Disclaimer: I do not own any rights to the Akame ga Kill franchise and this fanfiction has not been written for profit!
A/N: Yosh! We've once again made our way to another new chapter! Unfortunately, I ended up breaking my at least once a month rule, but hopefully that doesn't happen too often for the remaining chapters.
#1. As always, thanks for all the reviews, favorites and follows. What keeps me going is YOU the readers. Thanks for all of your support!
#2. As always, don't make assumptions. Be patient. There's always a method to my madness! That especially applies in this chapter given some of the reveals . . .
Without further ado . . .
Updated 1/19/17 - Fixed prose and grammatical errors.
Episode 23: Kill the Revolution - Part 1
It was late in the evening and Tatsumi was still flying on the back of the air manta he had been given earlier in the day. He flew back, trying to imagine how Najenda and the rest were going to react to the plan he had concocted at the spur of a moment. He played out multiple scenarios in his head, each involving one of his comrades demanding to know why he'd willingly go along with their arch enemy in pursuit of a fabled omega class beast.
"I guess there's no getting around it", he whimsically thought, sitting down with his hands clenched tightly to the air manta's back. "I'll have to let them know what I really think of her. They'll think I'm crazy. They'll think I'm insane. Even I think I'm crazy and insane. Just what's coming over me? And Lubbock: He will never let me live this down. But maybe it won't be so bad."
He suddenly recalled one of the moments from the previous night. How beneath his bed sheets and snuggled up behind her, he had held both of his arms around her waist before peacefully dozing off. Such peacefulness and serenity was in complete contrast to the first night they had spent together all those weeks ago. "Wave is right; the more time we spend time we spend together, the more human she seems to become."
[. . . . Checkmate? . . . .]
Najenda stood mortified at the sight before her. Her mind could barely register the fact that her arch nemesis was smugly sitting across her at the Lord's office desk. There were so many implications to just this sight alone that she didn't know where to begin. How? What? Why? When? Even more disheartening, however, was that the man she held in such high regard was on one knee, bowing to this bloodthirsty witch of a woman.
Susanoo, however, was of a different mindset. The humanoid imperial arm had already slipped into an attack stance. Just by looking at him, it was clear that he was ready to lunge towards the general with his battle-stave at any moment.
Esdeath simply watched Su's posture with amusement, not in any way threatened by his movements "Is that your new imperial arm? I suppose losing an arm and an eye didn't affect you too much after all. From the looks of it, he seems . . . somewhat formidable"
"Why have you come here?" Najenda asked with a disdainful scowl on her face.
A question that a caused a devilishly conceited smirk to envelop on the Ice Queen's lips. "If anyone else were in this situation, they'd ask more obvious questions, such as how I learned the location of the Revolutionary Army base or why their leader is bowing before me. But true to your genius, it seems you might already suspect what has occurred here and are thus seeking the only answer that can't immediately be deduced from the information you already. Am I wrong?"
"Don't screw with me!", Najenda snarled.
"Well, I suppose we do have some time to kill", Esdeath replied, simultaneous turning her gaze to the Lord. "Priest, pour us two cups of the wine you have in your cabinet over there!"
With the utmost obedience, the Revolutionary Army leader stood up from his kneeling posture and pulled an unopened bottle of wine and two wine glasses out from a cabinet on the other side of the room. He then set them down on the desk Esdeath was sitting at, patiently filling up both cups as if he were a mere servant. Najenda gritted her teeth throughout this scene; there was such hatred in her eyes.
Hatred that didn't go unnoticed; the sight amused the Ice Queen as she divined a set of ice cubes into the wine glasses. She then took a casual sip from the glass closest to her as if to bask in the moment. "I must admit. The priest was quite the challenge. My most challenging subject ever. It took me a total of 123.6 hours, but I managed it. Extreme amounts of physical pain didn't seem to amount to much for him. He kept singing hymns and quoting verses about endurance and conviction. I had to then switch to a more complicated brand of torture. One that was purely psychological. And even then, he still held strong. Najenda, do you want to know what ultimately broke him? What shattered his very soul?"
"I SAID DON'T SCREW WITH ME!", Najenda yelled out, slapping the wine glass before her off the desk and into the wall.
"That was . . . uncalled for." Esdeath said with a sigh. "Priest. Your child has spilt wine on your good floors. Clean it up at once."
"As you wish", the Lord responded, bowing as he did so. He walked over to the spilt wine, bent down on the floor and began to lick it up using nothing but his tongue. A humiliating display for sure; a showing that only made the Night Raid commander all the angrier.
Reading his master's intent, Susanno lunged towards the Ice Queen, preparing to cave her skull in with his heavy blunt weapon. Esdeath didn't lift a finger, however, much less summon any ice. Instead, she remained still and composed, watching with fascination in her eyes as the humanoid imperial arm's attack came to a sudden halt. The Lord was behind him, having grabbed him in a full nelson position.
"Release me!" Sussano demanded. But the Lord didn't budge, holding on as tight as he could.
Najenda ran up to the pair, attempting to pull her father away. "Old man, you have to snap out of it! This isn't you! I don't know what she's done to you, but no good will come from trying to protect her!"
Hearing this proclamation made Esdeath cockily laugh out loud. "Is that what you think? That he is protecting me? You of all people should know that I require no such protection! On the contrary, the person he is trying to protect is none other than you!"
With a sudden dumbstruck look on her face, Najenda ceased attempting to pull the Lord away from her Susannoo, instead directing her attention to Esdeath. "Me?"
"That is how I broke him. Flogging, cutting, branding, crushing, skinning, burning and every brand of intense pain you can think of? All useless on him! That is . . . unless he thinks it's happening to his child. Unless he thinks that his child is the one suffering the worse pain imaginable. Unless he thinks his child is suffering horrors beyond comprehension. Thoughts like these for 72 hours straight can drive even a devout religious fool like him beyond the point of madness."
