Chapter 152 : Echoes from the Ice Throne

The message from Hawks felt like a death sentence delivered by express mail. She's looking for you, Tatsumi.

I stared at the communicator screen in my hand, the words seeming to burn into my retinas. Around me, in the quiet U.A. infirmary, the silence felt deafening. Nezu, Aizawa, and Ryukyu (via the screen) were staring at me, waiting for my reaction.

I didn't scream. I didn't panic. My outward reaction was one of complete silence. Inside, however, a storm was raging. The echo of the original Tatsumi's soul was screaming in pure terror, a primal memory of pain and cold obsession. I could feel an unreal chill run down my spine, as if a gust of wind from the blizzard in Hokkaido had reached this room. I forcibly suppressed that wave of foreign emotion, locking it in a cage in my mind. I took a deep breath, and when I exhaled, my face had become a mask of cold composure.

I said nothing. I just showed the communicator screen to Nezu.

Nezu read it, and the fur around his neck stood up slightly. He then showed it to Aizawa and Ryukyu. I saw Aizawa's jaw tighten, while on the screen, Ryukyu closed her eyes for a moment, her expression filled with deep concern.

"This accelerates everything," Nezu said finally, his voice calm but laden with urgency. "Her plan to hide and consolidate her power in Sapporo might change if she knows her primary target is here."

"We can't let her get near U.A.," Aizawa said firmly. "This school is a fortress, but it's also a cage filled with valuable targets. If Esdeath decides to attack us here, it will be a catastrophe."

"He's right," Ryukyu said from the screen. "Hiding Tatsumi-kun here is the same as painting a giant target on all of us." She looked at me. "What do you feel, Tatsumi-kun? Your connection... can you feel her searching for you?"

I closed my eyes, trying to reach inward. I no longer felt the echo of the original Tatsumi's emotions. All I felt was my own dragon's heartbeat. And it felt something. Not the echo of another Teigu like with Akame. This was something different. A 'gaze'. As if an apex predator thousands of kilometers away had caught my scent on the air and was now turning its head in my direction.

"Yes," I replied simply. "She knows my general direction."

Our situation had gone from bad to nearly impossible. The strongest enemy on the planet now had a personal vendetta against me.

In a dimly lit apartment in another city, Akame was cleaning her sword when she received the emergency alert broadcast on all hero channels. She saw Esdeath's declaration. She saw her ice palace. And her entire body tensed. Esdeath. Here. Of all the enemies from her past who could have followed her, why did it have to be her? She knew better than anyone how dangerous General Esdeath was. She wasn't just a tyrant; she was an unstoppable force of nature.

And then, her thoughts immediately went to Tatsumi. She remembered Esdeath's obsession with the original Tatsumi. A twisted, possessive obsession. She knew that if Esdeath found out about this new Tatsumi, who carried the Incursio armor, he would become the primary target. He wouldn't be killed. He would be captured, broken, and turned into the Ice Queen's personal toy. Akame gripped the hilt of her Murasame. Her truce with the heroes, her hunt for Yozakura... all of it became a secondary priority. Her top priority was now only one: find Tatsumi before Esdeath did, and prepare him for the inevitable war.

Back in the infirmary, our emergency war council continued late into the night. "Hiding him at U.A. is a risk," Aizawa said. "Sending him to another agency is the same. His name is now connected to U.A. and Ryukyu. She will look in those places."

"So, we have to make him disappear," Nezu said, his beady eyes glinting. "He has to become a ghost. Operating completely off the grid."

I listened to them debate my fate, about the best way to use or hide me. I knew they all meant well. But I also knew they didn't fully understand. They didn't understand the nature of Esdeath's obsession. She would not stop. She would turn this entire country upside down to find me. Hiding would only delay the inevitable.

I had to take the initiative.

"I need contact with 'The Ghost'," I said suddenly, cutting through their debate.

They all looked at me. "You mean... that killer?" Aizawa asked, disbelieving.

"Akame," I said, using her name. "She is the only other person in this world who understands who and what Esdeath is. She might be the only one who knows her weakness. If we want to have a chance, we need her."

Ryukyu looked at me with a complex gaze. "And how do you plan on contacting her? She's a shadow."

I didn't answer. I just took the Yozakura wooden token out of my pocket. With full concentration, I channeled a small amount of Incursio's energy into it. Not just a pulse, but a complex pattern. A code. A message I had learned from my dreams, a Night Raid emergency call that only she would recognize: 'Comrade in mortal danger. Empire-level threat. Need immediate meeting at last safe point.'

After sending the signal, I looked back at the silent heroes. "Now, we wait."

Two hours later, as I was alone in my room, trying to rest, a small pebble hit my window. I opened it. On the roof of the building across, a shadow stood. Akame. She had answered my call.

I snuck out of the hospital, an act that now felt all too familiar. We met in the same park as before.

"You felt her too," she said, without preamble. It wasn't a question.

"Yes," I replied.

"She's looking for you," she continued. "Her obsession with Tatsumi... it will never go away. You carry his armor now. To her, you are hers."

"I know," I said. "That's why I called you. You've fought her before. You know her abilities. Is there any way to defeat her?"

Akame was silent for a long time, looking at the full moon. "No," she said finally, and the word felt like a block of ice in my stomach. "Not in a direct fight. Her Demon's Extract power gives her absolute control over ice. She can create an army of ice, freeze time itself. She has no obvious weaknesses."

Despair began to creep in, but she continued. "But... she has one thing that can be both her greatest strength and her greatest weakness." She looked at me. "Her weakness is you."

"Me?"

"Her obsession with you makes her predictable," she explained. "She won't try to kill you. She will try to capture you, to break your spirit, to make you hers. We can use that. We can lure her into a trap."

"The heroes have already thought of that," I said.

"Their traps won't work," Akame replied with certainty. "They think with a hero's logic. They will try to minimize damage. They will try to capture her. Against Esdeath, that's a recipe for disaster. To defeat her, you can't just fight her. You have to destroy everything around her, destroy the source of her power, which is the water and moisture in the air. You have to turn the battlefield into a fiery hell that leaves nothing for her to freeze."

I understood. Our plan had to be much more drastic.

"I will help you," Akame said. "Not for the heroes. But for you. To honor the memory of the original Tatsumi. And because Esdeath is a remnant of the Empire that must be annihilated."

Our fragile alliance had now been forged into something more solid by an incredible shared threat.

I returned to U.A. before dawn. I immediately requested an emergency meeting with Nezu and Ryukyu. I explained my conversation with Akame, and the new plan that was beginning to form in my mind. A plan that was insane, dangerous, and would probably destroy a large part of a city.

Nezu listened intently. "A scorched earth strategy," he muttered. "Highly risky. But... perhaps our only chance."

He looked at me, his small eyes glinting with a terrifying intelligence. "Very well, Tatsumi-kun. It seems you are no longer just a war advisor. You have now become the lead architect of this planet's defense."

The burden on my shoulders felt even heavier. I was no longer just a student trying to survive. I was now at the center of a cosmic chess game, where the slightest mistake could mean the end of everything. I walked out of Nezu's office as the sun was rising, but I didn't feel its warmth. All I felt was the cold of the coming war.