By common sense, someone who possessed a spatial Imperial Arm, was personally skilled in hand-to-hand combat, and even had three subordinates who were Imperial Arm users or equivalent to Imperial Arm users, the minister's son, Syura, should have been a very troublesome opponent.
In fact, in the original work, the "Wild Hunt" he formed replaced "Jaegers" as the main villain group in the middle to later stages.
It's just that Esdeath's presence was way too overwhelming, something no one else could overshadow no matter what, so in the end the final villain role was still taken by the Ice Queen.
Setting aside his character, Syura's abilities really were freakishly strong. A spatial-type Imperial Arm meant he could fear no one, come and go as he pleased.
If "Yatsufusa" was a cheap version of Edo Tensei, then "Dimensional Formation" could be called a low-spec, downgraded Flying Thunder God.
But...
No matter how good a Imperial Arm's performance is, it still depends on how the user employs it. And Syura had a massive flaw in his personality, or rather, a universal weakness shared by villains, he dies because he talks too much.
Probably due to his upbringing, not only was this guy's behavior vile, he also loved to show off when he had the upper hand. His desire to perform was astonishing.
In both the manga and anime of the original work, this guy always indulged in sadistic abuse while holding an absolute advantage, only to get killed by a last-sliver-of-health counterattack…
That's also why, despite having a decent "build," he couldn't carry the aura of a final boss, there was this feeling of a Bronze player piloting a King-tier account.
From the very beginning, Iori hadn't really taken this person seriously. Even with a low-spec Flying Thunder God, Syura didn't have the Fourth Hokage's reflexes. If he used Shunpo to launch a surprise attack, Iori had more than an eighty percent chance.
However, the Revolutionary Army providing the intel didn't see it that way.
As the only son of Minister Honest, and with Honest himself already wielding enormous power, after the old emperor suddenly fell ill and died at the start of the year, Honest had supported the current young emperor onto the throne, using the emperor to command the lords, he now effectively held the greatest authority in the entire empire.
Syura's value rose accordingly, and to the Revolutionary Army, he was an extremely important bargaining chip.
They didn't want to place all their hopes of success on Iori alone, or rather, they absolutely had to get Syura under their own control, so they dispatched their assassin, Chelsea.
That was the girl disguised as a village maiden. She possessed the Imperial Arm Gaia Foundation. Though her frontal combat ability wasn't strong, she could transform into anyone and, with superb acting skills, perfectly replicate their speech and behavior.
Her assassination success rate was close to one hundred percent, and she had always been the Revolutionary Army's trump card.
And she lived up to expectations, successfully obtaining Syura's Imperial Arm and capturing this infamous scumbag alive.
This way, they could extract more intelligence from Syura's mouth and also use him to threaten the minister into releasing imprisoned comrades. All the effort they'd put into setting up this trap for Syura wouldn't be wasted.
Iori merely watched coldly, turning a deaf ear to Syura's screams.
He had suggested killing Syura outright, but the Revolutionary Army believed a living person was more valuable. Since Iori needed their intelligence, he made a concession on this point.
But the Revolutionary Army, thinking they could bargain, would probably be disappointed… because Minister Honest would never be blackmailed over this son!
To the minister, it was nothing more than having another one.
If the situation were reversed and Honest himself were kidnapped, Syura probably wouldn't care about his old man's life either, he'd only be thinking about how to take his place.
The Revolutionary Army was far too naive. How could they use a normal person's moral standards to judge the behavior of this beastly father-and-son pair?
In the end, the Revolutionary Army wouldn't get what they wanted. They'd only be able to kill Syura to proclaim their so-called justice and boost their reputation among the people. All other efforts would be in vain.
But that had nothing to do with Iori anymore.
It was just cooperation between two sides. He wasn't the Revolutionary Army's babysitter, giving them one reminder was already the limit of benevolence.
Casually kicking away Enshin's head, Iori picked up the curved-blade Imperial Arm from the ground, weighed it in his hand, then tossed it aside.
As a Imperial Arm, its power was average. And he and the Revolutionary Army had already agreed beforehand that this time he would only take priority on one Imperial Arm; all other spoils would belong to the Revolutionary Army.
"So what's left is… do you still want to keep fighting?"
Iori shifted his gaze to the final two people, the bewitching witch Cosmina and the wandering samurai Izo.
Cosmina was empty-handed, seemingly carrying no weapons. She hesitated as she glanced at Enshin's corpse and at Syura, who was being tortured.
She was from a western kingdom and not some born great evil. Compared to pirate Enshin, the murder-crazed Izo, and the beast Syura, she wasn't even in the same weight class. Her story, in short, was about being persecuted and then turning dark to take revenge on society.
