Chapter 165 : The Language of Concepts and Echoes Elsewhere

The silence that followed Akame's confession was heavy, but not awkward. It was a silence filled with new understanding, a burden they now shouldered together. In the middle of the training arena, Tatsumi stared at the three energy claws extending from his hand, their silver gleam appearing sharper under the afternoon sun. This was no longer just a weapon; it was a promise.

"You've greeted it," Akame said, her tone as flat as usual, but Tatsumi could now sense the depth behind it. "Now, you must start learning its entire language."

"Its language?" Tatsumi asked, letting the claws dissipate.

"The dragon's language isn't about words, but about concepts," Akame explained. "You don't command Incursio to 'make claws.' You channel the intent 'to tear.' The armor responds to that concept. 'To pierce,' you can already do. 'To tear,' you can now do. Now, we will try a more complex concept."

She looked up at the sky, which was beginning to turn blue. "Flight."

Tatsumi froze for a moment. Flight. Until now, he could only jump incredibly high or glide if he had enough altitude. The ability to fly at will was a quantum leap. It would change everything in battle.

"Don't think about the shape of wings," Akame instructed, as if reading his mind. "That's a beginner's mistake. If you try to build it piece by piece—bone, muscle, membrane—your human mind will fail. It's too complicated. You must feel the concept. Think about freedom from gravity. An upward thrust. Feel how an eagle uses the wind."

For the next hour, Tatsumi tried. And for the next hour, he failed spectacularly. His first attempt resulted in two strange, pulsing mounds of silver energy on his back before they popped like bubbles. Another attempt produced a single, skinny wing that looked like a bone and immediately disintegrated into energy dust. Every failure drained his stamina and made him more frustrated. It felt impossible.

In one of U.A.'s vast training facilities, known as Gym Gamma, the sounds of energy blasts and metal impacts echoed. In the middle of an arena filled with concrete pillars, Momo Yaoyorozu, with a large tungsten shield in one hand and a small cannon on her other shoulder, struggled to withstand a relentless assault.

"Faster, Yaomomo!" Nejire Hado shouted as she hovered in the air, her blue hair dancing as she unleashed spiral shockwaves from her palms. "Your movements are still too predictable!"

The wave hit Momo's shield, pushing her back several meters. Quickly, she converted the cannon on her shoulder into an adhesive net, firing it at Nejire. Nejire easily swooped to avoid it.

"I know!" Momo retorted, panting as she created several smoke bombs to obscure the view. "But each of your attacks has the power to level a city block! I have to focus on absolute defense first!"

As they took a brief pause on opposite sides of the arena, their breaths ragged.

"We have to get stronger," Nejire said, her usual smile fading slightly, replaced by an intensely serious expression. "So that when Tatsumi-kun needs us later, we won't just be protected bystanders!"

Momo nodded, her eyes flashing with cold determination. She looked at her hands, capable of creating almost anything. "I will not be a burden. The next time we see him, I will stand by his side as an equal ally."

Their training continued, every attack and defense forged with a new, burning purpose.

Deep within the Gunga Mountain Villa headquarters, a hoarse, gleeful laugh echoed from Skeptic's data analysis room. The monitors around him displayed a three-dimensional blueprint of I-Island, filled with annotations and red lines.

"I found it! I found it!" he exclaimed to himself.

Geten, who happened to be passing by, glanced into the room with a bored expression. "Found what, Skeptic? A way to keep your glasses from sliding down?"

"Shut up, you iceman!" Skeptic retorted without looking away from his screen, too excited to be offended. "I found the Achilles' heel of that heroes' fortress! Look at this!"

He pointed to the central part of the blueprint. "The blueprint we got is old, YES, BUT it shows something they forgot about. The island's original foundation! There's a main ventilation shaft from the pre-Quirk era, built to cool the old reactors down there. That shaft leads directly to the heart of the island's infrastructure, bypassing 90% of their modern biometric sensors and Quirk detectors!"

Geten's eyes widened slightly.

"Those arrogant heroes just kept piling new tech on top of the old foundation without ever fixing the cracks in the basement," Skeptic continued with a crazed grin. "This is our key! Our secret entrance! The Grand Commander will be so pleased."

The plan to shake the heroes' world was one step closer to reality.

The sun began to set, painting the sky in shades of orange and purple. In the villa's training arena, Tatsumi knelt, exhausted to the bone. Every attempt to fly had failed.

"That's enough for today," Akame said. "We'll try again tomorrow."

"No... one more time," Tatsumi sighed, pushing himself to stand. He wouldn't end today on a failure. Not after the promise he made.

He closed his eyes. This time, he ignored all the technical instructions. He didn't think about wings or the wind. He thought of only one thing: Akame crying in silence, and Kurome trapped in darkness. He felt a powerful wave of desire to be able to reach them, to tear open the sky and pull them out of their hell. A concept purer than mere flight: the concept of rescue.

Energy exploded from his back. This time, there were no mounds or bone fragments. Two large, powerful wings formed perfectly. They were not feathered like Hawks' but more like the wings of a dragon or a wyvern—strongly built with silver membranes that pulsed with energy.

With a roar driven by sheer will, Tatsumi stomped his foot and flapped the wings with all his might.

He lifted off the ground.

Five feet. Ten feet. Fifteen feet. He hovered in the air, unstable and wobbly like a fledgling bird. It was clumsy. It was not graceful. But he was flying.

After about five seconds that felt like an eternity, his concentration broke and he fell back to the ground with a loud thud, his wings vanishing.

He lay there, staring up at the now-starred night sky, a wide grin on his tired face.

Akame stood over him, her silhouette blocking the stars. There was no smile on her face, only a deep, somber expression of satisfaction.

"Tomorrow," she said. "We will learn how to steer."