Akame's presence on the battlefield changed everything in an instant. Time seemed to slow as she landed between me and the Humarise guards who were ready to attack. There was a moment of silence, a tense pause where everyone—heroes, villains, and myself—tried to process the appearance of this impossible third party. The guards, who had been filled with a disciplined confidence, now seemed hesitant, looking at this young black-haired girl with confusion.
Akame gave them no more time to think. "You take care of the blue-haired girl," she said to me, her cold, flat voice cutting through the tension. "I'll handle the trash."
Before anyone could react, she moved.
To the Humarise guards, she was just a black and red blur that was suddenly in their midst. They were elite soldiers, trained to fight against powerful Quirk users, equipped with riot gear and energy weapons. But they weren't trained for this. They weren't trained to fight an assassin whose movements were the embodiment of lethal efficiency, honed by a thousand life-or-death battles.
She didn't fight with strength; she fought with precision. She danced among them. A swipe with her scabbard disabled the wrist of a guard trying to shoot. A quick low kick sent another guard off balance. She used the hilt of her sword to strike the neck of a third guard, knocking him out instantly. She moved with a horrific grace, each movement designed to disable her opponents with minimal energy expenditure.
One of the guards, braver than the others, managed to swing his electric baton at Akame. Akame, instead of dodging, moved forward. With a nearly invisible motion, the sword Murasame was unsheathed. The black blade didn't shine; it seemed to absorb the light. She didn't parry the baton. She simply let it pass, and in the same motion, the tip of her sword made a thin scratch on the guard's arm protector.
Just a scratch.
The guard laughed. "Hah! Is that all you've got?!"
Akame just looked at him with her emotionless red eyes. The guard stopped laughing. He looked at his arm. From the small scratch, blackish-purple lines like poisonous veins began to spread rapidly throughout his body. His eyes widened in horror and disbelief. He tried to scream, but only a choked sound came out as Murasame's cursed poison reached his heart. He collapsed to the floor, dead before his body stopped convulsing.
The other guards who saw that froze in pure terror. They no longer saw a young girl. They saw the angel of death.
While Akame was creating her own dance of death, a very different battle was taking place on the other side of the room. Ryukyu, in her half-dragon form, was facing The Curator. This wasn't a battle of strength, but a battle of minds and prediction.
"That immense physical strength of yours is useless, Dragon Hero," The Curator said in a clinical tone, easily dodging a swing from Ryukyu's claws that could have torn steel. "I can see every nerve signal in your body. I know you're going to attack 0.3 seconds before your own muscles do."
Her 'Neural Impulse' Quirk was the perfect defense. She saw the immediate future, the future of her opponents' movements. Ryukyu charged with a roar, trying to catch her in her jaws, but The Curator simply stepped aside calmly, as if Ryukyu were moving in slow motion. She then pulled out a high-tech scalpel and quickly made a cut on Ryukyu's side that wasn't protected by scales.
"GRAAH!" Ryukyu growled in pain, surprised by the speed and precision of the counterattack.
"So predictable," The Curator said with a bored tone. "Anger makes your movements larger and slower."
Ryukyu realized she couldn't win this way. She had to change her strategy. She stopped attacking blindly. Instead, she began to move, using her size to change the environment, slamming her tail on the floor to create vibrations and debris, trying to create chaos that would make The Curator's predictions more difficult. It became a deadly chess game between intelligent raw power and cold prediction.
I myself wasted no time. With Akame having cleared a path for me, I charged toward the medical bed where Nejire lay. "Nejire-senpai!" I called out.
She turned her head, her usually energetic eyes now looking listless. "Tatsumi... kun..." she whispered weakly. "Run... it's a trap..."
"I'm not leaving without you," I said firmly. I saw the complex machine connected to her, a horrific energy-draining device. I knew I had to destroy it.
I manifested my 'Dragon's Fang' blade. As I approached the machine, Momo's warning came through the communicator in my ear. "Tatsumi-kun, be careful! The machine is emitting energy spikes! It must have a defense system!"
Sure enough, as I came within range, panels on the machine opened up, firing a volley of electric shocks and small metal projectiles. I swung my Incursio blade, parrying the attacks with difficulty. I had to reach its power core.
From above, inside the vents, Momo was watching three different battles unfold simultaneously. She had to make a choice. She couldn't help everyone at once. Ryukyu was a pro hero who could take care of herself. Akame... that girl looked more like a predator than prey. But Tatsumi... he was fighting a machine alone while trying to protect Nejire.
Momo began to use her Quirk. She didn't create a weapon. She created a tool. She created several smoke grenades and threw them down, enveloping the area around the guards fighting Akame, giving Akame more visual cover. Then, she created a small device and threw it near the machine that was attacking me. The device let out a powerful EMP pulse, momentarily disabling the machine's defense system.
That opening was all I needed. With a shout, I plunged my black blade into the machine's power core. There was a loud hissing sound, a shower of sparks, and then the machine died. The red light above Nejire's bed turned green, and I felt the Quirk-suppressing field in the room flicker and vanish.
I quickly released the restraints holding Nejire. "Are you okay?" I asked.
"I... I feel so weak," she said. "But I'm okay."
Seeing her project destroyed, The Curator screamed with an uncontrolled rage. "YOU DESTROYED MY WORK! MY PRECIOUS RESEARCH!" She ignored Ryukyu completely and lunged straight for me and the still-vulnerable Nejire.
Ryukyu roared and tried to intercept. Akame, who had finished with the guards, also moved to block her. But The Curator, with a crazed smile on her face, just pressed a button on her wrist.
"If I can't have it," she hissed, "then no one can!"
The entire facility trembled. Red alarm lights began to flash everywhere, and a cold, automated voice echoed through the loudspeakers.
"Warning. 'Specimen Omega' Quarantine Protocol Failed. Releasing all containment assets."
Throughout the facility, dozens of reinforced steel doors hissed open. And from the darkness within, inhuman growls and roars could be heard.
Akame and Ryukyu stopped, sensing the new, far greater threat. I myself, standing beside Nejire, felt my dragon's heartbeat pound with danger. We hadn't just failed to capture the mastermind; we had just released all the other monsters she was hiding in her cage.
"We have to get out of here," Ryukyu said, her voice tense. "Now!"
But as we were about to move, from one of the dark corridors, a large creature stepped out. It was nearly three meters tall, its skin was pale, and its muscles were exposed. It was a Nomu. But not an ordinary Nomu like I had ever seen. This one had four arms, and its eyes... its eyes shone with a cunning, malevolent intelligence.
The creature looked at all of us, before its eyes finally locked onto me. It grinned, revealing a row of razor-sharp teeth. It seemed to recognize me, or rather, the armor that resided within me.
As I prepared for the hardest fight of my life, a quiet, pained voice was heard behind me. It was Nejire. She was trying to stand, her hands glowing with the last remnants of her spiral energy. "I... I'm not just going to stand by," she whispered. "I'm going to fight, too."