Najenda turned to her subservient father, her facial expressions comprising of sheer disbelief. "No . . . you couldn't . . . you didn't . . ."
"Oh but I did!", Esdeath said, still smirking with self-approval. "That is how I reduced him to his current state. Right now, in his own twisted state of mind, he's come to realize that opposing me is meaningless; that it'll just result in you getting killed. He believes that by instead serving me, I'll spare your life and your life alone at least. To be honest, I'm in such an elated mood today that depending on how you behave tonight, I just might entertain such a notion."
Deciding to restrain herself from falling for any additional blatant provocations, Najenda merely narrowed her eyes at the Ice Queen, opting to remain as rational as she could. "So then you used him to divulge all of the Revolutionary Army's secrets, didn't you? That's also how you discovered when and where to send your minions to attack us while we went after the foreign ambassadors."
"That's correct", Esdeath nodded. "But it doesn't quite tell the whole story. As you must realize by now, what I've done is far grander. I have eliminated the entire Revolutionary Army without lifting a finger. You see, I knew your organization was already in the process of trying to garner support from outside nations. The Prime Minister has certainly burned a number of bridges with his self-indulgent method of leadership and so it would only make sense to align yourself with foreign countries with the proverbial axe to grind."
True to her sharp intuition, Najenda appeared to instantly read between the lines of what the Ice Queen was saying. "Meaning the assassinations we conducted in Ali Jinnah, Reispan and Bestimmung were all based on false information you had my father supply us with."
"Indeed. Your father told you that you would be eliminating ambassadors with strong ties to the Grand Empire. A complete and utter lie. Those ambassadors were involved in standard trade negotiations and nothing more. You thought your father was using your team's assassinations as a means of bargaining foreign support, but the truth couldn't be any less horrifying for your cause! Your father has already sent word to all three of those nations of these wicked deeds as well as the joy he takes in having ordered them!"
"Impossible. All three of those nations have promised us support. Our scouts have even confirmed that the troops they're sending us are on their way to agreed upon rendezvous points. Even with control over my father, there's no way you could . . ." But Najenda stopped herself mid-sentence, widening her eyes at a startling realization.
"The look on your face says it all. Control over your father is exactly what makes it possible; after all, your organization is centered around him. All I had to do was have him replace most of your scouts with agents of my own. Scouts are the eyes and ears of any army. In other words, the Revolutionary Army only saw and heard whatever I wanted it to see and hear. They will find no 'promised support' at these agreed upon rendezvous points you speak of. Instead, they will only find hostile foreign armies intent on obliterating them; they'll be like moths to a flame."
"No.", Najenda thought, gritting her teeth as she did so. "We were so close. This can't be happening."
"But that only concerns 3 quarters of your army. What of the remaining quarter present here on this island? What happens to them?", Esdeath asked, the inflection in her voice making it clear that her question was purely rhetorical.
At that exact moment, warning bells were being rung throughout the island. The likes of which signified imminent danger. Najenda quickly ran to the window to identify what was going on. And with her own eyes, she saw perhaps the most unwelcoming sight of the entire evening. In the distance was a full armada of imperial warships approaching the island's shore line.
Not able to stomach another moment of this madness, Najenda bursted her way towards the door, intent upon alerting the other Night Raid members present and doing what they could to prevent the Revolutionary Army from being annihilated that night. But before she could take four steps in that direction, she suddenly noticed Esdeath blocking her path. Suddenly being an understatement. The passing of time was so instantaneous that it was as if the blue haired general had long been standing there.
"I don't recall giving you permission to leave", Esdeath said, her voice soaked with conceit.
The Night Raid commander stopped dead in her tracks, briefly taking a moment to look back towards the chair her nemesis had been sitting in. It was empty. It was the impossible; it was a sight which appeared to defy all logic "How did she . . . when did she . . . what did she do?"
Susannoo, noticing his master's confusion, was nonetheless equally confused by what had just transpired. "My eyes were designed to keep track of even the fastest movements and the subtlest of details, but it's as if neither she nor your prosthetic hand never moved at all."
"My arm?!", Najenda asked. She had been so caught up by Esdeath's sudden movements, that it didn't occur to her that the Ice Queen was holding onto her prosthetic arm, clearly having been torn away at the wrist area in an instant.
Esdeath proceeded to glance her eyes upon the device, clearly fascinated by its design. "Such remarkable craftsmanship. Very much like Dr. Stylish's designs. You must tell me who made this. Seryu would be much more useful to me if I had another man like him around."
Desperate to learn what had just occurred, Najenda examined her damaged prosthetic limb, noticing a stream of electric sparks flying out from the location it had been forcefully dismembered at. "Su, are you certain your eyes didn't detect anything?"
To which the humanoid imperial arm nodded his head. "Nothing."
Having no use for it, Esdeath dismissively tossed the prosthetic hand to the floor. "No matter how good his eyes are, he would never be able to perceive my movements. No one can. Such is the limitation of anyone constrained by trifles like space and time. I, on the other hand, am no longer bound by such limitations. This is my trump card: Mahapadma. With it, I can freeze all time and space at my leisure."
Not having expected to hear something so absurd, Najenda gazed at her nemesis with disbelief in her eyes. "Freeze time and space? Preposterous. No imperial arm is that powerful."
"And yet how do you explain what I did with your hand just now?", Esdeath replied, visibly amused by the doubts being expressed about her newfound ability. "How do you think I was able to find out that your father was the leader of the Revolutionary Army. As you must know, he went to great lengths to maintain this secret, preaching to the deluded masses on a day to day basis, preaching to everyone about the errors of violence and wisdom of pacifism. He even almost had me fooled. That is until I tailed him personally, using my trump card to help in keeping him unaware of my presence. It wasn't long until I personally witnessed him secretly issuing out orders to several Revolutionary Army agents in disguise that my suspicions were confirmed."
