What's up ladies and gentlemen? The third chapter is up and running!

While making this chapter, I found out that making them shorter (4000 words or less) actually makes typing my stories a lot easier for me. But that doesn't mean that they will be frequently updated.

In this chapter, I wanted to explore the different parts of the Capital and I'm going to add in my own interpretation of some places and people in Akame ga Kill, most namely the eastern continent. It will play a big role in the sequel.

One other fun fact is that I will be adding a lot of music from the Resident Evil series to invoke a sense of isolation and mystery.

Review time!

Dark Vizard447: You'll find out soon enough!

Thaqif: I'm glad to hear that we both share the same interests, that being sci-fi meets fantasy, and that you enjoy my story so much. But if you really want to read a good sci-fi/fantasy story, you should definitely check out the GATE series. That manga is awesome!

Also, you're right. It was really dickish of me not to review your ideas and I deeply apologize for that. I've read them and I must say, all of your suggestions are great and I love the Warhammer, Team Fortress, X-com and Overwatch crossovers. In fact, some of them have actually given me some ideas on future stories! My personal favorite is the Bloodborne and Madness Combat suggestions!

I wasn't actually planning on any fanservice moments in this story; the whole bit underground was just a spur of the moment for me.

DestinyTX: The Ultrabot's adamantium armor will be a key problem for the main cast in this story.

Mythfan: Thanks for the support! It will be tough but I'll find a way to make it work.

Akame ga Kill and Samurai Jack belong to their respective owners, I do not own either of them.

Chapter 3

Ashes of the Capital

THE CAPITAL-FRONT GATES

(Resident Evil 3 soundtrack-save room theme loop)

After Night Raid had gotten over the initial shock, they quickly went down to the front gates that led into the Capital. When they went through, same feeling of horror they saw from afar was now 100 times worse up close. Numerous building were destroyed, set ablaze or reduced to rubble. The bodies of countless citizens and imperial soldiers lied still in the ash strewn streets with many of them covered in wounds. Some were immolated, eviscerated, bifurcated, riddled with bullets or suffered other fatal injuries. It was a horrific sight; there was nothing but utter devastation as far as the eye could see.

"Holy shit…"Leone gasped.

"This is horrible…" Sheele whispered.

"I can't believe it. Everything…it's all gone…" Tatsumi said in disbelief. It truly was very hard to believe. He had been around the Empire for a while now and he could remember some landmarks but now everything was completely unrecognizable.

"B-b-but this doesn't make any sense! There's no way an entire kingdom can be destroyed in just 3 ½ days! It's impossible!" Mine exasperated.

"Well, something must've happened here because there's just nothing left." Lubbock said, surveying the carnage before him.

Everyone else felt terrible. While it was true that the Empire had become a festering tumor that had to be removed, they would never wish this kind of death and destruction upon it. Bulat turned towards Najenda with the intention of asking her what their next move was. "Boss, what should we-"

"Shut up. Just shut up, I'm thinking!" She snapped. Everyone stayed quiet. The only time Najenda ever got mad was when a mission didn't go right (that rarely ever happened). They could only image the inner turmoil that was going through her head.

"Okay." She finally said, composing herself. "We need to search for survivors, clues, anything that can help us figure out what the hell happened here. We'll split up and scour the 4 districts to cover more ground and find some answers. Chelsea and I will take the north. Bulat, Leone and Susanoo will take the south. Sheele and Lubbock will take the east and Akame, Tatsumi and Mine will take the west. All of us will report back here in 6 hours and we'll relay what we found. Now let's get to it."

THE CAPITAL-SOUTHERN DISTRICT

The others left for their assigned districts leaving behind Leone, Bulat, and Susanoo to carry out the grim task of ascertaining what transpired in the Empire. The trio scoured the southern district but they began to doubt that they would find anything amongst the ruins. It was the same thing: destroyed buildings and bodies everywhere. While Bulat and Susanoo searched in different directions, Leone went off on her own to search for something more important.

Her neighborhood just so happened to be located in the southern slums, the poorest part of the Capital. She already knew what she was probably going to find but she still had to see. As she ran down the street she stopped and looked to her right.

It was her favorite bar. After every successful mission she would always come to this bar and have drinking contests with her friends, swap some tales with whoever was listening and gamble. However, what made this bar special was that this was when she first saw Tatsumi and later swindled him after he got rejected by the Imperial Police. Now it was utterly demolished with several dead bodies inside. 'Damn it all…' She thought. She continued on her path and after several minutes, she arrived in her neighborhood.

