(Raymus' POV)

After Mine, Tatsumi, and I gave our report to Najenda, she gracefully accepted our request to make a move against Iokal. According to the intel that Leone collected, the man has five highly-trained guards at his disposal, so we needed to be cautious. Those guards were just as guilty as their employer, so they needed to be taken out too.

We separated into small teams. I myself stayed with Mine and Tatsumi perched on the trees. We were about half a kilometer away from the front entrance, which is where Iokal was most likely to leave from.

"I still don't know why I need you two." Mine said. "I can kill Iokal by myself."

"As soon as he gets shot, his guards will come after us. And if they're half as good as I've heard, they could catch up to us." I explained. "Thankfully, I can help."

"I'm guessing Assassins have to run and hide often?" Tatsumi asked.

"I wouldn't put it that way, but yes." I answered. "After killing our targets, we try not to be seen, but if we are, we must disappear into hiding. So I'll help you get away from them Assassin style."

"You know I'm not an Assassin, right?" Mine asked. "At least, not your kind of assassin."

"This is for Tatsumi, not for you." I reminded her.

"Yeah. Not everything's about you, you know." Tatsumi said.

"Do you want to get smacked again?" Mine asked aggressively. "Don't forget, I'm the one with the Teigu."

"The what?" I asked.

"The Teigu. This thing." Mine held up her sniper rifle.

"It's called the Teigu?" I asked curiously.

"No. It's called Pumpkin." Mine widened her eyes realizing something. "Oh, that's right. You're not from around here. You don't know what Teigus are, do you?"

"To be fair, I don't know either." Tatsumi said.

Mine looked at us silently for a second before answering. "Fine. Guess I'll regale you. It all started a thousand years ago, during the reign of the First Emperor. He feared that his great empire would fall into ruin, so he ordered for powerful weapons to be built to secure the future. These weapons were crafted from the most fearsome danger beasts and rarest materials by the most skillful craftsmen in the world. In the end, about 48 Teigus were perfected. However, five-hundred years later, there was a civil war and half of the Teigus disappeared."

"And you have one of the remaining ones?" I asked.

"Not just me. Everyone in Night Raid has a Teigu at their disposal."

"Really?" Tatsumi asked.

"Yes, you idiot. Remember Murasame, Akame's sword, the one that nearly stabbed you? That's a Teigu with the hidden ability to kill anyone with one cut. There's also Leone's belt, Lionel, which turns her into a powerful beast. I have Pumpkin, which shoots energy, and the more I'm backed up against the wall, the more destructive power I it can shoot. Bulat has Incursio, his armor that at times can make turn him invisible. Lubbock's threads are called Crawstail. And lastly, Sheele's Teigu is Extase, a giant pair of scissors that can cut through anything and act as a defensive shield."

"Sounds awesome." Tatsumi said.

"I never knew such weapons existed." I said.

"Now, you do." Mine said. "Just wait. I'm going to show my skills with Pumpkin when I kill that entitled prick. Speaking of whom…"

I turned my attention to the front entrance. Just as suspected, Iokal exited through the front entrance. And he wasn't alone. The sleezy man was surrounded by several women who didn't have an ounce of hope in their eyes. Even the ones he's holding onto with his arms didn't have any happiness. Still, the look on Iokal's face indicated that he didn't care. Beside the harem were five men in white ninja outfits who wore animal-like masks over their faces.

"There are a lot of non-targets with him." Tatsumi observed. "How are you going to shoot him?"

"Don't worry about it. I'm a genius at shooting. Watch." Mine raised her Teigu and carefully aimed it.

Once she had it steadied, she pulled the trigger and I followed the lightning-fast energy shot to the estate's front entrance. Iokal didn't know what hit him until it went right through his head. He died before he fell to the ground. After the shot, the girls that surrounded Iokal panicked and scattered down the stairs.

"Direct hit." Mine congratulated herself. But our victory wasn't over just yet.

