Helplessly, Iori had no choice but to clutch the rifle-type Ministerial Tool he had just acquired in his hands. It was like stuffing a hand warmer into your pocket while standing outside in winter, hardly effective, but still better than nothing.
Unfortunately, he was still a purebred "Shinigami." If he could cross the boundary and learn the Quincy technique of reishi concentration, he would be able to actively extract the spiritual particles from objects, instead of slowly "warming himself up" like this.
If he had an Imperial Tool on hand, the situation would probably be much better, but sadly, that Imperial Tool was stored at another, safer supply point.
With no other choice, Iori could only try to control his spiritual pressure more delicately and reduce consumption as much as possible. On the upside, this significantly improved his focus, and Saito's earlier guidance clearly applied to more than just Flash Step.
That day, while the Empire's hounds were searching a mountain valley for Akame's whereabouts, elite Revolutionary Army fighters launched a surprise attack from the shadows.
They dealt a crushing blow to the scattered military police units and assassins. Taking advantage of the chaos, Akame broke free from the encirclement and headed northwest without hesitation.
Seeing this, Iori guessed she must have an arrangement with Najenda. This was the perfect moment for a dragon to return to the sea.
He originally thought this was the end. With only one-third of his spiritual pressure left, Iori planned to return directly to the Soul Society. But what happened next made him change his mind. He hid among the treetops and watched the spectacle with great interest.
———
"Cough… Kurome, why are you…"
"Hehe, you let your guard down, sister."
A short-haired girl who looked very similar to Akame, but with less cold beauty and more innocent cuteness, stood in front of the injured Akame. She wore a black sailor uniform and held a katana in her hand.
Even a passerby with no context would instinctively assume they were sisters.
The dangerous girl with jet-black eyes and a fake smile was Kurome, Akame's younger sister. The two had grown up together and survived the Empire's brutal training. But because blood relatives were forbidden from serving in the same assassination unit, they were forcibly separated.
Even so, their hearts had always been tightly bound together. Even now, with blades drawn against each other, they remained one-of-a-kind treasures in each other's world…
When Akame had planned her defection, she tested Kurome first, but the short-haired girl had been deeply brainwashed by the Empire and firmly refused, even her own sister's invitation. Akame had intended to persuade her more, but Najenda's situation forced her to defect early…
She never imagined that when she was just one step away from freedom, it would be her own sister standing in her path.
"Move aside, Kurome… or else..."
"Or else you'll kill me? How heartbreaking. Clearly, in this world, we only have each other to rely on."
Kurome smiled at her sister. Behind that cute face seemed to lurk something dark and murky, making Akame's heart sink.
"At first I thought it was a joke. I never expected you'd really want to betray the Empire… and betray me."
"Kurome, listen to me. The Empire treats us like emotionless weapons, but we're allowed to say no!" Akame made one last attempt.
"If we let the Empire continue oppressing the people, this dark society will never..."
"Enough!"
Kurome suddenly shouted. The smile vanished from her face, and the upper half seemed swallowed by shadow as she stared coldly at Akame.
"I don't care about the people or society! Why can't you just behave like a 'tool' and obey, sister? As long as you listened, we could stay together!"
"Kurome…"
"You said it, you clearly said it, you'd never leave me no matter what. But now… now you want to betray me?"
"Even so… I won't let you escape!"
Kurome raised her katana high. "March of the Dead!"
"Don't!"
"It's too late, sister. Become my 'doll' too! That way, we can be together forever!"
Pff!
As Kurome raised her blade, the ground in front of her suddenly bulged. A ferocious beast shaped like a gorilla burst from the earth and lunged at Akame as a mass of black shadow.
"Ugh!"
Akame had a wound on her side from an earlier pursuit. Her movements weren't as agile as before, and she could only barely dodge the wide, powerful attack.
Bang!
The gorilla-like Danger Beast possessed terrifying destructive power. Slamming its fists together and smashing the ground, it created a half-meter-deep crater in the soft soil, shockwaves rippling outward and whipping fallen leaves into a storm.
Whoosh!
It didn't behave like a simple beast. After missing its attack, it immediately pounced again, trying to crush Akame with its massive body.
At that critical moment, Akame suddenly burst forward like an arrow, charging straight at the gorilla. Her slender form brushed past the fist's wind like a willow branch, and several cold flashes appeared.
Pff! Pff! Pff!
They crossed paths. Blood sprayed from the gorilla's limbs as the blade precisely severed its wrists and Achilles tendons.
Against a normal opponent, this would have decided the battle. The katana in Akame's hands was the powerful Imperial Tool "One-Cut Kill: Murasame."
Any wound inflicted by it, no matter how small, would be infected with a fatal curse poison, incurable and fast-acting. A true throat-cutting weapon in the literal sense.
But this time was different. The injured gorilla showed no sign of being affected by the curse poison. Even with muscles and tendons cut, it continued charging at her with full momentum.
'As expected… dolls that ignore curse poison are troublesome…'
Akame didn't clash head-on. She leapt lightly over the gorilla's head, making it miss again.
After all, it had no real combat technique, just brute strength. Even injured, Akame could handle it calmly.
But she wasn't facing only the gorilla...
Slash!
A swift, vicious ambush. Kurome's first strike successfully sliced Akame's forearm, leaving a long bloody gash.
"Kurome!"
"You left an opening, sister."
Kurome smiled faintly. She didn't press the advantage, instead directing the gorilla to entangle Akame again, denying her any breathing room.
At the same time, the ground bulged once more. A beautiful cowgirl-styled woman wielding dual pistols emerged, expressionless, aiming at Akame mid-battle.
Another doll had joined the fight.
