Inside the inn room, Akame's closed eyelids trembled a few times.
As consciousness returned, the girl opened her eyes with a pained expression.
The moment she instinctively tried to move, every muscle in her body screamed in protest.
"Hiss…"
Even after all the brutal training she had endured, the pain still made her suck in a sharp breath.
She stared at the unfamiliar ceiling. Still lying down, she forced herself to turn her gaze and take in her surroundings.
A faint, pleasant fragrance.
The soft texture of the bedding.
"Here… an inn?"
Akame was somewhat dazed.
Because she had only just awakened, her mind had not yet caught up with what had happened before she passed out.
"I remember… I was in the forest?"
She had been fighting, hadn't she?
Why had she fallen?
The scenes before she lost consciousness flashed rapidly through her mind.
At the critical moment, enemy reinforcements had ambushed her.
Their hidden weapons seemed to have been poisoned, and that was what caused her to lose consciousness.
And that person had also killed…
Green!
The boy's face flashed through her mind, and Akame violently tried to sit up.
"…!"
She had only lifted her elbow a little before the soreness tearing through her muscles made her lose control of her body, forcing her to lie there motionless.
Damn it.
"What's going on? Why won't my body listen?"
Was it because of the poison?
And her body felt so heavy!
No, it was her stomach that felt heavy. Warm, too, as if something were pressing on it.
Struggling to raise her head slightly, she shifted her gaze down toward herself.
Only then did Akame finally see the reason for that weight.
At this very moment, a white cat was sprawled across her stomach, sound asleep.
"A cat?"
Akame froze for two seconds.
So where exactly was this? Had she been captured?
No. If this was a prison cell, the environment was far too luxurious.
And the security was far too lax!
Just as that thought crossed her mind, Akame heard footsteps from outside the door.
Her nerves immediately tightened.
The next second, the door opened.
Two faces appeared at the same time, one familiar and one unfamiliar.
"Cornelia!"
Of those two faces, the beautiful blonde woman was Cornelia, the eldest sister figure among the girls in their seven-person group.
When she first entered, her expression had been full of worry.
But the moment she heard Akame's startled voice, light returned to her eyes.
She looked at Akame, who had already awakened and was still somewhat dazed.
Tears instantly welled at the corners of her eyes, and she rushed straight toward the bed.
"Akame!"
"W-Wait! Ugh!"
Cornelia threw herself over Akame, pressing down on her body and squeezing the white cat off Akame's stomach in the process.
The white cat, startled awake, stayed dazed for a moment before flicking its ears and looking toward Noah, who stood by the door.
Or rather, toward 'Lamur'.
"It hurts, it hurts, it hurts! Cornelia, get off me first! I'm going to die!" Akame frantically begged for mercy.
Only then did Cornelia remember that Akame was still injured.
She hurriedly turned back and called, "Mr. Lamur!"
The masked Noah nodded and naturally walked to Akame's side.
He gently helped her sit up, then began checking various parts of her body.
Of course, it was only for show. With Truth Seeker, he could see the girl's condition clearly at a glance.
After pretending to examine her for a while, Noah used the voice-altering function of his mask and said, "The poison has been completely removed. What remains is muscle fatigue and depletion. As long as she gets enough nutrition, she'll fully recover within a week."
"Really?" Cornelia immediately relaxed when she heard that. "Thank goodness."
She stroked Akame's head with very gentle movements.
That warmth also made Akame feel a little more at ease.
She said softly, "Cornelia… I think I had a nightmare. I dreamed that Green was killed…"
Suddenly.
Cornelia's hand stopped.
That one pause instantly snapped Akame awake.
"Cornelia?"
The girl seemed to be seeking confirmation from her.
But for both of them, this was an incredibly cruel thing.
Akame slowly clenched her fists.
"Cornelia… no, right? That was a dream, wasn't it? Green… Green, he…"
Where is he?
The despair that had just retreated from Akame's eyes suddenly spread again.
The smile on her face vanished at frightening speed, replaced by a heavy, dark expression.
Even Cornelia felt her heart tremble when she saw Akame like this.
She hurriedly hugged her and cried, "Green… Green, he… Father already buried him."
Eh?
Green.
Green, he…
So he really was dead.
He had died buying time for her to escape.
Green's final confession flashed through Akame's mind.
'I never told him anything.'
'I'm sorry!'
'Green!'
Noah watched the two girls hold each other and cry.
Suddenly, he felt something rubbing against his leg.
When he looked down, he saw the white cat Chelsea had transformed into rubbing against his trouser leg.
He bent down, picked up the white cat, and returned to his own room.
After entering, he casually constructed a soundproof barrier and applied it to the walls and door.
Pop!
Like magic, the black cat and white cat perched on his shoulders jumped down beside the bed, then transformed back into two living people at once.
They were Taeko and Chelsea.
If it had been any other time, Chelsea definitely would have complained about how exhausting the transformation was and how it had drained an absurd amount of her stamina.
But this time, she did not complain at all.
Instead, she lay flat on the bed in a rare silence, placing the back of her hand against her forehead while staring straight at the ceiling.
She was currently sinking into self-doubt.
When she first learned from Instructor Barbara that their targets this time were actually the Empire's assassination unit, she had honestly been afraid.
Unlike ordinary opponents, the Imperial assassination unit was filled with terrifyingly strong people.
They were mysterious and had left behind countless frightening achievements.
And those achievements had spread widely throughout the world of assassins.
After personally facing these enemies, Chelsea had finally understood how terrifying they truly were.
They really were frightening.
Just making eye contact with them gave her the illusion that she was going to be killed.
If she got even a little closer, it felt like the very air was mixed with icy blades, as if her mouth, nose, throat, and heart were all going to be cut open.