But the Night Raid commander instantly saw a problem in the blue haired general's explanation. "If you're truly that powerful, then all of this elaborate planning on your part was pointless. You could've literally eliminated the entire Revolutionary Army on your own a thousand times over. Effortlessly at that."
"Tempting, but no. Like all trump cards, mine comes with a catch. I can only stop time for a maximum of 4 seconds. And for every second I stop time, I'm unable to use my imperial arm for 8 minutes. Just now, I stopped time for all four seconds, thus I won't be able to create ice for a total of 32 minutes."
"Kind of foolish to tell me how your trump card works, don't you think?"
Undaunted by her nemesis' provocation, however, Esdeath merely chuckled. "I'm in a good mood today, a VERY good mood. So I'm going to give you a sporting chance. If you surrender now, I'll persuade the Prime Minister to simply let you off with a life sentence in confinement. If, on the other hand, you wish to retaliate, feel free to try and make the best of the next 32 minutes . . . assuming you can survive them."
Najenda didn't answer, instead taking the moment to ponder on her next move. Even without the ability to summon and manipulate ice, did she stand a chance against Esdeath even with the aid of Susanno? The Night Raid averted her gaze towards the Lord, who was still clinging onto to the humanoid imperial arm in a full nelson position. "No. As long as he's insistent on getting in the way, we can't engage her. Gotta think of something. Fast."
Just then, someone opened the office door. Behind it was Mein, who was very much high on alert, even holding her imperial arm at her side. "Boss, you've gotta get out here. The Imperial army is-" She stopped speaking mid-sentence, instantly realizing that Esdeath was standing right in front of the door.
In response, the Ice Queen turned around to face the would-be intruder, instantly recognizing the weapon in the young Reispan girl's hands. "Ah, if isn't Night Raid's talented sniper. For Najenda to entrust you with her old weapon, you must be special."
"Mein!", Najenda yelled in a commanding fashion. "Execute contingency plan M57, now!"
The genius sniper neither hesitated nor question her leader's words. Rather, without delay, she immediately aimed Pumpkin towards the blue haired general. Her gun took on a peculiar appearance as it did this; the barrel suddenly manifested itself into a form similar to that of a double barreled shotgun. Not only that, but ominous purple light outlined various parts of the weapon. Esdeath didn't retaliate, instead choosing to err on the side of caution.
Sparing not another thought, Mein immediately pulled the trigger. "Take this: Sorpresa del Diablo!" A violent beam of purple energy flew right out of Pumpkin's twin barrels, vaporizing everything in its path, needless to say the entire office. All that remained was a sizable hole on the fortress walls.
It was at this moment that Mein dropped her weapon to the ground and began clutching at her chest, clearly in pain. She was breathing hard. She was breathing heavily. But despite the painstaking state she was in, she remained nonetheless vigilant. She surveyed the remains, what little there were, of the Lord's office, noting that there was no sight of Esdeath, Najenda, Susannoo or the Lord himself.
Lubbock, Leone and Akame, clearly having just run upstairs, noticed their companion in a state of disarray, leading them to rush to her side. "What happened?", Leone asked, her voice full of concern.
"It's Esdeath", Mein replied, still clutching her chest. "She's here."
Lubbock looked flabbergasted "No way."
"'Fraid so. The boss ordered me to pull an M57 as soon as I got in the room, but I get the feeling Esdeath survived."
"Her being here makes sense", Akame added. "She must be the one who ordered the Imperial Army to come here. But then how did she learn of this location?"
"I can answer that", said an approaching figure who had just leapt through the hole in the fortress walls Mein had just created.
"Miss Najenda!", Lubbock blurted out, surprised and relieved at the sight of his beloved leader. She also appeared to be carrying her father, evidently unconscious, on her shoulder.
"But right now, we have more important things to worry about!", the Night Raid commander declared. "We must do everything we can to fend off the attack force Esdeath has sent here. If we do not, then this revolution dies tonight and all of our efforts up until this point will have been for nothing!"
Akame swiftly unsheathed her weapon, clenching its hilt with murderous intent as she did so. "Where is Esdeath? If we just let her roam around here, we're as good as dead regardless."
To which Najenda shook her head in disagreement. "Su is keeping her preoccupied for the time being. Thanks to a significant handicap she appears to have imposed upon herself, he should be able to hold up against her long enough for us to come up with a strategy to deal with that Imperial fleet."
[. . . . The Jaegars' final mission . . . .]
Elsewhere, just as Najenda had observed, an entire legion of Imperial warships was making its way towards the island's harbor. With warning bells having been rung throughout the island, the Revolutionary Army soldiers were clearly in a state of disarray, no one having expected that the enemy would find and preemptively initiate a battle with them in such a fashion.
At the center most warship leading the charge, Wave stood at the bow, his arms crossed and his eyes narrowed upon the beach up ahead. The look on his face was one of robust determination.
Run casually approached his comrade from behind. "Well Wave, this is it; our last mission. If we beat Night Raid today, the Jaegars will have served their purpose. The only question then will be what comes next for us."
The Grand Chariot wielder's eyes remained fixated on the sight before him. He nonetheless found his companion's remark curious. ". . . 'if' we beat Night Raid?"
To which Run stoutly answered, "The theory of quantum mechanics more or less tells us that guarantees don't exist in this world. All things come down to sheer probability, no matter how small. Though the chances of Night Raid's survival today are staggeringly low, don't get too confident. They became a thorn in the Grand Empire's side for a reason."
"So what is Night Raid's probability tonight?", Wave asked.
"The probability that they will prevail against us somehow? 1.98%."
Seryu whimsically approached the pair, holding her biological imperial arm in her arms and affectionately patting it on the head. "We'll make sure to lower those odds all the way down to 0. Isn't that right, Koro?"