Running past the girls, the guards that protected Iokal made a mad dash into the forest into our general direction. The rest of Night Raid rushed to intercept them, but still, it wasn't safe to stay.

"We should go." I advised.

Mine, Tatsumi, and I dropped down from the tree and began to move deeper into the forest. Even while stepping over each tree root, I kept my guard up looking around for any guard that could catch up to us.

"Think those guys are dead now?" Tatsumi asked.

"I doubt it." Mine said. "Word is, those guys trained at the Temple of the Imperial Fist, the number one martial arts school in the Empire. That means those guys can put up a fight. Which is why we need to leave now."

I agreed and kept walking with my comrades. Along the way, Tatsumi brought something up.

"Mine, there's something I gotta know. Why did we accept this job?"

"Excuse me?" Mine asked.

"Don't get me wrong. I know why we did it, because that man was cruel and abusive. But I don't get why we accepted Old Man Sal's request." Tatsumi said. "He told us he wasn't exactly rich, so why did you accept to help him."

Mine stopped walking and looked down silent for a moment. "Money is just one motivation for me. But the truth is… I sympathized with Old Man Sal. He was treated unfairly because he was a tribal, which was something I can relate to."

"You're a tribal too?" I asked.

"Half, to be exact." Mine said. "I came to the Empire from the Western Tribe, but I was less than welcome there. Can you imagine a little girl pelted with rocks by a crowd of Imperial citizens just for being from a tribe?"

I could tell the mixture of frustration and sadness on Mine's face which she shook it off to get back her determined stare.

"The revolutionary army promised changes to the Empire, and one of those changes involve diplomatic relations with the tribes that have allied with them. More people will be of mixed blood and no child will have to suffer like me and Sal did ever again. Discrimination will be a thing of the past."

"Wow." Tatsumi said. "I had no idea that this mission was that personal to you."

Mine turned to Tatsumi and forced a smile on herself. "Of course, having tons of money and living like a celebrity isn't bad either." The way she forced that already told me she was trying to act like a mean girl to put on an act.

After a few more minutes of walking, we made it to a hill that had only one tree. That tree was perched at the top of the hill.

"We made it to the rendezvous point." I said.

"Well, we won't be finished until we give the report." Tatsumi said.

"Did you get that from perfect Akame?" Mine asked smugly.

Suddenly, my instincts kicked in. I looked back to the dark forest we just came out of and activated my Eagle Vision. Among really dark blue background, I noticed a single gold figure racing towards us faster than anything I've seen before. My reflexes made me flex out the hidden blade in my metal arm.

"GUYS, LOOK OUT!" I yelled out.

Suddenly, one of the guards appeared before my eyes and prepared to strike me. Thankfully, I was able to evade the attack letting him hit the ground. When it shattered, I found myself grateful that I was able to evade attack just in time. I grouped up with Tatsumi and Mine who drew out their respective weapons.

"So you saw me coming. I'm impressed." The guard said striking an intimidating pose. Unlike the others, he didn't wear any animal mask, but he did have a vicious face that matched his evil grin. "But that still won't save you."

"We'll see about that!" Mine said as she aimed her gun. She fired her energy blasts, but the guard was quick enough to dodge them. In a mere blink, he appeared just a few inches from Mine.

"Don't worry about yourself." The guard said. "I'm going to hand you to the minister personally. I'm sure he'll be glad to…"

I interrupted his talk by thrusting my metal arm toward his face. He was quick enough to grab me by my wrist, but that's what I was counting on. It was time to use my arm's additional hidden weapon. I formed a fist and pointed it down revealing a muzzle at the top of my wrist. With a quick flex, a bullet shot out and shot the man straight into his eye.

