Akame stood amidst a field of dead alongside lithe men clad in tight fitting body suits and pale cloaks. Operatives of the revolutionary army's spy team they were. "We believe there may be a passage located somewhere within this graveyard leading to Bolics manor," one of them began.
"We're thinking it would be in in our interests to station some operatives around the area to ensure he doesn't escape." The other continued as Akame nibbled on a large piece of jerky.
"If we find the passage we could go to the manor ourselves without alerting anyone." She replied.
"No," shook one of the spies, "with only two of us here it would take us days, maybe weeks to get through this place. Not to mention its likely to be well hidden."
"And chances are Bolic will have it rigged with traps to prevent just that." The other added earning a small "Hmm…" from Akame.
Right as her mouth opened to tear a chunk of her jerky off she heard a sharp whistling noise rapidly approaching from the sky. Her eyes sharpened and she dashed ahead, grabbing both the spies, dragging them along with her as the whistling grew to it loudests before suddenly shifting into a cracking noise as whatever it was collided with the ground where they had just been stood.
"Wh!?" One of the spies exclaimed while Akame tilted her head back to see several white feathers buried tip into the ground.
"I had a hunch I may find something while doing aerial reconnaissance. Akame of Night Raid." Turning her eyes up, Akame met the pale golden ones of Run, behind him sprouting from two discs hovering above his shoulder blades were two regal white wings.
"Run…" Akame muttered, looking back to the spies to say, "run." They needed no more than that to bolt off the ground and charge into the tree line. Run, the person, ignoring them keeping his focus on Akame while remaining high up in the sky outside of her reach.
"This… will be a one sided attack," Run's left wing shot forward, firing out a dozen razor sharp feathers towards Akame who dodge them just seconds before they impact the area around her.
Before Akame even got the chance to straighten herself out, Run had launched another volley, these coming even closer to Akame. Out the corner of her eyes she could see Run had a thoughtful expression on his face and slowly lowered himself closer to the ground before launching off more of his feathers.
Right as Akame steadied herself and prepared Muramasa to deflect the next barrage, it came, nearly scratching her skin by a hairsbreadth with one ending up right at the centre of her chest. Only avoided by her twisting her upper body, launching herself into a 180 degree turn to slash murasame through the feather severing its momentum and Run's control over it.
'Nearly there,' Akame thought lookin up to Run just seeing him pause as he lowered himself even further to increase the strength of his attacks. His hand raising to his chin thoughtfully and shook his head giving Akame a last look before bursting into the air towards the city of Kyoroch.
Akame's body lost its tenseness watching him leave, "He ran…" she mumbled thinking how disappointing it was that her plan of luring him in close enough for her to get a nik in on his skin had failed.
Just as she was about to sheath Murasame the sound of cracking wood resounded from behind her where a mutilated corpse came flying through the air towards her, landing on the just besides her. It was one of the spies, the top portion of his head caved in leaving him unrecognizable apart from the lower jaw which itself was missing various teeth.
Shooting her head up, Akame focused on the forest where a large, pale man was exiting, blood covering his fist and holding the other spie dead in his other hand, throwing the body to the side.
"Akame. I'm going to tear your head off and feed it to that bastard." The man growled with a scathing expression.
"Ibara… we had gotten reports of your disappearance. So, you were here in Kyoroch." Akame clenched her fist tight around Murasame as she glanced between the two dead spies. It angered her that this had happened, but she had to keep her cool. She couldn't give Ibara any openings.
"Ahh, SHUT UP AND DIE!" Ibara roared suddenly jabbed his hands towards Akame, his palms flat with his nails becoming jagged and sharp. His arms stretched like rubber as he threw them forwards. Akame only able to raise Murasame in time to block a single attack while parts of her clothes were torn, and a cut formed across her right shoulder.
Akame, deflecting another of Ibara's relentless attack darted ahead, ducking beneath one and narrowly dodging another, dancing between each of his arrow like hands until she could twist her upper body, sending Murasame through his stomach.
Only, just as Murasame was about to sever the demon in half his body contorted, the centre of his body rocketing back to an unnatural degree causing Murasame to skirt just millimetres away from his skin.