Compared to her companions, Cosmina still retained a tiny bit of "humanity."
Coupled with the fact that the current situation was overwhelmingly unfavorable, after weighing the pros and cons she forced a smile and said, "Lord Syura clearly won't survive no matter what."
"I don't expect to save him. But if I release my Imperial Arm in such a narrow space, it'll be a mutual destruction scenario… and you won't be able to get away unscathed either."
"Want to talk terms?"
Two cloaked figures and Iori pressed in from both sides. One of them pulled off the disguise, revealing a valiant and beautiful face, it was Najenda.
And the other, unsurprisingly, was Akame.
"Negotiation is fine. Put down your Imperial Arm and come back with us to Revolutionary Army headquarters for review."
"Don't joke around, miss~"
Cosmina took a deep breath, her expression unchanged. "Even if I were willing, this Mr. Izo here wouldn't agree… unlike me, he's a battle-hardened veteran who's killed countless people."
"Hmph!" Izo chuckled smugly. Even though he was clearly cornered, he seemed brimming with confidence, not the slightest bit flustered.
That was only natural. Unlike Syura, who committed evil to indulge his desires, Izo was purely bloodthirsty. To perform a blood sacrifice for the famed blade in his hands, "Kosetsu," he craved the blood of all living things.
Old people, children, men, women, there was no good or evil to this blade. Any life could sate its thirst.
Viewing the sword as his soul, Izo had committed countless sins for the sake of blood sacrifice. His mind had long since become hopelessly twisted… naturally, he wouldn't be intimidated by the scene before him.
And just as everyone's attention was focused on Izo's right hand gripping the hilt, Cosmina suddenly pulled open her bodice and, from the moderately sized yet deep and narrow valley, pulled out a long-rod Imperial Arm with a spherical tip, a microphone.
"Ah!!!!"
The strange timbre, amplified by the Imperial Arm, turned into invisible ultrasonic waves with terrifying penetration. The air rippled like water being stirred. Tables and chairs were blown away and shredded in an instant, and a blade-like tornado surged toward Iori!
That direction held only enemies and wouldn't implicate Cosmina's companions. And in this cramped room, there was no space to dodge at all.
'No matter how good your skills were, facing wide-area invisible sound waves, what could you...'
"Broken Void."
Iori spoke two short words. Solidified spiritual pressure instantly formed a transparent wall before him, cutting off everything.
BOOM!
The ultrasonic waves slammed into it like a solid city wall, like floodwaters stopped by a dam. Not only did they fail to blow Iori away, they instead carried shattered wood and metal fragments and surged back in reverse.
Completely unprepared for her attack to be neutralized like this, Cosmina had no time to dodge or defend. Her body, hit head-on, flew out like a broken doll.
Countless splinters raked across her shapely form, letting bright red blood spread wildly over her pale skin.
Bang!
The witch songstress slammed into the wall and lost consciousness instantly. The others, hit by the residual shockwaves, also had to dodge and retreat.
Among them, Najenda took cover behind a beam, lowered her center of gravity, and used her metal prosthetic to shield her head and face.
Akame, meanwhile, drew her blade and cut through the oncoming gale.
"Come on!"
Propelled by the raging wind, the black-haired wandering samurai charged toward Akame. The moment the famed blade "Kosetsu" was drawn, it bloomed with a fleeting brilliance.
Clang!
The collision between demon blade and famed blade sparked dazzling flames. Izo's long sword wasn't a Imperial Arm, but its material seemed extremely special, there wasn't the slightest damage even when clashing head-on with Murasame.
Feeling the killing intent rushing toward her, Akame couldn't help but feel a chill.
Setting technique aside, the killing aura of the man before her actually surpassed her own.
This wasn't something that could be accumulated through training alone. The number of lives on Izo's hands was probably several times hers.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Blades clashed repeatedly at speeds too fast for the naked eye to follow. Agile, Akame shifted her position, launching attacks from all angles.
Izo didn't fall behind at all, his exquisite swordsmanship steadily received every one of her strikes and even allowed him to counterattack smoothly, clearly gaining the upper hand.
"Good!"
Izo grew excited, eyes widening until the whites nearly vanished, turning almost entirely black.
"Just from these exchanges, I can tell, you're a first-rate swordsman too. For my 'Kosetsu' to complete its blood sacrifice, what it needs most is the life of someone like you!"
"Let me see your true skill. Come, let's have a death duel between swordsmen!"
"..."