To which Run responded, sighing at Seryu' typical over-zealousness, "Patience. Stick to the plan. Night Raid will most likely try and change the tide of the battle once we send troops to the shore. Once they've shown themselves, that's when we'll strike."
"And remember!", Kurome exclaimed, nonchalantly emerging from the deck below. "Akame is mine; no one else's. Got that?"
"Understood", Run replied with a stoic nod of his head.
Wave, however, said nothing. Rather, he kept his gaze focused upon the Revolutionary Army encampment up ahead, as if he were lost in deep contemplation.
[. . . . Stall . . . .]
Like a classic medieval European castle, the rooftop to the fortress was flat with ample space to walk around on and stone fencing scaling alongside the perimeter. There, in the center, Esdeath and Susannoo were locked in the heat of battle, clashing their weapons repeatedly with staggering ferocity. Despite the massive size of Su's weapon, however, the Ice Queen had no trouble parrying all of his strikes with her long rapier. The fierce biological imperial arm followed up his latest attack with a powerful two handed horizontal swipe with his stave.
Making no effort to parry the incoming attack, Esdeath instead leapt high into the air, dodging the blow and simultaneously front-flipping herself well over Su's head. She landed her feet on some of the stone fencing yards away, mere inches away from falling off the roof. Her balance was nevertheless conserved like that of an Olympic level gymnast.
Still standing upon the stone fence, she turned around to face her combatant, a sly smirk on her face. "For a mere tool without its master to guide it, you're quite strong."
Su twirled his weapon around, rotating it several times in a skillful fashion before slipping into a combat stance. Then, with a ferocious look in his eyes, he gazed upon his adversary. "My strength is my resolve to protect my master!"
"I can tell", Esdeath responded, her demeanor brimming with confidence. "The way you handled yourself back there in the Lord's office. Knocking out the Lord, grabbing him, grabbing Najenda and then bursting out the window all in the short time frame my attention was focused on that girl who now wields Pumpkin. Very impressive. Your master didn't even need to communicate that plan to you, did she? You just followed along as if you intuitively knew what to do and when to do it. But your execution is far from perfect. Hearing you burst out the window at the last second tipped me off to your ruse and enabled me to follow suit."
The biological weapon didn't appear deterred by his opponent's words. "Your petty provocations will have no effect on me."
"It's not a provocation." With a maniacal battle lusting grin on her face, the Ice Queen dashed towards her prey with her rapier held out fully. The sheer speed at which she did this easily mirrored Akame's.
Seeing that she was coming straight at him, however, Susannoo raised his stave into the air with both of his hands. As he did this, the blades embedded in the weapon began rotating in rapid succession. And just as Esdeath got close enough, he swung the weapon down no different than the way one would swing a mallet at a carnival strongman game. It looked as if he were about to smash his foe messily through the roof..
"It's a gracious warning!", Esdeath boasted. All of the sudden, in a split-instant, the Ice Queen halted her movements, side-stepping Su's weapon simultaneously. Thus, what Su hit wasn't his opponent, but the part of the roof she had been standing upon. His eyes widened with disbelief; he quickly realized that he had made the exact move Esdeath had wanted him to make and was thus wide open to a counter-attack as a result.
With a single swift and powerful thrust, her rapier entered Su's right eye and came out the back of his skull. She followed up by pulling her rapier back and subsequently delivering a hard left kick to his head. A blow that sent Su flying several yards to the side.
"Your strength is your resolve?", the Ice Queen said mockingly. "Then your weakness is being overly predictable!"
Susannoo steadily rose to his feet, steadily recovering from that last attack. What would've been a fatal wound to anyone else was nothing short of a temporary setback to the biological imperial arm . Within mere moments, his right eye regenerated, as did the hole in the back of his head. He grabbed the hilt of his stave, as if readying himself for another attack on his adversary.
Esdeath didn't appear to be concerned however. Instead, the smug grin on her face remained fully intact. "A biological imperial arm can only be killed through the destruction of its core. Otherwise, it will continually regenerate from all injuries, right? So the question is: Where is your core? It's clearly not in the right side of your brain, or else that last attack would've killed you. Let's see if I can continue to narrow down its location."
[. . . . Strategy . . . .]
Back inside the fortress, there was a room with a long and rectangular war table in the center. Several men, all clearly high ranking officers of the Revolutionary Army, stood around the table, arguing with one another over the current predicament they were in as well as what to do about it.
"Silence!", Najenda growled upon bursting into the room, Lubbock, Akame and Leone treading behind her. The Night Raid commander gently set her unconscious father down against a wall.
"What . . . happened to the Lord?", one of the officers asked, no doubt troubled by the sight of his leader being in such a state at a time like this.
"He was incapacitated during a scuffle I just had with General Esdeath", Najenda replied while approaching the war table.
The sudden look on each of the officers was one of dread and panic "G-g-general Esdeath? She's here? How did she find our base?", one them frantically asked.
"I can't say for certain", Najenda answered. "How she got here, however, is irrelevant at this juncture. She's here and we have to deal with her and her battalion."
Before anyone could utter another word, Mein bursted into the room, panting heavily as if she had just sprinted at a very rapid speed non-stop. "Used my long barrel scope upstairs to do an estimate just as you requested, boss."
"And?", Najenda asked, her eyes gazed upon the genius sniper.
Mein ceased panting and looked sternly into her commander's eyes. "There are at least 200 warships approaching the island and at least 600 Imperial soldiers on each one."
"This can't be!", one of the officers shouted in dismay. "That's at least 120,000 enemy combatants. We only have 80,000 of our own forces present her at the moment and no warships whatsoever!"
Another officer chimed in. "This base was strictly designed for concealment purposes, not naval battles! We're sitting ducks here. Once their ships get close enough, they can fire upon us at any moment!"
Najenda, however, simply shook her head. "Not quite. The warships are simply there for intimidation purposes."
