"AHHH!"
The moment Tatsumi saw Noah appear, he immediately pointed at him and shouted.
"It's you! The guy who didn't have to line up in front of the barracks!"
"..."
Noah and Akame both fell silent.
Seeing Tatsumi react so strongly, Akame asked curiously, "Tatsumi, do you know Doctor Noah?"
"Eh? Doctor?"
Tatsumi was completely confused.
Still, he could tell that Akame seemed to know this person.
As for the way Akame addressed him, Noah corrected her again. "Akame, I've said this several times. I'm not really a doctor. You can call me something else."
'Something else?'
Akame looked at the man in front of her, and for some reason, a name like "Noah-nii" surfaced in her mind.
The thought made a faint blush appear on her normally expressionless face.
For a natural-born assassin who would not even get embarrassed if someone saw her in her underwear, there were very few things capable of making Akame feel shy.
But she and Noah had known each other since childhood.
Back in Longxi Village, even on days when they did not need treatment, she and the others would still go find Noah after training.
To them, Noah, who was a few years older, had always felt like an older brother from next door.
He was also an amazing doctor who had cured their illness and freed them from pain.
Because of everything that had happened later, Akame had once doubted him too.
But when she had been driven into a corner with nowhere else to turn, he had still been the one to help her.
'If not for him, Kurome might have already...'
Because of that, Akame had thought more than once, deep down, that this person was like an older brother to her.
But actually saying that out loud was far too embarrassing, so she had never told anyone!
"Cough. More importantly, that girl is...?"
Akame had seen that girl a few times when she came to look for Noah, but the figure from earlier, wild and unstable, did not match her impression at all.
Noah was holding Taeko in his arms.
He thought to himself that if he told Akame this was the disciple adopted by the assassin who killed Green, Akame might actually try to kill Taeko.
Looking down at the unconscious Taeko, Noah only said, "It seems she was affected by that murderer."
He carried Taeko over to Zank the Beheader.
With a thought, Five Sights: Spectator floated into the air and landed in his hand.
"I'll take this Teigu for now."
Akame only nodded.
Since Noah wanted it, she did not intend to stop him.
Night Raid did have a mission to collect Teigu and hand them over to the Revolutionary Army to strengthen their forces, but that task was not mandatory.
They were only expected to do what they could.
After all, Teigu chose their users. Even if they collected a Teigu, finding a compatible user would not be easy.
Their main mission this time was to assassinate the beheading killer who had been murdering people across the Imperial Capital.
Now that the target was dead, and since Akame had not been the one to kill him, the Teigu did not belong to her to recover anyway.
Besides, she did not think she could beat Noah.
Even if she were ordered to take it back, something impossible was still impossible.
And personally, she truly did not want to become Noah's enemy.
"Oh, right. I'll give you this one early."
Noah took out a bottle of recovery potion and tossed it to Akame.
"I heard a troublesome woman is returning from the border. You'll need to be more careful from now on."
Akame quickly caught it, then tilted her head in confusion.
"A troublesome woman?"
"Mm. You met her during the gravekeeper incident. The one known as the strongest in the Empire. Esdeath."
Hearing that name, Akame was immediately startled.
During the gravekeeper incident, their unit had only wiped out less than one-tenth of the enemy.
Only later did she learn that there had actually been many more enemies at the time.
There were over a hundred of them in total, and every one of them possessed that beast-transformation ability.
Among them had even been a retired leader whose strength was no weaker than the current one.
And yet, that absurdly powerful group had been killed by Esdeath alone.
Even after such a battle, she had not gotten so much as a speck of dirt on her clothes.
Not even that group of strong fighters had been enough to make her take the fight seriously.
Just as her title said, she was the strongest in the Empire.
If this information was true, Akame had to tell Boss as soon as possible.
"Then, see you next time."
Holding Taeko, Noah changed the direction of gravity around himself.
Watching him rise into the air, Tatsumi was so shocked that he nearly started stuttering.
"He's flying! H-he's flying!"
Boom!
There was the sound of a wind barrier being broken, and a faint circular ripple remained in the air.
