Wew, its been a while. I picked up some extra time out of college, and Ive finally set aside writing time! Honestly, I'm planning to draw this story to a conclusion within the next few chapters, 2-3 more at most realistically. However I will pour as much of my creativity into those chapters as possible and deliver punctually to satisfy peoples need for closure in the story. I know how it feels to get to the good bit of a story and not have any more!

Without further ado, I present the next chapter of There was always another way!

Disclaimer- I dont own Akame Ga Kill, just the story here. This story is a non profit works.

'thoughts'

recalled events

"Esdeath's mad speech

"Speech"

Emphasis

"That's right. I made myself a nice little bulls eye. What's it going to be? Will you fight to defend them, or surrender to me, and give me what I deserve?"

"This!" He pointed to her. "This is why I'm staying! This is why you don't need to worry anymore!" He went down onto his knees and forcefully turned her head towards him. "This girl that I see here is the reason I stay. So be yourself, act how you want, but don't worry about things. As long as you want me here, as long as you agree to my wishes too, I wont go anywhere!"

"So carry on hurting me, let it all out... Just know that I'll always love you...Thank you for this... it lets me know...That you'll never be able to love me... or know how much I love you... You can go now."

Why was he remembering things like that now? Those thoughts came from a sane Esdeath, not one currently pinning him down and threatening to crush his home with a huge chunk of ice!

Tatsumi was motionless as she stared down at him with those warped, dilated eyes. Tears trickled from his eyes and frosted up on his face as the seeping cold chilled his every pore. A shiver of undiluted fear wracked through him as Esdeath stood poised above him, as if waiting for him to leave an opening or reveal his intentions.

"Esdeath... please stop. I'm sorry." A snarl tore from her lips, and for a second her boot squeezed down on her throat. This second was all it took for Tatsumi's survival instinct to kick in. With adrenaline boosted strength, he shattered the ice pinning him and tried to knock her boot from his throat. She instantly jumped off and away from him, pushing him as she went. Such was her strength, he slid several meters back up and hit a tree, making it crack and groan under the strain.

"Liar! You aren't sorry, you never have been! You won't love me, you won't be mine through your own free will. I see through your pretty lies and false promises clearly now. If you will not give yourself to me, I will break everything you love in this world until there is nothing you can do but love me! I will be the only thing you can see, hear or touch, and then you will know how it feels to go through every day rejected by your whole world!"

Tatsumi stared her in the eye as they stood off, the massive ball of ice frozen in the air above his village, trembling in indication of the levels of rage consuming Esdeath. Her eyes were madness to behold, warring, ravaging, burning into his soul as if it represented the insanity consuming her head.

Tatsumi crouched, drawing Incursio's key. What the hell could he do?

"Esdeath, do you remember the day I woke up from the capital? Where I lost my temper with you? Do you remember what you told me?"

"Do you understand now? It terrifies me. You terrify me. Before you I was sure of everything, I never once doubted myself. And now I can't stop. It's your fault, and I should hate you. But I can't. You... You are everything I want, and yet everything I fear all at the same time."

Tatsumi shook his head. "Well?"

Her lips drew tight into a distorted smirk. "Of course I do, and I was right. You could never love me the way I love you."

Tatsumi looked closer into her eyes. There it was, mixed in with the ice and lunacy, a glint of fear.

"You were wrong." For a split second, a tremor shook her hand, and her blade twitched.

"More lies Tatsumi. You will not fool me this time."

He raised Incursio up at her, accusingly. His aura of passion stoked the air and cut through her killing intent in almost visible waves.

"You're wrong. I know you Esdeath. I know you love to cuddle when you sleep, I know you love ice cream and the cold, I know how you like to feel loved and cared for, and I'm sorry that I haven't given you that. I was hoping... I hoped... I hoped we had more time than this. Time to go places and to do things together, so I could help you. I now know I've been doing it wrong."

The voice of Bulat, his brother, echoed in his head. 'Take responsibility for your actions Tatsumi! Show her your raging passion and your iron will that dominates the battlefield! Release everything you have and face her down with your overwhelming conviction! Do it... Incurs-'

"I will destroy any resistance you have left until all that remains is you and I!"