"Intimidation purposes?", one of the officers asked, uncertain of what she was getting at.
The Night Raid leader nodded her head with self-assurance. "Their general is currently on the island. For whatever reason, she decided to come here and taunt us in person. But her arrogance will be her undoing; as long as she's personally on the island, her troops won't fire a single cannon. The Prime Minister considers her too valuable of an asset to sacrifice her in such a way and her soldiers hold her in too high of a regard to even consider the thought."
"So then what do you suggest we do?", another officer questioned.
"That's simple", Najenda answered. "First, we must insure that Esdeath remains on this island as long as possible. As long as she does, their warships will not be a factor. Second, we must force a land battle with Esdeath's soldiers. If Mein's estimates are correct, we're outnumbered by at least 40,000 men, but the proper tactics will more than easily account for this deficit. We can have half of our men attack the Imperial soldiers as they get on the beach. Our advantage there will be the high ground. The other half of our men can be stationed here inside and around the fortress. I doubt they've brought any siege weaponry. Lastly, we must insure that Jaegars don't influence the battle. Night Raid will see to that personally."
Within a single instant, the look on each of the officers' faces went from despair to relief. "Then . . . we can actually win this!", one of them said, clearly overjoyed that the situation was not as dire as he had initially believed.
Najenda confidently nodded her head. "Indeed, we shall prevail. See to it that everyone follows this plan to the letter."
"What about us?", Leone asked, speaking up all of the sudden.
To which the Night Raid leader replied. "You heard me. Your job is to take care of the Jaegars. Preferably in a quick and covert fashion. Mein can snipe them from one of the towers. You can track them down with your heightened sense of smell and Akame can tag along with you. You've encountered the Grand Chariot user, so this shouldn't pose a problem. If Tatsumi manages to arrive before you find the Jaegars, he can join you in your pursuit."
"What about me?", Lubbock asked, instantly realizing that he didn't get mentioned in his leader's instructions.
She turned to her green haired subordinate, pausing for a moment before responding. "Lubbock, can I see you out in the hallway?"
The two walked outside the war room. Najenda made sure to close the door behind them, as if to prevent anyone from hearing what she was about to say. She looked into the young man's eyes with the utmost seriousness. "For the time being, I am entrusting you with my life."
"W-hat?", he asked, his voice full of skepticism and surprise. "What are you talking about?"
"Su cannot hold Esdeath off forever, even with her present handicap. She will kill him if the battle goes on long enough. And as soon as she kills him, she'll come after us. To prevent that, I'm going to go assist him at once."
An idea which Lubbock disdainfully objected to. "You don't need to do that! I can come with you. All of us can. If we fight her together-"
"Then there will be no one to stop the Jaegars", Najenda interrupted. "And that alone will significantly affect the tide of this battle."
"So then why aren't you sending me to help Leone and Akame?"
"Because I need you to guard the Lord's body. I also need you to guard my own."
"Your . . . own?"
"I plan to use Su's trump card against Esdeath. Once I do so, my body is going to seem lifeless. I'm entrusting you to guard it. Find a safe place and hide. Tell no one outside of Night Raid what you're doing."
To which Lubbock rubbed his chin. "Why keep this a secret? You could assign an entire squad of our troops to guard your body."
Najenda sighed. "You don't understand. I can't trust anyone outside of Night Raid. Esdeath infiltrated the Revolutionary Army, learned how we operate and learned who was leading it. She found out about this island because . . . the Lord told her about it."
"What?!", Lubbock shouted in surprise. "The Lord betrayed us? Why are you asking me to watch over him then?!"
"Because that information was tortured out of him, because he's not in his right state of mind . . . and because he's my father."
"Your . . . father?", he asked, clearly astonished by this information.
"He's a good man and would never do this sort of thing of his own free will. Esdeath broke him just like she has broken so many others. There's no telling whether she has anyone else within our ranks that is in actuality a pawn of hers."
"Don't you think that's something you ought to have mentioned at the war table?"
"And what would that accomplish? If I explained to them that their dear leader had turned against them and had been broken down, how do think they would react? How do you think that would affect their morale? Right now, they believe we can turn the tides against Esdeath forces and defeat them. If we are to have even the slightest chance of doing that, their faith is not to be hindered."
"So then what are our chances?"
Najenda contemplated on the query for a moment before sternly looking into her subordinate's eyes and giving a solid answer. "1.98%!"
[. . . . Theft . . . .]
Below the fortress, within its basement area, was a large vault of sorts. It was where the Revolutionary Army kept its supply of imperial arms. Each one Night Raid had collected over the course of its many missions was kept inside, each waiting for a suitable user to become its new wielder.
Four guards stood outside the vault at all times. No one within the army was permitted to touch, much less try and use an imperial arm without express permission from the Lord himself. Guards stood watch at all times to insure that this rule remained iron clad.
On this night of nights, however, the guards were hit with unexpected news as the guard captain rushed down to the basement to present it to them. "Head to the entrance! We're under attack! This is not a drill!"
The four guards abandoned their posts without hesitation and followed their captain up, presumably to help guard the fortress from impending attacks. With their departure, no one stood by to guard the vault. A move that would prove to be unwise.
Five minutes later, a circular array with a ying and yang symbol in the center appeared on the floor, with Chelsea and Syura standing atop it. Chelsea was still disguised as General Budo, a fact Syura had no real inclination of. All he seemed interested in was the vault before him.
"Fools!", Syura cackled. "The Grand Empire owes it longevity to each and every one of these weapons. Just one imperial arm alone is enough to allow one man to take on 100. And yet they leave these miraculous instruments unguarded? Why? Because of a battle? These tools were created for battle! What nonsense!"
"Perhaps you're the fool", Chelsea pointed out, doing her best to act like Budo. "You act as if imperial arms can be used so easily. True, they are powerful devices, but they're also pretty selective about their wielders."
