of another tyrannical rule. She had another last resort, but she was far too injured to use it properly- it was arguably even more risky than the bomb itself.

To her glazed vision's horror, the one that carried her arm opened the hidden compartment for the Orichalcum with ease and tossed it into the air until it vanished from sight. From the brief moment it was out, it was shown to be a greenish circular object with bumpy protrusions. It then vanished into the sky as if it were leaving the world itself, but Najenda disregarded this notion as preposterous. However, the truth was that the one holding Najenda's arm had thrown the object so high that it left the world's orbit and it proceeded to drift in the blackness of outer space.

"I'm sorry...,but you couldn't protect them at all, you dumb cunt!," the armored figure spoke again, he seemed to be one of the bigger members of the group and easily was one of the more sadistic ones of the group. He had an odd bird like helmet with an elongated back crest and a lengthy beak, something that seemed to based on a creature preceding modern times. Noticeably, some of them, Stella included were particularly uncomfortable around him. Gainen glared at him vehemently, one of the rare instances that she ever showed any kind of emotion since the white group arrived. He was clearly an enemy to her at a personal level.

As Najenda slowly lost conscious, the figure spoke again in a mockingly, friendly and kind voice to insult her as she bled to death. He kept kicking her in the right side of her ribs as he monologued, being more brutal than he needed to be. Some of the white armored members seemed to be either repulsed or unamused by his violent actions towards the helpless woman while some seemed to be delighted with his high levels of cruelty that he was demonstrating.

"Born to the Northern Lands, a little girl who would become the elegant evil general, spent most of her childhood in the North with her pathetic excuse of a Tribe and she was very close with her father, the clan chief due to the death of her mother at the hand of an super-class Danger Beast...let's go with that story since it's better than knowing the ruth. She was a skilled and formidable fighter at even such a young age...a perfect tool for any potential villain to manipulate. Whenever she caught prey for the tribe, she would begin gutting the creature without killing it, showing an innate sadism. Due to this she became comfortable with the idea of inflicting pain on living things for the rest of her life...rather it was there, but she had some help cultivating her talents as she grew older. However, her father was worried that this might cause her to lose something that she couldn't regain for the rest of her life, but in order for her to survive this was fine with him...much to his later regret. Her father told her that in the North "The strong live and the weak die", a creed she kept close to her heart...though honestly it's the most cunning that ultimately succeeds not the one with most power in my opinion. Eventually, she caught the attention of our evil entourage and we decided to enlighten her on the pleasures of doing sadism on her fellow man, which made her very happy. Her father decided that that he made a mistake when he allowed her to indulge in torturing others and spoke against the man who was instructing her in this hobby. Our response was simple, one day she returned from an outing to find her tribe destroyed, with everyone either dead or dying from their injuries. Her father was mortally wounded and soon past away in her arms...from one of our own, except he hailed from the black group instead of the white group annoyingly. From that day on, she vowed to herself to become stronger...though the way she was going, she might've ended up decent if we didn't show up again to put her in the right direction. With the help of vile demons, she did and she became more evil than before, without the guiding hand of her un-needed father who could've shown her a more benign way of living if she continued to live in the tribe. And through intensive tutoring, she became a refined and vile woman, enough to get anything she wanted in the Empire...to be used as a tool that would eventually be useful for wiping out our enemies, the human race...or to be disposed of if she got too strong. And anytime she was shown a way of life to become more benevolent...the person responsible had a little accident...you get what I'm saying.," the large armored male spoke in a youthful, boyish voice. His dialogue was filled with mockery and sickening sweetness. His monologue filled in the missing gaps in certain points in her life as for how she managed to get strong and made her backstory seem less of a string of coincidences. The implications of it all been engineered looked more and more likely as he went on. It made sense why she was so much stronger than anyone in the Empire because she likely had been under the instruction of these monsters who likely taught her everything she knew.

"So you decided to take in a bad puppy and decided to take grow it into a bloodthirsty dog.," Najenda responded to his words with sarcasm, but her tone was hiding the anger of the darker implications of what he meant by his words. If she had the strength she would've already strangled him with her remaining arm for his and the group's part in modeling a particular woman into a threat to everyone in the country.

"Anyway, due to your decision to kill her; not only is one of the biggest Teigu threats is gone, but the Partas Tribe, one of the only families to oppose us is dead. Your sense of morality has doomed all of humanity. I Alba, enlighten you with this thought as you head to Heaven.," replied the white armored giant with a gleeful young boy's voice as he charged a white energy sphere from one of his hands. It was similar to a Desta-Ghoul's energy blast, but it was more condensed and seemed more powerful in comparison. He had intended to kill her by first getting under her skin then destroying her before she could do anything about it. From how happy he seemed, it was likely a routine for him to do. This however, did not break her spirit as he intended with his long monologue.

"You're wrong on two things. One, I've done things that will definitely land me in Hell. And two, there is someone who can oppose you-," Najenda responded before Alba decided to blast Najenda's head off along with smaller separate blasts for the two children and the Lord's respectively. He looked at the headless bodies with a scornful scoff and kicked Najenda's body violently into the air out of spite. It landed a few feet away causing him to let out a harsh laugh of mockery towards the dead woman.


"She's just a good guy in denial. Anyway, let's wrap this up 'kay.,"said Alba in a cheerful tone. The other 13 glared at him with a nasty look, especially those who had already removed their helmets. It was clear that he was the least liked of the group by far, even by their standards.

"Alba...you aren't the boss around here. Centaurus and Draca are; you little overconfident shit.," Stella retorted in an ill tempered tone as she pointed to the ones with the elegant dragon helmet and the refined horse helmet respectively to Alba's chagrin. While they were talking Gainen had already vanished from sight, a rainbow had suddenly appeared and vanished just as quickly with the indigo haired woman following suit.

The one with the large black iris eyes then decided to dig underground using his claws to do so. The rest of the group decided to wait above and sat leisurely, ignoring the headless bodies of Alba's latest victims. Eventually, the bee themed person dug deep enough to reach the deepest depths of the earth and landed in a completely dark area that seemed especially ominous.

He removed his helmet to reveal that he was a black/yellow bob-cut haired young man with long slender antennae with red lipstick and no visible nose, which hinted that he was not human at all. He bowed to the darkness and spoke these words with extreme reverence to whatever was sleeping in this dark space-

"Lord Nequam, long have you been imprisoned underneath the civilization built on top of your body. I, Apium, the Substitute Student Council Present for the White Faction's Insect Division of the 14 Akujin Race's Prefects...stand ins. I hath come to unleash thee, Mind of the Hell King."

With that utterance, a single eye of massive size opened in the dark. It had yellow sclera with several veins branching onto each other and a pink iris. It then emitted a harsh laugh as soon as it noticed the one known as Apium.

One down, one to go and soon all three will be reunited at last., thought Apium with a vile grin on his face due to how quickly he accomplished his duties. He was unaware that another, garbed in black garb like a shadow was already in the same dark space as him, but for an entirely different purpose... to find something that also hidden in this low part of the earth. Something that would eventually spell the doom of humanity's dominance over the world if it were awakened.

However, it was the case for bringing the Mind of the Hell King into the world as well, more precisely what it meant when it was reunited with its two other components meant that humanity was doomed as well.

This day marked the beginning of the end of the age of man.


Next Chapter: Kill the Regret