Akame's heart sank, but her resolve hardened.
'Then all I can do is stall, wait for Revolutionary Army reinforcements… or force Kurome to summon more dolls. Just one more, one more will create an opening!'
She knew Kurome's fighting style well and waited for her to activate her ability again. Kurome, however, seemed to know this too. She simply smiled, watching Akame besieged by dolls, her hand never leaving her sword hilt.
Both sisters were gambling on who would reveal an opening first.
From the state of the battle, the advantage clearly belonged to Kurome, who was uninjured and in peak condition.
The katana in her hand was also an Imperial Tool, called "March of the Dead, Yatsufusa." Its physical damage was mediocre, with no poison, but its ability was terrifying.
Control the dead.
By cursing those slain by the blade, the user could manipulate up to eight corpse dolls at once. The dolls retained most of their combat ability from life, though they lacked agility.
It was essentially a low-spec version of Edo Tensei.
With powerful enough dolls, Kurome alone was equivalent to an army. In a direct confrontation, she naturally outmatched Akame, a lone assassin.
That said, Kurome wasn't carefree. The more corpses Yatsufusa summoned, the weaker Kurome herself became, leaving her body vulnerable.
She knew her sister well. Akame was not an opponent to underestimate. To avoid being instantly killed by a sneak attack, Kurome had to ensure her stats didn't drop too low, limiting how many dolls she could summon.
This was also because she lacked especially powerful dolls. She hadn't had Yatsufusa for long and hadn't built up a strong stock yet.
"Trying to conserve strength and ambush me? I won't give you that chance, sister."
Seeing Akame growing more battered and barely holding on, complex emotions flickered in Kurome's eyes, only to be swallowed by her obsessive fixation.
"Aren't you resisting too fiercely? I don't want to damage your body too much. Otherwise, I won't even be able to make you into a doll."
"Kurome… wake up! It doesn't have to come to this!"
"That's just what you think! To me, what you did is betrayal!"
Kurome shouted coldly. "I'll kill you, then you'll stay by my side forever!"
Before Akame could respond, a wary voice sounded from above the battlefield.
"Tsk tsk… so this is a real-life yandere heavy girl? That's seriously insane… What was I thinking back then, liking this kind of trait?"
"Is that him?"
"Enemy!"
The sisters reacted completely differently. Kurome leapt instantly, bounding between trees and reaching the canopy in two steps, slashing toward the source of the voice.
Her blade cut through a thick branch, but there was no one behind it.
Then came a loud bang.
BOOM!
Kurome looked down in shock. A man cloaked in a trench coat had appeared in the center of the battlefield, holding an oddly shaped silver long gun in one hand. The muzzle glowed faintly red, as if it had just fired.
The gorilla Danger Beast had been blasted several meters away, lying overturned with a thumb-sized hole in its forehead.
"A gun?" Kurome felt a moment of absurdity. Thankfully, her connection to the gorilla wasn't completely severed, it could still be used.
But then something even more absurd happened.
The dual-pistol doll fired repeatedly at the unknown figure. He flickered and vanished, reappearing in front of her in an instant. Raising his hand, he pressed two fingers lightly against her forehead.
The doll could have dodged, but for some reason, it stood frozen.
Buzz!
A glowing, archaic emblem bloomed at Iori's fingertips, imprinting itself on the doll's forehead before sinking in.
'Shinigami universal skill: Soul Burial Rite!'
'Oh resentful soul, wherever you may go, I release your bonds. Set forth now, and cross to the other shore of this world~'
An imperceptible spiritual light flared. The gunwoman doll displayed a vivid expression unbefitting a puppet, smiled gratefully at Iori, and then scattered into light. Her body collapsed lifelessly.
"What…?"
Kurome couldn't see souls. From her perspective, Iori had simply touched the doll and destroyed it, yet unbelievably, there was no wound on its forehead.
The short-haired girl jumped down, gripping her Imperial Tool tightly, glaring with hostility.
"Who are you? What did you do?!"
"Me?"
Iori turned around. The blank white mask reflected his inner calm.
"I am your 'Shinigami.'"
"Stop playing tricks!"
Kurome's eyes hardened. Recovering from her shock, she quickly recognized the infamous criminal known throughout the Empire, "Faceless One."
"So even the Faceless One is part of the Revolutionary Army… With traitors feeding you information, no wonder the military police could never catch you."
"I'm Revolutionary Army?" Iori laughed. "You think too highly of them."
"Enough talk! Do you really think two people can take me? I don't know what trick you used, but if it requires physical contact, I'll just make sure you can't get close!"
Kurome raised her katana again to summon a new doll, but failed. Iori, who had been watching her closely, exploded forward the moment she lifted her hand.
Clang!
Facing the powerful strike, Kurome dodged. At the same time, Akame coordinated with Iori, launching a lethal strike from behind with her curse-poison katana.
"Damn it!"
Barely blocking in a back-draw stance, Kurome twisted away with agile footwork, clashing blades with Akame again. Sparks burst through the air.
Kurome knew her skill was inferior to her sister's. Earlier, she had relied on numbers and Akame's injuries to dominate. In a one-on-one, she had no advantage, especially not with the mysterious Faceless One added in.
She needed an opening to summon dolls as shields.
Exploding into a flurry of slashes, Kurome overwhelmed the exhausted Akame and successfully disengaged.
Leaping high toward a thick branch, Kurome glanced at the Faceless One, only to see him calmly watching her escape. Then, just like before, he raised a finger.
'Binding Art No. 61: Six-Rod Prison of Light!'
Six beams of light shot from the void, forming a circle and striking Kurome. Suspended midair, she had no way to dodge and was locked in place in terror.
Crack!