Hello again and welcome to the next chapter of The Glacial Ones!
To start off, reviews!
froper98: Thanks for this review, especially the last part. To answer you first question Air, Fal and Luna are all minor character that show up between chapter 23 and 24 in the manga. They each have their own wiki pages and end up dying pretty shitty deaths in the canon series.
I'm not sure if I will do Dumbledore's reaction until I send Harry and Esdeath back to the Potterverse. When I send them back I'll do one or two chapters getting up to date on the wizarding world.
For your final idea about a corrupted philosopher's stone, I honestly didn't think of that but I will say now that you are a genius. Akame Ga Kill canon provides proof that their world does in fact have alchemy and it would be simple enough to spin it so that the mutated Tree beast accidentally ate a failed stone or corrupted one after it ate the stone and its creator. That would also let me bring in the elixir of youth/life. Please do tell me your opinion of that last idea and again, thanks!
Dragon27998: There is absolutely nothing silly about that question. There are no canon Teigu that can do that can be used by three people at once, but canon never introduced all of them anyway. Taking froper98's idea of a super sensory Teigu I actually just got the idea of giving one of the girls a Teigu that allows her to connect and enhance the sense of her and the other two while the other two could have separate Teigu. Feel welcome to make suggestions of your own and thanks for the idea.
Guest: I was also a little leery about make this a multi relationship, but there is a lot of support for them having romantic feelings for him. Rest assured though that there will be no more beyond that and the main pairing is still definitely Harry x Esdeath, as well as that romance will never be a main part of this story. I will be relying on reviews like you to help me keep this realistic and stay away from the traps most harem stories seem to fall into. So sorry, but there will be romantic feelings, but thanks for your honest opinion, and feel free to help me keep things straight.
I do not own, in any way, shape, or form Akame Ga Kill or Harry Potter.
-T.G.O-
Chapter 12: Beware, a Devil Lurks Within
Harry leaned back with a small sigh, holding the small gemstone-like object that they had found while hunting. He was casually pumping energy into it for no real reason other than that he was bored.
The hunting trip had ended in absolute disaster, with Esdeath having to call it off in order to return to the Capital after Wave revealed that he had encountered Incursio, assumed to be in the possession of Braht of Night Raid, and let it escape.
Esdeath had been less than pleased and her punishment for Wave was an unwanted reminder of what kind of person she actually was. Not even Harry had been able to calm her down.
To top the disaster off both Stylish and Seryu had been sent out to scout the area around Mt Fake for Night Raid. Only, Stylish hadn't been seen since then, even after Seryu returned to report her lack of success.
And now he and Esdeath were sitting together in one of the Jaegers rooms, waiting for Bols and Ran to report back on what they had found in the missing man's home and lab.
At that thought, as though by some cosmic conspiracy, Bols and Ran entered the room, Ran examining a pile of notes held in his hand.
"We have finished searching the Doctor's household. Unfortunately we could not find any evidence as to where he may have vanished of to. Several valuable experiments and research materials, as well as his tools were all found located in his lab."
Esdeath let out a sigh as she stood from her seat.
"So he didn't run away. As I thought, so he must have been killed."
Bols nodded from where he was looming behind Ran.
"Since all his enhanced troops were away we assume that he went into battle and was annihilated. Which means it is likely he found Night Raid."
Esdeath sighed.
"I see…it seems that Seryu has lost another of her saviours."
She went to leave before suddenly turning to look at Harry as he put his gemstone back in his pocket and stood to follow, a rather uncharacteristic amount of concern in her eyes.
"Come to think of it, you haven't had any time off lately have you, Harry. Why don't you spend the rest of the day exploring the Capital?"
Harry tilted his head to the left for a moment, a brief look of confusion dancing across his face before he realised that, yes, Esdeath was letting take time off to do his own thing.
He grinned, a surprisingly innocent smile for someone like him.
"Okay!"
Esdeath grinned back.
"Just be back by sunset, no later."
He nodded happily and Esdeath turned and swept from the room in search of Seryu, followed by Harry as he hurried in the other direction, sparing a nod as he passed the amused looking Bols and Ran as he passed.
No one knew quite how important Esdeath's odd decision to restrain her possessive nature and let him have a day off was.
Because it was very, very important.
For many people.
-T.G.O-
Harry grinned as he walked down one of the bustling streets of the Capital, stopping every once in a while to examine something new that caught his eye. He still found it rather odd that Esdeath had let him go, but he wasn't about to complain about a chance to explore the city.
He continued on, nodding to some of the shop keepers who recognized him as the boy Esdeath normally had with her as he almost skipped down the street.
Grinning, he exchanged a coin for a large bag of candy, nibbling on them much like Kurome did with her candy, as he continued onwards, leaving the richer districts behind him.