Sharpening her eyes, Akame quickly brought Murasame up, blocking a sudden chop from Ibara's three fingered hand, sending her skating across the ground. A decent bit away from him.
"Your hand," Akame noted seeing the two missing phalanges looking freshly severed by how she could still see the bone at the centre of them.
"Haaa," Ibara scowled lifting said hand up, wiggling his remaining finger. "He made me eat them. That Parc," Ibara huffed angrily, "I'm pissed Akame. I'm sooo angry. I wonder how he's going to look when I shove your eyes down his throat." He panted throughout his speech. "So die."
Ibara's foot dug into the ground sending him rushing forwards in the blink of an eye until he was before Akame who was as calm as ever. Holding Murasame over her shoulder, tip pointed straight towards the rushing figure, who, upon arriving in front of her twisted Murasame and swung it down towards his left shoulder.
Ibara stopped his assault, both hands rocketing up to slam shut around Murasame's blade catching it before tearing it from her hands. "This is mine now," he growled sending a kick towards Akame's chest forming some distance between them so he could grip Murasame's handle.
Yet, just as he was about to step towards Akame, he felt an ominous darkness creep over his arm. "Wh-what's going on!?" he roared dropping Murasame letting it fall and burry the tip into the ground before clenching his digit missing hand over his arm which was growing numerous black tattoos around it, "GHAAA!" He screamed as agony racked his body.
And then, in as quick as a breath, he felt no pain as a gust of wind passed him by and a dark figure shot past him. Pulling Murasame from the ground and spun the blade and her body across his body, neatly severing the demon in twain.
"I had a feeling Murasame wouldn't take a liking to you," Akame winced now feeling the pain of the cuts in her skin from Ibara's attacks. Only glancing back to the corpse of the Rakshasa whose eyes were wide and filled with anger and surprise. Just barely able to fall to Akame before going dead completely.
"I should return to Najenda…" Akame turned to the night sky of Kyoroch, a small smile to her face from hearing that even from the inside, Parc was still able to help them.
***
Elsewhere that Night, Lubbock stood across from a giant, bare chested man with spiked hair and yellow eyes. In the mans chest, a spear formed of wires was impaled. Lubbock raised his hand up to the wide eyed titan, pointing a finger gun at him, controlling his wires to course through the mans heart and wrap around his heart.
"Doesn't matter how tough you are." Lubbock said, "your already dead," he clenched his fist down tight, causing cross tail's wires to envelops and sever then mans heart into numerous chunks.
The titan's cheeks puffed up, blood spurting from his mouth while he fell onto his back, dead.
"That part of you wasn't so tough. Now was it?" Lubbock chuckled returning Cross Tails threads to the spool.
"T-thank you for saving me," from a nearby alley way a short, pink haired girl emerged dressed in a uniform those in Night Raid would recognize as part of the Revolutionary armies spy corps. The girl bowed rapidly towards Lubbock.
"Don't mention it," Lubbock grinned waving the girl away, "you should get out of here. Guards will be here sooner rather than later." He turned about to walk down the street when he heard a sentence that gave him pause.
"W-will I ever see you again?" she yelped out urgently, covering her mouth with red cheeks.
Lubbock's mind went blank, a confused expression taking to his face as he tried to comprehend the several different meanings behind that very sentence. Mechanically turning his head back to the girl he could see her burying her face into her hands, steam rising from her.
"I-I'll uh," Lubbock stuttered turning back to walk to the girl, "w-why don't I walk you back to your hideout?" he offered. The girl lifting her head up with a slight sparkle to her eyes and blush to her cheeks.
"I'd-I'd like that."
Internally, Lubbock threw his fist into the air, screaming to the world in a tone that could only be amounted to as 'FINALLY!'
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Big thanks to AlucardDCLXVI for the donation!
***
So, quick announcement now, rather than later (I'll reiterate it later, specifically at the end of the AKG arc) but once I finish up AKG i'll be going on a two/three week break just to get the brain juices flowing again and not burn myself out. And give me the opportunity to work on y other projects for a bit.
All in all, it shouldn't affect releases on Webnovel too much, likely a week, week and a half with no updates before getting back into the usual dailies. But We'll see once we get there.