Aye! Glad to be back again!
its been a long time for me to write this, and I am really happy some of you have taken a like to the series. I hope that my kind of writing did not bore you :)
we kind of reaching the last third of the stories. Hope it keeps you entertained. Please do leave comments, thoughts, if you have one :)
and without out further ado, please enjoy!
When he opened his eyes, Tatsumi could only darkness. There was nothing in his sight. Hastily he turned around, tried to find Esdeath and Ester. He remembered only a moment before he passed out. He was savaged by the bandits, humiliated and kicked on the face. Then some vague image about Esdeath coming. And all went black. Sighing, he turned around to see where he was at the moment. He slowly recognised it, but surprised while learning it. He was back on his room. Now he was thinking, how could he get back there?
His head felt hurt, and he could not see things clearly. Slowly he raised from his bed, trying to open the door of his room. The middle room was as silent as the other rooms.
His stomach growled. He felt so weakened now and remember he had not eaten anything since the morning they left the home. He turned to the kitchen, tried to grab anything he could. There was not much, but he managed to make it up. Silently he sat on the chair, thinking about what had just happened.
Was it a dream? Was it a reality?
Then he touched his face, hurting the bruised cheek by the bandits.
"Auch"
Then it was not a dream. He was really beaten up just before. But how? How could he be here? Could it be ...?
He rose and went to check Sheele's room, hoping to see what he wanted to see. Inside, there was only Sheele laying on the bed peacefully. He came and gently stroke his daughter's hair, before kissing her forehead as slow as he could, afraid that it would wake her up. He then stood straight, looking at Sheele and took a deep breath before returning back to the door, closing it and turning to the middle room.
He opened the door of his own room, seeing Mine was on the bed. Her face was a mixture of worry and relieve, and Tatsumi could not say anything about it. He did to her what he did to Sheele, before again closing the door and standing in the room, trying to understand what was happening.
Where is Akame?
He tried search all part of the house. No one else was there. No Akame, no Esdeath, and no Ester. Simply back to the days before everything changed. Just the three of them.
He sat on the empty couch in the middle room. He paid attention to the room he was in, but the room was neat and did not show any sign that it had been used recently.
"What the hell is happening here", his head started to hurt again. He sat silently with head slightly raised to see the ceiling.
He was settled, but not his heart. Everything that happened had just stirred his heart again. He had sworn to give his life to his family. But now he had another family. how should he live? The past love had gone back, disturbing the peace of the present to seek for the balanced.
He did not feel this way when he was trapped in the dungeon, waiting to be executed after carelessly being caught. He met Esdeath there, but there was only despair on his heart during their meeting. No love, maybe a bit of sorrow. Sadness that this person he faced had caged his lover deep inside herself.
This time, it was different. He felt love. He felt she had changed. She was not the general anymore. She was the girl who had taken now half of his heart. Now he did not know what to do.
Should he choose? Mine had everyone else to help her gone through her life. She got Akame. She could go back to the empire. Najenda would accept her with open hands. He was there on the most difficult part of their life. He was right there when she was fighting her life when delivering Sheele. But where he was when Esdeath was on that phase? Esdeath had no one else to be with beside her daughter. He had to pay back the debt for leaving Esdeath during the hardship. He had to pay back the time that he had taken from his other daughter. He just simply had to, right?
But could he leave behind his family? Could he leave behind Sheele's smile? Could he leave behind Mine's pout and her childish reaction?
Or maybe, could they live together? Could the five of them live happily, supporting and loving each other? Could it be a possibility, even the slightest chance would help, but could it be? Blood would definitely spill. There was no way Mine would accept Esdeath. No. There was no way.
Would Esdeath compromise and live together with Mine? Oh, he did not think so. There was no way it would happen. Even if she had changed, even if she had swallowed her pride, even if she simply turned back her principle, would she accept living together? With the weaklings? Sharing him?
These thoughts and dilemma was just too much for him. His head felt like about to explode. His heart was twisted and torn apart. He loved both of them, as much as the other. He could not just choose. But what should he do?
He gave up. Just tried to pass the night without drawing any conclusion. But before he really fell asleep, an image passed his mind. The image of five of them living together, with smile watching their daughters grew. smile bloomed on his lips while hoping and praying it was the reality before falling into the sleep.