She jumped high into the air, flipping back onto her icy ball that floated above his precious village, ready to throw it down into the earth.

Tatsumi's whirlwind of emotions boiled over and he screamed his passions into the air. "INNNCCUUURRSIIOOOOO!"

Esdeath snarled furiously as his armour clad form whirled through the air towards her. Neuntote spun into life in his fists as he charged towards her hagel sprung.

"I knew it Tatsumi, you would rather fight for them than love me!"

She launched a grauhorn at him, to delay him, and kicked the ice ball towards the ground, intending to break her lovers spirit.

Instead of being hit by it, he spun his body sideways into the air, letting the tip whirl past him. Tatsumi managed an almost inhuman feat of acrobatics aligning himself along the spear by digging neuntote into the shaft and flipping himself into a righted position. Esdeath stared furiously as he ran along it at a breakneck pace, silent.

'so this is how it is, he wont even acknowledge me! ...You should break that armour of his open, and let your ice consume his soul. Force him to surrender and watch the light die from his eyes!'

Esdeath grinned, and launched the hagel sprung down towards the ground with a simple push off with her feet. Everything he knew and loved, consumed by her. It would be all his fault, he would finally understand her and need her in the way she deserved!

Then the impossible happened. It was blown off course, a white and red armoured figure using its staff to drive the massive ball away from the village below, knocking it far from its target and into the forest to the east of her.

"You think you can save them from me Tatsumi? You think you're so just and righteous, you think you know better than me and how I do things? I am the powerful, and I will show you!"

A hissing in her ear soothed her rage and channeled it into her ice.

Immediately, She snapped her fingers, the harsh crack echoing out as she shouted for another Ice Ball.

Tatsumi was immediately engulfed by the shadow of a ball of ice bigger and darker than the last. Stuck in mid air as he and it fell, his mind whirled for options. As they plummeted, there was only one thing he could think of. Thrusting upwards, he stabbed at the ice ball with neuntote. He needed to pull himself closer to it in order for his plan to work. Time was short, they were falling fast.

Trying again, the incursio wielder drove his spear into the ice until neuntote stuck. Tatsumi could see the faces of the people below him fast approaching now, their terror evident as they tried to run from the ice that nearly smothered the sunlight. The armoured figure planted a foot on the ball, and launched himself in a spinning arc. The icy meteor cracked, and tatsumi heaved all his weight down, aided by gravity and his own immense strength. Neuntote shuddered and the ball cracked in two. Using this momentum to throw himself upwards, he kicked off of one of the halves and launched it out of the vicinity of the village. The propulsion barreled him into the second half, and he knocked that too.

'The boy refuses to stop trying, he wont bow in spirit... perhaps first you should break his body? Make him... humble again.' The sick whisper floated through Esdeath's warped mind, and she grinned again.

Tatsumi spun in the air, falling at speed with nothing to brace himself and nothing to direct himself from. He had dropped neuntote after shattering the second ball. He could try and evolve into the second evolution that he had faced the Supreme teigu with, but he wasnt sure how well it would go. Acting on pure adrenaline, he had been able to fly to save those people. This was different to that. This was Esdeath, he was sure he could...

"Tatsumiiii... wont you just give up already? Fine! I guess... we'll just have to break your body then your mind will follow willingly. Don't worry, nothing lethal!"

At this point, the crazed ex-general had landed on the ground, the grass surrounding her feet frozen in erratic patterns as the power she emanated spiked and ebbed at random.

"Esdeath, please, you need to understand-"

"Nothing you say will make you right! HAGEL SPRUNG!"

Tatsumi gaped. The the mass of solid cold was huge. The biggest he had ever seen her make. And it was plummeting towards him and his village. She stood there, not the gorgeous, playful, teasing Esdeath, but the crazed conqueror of the north, drunk on insanity and victory. This was it. He had to evolve, to use the next level of his power!

"I wont let you do this. I am strong enough to make you see! INCURSIO! AGAIN!" Instantly his Armour gleamed like a sudden sunrise, the golden sheen overriding the standard dull grey. Wings sprouted from his imperial arms and raw power surged through him like a tide of energy. He streaked up into the air, pushing against the ice with all his force. He only slowed it down. He pushed harder, forcing his wings to surge up, and he stopped moving entirely, a silent scream ripping through his body, his mask shattering revealing all the desperation and pain set into his face. Esdeath laughed manically.

