Chapter 53 : An Unexpected Ally and the End of the Night's Battle

Amidst the deafening roars of the Nomu and the clashes of Ryukyu's steel, a strange silence fell over our corner of the battlefield. Nejire, panting from exhaustion after destroying her opponent, stared with wide eyes as the third Nomu charged toward her. She knew she didn't have enough time or energy to unleash another sufficiently powerful attack. She braced herself for the inevitable impact.

But the impact never came.

From the darkness above us, a shadow descended like a diving hawk. It wasn't a jump or a fall; it was a controlled, silent descent. The figure landed lightly between Nejire and the attacking Nomu, her back to the hero she had just saved. It was Akame.

The Nomu, being a mindless creature driven only by the instinct to destroy, didn't stop. It swung its massive claws at the new intruder. Akame didn't move to dodge. Instead, with a movement so fast and fluid it was nearly invisible, she drew the sword Murasame from its scabbard. The black blade seemed to absorb the light around it. She didn't parry the attack. She simply stepped forward, into the range of the Nomu's claws, and delivered a single, simple yet incredibly precise horizontal slash across the creature's chest.

The scratch itself looked shallow, barely breaking the Nomu's thick hide. For a moment, nothing happened. The Nomu paused, as if confused as to why its target wasn't dead. But then, from that thin scratch, blackish-purple, vein-like markings began to spread across the Nomu's entire body at a terrifying speed. The marks pulsed with a deadly, cursed energy. The Nomu let out a strange, hoarse sound, its body beginning to convulse violently, then, with a heavy thud, it collapsed to the floor, dead. Motionless.

One scratch. One kill.

Nejire stared at the scene, her mouth slightly agape in disbelief. A wanted killer had just saved her life with the most frightening efficiency she had ever seen. Akame stood over the Nomu's corpse, calmly wiping her blade clean of the strange black blood before sheathing it again. She didn't glance at Nejire at all.

Seeing this impossible intervention gave me a new surge of adrenaline. I was still locked in a struggle of strength with my own Nomu, my Incursio helmet grinding against its bone blades. I was sick of this stalemate. I was sick of defending. I remembered my fight against Bakugo, the rage I had to suppress. This time, I wouldn't hold it back. I would use it.

I focused the primal wave of rage from Tyrant, not letting it consume me, but channeling it like jet fuel into my arms. "RAAAGHH!" A distorted roar escaped my helmet as I pushed forward with renewed strength.

The Nomu, not expecting this sudden surge of power, was thrown backward, its balance faltering. I gave it no chance to recover. I charged forward, no longer just punching. I used every part of my armor as a weapon. I slammed my shoulder guard into its jaw, making it stagger. I launched a low kick with my leg guard, breaking one of its knee joints with a satisfying crack. As it fell to one knee, I grabbed its head with both my clawed hands and slammed it into the concrete floor with all my might. The floor beneath it spiderwebbed. The creature twitched once, then went still.

I stood over it, panting, steam billowing from the vents in my helmet. Across the room, I saw Ryukyu was also finishing her fight. In her dragon form, she had managed to tear the largest Nomu to shreds and was now finishing it off with a concentrated blast of fire that turned the creature's remains to ash.

The fight inside the warehouse was over.

A heavy, awkward silence fell over us. Only the sound of the ongoing battle outside and our own ragged breaths broke the quiet. I, a slowly de-transforming Ryukyu, and a still-shocked Nejire now formed a tense triangle around one person: Akame.

She stood calmly near the corpse of the Nomu she had killed, as if she had just completed a mundane chore.

"You..." Ryukyu began, her voice hoarse with exhaustion and confusion. "You just saved one of my heroes. Why?"

Akame turned, her red eyes meeting Ryukyu's without fear. "That monster was in my way," she replied coldly, a clear and uncaring lie. Her eyes then shifted to me for a moment, and I knew the real reason was far more complicated.

"Your way to what? To us?" Nejire pressed, regaining a bit of her courage.

"I was just taking out the trash," Akame replied flatly, as if killing was the most natural thing in the world.

I remained silent, letting Ryukyu take the lead, as I had promised. I knew this situation was incredibly volatile. We had a mass murderer who had just helped us, and none of us knew what the next move was.

Akame seemed to realize that as well. She knew she couldn't fight all of us, especially with the other heroes and police who would surely be storming the building soon. "My work here is done," she said, her voice showing no intention of staying any longer.

She threw another smoke bomb to the floor. But this time, I felt something different in the air as the smoke spread—a faint chemical smell.

"Hold your breath!" Ryukyu yelled. "The smoke contains a mild paralytic agent!"

We all held our breath, but the thick smoke provided her with the perfect cover. As it began to thin, she was already gone. Vanished into the high shadows of the warehouse ceiling and out through the same hole she had entered. The ghost was gone.

Moments later, the warehouse doors were breached and police and hero support teams stormed in. They found us standing amidst a scene of devastation: three strange Nomu corpses, a dozen thugs incapacitated by the perimeter team, and an empty shipping container—the victims had apparently been moved before the attack began.

The on-site debriefing was chaotic. Detective Tsukauchi was there, his face filled with more questions than answers. Everyone's story was consistent: they were ambushed by Nomu, and in the middle of the fight, the killer 'Ghost' appeared, killed one of the monsters, and then disappeared. Her motives were unknown. My involvement and my connection to her remained a secret known only to Ryukyu and Nejire, and even they didn't have the full picture. The official focus of the incident quickly shifted to the League of Villains and the re-emergence of their Nomu.

The van ride back to the agency was quieter than ever. We had won. We had stopped a major criminal operation and saved heroes' lives. But the victory felt strange and unsatisfying. We had won with the help of our own target. How could we report that? How could we even process it?

That night, after all the reports were filed, Ryukyu called me into her office. Just the two of us. She poured two cups of tea, her movements slow and deliberate. She didn't look angry anymore. Just very, very tired and confused.

She looked at me from across her desk. "She saved Nejire," she said quietly. "Then she looked at you. Before she left, her gaze was on you. And you… you let her go at the auction house. I'm not going to ask you why you did it again." She paused, staring at her tea. "I'm going to ask a different question. The question the detective asked, the question your friends are asking, the question I've been asking myself since I saw your entrance exam footage."

She raised her head, and her golden, dragon-like eyes looked straight into me, as if trying to peel away all the layers of my secrets.

"Don't lie to me again, Tatsumi-kun. Not about strategy or hunches. Answer me honestly. What is your relationship with that killer? Who are you, really?"

I looked at her, the Dragon Hero, my mentor. I saw the exhaustion, the suspicion, and a flicker of hope in her eyes that I would give her an answer that made sense. I couldn't give her any more half-truths. I owed her more than that. I took a deep breath, a decision forming in my mind. An immense risk.

"It's complicated," I began, my voice low and steady. "And it might be hard to believe."

I met her gaze. "It started in another world."