Disclaimer: I don't own Akame ga Kill.

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To Meet You Again

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Tatsumi opens his eyes just in time to see a sword coming down on him.

Instinct takes over as he rolls to the side just in time, letting the sword strike the ground where his head had been just a second ago. Tatsumi quickly pushes himself up and reaches for his sword.

His sword is not there anymore.

Incursio is not there anymore.

For one dizzying moment, he panics. Then his enemy's sword moves and the moment passes.

He knows what he has to do.

Using his small stature to his advantage, Tatsumi ducks under the sword swing and moves right inside his opponent's guard. The man is a soldier. He does not know the face, but he recognizes the uniform.

Just what was he doing before he falling unconscious?

No, it doesn't matter. Not right now.

He is in the middle of the battlefield. That is all that matters.

Tatsumi's palm strikes the soldier's wrist making him cry out in pain and loosen his grip on the sword just enough. It is all he needs. Tatsumi's other hand wraps around the blade's handle and snatches it away from the soldier.

He takes a step back, swings, and pivots.

The soldier's head goes flying.

Tatsumi takes a deep breath and tries to ignore the small voice in his head that still worries over the fact that his first strike is now his last strike most of the time. Instead, he looks at the soldier's corpse just in time to see it vanish into shadows.

Oh.

Just like that, everything clicks in his head. Memories connect with lightning quickness. His mouth opens in a wordless exclamation.

Tatsumi remembers now.

He is dead.

His grip on the sword tightens as he looks at his surroundings. A red wasteland stretches in all directions, and far away in the east, there seems to be a castle of some sort. For an instant, Tatsumi wonders whether he should go there or not. The thought does not last long in his mind as a more pressing issue soon reveals itself to him.

He is not alone.

"Night Raid."

The words are but a whispered curse at first. However, they are repeated again and again, each time with more intensity and malice, with crazed hate and bitter resentment.

One by one, the shades rise.

"NIGHT RAID!"

Tatsumi does not know their faces but he knows he killed them, and he knows they want nothing more than to return the favor, useless though the act may be.

Because they are all dead, and this is Hell.

Tatsumi is dead, and he is in Hell.

After all, Tatsumi muses with a bitter smile on his face, there is no such thing as an assassin of justice.

With sword in hand, Tatsumi gets ready to fight. Incursio is no longer with him, and he can no longer feel Tyrant's power flowing through his body, which is both a blessing and cursed at once.

He is weaker now. That is the simple truth, and if he wants to survive in Hell, odd as that may sound, that's going to have to change.

However, at the moment, it doesn't matter.

Against these foes, it doesn't matter.

There are twenty of them. All of them are armed. The shades move slowly at first, but soon regain themselves as training and instinct kicks in. They are not unskilled, and they have not died enough times to forget that. He can tell that much from the way they move.

It is not enough.

Tatsumi strikes first. He dashes with lightning speed and brings his sword down on the nearest one. The soldier manages to react in time and brings his sword up to parry.

The swords clang against each other and the sound rings through the air.

Tatsumi roars.

The soldier's eyes barely have the time to widen as sheer brute strength breaks through his guard. A deep wound is carved into his chest. Blood gushes out, and he falls before fading into shadows.

The whole thing lasts less than a second. The other nineteen shades don't have the time to do anything to help him, and suddenly, they don't look as eager to attack as before.

Good.

The flow of the battle is in his favor. He just needs to keep the momentum going and take care of them all before more shades pop up. It is not the most intricate of plans, but Tatsumi has never been the most complex of people.

Tatsumi is simple and simple works for him, always has.

Then she appears

He feels her before he sees her, a breath of freezing coldness that grasps his heart.

By the time Tatsumi turns around, she is fully formed. Long blue hair and eyes of the same color, skin like snow, and a beauty that can only be called terrifying.

Esdeath.

Suddenly, things are not simple.

For a moment, Tatsumi wants to rage at the unfairness of it all. Of course, it is Esdeath. He does not get to meet Bulat or Sheele or any of the others.

He meets Esdeath.

It is Hell.

It really is.

Esdeath blinks just once before her eyes start to take in every detail of the world around her. It doesn't take long at all for her blue eyes to find his green ones.

"Tatsumi," she says and her voice betrays no part of her true nature. She says his name with warmth.

With love.

Esdeath smiles and something inside Tatsumi's chest does a backflip. Because that smile is unfair. Because Esdeath is unfair.

Tatsumi has met countless scumbags ever since joining Night Raid, each one worse than the last, nothing but monsters in human forms. However, compared to Esdeath, all those monsters are kittens. They can't hold a candle to the graveyards she's filled. Tatsumi knows this. He understands this.

However, sometimes, when he sees her acting like a normal person, he can forget. Just a bit.

It is what makes Esdeath so troublesome to deal with.

Well, that and her completely terrifying power.

"Tatsumi," she says again with the same love-struck expression on her face. One of the swordsmen surrounding them foolishly tries his luck against her. Esdeath just smacks the man into the ground and drives her heel through his skull.