Her heart sunk.

It was gone. There was nothing but smoldering ashes and the bodies of the deceased scattered everywhere. Leone fell to her knees. She grew up in this part of the Empire. She remembered all the friends she made, all the people she helped and all the other people she owed money to. Now…it had all been taken away from her and she had been powerless to save it. Her neighborhood had been reduced to a burnt out husk and everyone she knew was most likely dead.

For the first time in her life, Leone felt utter defeat. She could have saved them. If they had gotten themselves free sooner then they could've had more time to save the civilians. If they were just faster then-

That's when Leone could feel tears running down her cheek. Was she crying? When was the last time she actually cried? She was temped at first to stop but as the sheer weight of everything became clear to her, she let the tears fall. For a while she just sat there, silently sobbing.

Then a shadow fell over her and she turned around to see that it was Bulat. The man had a sad, sympathetic look on his face as he placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Leone felt a little bit better knowing that her friends would be there to support her. After composing herself, she got up and joined Bulat to explore other areas and hopefully find any survivors.

But one thing was for sure: If she ever found out who was responsible for this massacre…she was going to tear their throats out.

Meanwhile, Susanoo continued to search the southern district after his companion had gone off to see if Leone was okay. So far, there were no civilians that had survived this unprovoked attack and the trail was completely cold. That is until he saw something strange. He noticed multiple footprints on the ground but then there was some that didn't look natural. They looked too blocky and rectangular. He cupped his chin in thought.

"Ugh…." Came a voice.

Susanoo quickly turned his head around to see something moving around in the remains of a building. Then he saw a hand come into view that seemed to twitch a little. It was a survivor! He rushed over and began moving away the rubble to get rescue whoever was under there.

As he cleared away more debris, he could make out a man in his mid-30's who appeared to be in a lot of pain. When he got all of the rubble off him, Susanoo could see a huge open gash in his chest. He checked the man's pulse. It was very weak and he had lost a lot of blood. This man would not live for long so the best thing Susanoo could do was hold the man's hand and ease his passing.

"R….re….red…."The man rasped. Susanoo raised an eyebrow. Was he trying to tell him something? He leaned in close so he could hear better.

"Burning…..red…..eyes…." The man croaked. He then died in front of Susanoo. The man's warning greatly troubled him. First it was odd footprints and then "burning red eyes". It wasn't much to go on but at least they were clues. But it still didn't answer the big question on his mind: who was responsible for this and why did they annihilate the entire Empire? He set the body of the man down and went off to find Bulat and Leone to inform them of his findings.

THE CAPITAL-EASTERN DISTRICT

Sheele walked through the empty streets of the decimated eastern district. She had gotten used to seeing death throughout her life but this was on a whole new level. It was the same thing everywhere she looked: demolished, burning buildings and the bodies of dead men, women and children.

It felt so strange…they dedicated their lives to overthrow the Empire and now it was in ruins. A part of her should feel happy that their mission was over but then why did she feel so empty? Looking around, she knew the reason why. So many citizens and been suffering under Honest's tyrannical rule and all of them had reached out to Night Raid for help. Now they were all probably dead.

She continued walking until she suddenly stopped in her tracks. Her heart began beating loudly. She began to shake. There at the end of the street was her friend's home…or what was left of it.

She hadn't been to that house ever since she killed her friend's homicidal ex-boyfriend. She could actually feel the butcher knife in her hands as she looked at the remains of her friend's home. Her friend had been deathly afraid of her after the incident and the two of them never met again. She never thought much of her afterwards but now she genuinely felt extremely concerned for her former friend's well-being.

"Xian-Li…" Sheele whispered to herself.

She hurriedly walked over to the house hand began to search though the remains. So far, there was no body to be seen. This gave Sheele some hope that Xian-Li might be alive. She eventually decided that she had lingered long enough in this area and went off to search for Lubbock who was exploring another part of the southern district.

Lubbock had been exploring several destroyed buildings for any leads or clues but so far he couldn't find jack-shit. He couldn't help but feel unnerved as he went through the decimated city. It was as quiet as a graveyard…which was ironic since the Capital had been turned into one.

He came to an intersection and was greeted with a gruesome, yet troubling sight. Scattered all around were patches of ice, several imperial soldiers impaled on numerous stalagmites while others were frozen solid.

Lubbock continued to stare at the sickening display when he saw Sheele rounding the corner. "Lubbock! Did you find anything?" She asked.

"Oh, you bet I did."

