Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN BEN 10 OR AKAME GA KILL. THEY BELONG TO THEIR RIGHTFUL OWNERS. BEN 10 IS OWNED BY MAN OF ACTION AND AKAME GA KILL IS OWNED BY SQUARE ENIX.

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

Hey, guys! This is MegaRdaniels giving you a new chapter for the story, "Ultimate ga Kill!". I am here to make a special announcement. As you all know you all have enjoyed my fan fiction stories. Well, I am writing a book thanks to the wonderful people here who have supported me. Well, I have finished a book, but now I gotta register it to the copyright office instead of doing it a Poor Man's Copyright. Jesus Christ how that was a bad idea. Now my manuscript is lost forever. :(

It took me 3 years for me to write. 3 years. The book is called, "The Legend of the Sky-Titans: The Son of Alpha". It's the first book in a series I'm planning to release this year. If you all are interested, please click the link on my profile page after reading.

Anyway, I hope you all enjoy this chapter. Please always leave reviews, they are always appreciated.

Thanks, guys! :)


投獄された魂を殺す

XXII: Kill the Imprisoned Soul

Akame was in the dining room pondering on what happened. The news of Tatsumi's rent kidnapping broke her, but what really worried her was her endangering Ben to this kind of mission. She knew the Empire from the back of her hand, and from the overheating of her gut, she knew she made a bad mistake. Ben was not a killer by any means, however, Esdeath was. She was a bloodthirsty killer and if she found out about Ben's abilities, all hell would break loose.

However, she kept hope by the side that Ben would defend himself against Esdeath - however as small as it was. It was impossible to linger on vast amounts of hope when you feel your spine frozen over the pit of guilt.

She sent Ben to die.

She sat there with a small mirror facing her, the moon shone brightly from behind enhancing her reflection, "I hope you're happy now."

Akame's eyes shot open, hearing her reflection, "What did you say?" She turned to look at a twisted look at her reflection. She had a mess, short black raven hair halfway covering her face, a long, dry scar stretching from her upper cheek to her chin, and a sick, twisted smile.

"You heard me," it said, "You sent overpowered mess to die."

Akame was shocked at her reflection, "He is not a..."

"Look at him. Look at what he is! He is armed with a watch that can transform him into anything he wants! Hell, he could destroy this base if he wanted to. I wonder why he hasn't?"

"Ben's not like that!" Akame protested.

"You said the same thing about Kurome, and now look what happened! She gets wet by thinking about stabbing you in the back of the neck! What makes you think Ben won't do the same - if not worse? He could be a rogue Imperial Arms user!"

"He saved our lives."

"But why did he?" the reflection asked, "Was it for the bottom of his heart? - or was it to bring our guard down? It's like the old saying goes, 'Common Sense isn't all too common in people,'" it concluded, "Face it, Ben Tennyson is a target - a threat that must be annihilated before HE annihilate us!"

Akame lowered the mirror as her mind slowly begun to warp, "You're right."

She got up, picked up her sword and left the Hideout without anyone noticing - all except one man who stood listening by the wall outside of the kitchen. Paradox begun to worry about his young friend, "Ben, you have to be on guard."

...

Ben walked in the woods that night tracking down Tatsumi. It had been 45 minutes since he had transformed into Wildmutt and now he had finally reached his peak. He emerged from the thick, thorn bushes and FINALLY saw Tatsumi at the edge of the cliff with some strange woman with long, sky-blue hair. Ben had to stop and take cover.

"I'm gonna take a quick glance and assume that must be that Esdeath chick," Ben said nervously, "She looks extremely intimidating and scary. I have to move slowly. She has Tatsumi around him so this may not be an easy feat. Poor guy. Alright..." Ben activated his Ultimatrix, "Which of my friends should I introduce her too?"

Meanwhile, Sheele was only a few feet behind Ben. It had been hours since she tracked him down, Ben much less with Tatsumi, but at least she was almost there by reaching him. Her main goal was to protect him since she and the rest of Night Raid - excluding Tatsumi, know how powerful she was. Ben was infinitely ignorant to underestimate her.

By the time she got close, Ben was about to slam his Ultimatrix down until suddenly, Sheele emerged from the bushes and tackled him down, "No!"

Both of them landed on the ground, behind a stone pillar; Tatsumi and Esdeath looked back, "What the hell was that?" Tatsumi asked. Esdeath and Tatsumi both looked back towards the front.

"Ben, do not fight her!" Sheele warned on top of Ben, restraining from using his watch.

"Sheele? What are you doing?"

"Saving your life," Sheele said, "You do not know how powerful Esdeath is?"

"But Akame says..."

"Akame overestimated your powers," Sheele said, "Heed me, Ben, Esdeath is not a normal opponent. Her name literally has the word 'death' in it." Ben, understanding her worry, could not grip on leaving Tatsumi. He needed to be rescued. He needed to be saved - even though there was absolutely no certainty that he was being harmed, but to Ben, Esdeath was issuing mental manipulation against him. And that by far was FAR worse than physical damage.

Ben gently pushed her off and stood up; Sheele stood up, "Ben, I..."

"I know you're worried about me," Ben said with a smile, "But, I've dealt with people like this before - even though Esdeath may seem like a new flavor of ice cream - I can take it."

"But Ben..."

"Trust me," Ben winked, "Besides, if we don't save Tatsumi, who will?"

Sheele was stubborn to let Ben go on with this, but she knew he was right. Esdeath was a complete psychopath and a straight opportunist - but Ben was smart, he had a bunch of monsters in his rosters he could choose from. Honestly, he knew that if he chose a form that could potentially cause a lot of damage, he would be exposed. He stepped forward his arm ready to smash the faceplate - but then something came up.

He began to think.