He began getting odd, even predatory, looks as he left the area he was normally seen in, people taking note of his mostly white clothes and odd, black and white hair.
The looks were duly ignored. There was very little he had to fear from ordinary people.
"Hey! Kid!"
Harry spun on his heel, hands laced behind his back as he looked towards the man who had called him, who was currently holding out a small bag of what looked like candy. He was well aware that it wasn't.
"You want some more candy? I don't need these anymore."
The man tried to give an honest smile that just came out as a predatory grimace.
Harry grinned.
"Oh?! Why don't you want them?"
The man looked startled for a second, having not thought that far and assumed the kid would just take them.
"Because I'm not hungry right now!"
The man grinned.
Harry grinned back.
The man stopped grinning as all movement around the two came to a halt. No one knew when the strange boy had drawn one of his swords, many assuming they were merely there as a prop.
Harry's grin turned predatory. He didn't like slave dealers, or anyone or anything related to them.
"I suppose than if I slice open your stomach there will be enough room for your candy, right?"
The man went to retaliate before a poke from Harry that pierced the skin of his belly told him that that wasn't going to end well for him.
"Right? No? Well, I suppose if you tell me the wonderful man who gave you those candies, I'll be able to get the straight from him and not have to take yours, hmm?"
The man shuddered, all those present suddenly very, very aware that there was something incredible, horribly wrong with the kid they had taken for a naive rich boy.
Harry poked the blade into the man's stomach harder when he failed to answer, his grin never leaving his face.
The man yelped.
"It was Bach! He pays me to give them to kids like you and then take them to him!"
Harry raised his eyebrow.
"Where is this…Bach, right now?"
"The Crescent House! Just let me go you little psycho!"
Harry's grin turned disturbingly large.
"See, that wasn't hard."
He pulled the blade from where the tip was piercing the man's stomach and turned to leave, his arm flashing as he did. Flicking the blood off his sword, he sheathed it on his back, not even looking back as the man toppled to the ground screaming, clutching at his hew stump as his right arm flopped to the ground beside him.
Harry just walked away, his grin still stretched across his face, though it wasn't the one he had when he entered the area, the crowd parting as people scrambled away from the boy with the disturbing smile.
Less than half an hour later, after forcing directions out of two different men, he stood before Crescent House.
The world would never quite be the same afterwards.
-T.G.O-
Fal didn't know where it all went so horrible wrong. They had arrived at the Capital to meet their master, with her fully prepared to beat down whoever it was that was their master if he did anything to her or her two friends.
Then they had meet Bach.
He had been kind, charismatic. He had brought them clothes and then offered to pay for their food at a restaurant he knew.
A restaurant they were still in as he casually sold them away.
And all three of them suddenly realised, as they looked at the men they were being sold to, that they weren't going to have their dream lives in the Capital with a kind master.
They were going to die. And it didn't look like it was going to be fast, or painless.
Now she was lying on the ground, struggling for breathe as the grunt picked her back up, forcing her to look at the man who had apparently brought her.
"Suka, were you the one who accepted this tomboyish girl?"
The bald man behind him nodded.
"Yes. It's fun to break down girls like this, bit by bit."
Bach nodded before turning to the grunt holding Fal up with an easy grin.
"Roger that. Okay the, break both her legs."
The grunt smirked, grabbing onto her shins as she struggled, preparing to snap them upwards.
He pulled.
They both went toppling to the ground, Fal rolling out of the man's arms and lying with her back against the wall, her breath panicky as the slavers stared in shock at the grunt.
She didn't notice, keeping her eyes locked on the same man as them, the man who had been about to end her existence as a human being and reduce her to a play toy for a sick man.
He was dead, a shard of ice half a metre long stuck though the side of his skull and out the other.
"Well, well, well. What have we here? I was just needing some stress relief. How kind of you to offer yourselves."
And then the Devil came to play.
-T.G.O-
"Well, well, well. What have we here? I was just needing some stress relief. How kind of you to offer yourselves."
The words flowed from his mouth as he stepped confidently towards the slavers, concealing the terrible beast that had reared its head within him.
The man sitting in the chair at the other side of the room shoot up from the couch, pointing at him.
"It's just some kid! Kill him!"
The grunts spread throughout the room responded, charging forwards.
Only to find they couldn't as the room was drowned in an ocean of malice and killing intent, amplified by Harry's own power.
The grunts collapsed to their knees, gasping for air as Bach and the men behind them staggered, toppling as a terrible, primal fear screamed at them to flee.
The windows frosted over, ice creeping across the floor and up the walls, an ominous, bitterly cold wind sweeping through the building, swirling around him.