He pointed over to the ice covered intersection and Sheele's eyes widened. They cautiously walked over and began to investigate. Actually, Lubbock did all the investigating since Sheele kept slipping on all of the patches of ice. He inspected an icy stalagmite that had impaled an unfortunate soldier. He carefully touched it with his index finger only to suddenly hiss in pain and yank his hand back.

"Dry ice. Its definitely dry ice." He conformed.

The two of them began to think. What could have possibly summoned this much ice? Then a chilling thought came to their heads. One that was infinitesimal, yet frighteningly likely. They slowly began to look at each other with growing horror in their eyes.

"Lubbock….do you think she betrayed the Empire?"

THE CAPITAL-WESTERN DISTRICT

"What on earth could've done this?" Tatsumi asked as he scoured the ruins of the western district. "Beats the hell out of me." Mine retorted. "But I'm starting to think that whoever did this must've been a freaking monster."

Akame stayed silent as Tatsumi and Mine continued to talk to each other. She walked amongst the destroyed storefronts and houses while deep in thought. Who really was responsible for this? There was absolutely no way this could've been the work of a Danger Beast. She couldn't think of anyone else the Empire had made an enemy of. She began to inspect the damage done to the buildings as well as the bodies under the rubble.

Many of them had been cut clean by some kind of bladed weapon while some were obviously burned to death. The first part of her observation confused her, however. The only weapon that could cleanly cut through anything that she knew of was Sheele's Teigu, Extase. But she was with them the entire time they were trapped so Akame could safely rule her out. As she continued her observation, she came to the conclusion that whoever did this to the Empire obviously had help.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Someone said. Akame turned around to see Mine. She regarded the pink haired girl for a moment before looking towards at the ruins. "For the entire Empire to be destroyed this quickly…it all feels so strange." She sighed.

"More like messed up. We swore an oath that we would wipe out the corruption and all the scumbags in this place and then someone or something did our job for us." Mine scoffed.

"But the real question is why did they target most of the citizens here? It's like they wanted everyone dead." Akame wondered.

"Maybe they didn't want witnesses?" Mine guessed.

Akame stayed silent for a few seconds. "Perhaps…but we'll probably never know if can't find any survivors."

"Tatsumi's currently looking to see if there anybody left. We should go help-"

"WAAAAHHH!"

Akame and Mine instantly whipped their heads around just in time to see Tatsumi fall out of sight. They quickly rushed over to where he was a second ago and saw a large hole in the ground. The two of them looked down the hole and saw Tatsumi picking himself up.

"Are you okay?" Mine asked.

"Yeah, just peachy." Tatsumi replied as he dusted himself off. Mine and Akame jumped down the hole to investigate and were awestruck by what they saw. They saw numerous tunnels throughout the cavern that most likely spread out to the entire Capital. It was like something dug its way underneath the streets…but with what? As they looked closer, the noticed several cracks all over the hollowed out tunnel. Upon further investigation, they found out that whatever did this had actually burrowed through pure bedrock.

Suddenly, a deep rumbling shook the tunnel, nearly knocking the trio off their feet. They quickly managed to limb out of the hole just in time to see the entire street completely collapse in on itself. Then they heard rumbling out in the distance and saw multiple buildings sink into the earth.

"I think it's safe to say we know what caused those earthquakes 4 days ago." Tatsumi said.

THE CAPITAL-NORTHERN DISTRICT

Najenda and Chelsea turned their heads towards the deep rumbling out in the distance. "Sound like the entire Empire is falling apart." Chelsea mused.

"Everything is falling apart! None of this makes any goddamn sense!" Najenda shouted. She sat herself down on a nearby bench and began to run her fingers through her hair in frustration.

Chelsea wasn't really sure what to say to make Najenda a little less frayed. "Um…look I'm sure well be able to find something that can give us some insight as to what happened." She assured her.

"You mean if we find something. I still can't believe all of this happened in just 3 ½ days." Najenda grumbled.

"Neither can I. Whoever did this must have come up with a pretty good strategy to cause this much chaos." Chelsea said.

"There's no way this could've been planned in just a couple of days. This was probably in the works for decades. Whoever did this must've known the Empires weak points, defenses, Teigu's, soldiers and anything else that could have given them and strategic advantage." Najenda deduced.

"But who? The only force we know of that's against the Empire is the Revolutionary army and nobody else! The tribes and villages around the region certainly don't have enough manpower and the eastern nation is all the way across the ocean. Not to mention that the nation is a non-violent one at that so it's virtually impossible they would attempt something like this." Chelsea explained.