"Do you now understand Tatsumi? Only the strong control the weak, not the other way around. You are weak, I control you. You were a fool to fight me."

He snarled as his gloves cracked slightly under such weight, and lost an inch.

"You are wrong Esdeath! I was perfectly right to try and fight you! You Just can't understand why!"

She seethed and her power flared up, creating cold spikes at random. Launching into the air, the blue haired demon rose above her massive creation and whirlwind kicked down into it, a scream ripping from Tatsumi and making her tremble in appreciation.

He lost his grip and tumbled into the floor, the ball flying down too. All of the villagers, Tatsumi's childhood memories, flung themselves to the ground in hope of an extra second of life. The dull crash of death never came to them. Tatsumi was on his feet, wings snapped off and broken uselessly now. He stood like atlas holding up the world on his shoulders, and how heavy his burden was.

"MOVE!" He cried out as his muscles tore and ripped with protest.

"Stop trying to be a hero for them! They dont deserve your sympathy or your life! That belongs to me and me alone, like the rest of you! Why?! WHY MUST YOU FIGHT ME?" Esdeath bellowed out in frustration, punching into the ice, attempting to crush him.

The brown haired hero couldnt feel his body anymore. It was all numb, and he could barely keep it doing what it was, destroying his body. His voice grew small.

"You don't understand. You needed more time. I wanted to help you"

She ignored him and let the dark whispers comfort her nuisances.

"I thought you wanted to be with me not because you wanted to control me"

She pounded into the ice with both fists, causing it to crack under her force. Tatsumi's leg armour shattered, and his ankle snapped, forcing him onto one knee. Tears streamed down his face, not through his torn body, but because of what could have been.

"If you had allowed me this close, I thought you would want an equal. Someone to stand with you, to challenge you. That is why I wanted to fight you, to resist you. To prove I was strong enough."

Esdeath hesitated. 'what are you doing! Don't stop now, he's nearly yours, hes just delirious!' The whispers attempted to soothe her puzzled and twisted soul.

"You are wounded, you are hurt. Your pride has stopped you from confessing to yourself that you need help. You need me... that's why I cant let you beat me like this. You need me..."

She let out a groan of confusion as his words resonated within her. Her fists stopped punching the ice and pushed against her face in agony as her tearing thoughts lanced through her everything. What did he mean? What was he saying? Did he mean it?

"I thought that with time, I could love you and understand, but I needed you to be whole again to see who you are. I want to help you, I want to care, I want to be with you... I was stupid. I'm sorry." She shook, and as he crumpled under the weight of not ice, but failure, loneliness, and understanding, tears began to fall. For the first time in what felt like forever, the whispers stopped completely.

The ice cracked, and Esdeath hit the floor rolling. She caught her gentle, brown haired companion in her arms, no words able to force themselves through the hammering of her heart.

Tatsumi looked up to see an angel of death above him. Sorrow drowned her eyes. "Why?"

His hand reached up to touch her face. It came away wet. "We cant all be as strong as you, can we?"

His world went black.

Words, ordered, categorised, orthodox. When rules are broken, the ripples create waves that change our very beings. Words, the catalyst for the way in which the coin of life flips. You must know by now... there was always another way.

AN: How was that? Its been a while, I'm a little rusty. I literally wrote this all up today to get it out. Its 1am right now. As I said, two to three more chapters now, and the next one will likely be very Akame orientated, with a possible change in style for that chapter only. It will of course still feature our favourite pairing. How will Tatsumi be? What will Esdeath have to say for herself? Nearly killing him wasnt all that cool, and the secrets out on her mild insanity problem.

By the way, if the ending of this chapter seems familiar, I stole it from the start, I wanted it to replicate that feeling, to show how far they have come by the next chapter.

In terms of timescale, I'm only really pointing out relevant parts of their story. Its been much longer than I alluded, several weeks if not a month. I noticed that error in my writing but regrettably I cant go back and rewrite it, it would kill me.

I think the story is developing quite nicely! See you in the next one very soon!

Edited for grammar and clarity: 27/05/17