Another "quick" Author's note:

I know, but just hear me out ok?

So... Here we are! I'm finally back for reals this time! Mostly anyway, so rejoice!

I cannot tell you how gruelling this year has been for me and the family, going beyond being unable to upload or even connect to the internet*.

*Which, I might add, appears to really have it in for me as the moment I upload the update promising it to be all ok by the end of last month the broadband provider shuts off our package and the delivery for the next one gets delayed... But fear not! With the last of my might 4G, I managed to upload this to you! Be grateful!*

As things stand I have only really chewed my way through Chapter 4, as I have not been capable of connecting to the web via my PC for the past week, which is vital for my grammar and spell checking, since word can't seem to use proper British language despite what it says on the tin, so to speak.

What I'm trying to say is that I know it's probably too late to say sorry, but I'm still working on uploading and if you're even remotely interested in my writings you should pay close attention to your email over the month. I might surprise you! You never know!

Oh yes, and on another note, this is the new and improved chapter 4! It's a lot closer to what I wanted it to be rather than that mish-mash of nonsense that was my last piece of uploaded work. I'm not going to take it down though, I'm going to leave it up as a kind of game. Try and see if you can get into my head where I want to take the story, what everything means, I like to make really complex gestures in my writing that maybe only I can ever know. Leave some guesses in the comments so I can see who is mad enough to see where I'm taking this!

That's all from me for now so, for now, I hope you enjoy the read!

Chapter 4: A Trip Through the Woods

Darkness fell over the forest floor, the pale light of the moon hidden behind the tree line as it hung low in the night sky. It was a beautiful night. The very picture of serenity, but beneath the silent curtain of snow and ice, hidden away amongst branch and shadow a storm was raging. A storm leaving nothing but destruction and ruin in its wake.

The trees were torn from the ground, shattering into a hail of splinters while monstrous clouds of snow and dirt were thrown up into the air as the ground below was carved open. Nothing could stand in its way, leaving only a path of violence and destruction.

It was a horrific scar upon a world of pristine ice and snow that stretched on for miles, it only ceased when Tatsumi's grinding halt, at last, came to a sudden and earthshattering close. He came crashing down in an impact so great that it sent shockwaves and tremors powerful enough to scour clean the surrounding area of all life. A wall of splintered trees and frozen earth that laid waste to all before it burst forth like an eruption from where Tatsumi had landed, leaving nothing but a ring of destruction which only grew larger as the debris carried by the blast added to the wave of destruction.

Tatsumi lay at the centre, no less broken than the world around him even with the protection of the armour still surrounding him. Still somewhat conscious, Tatsumi worked to regain his senses. Pain wracked his body, but at the very least he could tell he had stopped moving. Immediately he rushed to release the black death trap that he called his armour before anything else could happen, watching in what was almost certainly a sense of relief as the midnight black plates shifted back into the shadows which bore them, the skulls seeped back into the darkness with them and the chains quickly followed, leaving Tatsumi alone in the dark of the night.

Perhaps the only silver lining of this situation was the fact that with the snow and trees no longer hiding the light of the moon Tatsumi could at least see the world around him. That was, however, quite literally the only good thing to come of this, as Tatsumi watched the world around him rapidly fading in and out of darkness, which could only mean one thing.

While the pain was wracking Tatsumi's entire body, the thrumming pain of his mind was by far the most pronounced as the blood swelled in his brain. Tatsumi suddenly found himself staring at the snow, what thin layer that had fallen while he had been sat there anyhow and Tatsumi could only look on in horror as the pristine white below him began turning an unnerving shade of red.

In a fit of panic and with what little coherence he could muster, Tatsumi brought an unsteady hand to his face, it was even more so when it came back thick with red.

He was bleeding.

Heavily.

Tatsumi was barely able to keep his body from collapsing into the quickly building layer of snow beneath him while simply being on his knees, yet somehow, he had managed to drag himself towards what appeared to be an uprooted tree which through some miracle of nature hadn't shattered upon his impact.

With the last remnants of his strength quickly fading, Tatsumi, at last, reached the tree, the snow now lay an inch thick off the ground, not that there was much Tatsumi could do about it.

What happened next was perhaps yet another miracle of nature as Tatsumi, even with the last vestiges of his strength drained in its entirety, somehow managed to drag himself atop the fallen tree. Dull pain gripped his chest shortly after, however, as his body weight now rested squarely on his chest. Tatsumi knew immediately from the fall how much damage he had received, suffering at least a dozen breakages, 19 complete fractures, 13 incomplete fractures and god knows how much of his body was internally haemorrhaging. The crash itself, however, was a different story entirely. With the sheer amount of pain-numbing any hope of further analysis, not that it could really escalate that much further without killing him outright anyhow and if nothing else, Tatsumi could take some solace in that.

That, and the fact that he wouldn't be suffering for much longer, judging by the way the world dimmed and faded further away with each passing second, and with it, so too did the pain ebb and flow away from him as well.

His vision fading rapidly, Tatsumi took what little time he had left to look up towards the night sky that the once dense, woodlands hid from view, but now lay revealed by the giant crater he himself had created.

It was beautiful, even with his failing eyes the stunning vision of the full moon lying high in the sky and surrounded by stars made all the brighter by his lack of focus began to bring a tear to Tatsumi's eye.