He lowered his arm and relaxed staring at Tatsumi as Esdeath got close. Ben's face dropped until Sheele's hand draped on his shoulders, "You'll find a way to save him," she said.

"Yeah," Ben said with a sigh as Sheele turns him around, until...

BOOM!

The shockwave blasted the two of them to a pillar; when they got up, Ben and Sheele were awakened to a brand new, hellish world. A wall of fire far off in the distance had spread throughout the forest letting off intense heat and light, burning everything in its path.

"Oh dear God," Ben said in terror.

"Ben?" Sheele was concerned about the young changeling, "We have to go."

"Ben!?" Ben immediately turned to a stunned and terrified Tatsumi looking frozen as Esdeath turned around to see the boy in the boy in the green jacket, Ben Tennyson. At first, she had no idea who the boy was, so naturally, she dismissed it until she saw the little mark on the left side of his jacket. Thinking it could be a coincidence, she wrote it off.

"Who exactly are you?" Esdeath asked holding Tatsumi tightly, "If you are here with Night Raid..."

"Technically, you can call me Life Support," Ben said angrily. Sheele, knowing that there was no way out of this, faced Esdeath with Ben. She pulled out her large kitchen knife and got in her kata, "Now I'm a say this just one time, give us Tatsumi - or else."

~You had to add the 'or else' in that?~ Tatsumi was shocked that Ben was acting extremely reckless.

"So the stories are true. You're the mysterious Ben Tennyson, Seryu blabbered on about," Esdeath said, "No matter, an ally of Night Raid shall not live amongst me."

"And you're the psychopath who gets your kicks off of killing people," Ben gave Esdeath a hard look, "People like you belong in prison."

"How adorable, playing Policeman," Esdeath teased.

Sheele slowly walked in front of Ben protectively while Tatsumi slowly inched away from conflict. He didn't have his Imperial Arms so he couldn't scoop out of there. But he had to do something. He had to think of a plan to at least gather some information. He was kidnapped yes, but it was something about Esdeath that caught his eye. He figured, if he could convince her somehow, she could be converted over to their side. He just had to escape the conflict and play victim long enough for him to not blow his cover.

He had to think this through.

"So you're protecting your little meat ticket. Nice, protect the weak while they're vulnerable," Esdeath said with a smirk, "I honestly do not know how Seryu managed to lose to a child like you.

Ben activated his Ultimatrix and programmed it to Heatblast, "Says the woman who has the hots for a teenage boy," Ben smacked the Ultimatrix faceplate back to the core blasting blinding green light to Esdeath. She shielded her eyes from the initial blast. When the light dimmed, standing over Ben's place was a humanoid, plant-like "Danger Beast" that had an overall green and black colored body, mostly with a flame-patterned head and root-like feet, seemingly holding rocks. Its eyes were oval shaped with points at each end with pupils copying the shape but were smaller. Also, its shoulders and head had red petals. It's elbows and legs had green frills sticking out. It was taller than an average human and had a distinct rotten stench that worsened with heat. It wore the Ultimatrix symbol on its chest.

"SWAMPFIRE!" Swampfire said with his trademark nasally voice. Swampfire looked around him and complained, "What? I programmed Heatblast! Ugh, gotta work this out then, I guess."

Never minding exchanging words, Esdeath seeing this power attacked immediately. She was in the air throwing ice projectiles at him. Swampfire formed a plant wall separating the ice spears and Sheele getting stabbed.

"Sheele, you have to take cover!"

"But Ben!"

"Don't argue with me! Swampfire can regenerate, I will be fine! Just hide!" Swampfire ordered.

Sheele was about to argue back, but she nodded and understood. She ran to the back keeping watch but her protective instincts still clung on.

Swampfire lowered the wall as it was about to give way. Just when he did, he was delivered a devastating kick to the face and an ice sock to the chin followed by another kick in the mouth. In the air, Swampfire threw seeds to the ground. Vines sprung up and wrapped Esdeath around. Swampfire crashed to the ground and got back up with a smug on his face.

"Ain't that...crap," Swampfire swallowed his words after Esdeath blew the vines to pieces with her ice attacks.

"You know, plants don't do well on ice!" Esdeath said firing ice beams at Swampfire to which he gladly returned it with streams of fire. The fire collided with the ice and pushed it back to Esdeath to which sprung her back a few inches. She turned back to see a raging plant man coming at her like a freight train smashing its barked fist through Esdeath's face like a plushie doll. She was in Swampfire's boxing circle for a minute until he uppercuts her to the air.

Esdeath, now enraged shot a rain of bullets of ice towards Swampfire to which he shielded himself, however, Esdeath took out her rapier and sliced Swampfire in half. She got up, breathing heavily with heavy wounds and bruises she received from Swampfire. Sheele was horrified.

"Nice job, boy," Esdeath said, "But the better warrior did win the day."

Sheele's stomach clutched together, her fists hardened, bleeding from her squeezing the blood from her veins. Her heart raced, beating her chest as if trying to escape, her skin reddened in hatred. Like a remote control controlling a machine, she walked over to Esdeath with her knife at hand, aiming the point of the knife to the top of her head. However, both women stopped when Swampfire laughed.

"You thought I would be dead from that?"

Esdeath shook and dropped her rapier, "What? How are you still...?"

"I'm a plant genius!" Swampfire quipped, "And plants regenerate!" Sheele smiled, "And since you like to go all out, how about I introduce you to a special little friend, "It's time to go Ultimate!"


AN: Yeah, pretty much of a short chapter, but next chapter, there's a surprise for everyone. Sorry for the delay. Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this story as much as I had written it! Please always leave reviews, they are always appreciated and until we meet again, I bid you all an adieu and...

PEACE!