Syura appeared to be in such a jovial mood that there wasn't the slightest indication that he took offense to the insult directed at him. "I assure you, general; I am no fool. I have, after all, stumbled upon a way to bypass that limitation."
"Bypass the limitations of an imperial arm? Impossible."
Syura removed a brown silk glove from his pocket and slipped it on his right hand. "We'll see about that."
"So that's the glove I read about in his diary?" Chelsea thought. "Good. As soon as his guard is completely down, I'll eliminate this piece of garbage and take it from him. With it, we might have a chance of surviving this mess."
[. . . . Counterattack . . . .]
Susannoo panted heavily, cuts and tears all along his white robe. To add, his left arm was in the process of regenerating. A sight that made clear how his fight with Esdeath was progressing.
The Ice Queen, on the other hand, casually stood several feet away from her prey, still beaming with confidence. Content to wait and allow him to regenerate, she instead stood by and licked the blade on her rapier. "In summation, your core is not in your brain, your eyes, your legs, your feet, your stomach, your pelvic area, your neck, your hands, nor your arms. Therefore, by process of elimination, it is located in your chest. Or perhaps to be more specific, the magatama on your chest? That was my first guess to be frank, but finding out this way was more fun!"
Su gritted his teeth, sensing the direness of the situation at hand. "Her combat style . . . it's unlike anything I've encountered. She's able to stand there casually without any regard for her defenses, but even now, there aren't any openings. How can this be?"
"Do you want to know the reason you cannot beat me?", Esdeatg asked, smugly smirking as she noticed her adversary's confusion. "I'll tell you. Consider it a parting gift on your way to oblivion. You're strong and you're fast and you excel at detecting flaws. I can tell. On paper, you make for a very useful imperial arm. But real life isn't like paper, is it? In combat, you focus all of your effort into finding the flaws in others and exploit whatever flaws you find. Right? But suppose you encounter a situation where you can't find any flaws. Suppose there are none to be found. Suppose you come up against an opponent whose fighting style is flawless? Then what do you do? You don't have an answer, do you?"
"I've been trying to find a weak point in her style this entire time. But is she correct? Does she truly not have one?"
"It's been fun, but if this is as far as you can go, I'll go ahead and put you out of your misery!" With barely a moment's notice, she bursted towards Su once more, smiling manically as she clutched the handle on her rapier.
The biological weapon watched his opponent burst towards him with such speed and intensity that he reluctantly knew he wouldn't be able to mount a proper defense in time. "Forgive me, Najenda. I was not strong enough to hold her off any longer than this."
"Then lets work together", said a separate voice echoing in Su's head. At that very instant, the magatama on his chest was enveloped in a bold and bright light. So uncanny was this sight that even Esdeath took cautious notice; she ceased her attempted coup de grace and came to a complete stop.
As she paused to get a better look at what was going on, the magatama on Susannoo's chest ceased shining. And subsequently, the biological weapon now had a completely different form. What had appeared to be a tall man with bull-like horns coming out of both sides of his head was now clearly a woman with bull-like horns, 5'8 in height, silver hair, purple eyes and a more slender frame. What's more, the battle-stave Su had been using was missing. Instead, the biological weapon now had a belt at its waist with twin daggers attached.
Esdeath appeared to be startled at first, but that feeling quickly expired and her usual sense of supreme confidence just as quickly returned. "Is that you, Najenda?"
"You were a fool to waste your ability to freeze time just to show off earlier. Now you're going to regret it as I end your sorry excuse for a life once and for all!"
"By all means", the Ice Queen boastfully remarked, pointing her rapier towards her opponent. "Come and try!"
Wasting no time whatsoever, Najenda reached into her robe; she swiftly pulled six throwing knives out and hurled them all in the Ice Queen's direction. Esdeath parried each and every blade, deflecting them all out of the way with her long rapier and simultaneously dashing towards her prey.
Undaunted, Najenda pulled another set of knives out from within her robe; she fiercely hurled all these blades as well. But much like the previous set, Esdeath blocked and knocked each one away, making her way closer to her opponent as she did.
Within a flash, the Ice Queen lunged her blade directly at the magatama on her opponent's chest. A move that would surely end the battle if successful. But alas, the general yet again paused; she widened her eyes at the subtle sound in her ears. She had long honed all five of her senses to their maximum potential. This was especially the case for her hearing, making her well accustomed to certain sounds on the battlefield. She was very accustomed to this sound in particular: Blades cutting through the air.
Esdeath ducked her head all of the sudden, only to notice two of the knives Najenda had thrown flying right past her upon doing so. Not only were the knives seemingly moving by themselves, but the blade themselves glowed in an ethereal white light. Hearing the same subtle air-cutting sound coming from above, the Ice Queen glanced upwards, only to notice five of these knives flying down towards her. She quickly rolled out of the way, causing the knives to fly clean through the roof, leaving five knife shaped holes in their wake.
Three additional knives came flying at the Ice Queen from behind, but she adeptly spun around and parried all three blades. Upon knocking the third one away, she heard another set of knives flying towards her back; there were four of them.
"Your new abilities are impressive, Najenda", the general said while yet again deflecting the knives flying towards her. "But if this is the full extent of them, you can forget about even entertaining the notion of ending my life."
"Funny", the Night Raid commander responded. "Because from the way I see things, you've already lost."
Esdeath was still smirking, but her eyes were gleaming with curiosity. "Is that so?"
[. . . . Score . . . .]
All of the warships eventually progressed their way to within several hundred yards of the island's bay area only to then come to a halt. Imperial soldiers departed from each ship; they progressively began departing onto rowboats and rowing themselves towards the beach. The beach consisted of an almost narrowly steep incline. Revolutionary Army soldiers were waiting at the top, standing ready for the upcoming battle.
On the Jaegar's ship, Wave began to lower a rowboat of his own into the water, only to be stopped by Run.