Her instructor had said they were top-class assassins raised by the Empire, with both their emotions and thoughts controlled by the Empire.
Chelsea had always believed that too.
But what was the truth?
That scene just now…
Two girls had broken down crying over the death of their family, their companion, holding each other as if trying to share what little warmth remained.
Even Chelsea, their enemy, felt sympathy when she saw it.
That boy named Green seemed to have had his head cut off by Instructor Barbara.
And that head had even been brought in front of the girl named Akame…
Honestly.
That old woman was as terrifying as ever.
But an even more terrifying person was right here in this room.
Chelsea glanced at Noah, who had removed his mask and was drinking tea.
Ever since he had forcibly made some kind of "contract" with her, he had been carrying her around like this.
Thanks to that, she had gradually seen all sorts of unbelievable abilities this man possessed.
And this was the very man who had killed Instructor Barbara.
It was hard to believe that Barbara, who was absurdly strong, had actually been killed by this boy.
After hesitating for a while, she murmured, "So that's the Empire's assassination unit…? They're all children even younger than us…"
Children becoming assassins was not especially rare.
Especially near the borders. There, it was practically normal.
Of course, those children were not this strong.
They were merely at the very bottom of society. It would not be strange for them to die at any moment, and no one would care.
They were like rats or ants; when they died, they simply returned to the earth and dust.
"Our enemies… were ordinary children too," Chelsea muttered.
When she remembered the girl's grief-stricken expression, she felt terribly shaken.
It was almost like when she had killed for the first time.
Back then, after discovering the Teigu in the governor's treasury, she had secretly trained herself in how to use it.
Once she had mastered its transformation ability, she used that power to catch the governor off guard and kill him.
No one had discovered that she was the one who did it.
If she had wanted to, she could even have used that power to control the local authorities.
But she had not done that.
After the governor died, the Empire quickly sent a new one they trusted.
Unlike the previous governor, who had bled the people dry, the one who took office this time was a good official.
He did not hide away the wealth the previous governor had squeezed from the people.
Instead, he used it to help the locals again.
Under the new governor's rule, Chelsea witnessed her hometown change.
From that moment onward, she made up her mind.
She would set the Empire right too!
Not everyone under that governor had deserved to die.
Many of them had only obeyed because they had been ordered or threatened.
The Empire was the same. The infected part had to be cut away.
And the Empire's greatest infection was the Prime Minister.
Along with the Emperor himself.
...
After leaving the room alone, Noah put his mask back on and found Gozuki.
He reminded him, "You should lie down and rest too. Two of those wounds are fairly deep."
Sten and Suzuka were nearby as well.
After they joined the battle, the Tengu Party had almost completely lost the ability to resist and was instead mercilessly crushed.
On top of that, the members of Oarburgh had either been killed or captured.
From this point forward, the Tengu Party could basically be erased from the world.
Gozuki's body was wrapped all over in bandages.
"I'm one of the Four Rakshasa Demons. Controlling my own body is what I'm best at. I'll be fine."
"Does acting tough in front of the children make you look cool?" Noah sounded somewhat speechless.
Probably because Green's death had caused everyone's morale to plummet all at once, Gozuki had no intention of collapsing despite his serious injuries.
He was forcing himself to act as though nothing had happened.
If he, their pillar of support, fell here, it would become much harder for the team to regain its spirit afterward.
He did not want to leave behind that kind of risk.
Sten sighed. "As expected of the brats trained by Gozuki. They were surrounded and hunted by an entire mercenary group like the Tengu Party, yet only lost one person, and that one was killed by Oarburgh."
Suzuka looked at the wounds on Gozuki's body with what seemed like envy.
Gozuki looked at Noah.
"I'm the one who should be surprised. I didn't expect even you to come."
Gozuki had sensed something was wrong, which was why he had asked Noah to relay a request to the Four Rakshasa Demons for help.
His instincts had always been accurate.
But this time, he seemed to have been a step too slow.
No, if not for the enemy's Teigu user, they would not have been discovered in the first place.
Because of one Teigu user capable of transformation, they had fallen completely into a passive position and become trapped prey.
"Thanks. If not for you, we might have been wiped out."
Gozuki had also seen 'Black Nightmare'.
He was deeply amazed by this flying vehicle, which could move at such an absurd speed.
He had originally thought reinforcements would need five or six days to arrive, but they had actually reached them in less than a day. It completely exceeded his expectations.
He once again personally understood why old man Bill valued this boy so highly and treated him as his most important successor.
"Green didn't know it was you, but if there really is another world after death, he'd probably thank you too."
The moment Gozuki said that, Sten, Suzuka, and even Noah instinctively sensed something unusual.
Because that did not sound like something Gozuki would say.
Or rather, it was not something an Imperial assassin should say.
He really had been affected.
After spending every day with the seven children and putting himself in the position of their father, his original goal had been to bind them with the false bond of "family."
But judging from the result, the ones bound by that bond were not only the children.
He had been bound as well.
He had barely interacted with his own biological daughter.
He did not even know that his daughter had become one of the new Four Rakshasa Demons.
By comparison, he had spent eight full years living alongside these children.
He had personally watched them grow from small children into the people they were now.
Forget humans—even animals or objects would become things one could not easily part with after that much time.
Noah noticed that Green's death had affected Gozuki in some way.
And Gozuki himself did not seem to have realized it yet.
Noah remained silent.
He did not comment on the situation.
Beside him, Sten and Suzuka exchanged glances, both seeing hesitation and shock in each other's eyes.
Clearly, the Gozuki before them was somewhat different from the man they knew.
That grim, almost underworld-like man had actually spoken such sentimental words, like the head of a family.