Snow was raging back of Tatsumi's village. That night was one of the weird night where snow could just fall without any precaution. It was dangerous outside, and thus no one actually was walking on the streets. Everyone was safely sheltered on their own homes, waiting for the snow to calm down, hopefully before they had to start their day tomorrow.
If there was anyone dare enough to come out of their comfortable house, they would see a girl walking away from the village. Walking toward the west forest. It was a stupid thing to do, but the girl did not seem to be bothered at all.
One could not say if the girl was in hurry. Sometimes she walked like she was being chased by ghosts. Another step and she was walking like a snail. Her mind seemed to be too preoccupied to walk steadily. But the direction was not changed. It seemed the girl knew exactly where she wanted to go. Just unsure about speed she should take during her walk.
Akame had about as much thing going on her head as Tatsumi. He just came back, though she was sure it was not him who walked back alone. Esdeath must be carrying him home. But how could that be possible? That Esdeath. Why the heck would she do it? She wanted Tatsumi, right? Might as well just took him far far away, out of their reach.
If it was not her, then who else? Tatsumi followed them this afternoon, and came back beaten up. Could Esdeath beat him to pulp before being satisfied and returned him home? If that the case, she would be ready to fight Esdeath for her life. But… that did not seem right at all.
Her instinct told her to go to the forest. The west forest where she was yesterday. She just followed it without thinking, but there were no better clue at the time. She needed to seek for answer. She needed to know what Esdeath was up to. She needed to, or else she might lost whatever left precious to her. She must meet her.
The short journey took much longer than what it was supposed to be. The snow made it worse since it was quite hard to tell the direction in the middle of the storm. It was also make her felt that she was almost frozen. She could not imagine if Esdeath and her daughter was staying in the forest without anything to cover. So far only her determination lit up her mind to make this journey.
It turned out that the snow was calmer once she went between the trees. Now she needed to know where to head from here. This forest was massive. If they were still here, she would need a sheer amount of luck to find them. But again, her instinct led her to believe that it was her lucky day.
She walked almost about an hour, going much deeper to the forest. It was quiet, aside from the raging snowstorm, there were no other noises she could hear. But the deafening atmosphere piqued her interest. There was something close that made this happen. She stopped and she put her hand to Murasame's hilt, readying herself to engage in any battle.
Her instinct was again proven to be correct as suddenly a white tiger jumped from the darkness toward her. It was one of alpha class danger beast. Not so rare or dangerous, but still quite threatening for normal people. But the tiger picked wrong guest today, as it was a mere kitten assault for Akame. At least on normal bright day.
As the tiger passed her, she drew Murasame and stroke to the tiger's back. But it was a bit faster than she expected, and she missed her first strike. They stared at each other, making themselves ready for the next blow.
The tiger had an advantage over her in this battle. It lived and thrived in the snow. Snowstorm was nothing for the tiger, but that was not the case for Akame. Her vision was blurry, and she could not measure their distance properly. The tiger dived toward Akame with his jaw opened and claw ready to slash her open. She swung her blade toward the paw, knowing one slash was enough. But she swung it too fast. The blade missed the tip of the tiger's paw and she was forced to pull her body back if she did not want to be torn apart by the sharp claw dashing in front of her eyes.
Situation looked grim for her. The tiger wanted to finish it with the next blow. Akame knew, trained for almost entire life as an assassin, she knew the tiger intended to finish this now. She readied herself, making sure there would not be second mistake.
The waited moment came. The tiger bounced toward Akame with even much faster speed. But this time, she was ready. Suddenly, the tiger collapsed before it even reached Akame. She glanced at the tiger, but then there was a hole on the head of the tiger. Akame raised her head to see Esdeath was standing behind the tiger, looked tired but grinned as she stared at Akame.
"Why are you here?", that was her first words.
"Why do you help me? I did not ask for your help", she replied sharply.
"Was that what Night Raid taught to its member? Was that the words for the person who helped you?", she looked sarcastically.
"You…." Akame became angry. She came with no fighting in mind, but it seemed Esdeath herself was more than a reason to pick a fight.
"Why are you here Akame?"
"I want to talk with you", Akame slowly lowered Murasame, remembering her initial intention was to talk to this person instead of fighting to death.
The tension had not lowered yet, but Akame managed to get closer to Esdeath step by step. Her counterpart was just staring at her, still suspicious.
"Fine. I will tell you why I help you. I don't want anything dangerous near my daughter. Satisfied?", she looked at closing in Akame with disinterested eyes.