Out of instinct, the man screamed in agony while squeezing his grip on my hand. I could feel it being crushed and broken before I pulled it away. Once I had it back, I looked and saw that it was still damaged. My wrist was mostly broken. I turned back to see Tatsumi taking advantage of the guard's sudden shock and wrap his arms around him. It was clear that he was holding him so he wouldn't escape.

"MINE! TAKE THE SHOT NOW!" Tatsumi yelled.

"But you're in the way!" Mine yelled. "Are you stupid?"

"No! But I trust you! You're a genius sharpshooter, aren't you?"

I couldn't help but notice the small smile on her face as she raised her Teigu pointed at the guard. "I gotta say, for a rookie, you're not half bad!" she yelled before pulling the trigger. It was all over for the guard after that.

After the guard laid dead on the ground, I heard the relentless rustling of bushes behind me. I turned with my guard up, but I lowered it as soon as I saw it was only Akame and Leone.

"Easy there, tiger." Leone said. "We realized that there was one guard missing, so we came to see if you were okay."

"We're glad you're all right." Akame said looking at the dead guard.

"Well, we're mostly all right." I held up my busted hand to show them. "I might need some repairs."

"So Mine," Leone said, "How did our buddies do?"

"Well, Tatsumi has more guts than I gave him credit for." Mine said. "I suppose for now, he has earned my respe…"

Mine was cut off my Tatsumi when he flicked his finger at her forehead. The pink-haired girl covered the spot he hit with a confused face.

"Hey! What was that for?"

"You were cutting it way to close! You nearly blew my head off!" Tatsumi pointed to the top of his hair. There was a stain of black ash that was steaming fresh.

"Excuse me?!" Mine yelled out. "You're complaining about how a genius saved your life? I was just about to respect you!"

"Oh, please! You're no genius!" Tatsumi responded harshly.

"Am so!"

"Well, a genius wouldn't call herself a genius!"

With my one flesh hand, I pinched in between my eyes and gave a tired sigh. "Would you two give it a rest? Let's head back to Sal's."

After finally calming the argument between Mine and Tatsumi, the three of us headed back to the Capital city where Old Man Sal waited in his tavern. We sat him down and told him of our success. As expected, he choked out in happiness.

"Thank you. Thank you so much. If there's any way I can repay you…"

"Don't worry about that." Mine said. "For now, just take a rest."

"Actually, there is one thing." I said. I held up my busted hand. "Is there a place where I can get this fixed? It kinda got busted up in the fight."

"I think I have a toolbox in the basement downstairs." Sal said. "Follow me."

We followed Sal down a set of stairs that lead to a dimly lit room. The only light source there were a couple of candles: one on the table that Sal lit, and the other attached to the far end of the wall that was already lit. With his handheld candle, the old man surveyed the workshop in front of him for a toolbox. Eventually, he managed to pick up a red, metal box and give it to me.

"This should help."

"Thank you, Sal." I said accepting the tool box. "I'll never forget your…"

Something strange caught my eye, but when I looked in its direction, I couldn't figure out what it was. To me, it looked like an ordinary wall.

"Raymus, are you okay?" Tatsumi asked.

"I… I don't know. I think…" I activated my Eagle Vision to see if there was something I wasn't seeing at first. Sure enough, there was. In the middle of the brick wall, I saw a large, brighter rectangle that stood the size of a man. "Guys, I think there's a secret passageway behind the wall."

"What?" Mine asked.

"Really?" Tatsumi asked.

"How do you know?" Sal asked.

Ignoring the last question, I stepped closer to the wall trying not to break my Eagle Vision. I noticed a golden glow that surrounded the candle that hung on the wall next to the rectangle shadow. I grabbed it by is hilt and pulled it.

CLICK!

Suddenly, the bricks shifted to the right. I stood back and broke my vision to see what it was hiding. Sure enough, behind the wall was a dark, mysterious tunnel without a single trace of light down the way.

"What is this?" Tatsumi asked. "Where does it lead?"

"Only one way to find out." I said. Sal gave me his candle and I took point heading down the tunnel.