In only a few seconds, Noah had vanished from their sight while carrying another person.
...
At that moment, Akame turned to Tatsumi.
"Tatsumi, there's something I want to ask you."
"Eh? Ask me?"
"Mm. Please don't tell the others about meeting Doctor Noah today."
Tatsumi fell silent for a moment.
Then he asked, "Why? Who exactly is that person? Why can't the others know?"
Although he had joined Night Raid, he was still far from familiar with everyone in the organization.
There were even members he had not met yet.
When Akame first asked, he had wanted to agree.
But he still wanted to know the reason.
"There's nothing that needs to be hidden from you. Actually, Doctor Noah isn't a doctor. He's a professor from the Science Division. Back when I was still an assassin in the Imperial Assassination Unit, we already knew each other..."
Akame told Tatsumi a little about the past so he could understand her relationship with Noah.
After listening, Tatsumi nodded.
"I get it. Even if everyone else might not agree, you trust him, right? In that case, I'll help you keep this secret."
"Thank you, Tatsumi."
A small smile appeared on Akame's face.
It was so cute that Tatsumi almost stared blankly!
Sure enough, people really did need to talk to each other.
A few days ago, he had thought Akame was just a dull, thick-skinned killer with a few screws loose.
Aside from being strong, he could not think of a single good point about her.
But that was not true.
She was not an emotionless murderer.
She was a real person.
She had simply gotten used to making choices. So when it was time to act or make a decision, she did not hesitate.
She was truly strong and kind.
Compared to her, Tatsumi felt far too immature.
Without knowing why, a faint emotion stirred in his heart.
...
After bringing Taeko back to the apartment, Noah placed her on the sofa.
She already had fairly strong poison resistance, so the sedative would not last long. She would probably wake up in less than an hour.
Noah poured himself a cup of tea, his gaze lingering on Taeko.
"This feels like it's getting troublesome."
This girl.
When they first met, Noah had killed her master, the woman who had been like an adoptive mother to her.
After that, because of her foster mother's death, a crack had appeared in Taeko's heart, leaving her mind extremely unstable.
To better grasp the power of "soul manipulation," Noah had tried to repair that crack.
He had entered the girl's Soul Corridor and altered her memories, solving the problem at its root.
Afterward, he kept her by his side and continued observing her, wanting to see whether a person's soul could truly be "freely manipulated."
In the end, whether it was Chelsea's persuasion or the test of time, Taeko endured it all.
A human whose soul had been manipulated by Weaver could not remove those altered memories on their own.
Although Taeko respected him like this because he had changed the memories in her soul, as time passed, he had also grown used to her careful, thoughtful care.
It was inevitable that he would develop some feelings toward her.
That might not be "love" or anything like that.
It might simply be affection.
But how should he arrange things for this girl who cared for him so attentively?
As long as he did not actively restore her soul to its original state, then her feelings toward him were real.
The time they had spent together was not fake either.
That was why this ability was so terrifying.
It was terrifying enough that even Noah, the person who possessed it, felt he could not abuse it.
If he wanted to, any girl could become his prisoner, completely unrelated to her own will.
The same applied to wealthy families, warlords, and even the highest rulers.
If he were the kind of ruthless person who could use others and throw them away afterward, he probably would not be troubled by something like this now.
After thinking it over, Noah still modified part of the girl's memories from tonight, erasing everything she had seen in the illusion from her soul.
"Mm..."
About half an hour passed.
Taeko's lashes trembled a few times as she lay on the sofa, then she slowly opened her eyes.
Seeing the familiar surroundings, she sat up and tried to recall what had happened.
Why was she lying in the home she shared with Senior?
"Senpai?"
Taeko asked in confusion, "Weren't we looking for Zank the Beheader? I remember defeating him, but I can't remember anything after that."
She frowned and thought for a while, then suddenly stiffened.
"Did I fail?"
From her analysis, the reason she had lost consciousness was most likely that she had been careless.
If she was still alive, that probably meant Senpai had personally saved her and brought her home.