"Hmm… I wonder if you could say this before you had a daughter before", Akame suddenly chuckled, releasing the tension from her side.
Unexpectedly, the answer from the blue haired ex-general was much more friendly than Akame ever expected, "yeah, maybe I wouldn't. You should thank Tatsumi and Ester for changing me so much that I started to care about weaklings". She turned and started to walk ahead of Akame.
They kept walking in silence before they reached where Esdeath left Ester to sleep. She was sleeping peacefully, as innocent as a pure kid could. Esdeath sat next to Ester and gently stroke her daughter hair, before Akame sat opposite to where she was.
"So, what do you want to talk?"
Akame looked at Ester, without raising her head she replied, "Why did you take Tatsumi back? The ice queen would not let her prey get away easily. You got what you want, why bother turned him back?"
"Tell me Akame, have you ever fallen in love?", Akame was surprised. The Esdeath she met was full of surprise and unexpectedly answering her answer in a weird way.
"I guess.. I have never fallen yet, so far…", she looked up to the sky, thinking and digging her own heart to see if that was the reality.
"I had never really felt pain before our fight. Even on our fight before, the pain was just physical. The wound healed fast. The pain gone after matter of days. It was nothing for me", she glanced to the sky as well, remembering her bloody glory days.
"But after meeting Tatsumi, I knew one more pain. Pain that last forever, pain that torture your soul instead of your body. I did this so many time to my prisoners, never I had felt even once how painful it could be. You know the easiest way to broke the strongest person? Take the dearest of that person, and they will break in a matter of minutes", Akame looked at disgust.
"But it seemed God paid back what I had done dearly. The pain came to me, in a much worse way. The pain of rejected by the person who you love, looking at the person you hold dear slowly moving away from you, looking at your flesh and blood crying. It hurt Akame. It hurt much more than getting your limbs severed", a tear rolled down from her right eye. Akame looked at it expressionless.
"I knew Tatsumi would not be happy if I forced him to come with me. He would not love me and Ester from his heart. It would be fake. No matter how much I forced it. If he had no family, maybe I could. But now he had his own wife and daughter, he would never bend. Days that we would pass, we would only see despair on his face. I did not want to see it. I did not want Ester to see it", another tear came down, from her another eye.
"I am strong, my daughter is also strong. We will live, without Tatsumi. We could not live seeing his sorrowful face, but we could live without him, knowing that he is happy with his family", slowly she turned to Akame, "and that's why, Akame, why I took him back to his family", she smiled. Smiled that Akame had seen before, the smile of loving and caring mother.
Silence covered the ground for almost five minutes. Both were deep in their own mind.
Finally Akame broke it.
"You know, the night when you came and passed out, he carried you to the bed. He told me something that he did not said", Akame paused. Esdeath looked at her.
"He loves you. He loves both of you as least as much he loves his other family. He could not say it. But his eyes told me everything that I need to know". Esdeath looked down now, not sure what to say.
"I would not tell you to stay. It is up to you. But I know Tatsumi is a great person. He can resolve anything that he wants to. If he truly loves you as much as I think he does, then he will come to you, with his own resolution and his own way", Akame rose and stood up. Turning back toward where she came from.
"You have changed so much, Esdeath. I could not recognise you as the empire's strongest and greatest enemy anymore. But that was also the reason why I will walk away, letting Tatsumi to resolve his own problem the way he wants it to be", slowly she walked away.
Esdeath was sitting down, completely uncertain what to do. And by that, Akame walked away.
It was around three in the morning. The village was almost felt like a dead town. Akame slowly went back to Tatsumi's home and opened its door, moving in, and closed it back. She saw Tatsumi was sleeping in the middle of the room. She took a seat next to him, looking at his face. Peaceful, yet troubled. Calm, yet distressed.
Suddenly Tatsumi woke up, panting. He looked in extreme sad, while turning his head left and right. He quickly recollected his memory before his sleep, and happy enough to find Akame was sitting next to him.
"Where were you, Akame? I could not find you before"
"Forest. West forest. She was waiting there, if you are asking"
Tatsumi smiled, and quickly stood up.
"Akame, take care of Mine. I have made my resolve now"
Akame looked surprised, but then looking at his face, she pulled back and smiled.
"Go! Do what you must do!"
"Hell yeah I will!", and he dashed through the door.
So till next week!