After five minutes of careful trekking down the mysterious passageway, I stopped at the sight of a wooden door. I opened it letting it creak loudly as if it hadn't been open in ages. I walked into a very dark room. I couldn't see anything other than what my little candle could show me.

I could understand that everyone behind me was getting more and more nervous, so I promised that if I didn't find anything within the next three minutes, we would turn back. I looked around and saw something that caught my eye. It looked like a torch perched on a wooden pole. I held my candle up to it to light it up, and the most phenomenal thing happened right in front of my eyes.

Shortly after I lit up the first torch, another one lit up just a few feet away from me. And just a few feet more, another. One after another, torches lit up all around us giving us a much better view of where we were. I realized that I was standing in the middle of what looked like a grand hall of a castle, complete with a long room, a red carpet rug under our feet, and a large, rusted chair that could very well be a throne up on the far end of the room.

I took a few steps closer to the throne and looked to my left and right. There were other rooms that seemed to connect to this one here. Once I had reached the throne, that's when I noticed the skeleton. It rested on the seat clearly not getting up.

"What is this place?" Tatsumi asked.

"I don't know." Sal said. "I've never seen this part of my tavern before, and I've owned it for decades."

I looked closer at the skeleton and noticed two things in its hands. One was an old feather quill, mainly withered and most likely dry. In the other was an old, brown book with a leather cover. Very carefully, out of respect for the dead, I took the journal from his hands and flipped through the pages. Much to my own confusion, there was nothing but a collection of blank pages. After closing the journal, I looked onto a single word that was visible on the cover. It was written near the bottom in gold text.

"There's a name here." I told the others. "It says, 'Kirakage'."

"Kirakage?" Mine asked with widened eyes. "Are you sure?"

"It's right here. Plain as the nose on my face." I said.

"Then that means…" Mine turned her head around getting a sudden realization. "This place, it must be…"

"What?" Tatsumi asked. "What is this place?"

"Do you remember the civil war I told you about earlier, the one where half of the total Teigus were lost?" Mine asked. "Well, I think we're in one of the rebels' hideouts. Kirakage is the name of one of their leaders."

Right then and there, I shared Mine's surprise and looked around the place. Tatsumi and Sal did as well.

"But how is that possible? You said it was five hundred years ago." Tatsumi said. "Sal, this is built over your tavern."

"It wasn't always a tavern, lad." Sal said. "The business was around for fifteen years, but the building itself is said to be centuries old, renovated regularly."

"So this place actually was a rebel hideout." I said. "Sal, you wait for us back at the tavern. Tatsumi, Mine, we're checking the place out."

Old Man Sal returned out the door while the three of us split up to explore the old, abandoned lair. The first thing that was discovered was an armory, a storeroom filled with various weapon types that hung to the walls along with suits of armor.

There was also what looked like a training area with a wide, empty, circular area at the center. There were other weapons that hung on the walls there too, but there were much fewer. There were also a few mannequins that were propped up with scars on them.

Further exploration revealed a dusty library. There were shelves that reached up twice as high as I could. As customary for a library, there were books that filled the shelves, but they were all covered in dust. I also found two tables. One was flat and empty, probably for the purpose of reading only. But the other table had a large model that covered the entire surface. The buildings and the large castle indicated that it was a model of the Capital, but most of the buildings were unrecognizable, which meant this was a much older model.

We also found a room filled with beds. Not much else there, but there were enough beds to rest up a small army. I was honestly surprised that the barracks didn't have any damages after several hundred years.

Two rooms were found at once. They were clearly conjoined. One was a grand hall with a very long table. The table had chairs resting on different sides. The hall was connected to a large kitchen. Clearly, we found the dining area.

I stopped when I came across a door. I didn't open it because I didn't need to. The sign above it read "Catacombs", which lead me to believe that this lead to a series of tunnels that reached out all over the Capital.