Akame said nothing, responding only with sharp slashes. In the blink of an eye, they traded another seven or eight moves. Danger lurked at every step, both were truly dancing on the edge of the blade, where a single lapse meant death.
And just as the killer Izo grew more excited and more absorbed, Akame suddenly moved, unnaturally sidestepping half a step, deliberately exposing an opening.
Izo was puzzled, but his body acted first, striking straight for Akame's head, at that very moment, bone-chilling cold came from his blind spot.
It was Iori.
Akame diverted Izo's attention, and he struck in perfect coordination from diagonally behind.
Their movements differed, but their killing intent was the same, like two venomous snakes lying in wait, suddenly baring their deadly fangs.
Clang!
Splat!
The crisp sound of impact and the spray of blood rang out almost simultaneously. From behind, Iori split open half of Izo's waist and abdomen. Steaming hot organs spilled out, exposed to the cold air, wisps of heat rising…
Thud!
The killer collapsed powerlessly to the ground, still gripping his long blade, while his eyes gradually returned to those of a normal person.
"I… ugh… cough…"
"You seem to have gotten it wrong. I'm just an assassin, not a swordsman."
Akame glanced at Iori, who had just worked with her in perfect coordination and used strikingly similar methods, suppressed her doubts, then looked down at Izo and said, "This fight was never one-on-one."
"Ugh…"
Izo hadn't clearly heard what Akame said. At the moment his life reached its end, not only did his gaze clear, but a dazed, dreamlike expression appeared on his face.
All kinds of memories from the past surfaced, and he suddenly realized that his entire life had amounted to nothing. He hadn't left anything behind.
Even "Kosetsu," which he had been willing to become a killer to temper through blood sacrifice, was still nothing more than an ordinary blade in the end.
Of course, this wasn't to say he had a sudden change of heart. He was simply regretful that he hadn't completed the blood sacrifice of his beloved blade.
"Ko... Kosetsu, leave it to…"
"Interesting. It's clearly not a Imperial Arm, yet after clashing head-on with Murasame so many times, there's no obvious damage. Is its material on the same level?"
Iori bent down and picked up Kosetsu, which had claimed countless lives. The dying Izo couldn't muster any resistance. His powerless hand couldn't hold onto anything, and an emptiness like falling into an abyss suddenly washed over him…
For no reason at all, someone who had long stopped caring about life and death actually felt fear of dying.
Still, driven by a stubborn obsession, he forced out one last breath and said, "It has the potential… to become… to become a supreme famed sword… don't… don't let it be buried…"
"This?"
Iori examined it. He admitted it was a high-quality weapon and could serve as a Zanpakuto's vessel, but he wasn't very interested.
To a Shinigami, a Zanpakuto was closer than even a lover. And Iori had a bit of a spiritual cleanliness obsession. Blades like Yatsufusa or Kosetsu weren't unusable, but if he had a choice, he still wanted a new sword.
At that moment, recalling Izo's wandering samurai look, an idea suddenly struck him.
"It's called 'Kosetsu.' Does it have an origin?"
"…My homeland… a distant eastern island nation…"
Just as he thought.
Iori narrowed his eyes, feeling that he had found the right direction.
"…A swordsmith family passed down through generations… a famed blade forged from Orichalcum… countless blood sacrifices… just one step short… ugh…"
"Orichalcum?"
Hearing this word, Najenda's spirits lifted. "That's the main material used for Imperial Arm. The alchemical formula and forging techniques have already been lost. Existing Orichalcum creations are almost all relics from the previous era… could there still be a lineage elsewhere?"
She wanted to step forward and question Izo, but the killer had already died with his eyes open. Najenda could only shake her head and sigh.
"An eastern island nation… there's no way to go to such a remote place right now."
Both were islands, but unlike the scattered archipelagos in the south, the eastern island nation was a single massive island, isolated overseas.
It had always had very little contact with the continent. It was said that shipping routes were shrouded in dense fog year-round, a very mysterious place.
Although the Orichalcum formula was important, first, there was no knowing how to obtain it; second, it couldn't be converted into combat power in the short term. With major changes about to shake the empire, they couldn't afford to divert their focus to something like this.
'Eastern island nation… sounds kind of interesting.'
Unlike Najenda, Iori was already making plans in his heart. His intuition told him that a trip to the East would definitely yield gains.
Not because the original work had any information about it, but because as a manga, the original couldn't possibly flesh out every single detail of the world.
But the world Iori had come to was a "real" one. Even places only mentioned in passing in the manga objectively existed here.
And settings like "eastern island nation," "land of samurai," or "the far eastern lands" really did invite the imagination.