'She has point.' Najenda thought. 'The eastern nation of Zandrasil used to be allied with the Empire but when Honest began to manipulate Emperor Makoto and corrupted the Empire inside and out, they withdrew all known relations. They have been supporting the rebellion so far but it's only been political support and the nation itself detests violence.'

"You're right. If the Revolutionary Army or anyone else wasn't responsible for this…then this means we got new players in town."

SOUTHERN DISTRICT-6 HOURS LATER

After many hours of searching, the rest of Night Raid gathered in the southern district of the Capital, where their mission began to report on their findings. Most of the team did not look hopeful and they were all emotionally drained from today's events.

"Okay, did we find anyone alive?" Najenda began.

Susanoo started first. "I came across one survivor but he died in my arms. There was nothing that I could do to save him."

Najenda's lips thinned. "Has anybody else here found any other survivors? Chelsea and I had no luck in the northern district."

The rest of the team began to inform Najenda that they found nobody else, just dead bodies. The situation was turning more and more grim. Everyone stayed silent after they were done with their reports as it began to dawn upon them that every living soul might be dead.

Tatsumi began to fear the worst. "Does this mean that everyone's-"

"I wouldn't say that just yet." Bulat interrupted. "When we first arrived at the front gates hours ago, I noticed that there were a lot of footprints leading away from the Capital. There's a possibility that a handful of people managed to escape."

That gave the team some form of hope. It was good to know that there were citizens who managed to survive whatever the hell happened here.

"Well that's a relief." Najenda sighed. "Now let's get down to brass tacks. Did any of you happen to find some clues? Maybe some leads or theories?"

Sheele raised her hand. "Me and Lubbock found an entire intersection covered in dry ice. The whole place was frozen solid and there were numerous dead Imperial police officers, most likely killed by whatever summoned that ice."

"I know this may sound a little crazy to you guys, but hear me out." Lubbock informed, his tone of voice turning dead serious. "We know only one person that can manipulate ice and use it as a deadly weapon. You all know who I'm talking about."

Night Raid began to wonder who exactly he was talking about but then their eyes began to widen in realization and their mouths hung open. The only one who didn't react was Najenda.

"A-a-are you saying t-that-"Mine stammered.

"Yes. There's a very high chance that Esdeath has turned against the Empire." Lubbock conformed.

Night Raid was too stunned to say anything. The Empire's strongest defecting? The ice queen herself? Impossible! All known attempts to get her to side with the Revolutionary Army were met with a violent, and often bloody, refusal. But if she would never side with the rebellion then why did she attack the Empire?

"Esdeath didn't do this."

Everyone turned towards Najenda who had lit up a cigar and was deep in thought. "Esdeath is fiercely loyal to the Empire because they give her what she most desires: conflict and bloodshed. If she really wanted to go against the Empire then she would've joined the Revolutionary Army a long time ago and Honest's head would already be on a pike."

She did bring up a valid point. The odds of Esdeath turning against the Empire were astronomical.

"Has anyone else found anything else?"

The rest of the team revealed their findings to Najenda. The dying survivor's warning, the tunnels they found in the western district, odd footprints and numerous wounds on the corpses that they couldn't identify.

"I see. They're not much to go by but I think I have an idea what were up against. This is just an educated guess, but the ones responsible for all this were most likely a group of highly skilled Teigu users." Najenda concluded

Everyone didn't know what to say after that but it did make some sense. Only a Teigu was capable of causing this much death and destruction. "If what you are saying is true then the people who did this are in possession of extremely powerful Teigus." Akame pointed out.

"Looks like Prime Minister Fatty pissed off the wrong people." Leone said flatly.

"But who did he piss off is the real question we all want to know." Chelsea reminded. Najenda sighed as she put out her cigar. "We're going to have to find more clues to get our answer."

"But we've searched everywhere. I doubt we'll be able to find anything else." Tatsumi said.

"Actually bro, there's one place we haven't checked out yet." Bulat told Tatsumi as he pointed behind the group. Everyone turned around and they all knew what he was talking about.

The decimated remains of the imperial palace.

To be continued…

What answers will Night Raid find when they venture into the dark heart of the Empire? Find out next time!

Fun Fact: It only took 2 to 3 Ultrabots to wipe out a village in the original cartoon. There are 19 of them now and they managed to eradicate an entire empire. Let that sink in for a while…

The names of the eastern continent and Sheele's friend were my ideas. Also, I wanted this chapter to affect Leone and Sheele the most because I think they had a deeper connection to the citizens in the Capital.

Don't forget to review, but please don't flame!