The last thing that we found was a large office that towered over the grand hall with the throne. It had a black desk near the windows and fewer book shelves. I also found a painting of a man that wore a white cape over his full-body suit of armor. His head was visible, but it was nearly covered by strawberry-blonde hair and a short beard. After a bit of looking, I knew that the man himself was none other than Kirakage.

After exploring the entire hideout, I met up with Tatsumi and Mine in the main hall where we exchanged what we found. Once we were all done, I looked around the place once more and came to a sudden realization.

"I found it. This place is perfect."

"For what?" Tatsumi asked.

"The hideout. The new hideout of the Assassins."

After returning to the tavern, Tatsumi and Mine went to tell Sal what they saw. While they did that, I stayed in the basement workshop repairing my arm. With the dimly lit light, I was careful when handling my right mechanical arm. In the end, I returned my hidden blade into its mechanism and closed up my hand. I flexed my metal fingers and they worked good as new.

Once I had finished with my arm, I returned upstairs back to the nearly empty bar. Tatsumi and Mine seemed to have finished explaining their discovery to Sal, who slouched in his chair in disbelief.

"All done." I said waving my mechanical hand. "By the way, Sal, I hope you don't mind me coming by here every so often for the hideout."

"Yes. The kids told me how you plan to make it your new headquarters." Sal said. "Well, you have my permission. Consider it my full payment for helping against Iokal. Although, it might be hard to keep this place afloat. I've been cutting back on some necessities to pay my taxes."

"Maybe I can help." I suggested getting an idea. "Surely, this place shouldn't be the only business in the Capital that's fallen on hard times."

"It isn't. I've seen a lot of places broken down or abandoned." Mine said. "Tailors, banks, book shops, faction buildings."

"Then we can help them." I said.

"How does that help?" Tatsumi asked.

"No. Just hear me out." I said. "Consider that I use some of the money from my line of work to pay for one shop to be renovated and back in business. Once they make money, then as an investor, I can get an income that adds in more money over time. The more businesses I renovate, the bigger the income."

"Now, you're speaking my language." Mine said. "And let me guess, you can use the income to help fix up this tavern?"

"That, and resupply the hideout downstairs." I replied.

"You'd do that for me?" Sal asked with a thankful tone.

"Of course, I would. I'm not a monster." I said.

Sal smiled through his wrinkled beard. "Well, if we're going to remake this tavern, it's going to need a new name. Mr. Raymus, would you like the honors?"

This was a big step for me. I was really eager to tell Emiko all about it in my next letter. For now, I got the perfect name in mind.

"The eagle is the animal sign of the Assassins for it is a symbol of freedom. Therefor, I think a place like this should be called… the Eagle Nest."

"Brilliant." Sal said. "Oh, if only Numa Seika were here. My son would be so happy."

(No POV)

Numa Seika was happy, but not for the reason his father expected. The war hero was panting with a lustful smile as he dropped down to his knees and licked the white boot in front of him like a dog. Numa Seika was naked as he begged to the blue-haired woman in front of him who wore a white military uniform. She didn't look amused at all.

"This is the great hero of the Northern Tribe?" she asked with disappointment filling her eyes. "This man was a threat to the empire? Such a disappointment." She swing her leg at lightning speed instantly killing her victim. "Is there no one who can satisfy me as my enemy?"

After that, she stood up at the main deck of the small ship she stood in and looked on into the mainland. What was once a rural village for the Northern Tribe was now a giant ruined pile of rubble. The buildings were broken into burning pieces, there were large cracks in the earth, and the last of the screams within the city dimmed into silence.

"General Esdeath," asked an Imperial guard who approached the blue-haired woman, "What happened in there?"

"It seems that place was more sensitive than the Manuscript said." Esdeath answered. "It doesn't matter now. The Northern Tribe will pose no more threat to the empire and we got the treasure within. Let us return to the Capital. It's time to go home."