And in the centre of it all he stood, hands in pockets, grinning.
Like some dark and terrible god, grinning as the world feel apart.
Grinning the kind of grin that Esdeath would have been proud of, a grin so disturbing, so utterly wrong, that even Seryu would have shied away.
Because the thing that everyone forgot, the most important thing, was that Harry was the boy who gave up his very morals for one of the Empires most terrible monsters.
Because Harry was kind and caring despite his emotional handicaps.
He was friendly, energetic, and sometimes childish.
But he was also the boy who, by the age of thirteen, had seen countries crushed under the iron heel of Esdeath's army.
Who had seen army's massacred, villagers burned, entire communities slaughtered to make an example.
What so many people forgot was that, despite his kind heart, no matter how caring he was, it did not change the fact that he was the boy who, by the age of thirteen, had killed hundreds, nearing thousands.
And right now he was not pleased.
In fact, for the first time in many years, he was almost angry.
And that was a terrible thing.
There was no fight, no battle.
A 'fight' or 'battle' suggests two sides of remotely similar strength, that both sides have the slimmest chance of victory.
It was a blood bath, a massacre.
Spires of ice, cold and uncaring, burst from the floor, the walls, even the roof, indiscriminate as they pierced though the grunts, blooding soaking the ice that coated the floor.
Ice creeped up the legs of the four mean at the other end of the room as they tried desperately to run, to escape whatever demon had risen to drag them down.
Harry walked towards them, steps measured as he walked over to them, the ice creeping up their bodies until it came to a stop at their necks.
His grin widened impossible.
"Don't worry. The ice will melt."
He leaned in closer until he was staring up into the leaders, Bach's, eyes, though to be honest he was too short to not look up at him.
His whisper was fall of a terrible malice and a horrific, icy, certainty.
"The fire will melt it. After I burn this place to the ground."
He leaned back and gave the terrified man an almost sweet and innocent smile so wrong that danger beasts would have fled from it.
"Have fun. And please, feel free to scream in agony."
With that he spun on his heel, facing back towards the shocked and fearful trio of girls.
"Come along now, unless you all wish to be barbequed alive."
With that he strode from the frozen room, walking out the front door and stopping several metres away from the building before turning back towards it in time to see the girls scramble out after him.
Making sure they were behind, his malicious grin still stretched across his face, he flicked his right wrist, a fireball forming above it.
It should be noted that Harry couldn't normally use fire at all.
He preferred the cold far more so it wasn't surprising.
Unfortunately, Harry had thirteen years' worth of hatred for anything even remotely related to forced labour.
Plus he was in a pretty shitty mood after seeing what was going to happen to the girls before he interfered.
And he needed to let out a bit of steam.
And a hundred other little reasons that built up into the fireball floating above his hand.
The main reason though, not that he knew it, was that, unfortunately for the world, Fiendfyre was more of a curse that took the form of fire than a fire that was cursed.
Harry casually flung the fireball into the room he had left before turning around and walking away, mentioning for the three terrified girls to follow.
Behind him a massive explosion blew out every window in the room with massive pillars of fire before the inferno quickly began to spread until, within less than half a minute, the entire building was ablaze, strange creatures of cursed flame prowling the corridors.
Harry didn't know this though as he was already leading the three girls away.
Just as he didn't know that if he had done that in a world with magic he would have died when he stopped focusing on the flame and the fire would have very likely consumed the entire continent given time.
Thankfully, there was no magic in their world, so, without Harry's magic to feed it, the fiendfyre would eventually die down.
Eventually being the key word.
-T.G.O-
Coming to a halt in a small, abandoned alley, Harry leaned back against the wall and let out a tired sigh.
That was good stress relief, but really wasn't, well, him.
It made him feel kind of… wrong.
Turning his gaze back up, he looked at the three girls that he had rescued, observing them.
They were a rather odd looking group, the oldest looking about seventeen or eighteen with pink hair and a pink hat and coat. The second looked about the same age with blonde, yellow even, hair and a yellow coat while the last, who looked about fifteen or sixteen, with blue hair and, shockingly, a light blue hoodie that had rabbit ear-like attachments reaching down past her shoulders.
Realising that he was staring at them, Harry ducked his head down in embarrassment.
"Ah, sorry. Are you all okay?"
The three snapped out of their own observations of the boy who had saved them from a rather gruesome fate, noting that there was none of the malicious grin and bloodlust remaining on his face, instead what looked like embarrassment.
He looked almost shy ducking his head like that, which was nothing like what they had seen of him before.
The blue haired girl was the first to respond, bowing her head in thanks.
"We're fine, thanks to you. A moment later and Fal would have had her legs snapped."