"Patience", the former teacher said, resting a hand on his comrade's shoulder. "Stick to the plan. We won't intervene until Night Raid makes themselves present."
Another figure then approached the two. He was a shirtless large middle aged man with a heavily muscled build. He had a long braided hairstyle with black hair sticking far out at the sides, was bald at the top of his head, had a long bushy beard, a mustache, bushy eyebrows and dark prominent circles around his eyes. Moreover, he didn't appear to have a right hand. Rather, attached to it was a prosthetic hook; "I'm not a Jaegar", he said, his voice noticeably gruff. "So it's okay for me to go on over there, right?"
Run turned his head towards this figure. "Ah, Sten of the Four Rakshasa demons, right? Do as you please."
To which the heavily muscular man grinned with sadistic eagerness, caressing his hook with his left hand as he did so. "Good. General Esdeath made a wise decision entrusting me with this. The souls I'm gonna release tonight. I can hardly wait."
Intrigued, Run glanced his eyes upon the prosthetic hook in this man's possession. "I suppose it's fortunate you were already missing a limb. An imperial arm like Adramelech should more than make up for that sort of handicap."
"Already missing a limb?", Sten said, bursting into laughter upon doing so. "Are you serious? I gladly severed my right arm of my own free will. Esdeath was so impressed with my dedication that she didn't hesitate to offer me a position. Now all I have to do is translate my dedication into success tonight and I'll be living like a king in no time."
"Why would the commander give an imperial arm to someone like him?", Wave thought, looking upon this man with a repulsed look in his eyes.
Kurome, who had apparently been sitting someplace up high, dropped down onto the deck and landed next to Sten in the process. "Where are the other Rakshasa demons? There are supposed to be four of you, so where are the other three?"
"They're currently doing a job in Ali Jinnah. Didn't pay enough, so I came here. Once I tell 'em what it's like to work for the great General Esdeath, they'll be coming here too! I just know it!"
"Who are the Rakshasa demons?", Waved asked.
To which Run answered. "They're four world renowned assassins. Rumor is that the Prime Minister had initially intended to offer them the position of becoming the Jaegars, only to reason that it would be much more cost effective to gather a group of people within the Grand Empire so that loyalty wouldn't be an issue."
"Loyalty isn't an issue when General Esdeath is in charge!", Sten declared. "There's something about her that just makes you want to follow her to the ends of the earth."
For a brief and sudden instant, Kurome's eyes widened. She quickly tackled Run to the ground, causing him to barely avoid getting his head blasted by a small solid beam of focused energy. As the result, the beam instantly fired clean through the ship wall he had been standing in the front of.
"It's Night Raid's sniper!", Wave yelled, visibly alarmed.
As close as he had come to being assassinated just then, Run appeared to be as focused as ever "Patience! This wasn't unexpected! This is exactly why I insisted we temporarily stay back. Kurome, you did see the direction that shot was fired from, right?"
Of the island's four towers, Mein was at the top of easternmost one. Pumpkin had its long barrel attachment on and the genius sniper held the weapon with her eyes trained on the Jaegars' imperial warship. "How the hell did she do that?!", the genius sniper thought with irritation, clearly having seen Kurome cause her to miss her shot.
Mein then stood up from where she had been crouching moments ago. "If she can react to my shots that quickly, she probably knows the direction I'm firing from. Better move someplace else."
"I finally found you!", said a steadily approaching familiar voice.
Greatly alarmed, Mein swiftly looked in the direction the voice was coming from, surprised at the sight before her. It was Seryu Ubiquitous. The Jaegar was rapidly being propelled through the air by one of her own rockets. She had evidently wrapped a wire of some sort around it before firing it and was holding on tightly as the projectile carried her through the air. What's more, Koro was clinging tightly to the girl's leg.
With a murderous grin on her face, she released the wire she was holding onto, rapidly descending towards Mein as she did. She then used the momentum of her fall to initiate a drop-kick on her target, but the Mein speedily used both of her hands to block the attack with the broadside of her imperial arm. Seryu then back flipped herself off the weapon and regained her footing several feet away.
"You've gotten a little bit stronger since our last fight", said the psychotic young woman, clearly referring to the way in which her adversary repelled her attack. "No matter. Evil will never prevail no matter how much it improves. You have no idea how much I've been looking forward to this!"
With a look of intense rage in her eyes, Mein pointed her weapon directly towards Seryu. "The feeling's mutual!"
[. . . . Another . . . .]
Back inside the vault, Syura was marveling at the sight of all the imperial arms the Revolutionary Army had collected, many of which had initially been obtained by Night Raid throughout their exploits. He appeared to be quite pleased with himself, looking as if he had just won the lottery.
"They're all mine! All mine! ALL MINE!", Syura declared with joyous laughter.
"All yours?", Chelsea asked with the raise of an eyebrow, still in the form of Budo.
To which Syura responded with a devious grin, "Oh. I'm sorry. I misspoke. I mean to say all of the Grand Empire's."
"I'm confused, Syura. Didn't you say we were going to meet up with General Esdeath?", she asked, being extra careful to play the part correctly.
"We'll meet up with her in due time. This is more important. We can't let an opportunity like this go to waste."
With that, Syura casually began to place each weapon in a large cloth sack he just so happened to bring with him. He hummed a relaxing tune as he did this, not a care in the world about anything else. The collection of imperials arms appeared to be all he was concerned with.
Chelsea, meanwhile, stood several feet behind the man, narrowing her eyes as she did. Without the slightest hint of body movement, multiple needles slipped out from her sleeve to her right hand. She firmly clenched them, keeping her eyes focused on Syura the entire time. His back was turned, but she could tell he was relaxed, none the wiser to her true intentions. Within the last several moments, the most he had done besides packing the imperial arms was scratch his forehead.
"How much longer do you intend to dawdle, Syura?", the female assassin said, still playing the role of Budo.