Throughout it all, she never glances away from Tatsumi, and her loving expression never changes.

Tatsumi mentally thanks the idiot for putting things in perspective for him.

"Is this Heaven?" Esdeath asks.

Tatsumi's eyebrow twitches.

"As if!" Tatsumi shouts, sidestepping the lunge of one of the shades that tries to attack him from behind. He drives the sole of his boot into the back of the man's knee, then stabs him in the back once he hits the ground. "What part of this looks like Heaven to you? This is a barren wasteland with nothing other than people trying to kill us."

People that are increasing in number, Tatsumi notes with some worry. More shades are beginning to crawl out of the ground.

Esdeath laughs as she skillfully evades a sword swipe. Two-tenths of a second later, her attacker is missing an arm, and she has a new weapon in her hand. The shade dies an instant later, and many more die immediately after that.

Even without her Teigu, Esdeath is as unreasonably strong as always, Tatsumi muses not without some envy.

"What doesn't look like Heaven?" Esdeath asks, with blood splattered on her body and a wild grin on her face as she dispatches her foes one by one. "Fighting against hordes of enemies with the man I love! What can be better than this?"

Tatsumi is saved from replying by the surge of more and more shades. The chants of Night Raid are quickly overwhelmed by a new one.

"Esdeath!"

"Esdeath!"

"ESDEATH!"

Tatsumi's eyes go wide once his brain puts two and two together.

"It is you!" Tatsumi says as he parries a blow and kicks his attacker away. "You're the one that's attracting all these things here."

It makes perfect sense. The number of people he has killed cannot possibly compare to the number of graveyards Esdeath has filled.

"Is that so?" Esdeath asks in a tone that is entirely too casual. She is not even slightly winded from the fighting. "Tatsumi, just so you know, I have absolutely no intention of parting from you again."

Which means the only option available to him is escaping. That or...

"Of course," Esdeath adds with a smile that sends shivers down Tatsumi's spine. "If you want to try to kill me right now to see if they leave you alone, I wouldn't mind."

Try, she says. Tatsumi smiles bitterly. Even that word is too kind.

"I'll pass," he says as his sword cuts off an arm. Some blood splatters on his face, and Esdeath likes how it looks on him, but not as much as she likes his smiling face.

"Do you know what is in the castle?" She asks while killing another shade. She doesn't look at Tatsumi or even points to the place. There is no need to do so. It is the only recognizable landmark for miles.

"Not a clue," Tatsumi says. "The king of Hell could live there for all I know."

He snorts at his own words, but Esdeath actually seems to consider them.

"It is decided then!" She proclaims. Tatsumi has the distinct impression she would have brought her hands together in a clap if she wasn't so busy killing shades. "That will be our destination."

Tatsumi blinks. "We?"

"You're coming too, of course," Esdeath says like it is the most natural thing in the world. She is very close to him, and it strikes Tatsumi then that somehow they have ended up back-to-back, fighting against the horde. "Any objections?"

"Plenty!" Tatsumi shouts as he blocks a sword strike aimed at Esdeath's side. He doesn't know what annoys him most: that she allows the strike to happen so he would block it or that his body goes along with the stupid charade before his mind gets to voice his many objections. "But I don't think you'll listen to them."

"True, I don't plan on letting you talk your way out of this," Esdeath says, smiling lovingly at him. Tatsumi quickly looks away from that smile lest he forgets who it belongs to.

The next time his sword stabs one of the shades, it is with considerably more viciousness.

Trying to run away would be pointless. He does not have Incursio to hide him and the shades would provide a moderate distraction at best. Besides, the place is nothing but wasteland for miles. There is nowhere to hide.

"Why do you even want to go there? Planning to take over the place?" Tatsumi asks less because he wants to know and more because it is something to do that isn't killing and maiming.

"Nothing so grand," Esdeath replies, her sword flashing as more and more shades fall before her. Like that, she begins to carve her path towards the distant castle. "I don't really have a taste for ruling. However, that castle looks interesting, don't you think? How about it? Let's have a date there."

"Unbelievable," Tatsumi says, and he wishes he could facepalm. "You're unbelievable."

Esdeath actually blushes. "Tatsumi," she whispers with a silly blush on her face.

"That wasn't a compliment!" Tatsumi shouts.

Yet he doesn't run.

Yet he follows her.

Yet he guards her back as if he had been doing it all his life.

Tatsumi is in Hell with a woman he should hate, and if he isn't careful she just might end up taking over the whole place, because he can never put anything past Esdeath.

Tatsumi understands all those things.

Somehow, he doesn't hate it as much as he should.

Yes, he doesn't hate it at all.

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The End

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AN: This probably won't happen, but I'd be happy if it did.

As an aside, writing in present tense is annoying, but I wanted to do it. Let me know whether you liked that or not.

Anyway, that's all. Don't forget to review!