Fal flinched slightly and Harry nodded, pushing himself off the wall he was leaning on.
"That's a relief. Anyway, I'm Harry."
He gave them a surprisingly innocent grin that they couldn't help but return with small smiles, the shock of what had happened still seeping through them as she answered for the group once more, pointing at the yellow girl and the pink girl in turn.
"I'm Luna, that is Fal and that's Air. Thank you for helping us."
The other two snapped back into reality, finally struggling off their shock at the recent sequence of events.
"No problem, just…don't tell anyone I did that alright? I'm…not supposed to let others know I can do that stuff without permission."
The three nodded rapidly as he continued to speak.
"Anyway, what are you going to do now?"
Air looked troubled.
"I…don't know really. We were sold to that man, Bach by our village."
She shuddered as Fal took over.
"It's not like we can go back now."
Harry looked at them for a long moment before his face light up with an idea, before it darkened again as he realised the complications of his idea.
He winced.
"I may…have an idea. My...superior? She might not agree though."
The three looked at him hopefully.
"Just…don't do anything stupid and she won't do something horrible to you. Probable."
They nodded. It wasn't as though they had anything else they could do, and right now they would rather be doing something possible dangerous with their newest companion than something degrading out on the street.
Harry looked at them for a long moment.
"Okay, then. Follow me."
-T.G.O-
"Esdeath!"
Esdeath turned around in the hall to see Harry walking up towards her. She had expected him to remain in the city longer, but she couldn't deny that she felt a little happier now that he was back.
Then she notice the three behind him, looking very nervously around.
"Your back early, Harry. Who are these?"
Harry looked nervous for a second before steeling himself.
"They're the reason I came back early. I was wondering if you could help me, well, train them."
She raised an eyebrow as she scanned the girls, while they seemed to have a bit of wire in them they were, to be blunt, weak. The only reason they she was letting them remain was that Harry obviously wasn't finished talking yet.
"They were sold off to the Capital by their village and I, ah, kind of saved them, but they haven't got anywhere to go and they saw me use my abilities, so I was thinking of training them to work under us."
Esdeath was about to shoot down the idea and simple have them killed, they were weak and knew his powers after all, when another thought occurred to her.
She examined the three again. They were weak, but they had potential to improve, in fact they were in better shape than Harry was when she found him and from the looks on their faces they were motivated to become more powerful. If Harry had indeed saved them then they would be loyal.
Weak, but with potential, as well as loyal and with an intense desire to never be weak again?
It wasn't ideal, but it was something she could work with, something she could mould into something like her. Some extra help and assistance for Harry didn't hurt either.
She smirked.
"Okay then, but I will be supervising their training."
"Wait, what?!"
Harry looked honestly surprised. He was. He had expected to have to argue and bargain for it, something he wasn't actually comfortable doing with Esdeath.
He decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Esdeath's grin grew wider as another thought occurred to her.
"But you have to agree to share a bed with me from now on."
The three girls looked more than a little shock and Harry looked confused. He didn't understand Esdeath's fascination with sharing a bed with him.
Then again, neither did Esdeath. She just knew it was comfortable, and she enjoyed it.
"Ah…okay, I can do that."
Spinning on her heel, Esdeath started to walk away, Harry instinctively going to follow her and the three girls following to keep close to him in the unfamiliar territory they were in.
"Good. We will start today."
Her grin was positively sadistic.
And so the world diverged once more from the beaten track.
Things would never be quite right afterwards.
Then again, things hadn't been right since the two meet.
-T.G.O-
And that is chapter 12 complete!
The main purpose of this chapter was to introduce Air, Fal and Luna as well as show another side of Harry, because while Harry is a kind hearted person at his core, he is also the boy who spent the last three years of his life going from battlefield to battlefield while being almost groomed by a maniac that he absolutely adored. He was broken when Esdeath found him and he is in no way normal right now.
And I really wanted to do an awesome scene where he freezes a room, either way.
Anyway, did I introduce the three well enough? Was Esdeath's response to them believable? Please provide any and all feedback you can.
As for Wild Hunt, which is approaching fast, I'll probably have them wiped out, or at least disbanded with their leader dead, pretty quickly, simple because I can't see Syura ever showing Harry any kind of respect and doing something stupid. Add in that Esdeath really wants Shamballa that he has in his possession, I would be honestly surprised if her survives more than two chapters after he shows up. Feedback on that would be nice as well.
Finally, what do people think of the idea of making the gemstone they found some kind of Philosophers' Stone created with Akame Ga Kill Alchemy?
As always, any ideas, constructive criticism, likes, dislike or advice are all welcome!
Please review!
Thanks for reading this and I hope you enjoyed it!
Goodbye until next time!