"Not much longer", he nonchalantly responded. "Just a few more."
The shapeshifter raised her right hand into a throwing position, clenching her needles ever tightly as she did.
Still packing and still with his back turned, Syura uttered the last thing the shapeshifting assassin expected to hear from this vermin. "Just a few more . . . Chelsea."
The very instant Chelsea heard this, she reacted without wasting a moment to ponder on how knew her true identity all of the sudden. Instead, reacting through sheer impulse, she hurled her needles at the back of Syura's neck with great dexterity and pinpoint accuracy. Before the needles could pierce his skin, however, a miniature array, smaller than any of Syura's other portals, appeared behind his neck to intercept them. At the exact same time, another miniature array manifested itself behind the back of Chelsea's neck.
And just like that, Chelsea fell forward, reverting back into her real body upon hitting the floor. The needles she had thrown at the Prime Minister's son could clearly been seen protruding out from the back of her neck.
Syura set his bag aside and turned around to gaze his eyes upon his defeated would-be killer. The look on his face was one of wicked glee. Chelsea, barely able to move, lifted her head, hoping to see how this sadistic murderer had figured out who she was. One glance, however, was sufficient to provide an answer. On the center of Syura's forehead was the very imperial arm Akame had acquired upon assassinating Zanku the Beheader: Omnipotent Five Sights: Spectator.
"Of course", Chelsea thought. "That moment where he scratched his head. He must've slipped it on then. How careless of me."
"Right you are, Chelsea", Syura said with amusement, clearly having read her thoughts. "I had planned to kill General Budo. Can't have him telling anyone that I'm lying once I inform my father about the fact that all of the Imperial Arms were destroyed tonight as a result of the battle. I figured Spectator would give me a better opportunity to kill him by surprise. Imagine my delight to find out that that dumb old geezer has already been taken out and that you're just pretending to be him."
His sadism knowing no end, he leaned down and grabbed the red ribbon collar on the girl's long sleeve shirt. He then proceeded to lift her up into the air, holding her at his eye level. Just the look on her face alone made it clear she was in agony. A look he took great pleasure in. "It would be so easy for me to take you back to my chambers. The fun we could have together! But I've read your mind and so I know you know your little needles nicked your carotid arteries. Even I'm not a fan of necrophilia. You understand, right?"
Without any warning, Syura threw the shapeshifting assassin into a nearby wall only to subsequently walk up to her, bend down and remove her imperial arm from her possession "What have we here?", he said, surveying the cosmetic case like box in his hands. "Phantasmagoria: Gaea Foundation. You have no idea how long I've been looking for this one. I wasn't sure whether the Revolutionary Army truly had it or not. Guess you won't be needing it anymore"
Another portal opened up behind Syura all of the sudden. This one was the size of a door. He stood up, grabbed the sack cloth bag he had placed every other imperial arm into and began to walk through. "Farewell", he said in mock politeness.
She watched both this savage of a man and his portal vanish before her very eyes. "Who does he think he is? Not taking the time to finish me off like that. Amateur mistake. He'll regret it."
Chelsea hoisted herself against the wall behind her, using it as leverage to try and rise to her feet. She clenched her teeth as she did this, exerting all the effort she could to stand. "This is . . . just a temporary setback."
Her legs were trembling, but she was finally standing in an upright position if not barely. "Just a . . . temporary setback . . ."
She leaned her left hand against the wall to her left, using it as leverage to walk forward. Slowly she did. Step by step she took. Careful and precise. "Just . . a temporary setback."
She managed to maneuver herself all the way across the room and was about to draw near the stairway leading upstairs. "Just . . . a . . . temporary . . . setback."
As she took another step forward, he legs finally appeared to give out, causing her to lose her balance and drop to the floor. She tried everything she could do to get up once more, but her legs simply wouldn't listen. "No . . . this is not how it's supposed to go. You said you would watch my back and I said I would watch yours. How am I supposed to watch your back like this?"
Her breathes started shortening. Even breathing was beginning to be a difficult task."How are you supposed to watch my back like this?!"
She leaned her back against the wall, no longer making an effort to move. Instead, she simply sat there. "I've been an assassin for nearly my entire life. I was good at it. Maybe one of the best. Any good assassin knows this sort of thing is inevitable. It's part of the job. It's divine punishment for everything we do. I heard the way Bulat met his end. I heard the way Sheele met hers. Both of them went out without any hesitation. Without any regrets. I called them naïve. But in the end . . . in the end . . . . maybe I was the one who is naïve."
She turned her head towards the stairs, looking at the top. As she did so, a single tear rolled down one of her cheeks "It pains my pride to admit it . . . but I'm scared, you know? Right now, I'm scared. I'm terrified. Maybe that's why I keep catching myself thinking you're going to come. That you're going to save me like you always do. That you'll show up in the nick of the time with that big dumb look on your face and I'll pretend like it's no big deal. Or that maybe I'll finally work up the courage to say those three little words I've always been too scared to tell you. But you're not coming this time . . . are you? No one is. This is . . . truly the end isn't it?"
The pupils in her eyes began to dilate and her heart began to beat less and less, gradually coming to a standstill. "It's getting. So dark. Why is it getting dark? It can't be helped, can it? In the end, can I at least say I've watched your back one last time? Goodbye . . . Night Raid."
With one final breath, she gently closed her eyes; her final thought being: "Goodbye . . . Tatsumi."
A/N: It pained me to write that last segment, but such is the way this story has to go. Not to mention that this is Akame ga Kill after all! Things are really heating up here!
At any rate, another chapter out of the way! By my calculations, we've got 5 or 6 more chapters left in this series.
Thoughts? Hate it? Love it? Meh? Feel free to favorite, follow or leave a review! Lemme know what you think of this ninth chapter in this Down a different branch AKG installment. Till next time! :D