"So there was a bright side to all this, after all," Tatsumi thought to himself as he continued to look up towards the sky. It also meant that he could guess at how long he had been falling for. He was already well into the night, meaning that he had been falling for hours at least since he had waved a teary-eyed farewell to his beloved family and friends before setting off into the cold embrace of the night.

Once again Tatsumi found himself bearing the full weight of his entire village upon his shoulders, except this time he also found the weight of the Empire itself along with it. A number of souls beyond count were all depending on him to make the right choices, to do the right thing all the time, every time. The sheer weight of it all should have been enough to drive Tatsumi insane, but then again, he had already been driven far beyond such trivial things in the past, this time he was simply determined to see it through.

As things stood, there was no room for failure in Tatsumi's heart.

However...

Determination alone simply wouldn't be enough, as Tatsumi so thoroughly realised the instant he found himself unable to control the power flowing through his body. His augmented body combined with the raw power of his armour was just too much, far beyond anything Tatsumi could ever have hoped to compensate for. It simply wasn't possible for a human mind to process the reality of the situation fast enough to adjust.

As such, even the slightest turn or bend in the road had thrown him hopelessly off-course, sending him quite literally flying into - and subsequently through - everything that found itself in his way.

"I think you should count yourself lucky Tatsumi, it's nothing short of a miracle that you didn't break your neck after a stunt like that," Mu said, finally speaking at last, although its voice was quiet and shaky.

It was clear that it was just as taxed as Tatsumi was broken and bleeding, but it wasn't wrong though, considering the scale of the crash itself. It was certainly true that Tatsumi was relatively unharmed, although that was little comfort to Tatsumi, as simply being a blood paste on the forest floor was starting to feel like a blissful escape compared to the agony he was enduring right this second.

Right now, however, it was all Tatsumi could do to simply keep himself from slumping off the toppled tree and collapsing into the cold, blood-stained snow below. It was a good thing too, considering his condition, as with the crippling amount of blood loss and the icy touch of the snow, falling off would be a bonafide death-sentence.

Not that it would really make much of a difference, however, as despite being more powerful than he had ever thought possible, it would mean nothing if something found him in this condition now. He could probably get cut down by just about anything that made its home in the area, although it was rather unlikely that anything would even approach the crater in the first place.

Tatsumi prayed for that to be the case, but there wasn't much else he could do about it if it wasn't. Regardless he quickly dashed that line of thinking and attempted to fill his mind with distractions, eventually landing on weapons, or more specifically: Mu.

While Mu may have been similar in some ways to Incursio, by comparison, Tatsumi considered his new armour to be far stronger. To him, it was an unstoppable torrent of power that never ceased or waned, but it wasn't just a difference in raw power. No, it was so much more, from the combat styles to the weapons, coupled with the ability to alter his body and even the very way it gave him its power. Mu was at once a similar, yet fundamentally different beast.

Mu's armour forced its power onto him, essentially injecting Tatsumi's body with an overwhelming energy that forced him to move and act at levels far beyond his own not-inconsiderable limits. It was a crude but effective method, but certainly one not without its drawbacks, while Incursio, in comparison, simply allowed Tatsumi to draw it out as he wished. It didn't push him beyond his limits unless he forced it to evolve, and like all Teigu, it's strength depended on the user. In short, it was a more elegant weapon, perfectly designed and balanced, while Mu, on the other hand, was far more volatile in its nature, with a single mistake nearly killing him as a result.

"Seems like we still have some work to do before we can really get started saving the world," Mu remarked, but it quickly fell silent again as Tatsumi began coughing up blood from his lungs.

"Perhaps you should take a breather and rest for a bit, even I don't feel too good after all that, so I can only guess how you're feeling right about now with a cracked skull and more than several ribs poking where they shouldn't," Mu advised worriedly as Tatsumi dragged the rest of his body over the top of the fallen tree, his legs and arms hanging limply over the sides.

Tatsumi couldn't have agreed more, or at least he would have if his brain didn't feel like it could escape out through his ears at any given moment. As things stood, Tatsumi could barely register Mu was even speaking, let alone follow what it was saying.

It was all he could do to merely drag himself atop the fallen log, hoping against hope that this condition would wear off and quickly as he watched his blood pooling on the ground. The vision of red spreading across the snow was the last thing he saw before that too was swallowed by the encroaching darkness.

"I'll see if there's anything I can do here in the meantime, perhaps he can..." Mu trailed off as it realised Tatsumi wasn't even able to follow what it was saying, already collapsed on top of the uprooted tree and dead to the world, it may as well have been talking to itself at this point.

"Ah. Sleep well then... Partner," Mu chuckled softly before it began getting to work by fixing up Tatsumi's crippled body as best as it could.

"Just don't go overboard ok?"

Everything had faded to black. The colour of the world reduced to nothing more than an endless expanse of all-consuming darkness, and no matter where Tatsumi turned to look, darkness stared back at him.

"Am- am I dead?" Tatsumi thought out loud, or it would have been if it weren't for the fact that the silence remained unbroken. Indeed, he could no longer hear his own voice, his words absorbed into the empty void surrounding him.

Tatsumi felt adrift. Weightless and alone. Hopelessly lost within an endless ocean of black. He looked about himself again, and towards the rest of his body - which he found he could see clearly despite there being no light whatsoever about him.

Oddly enough he didn't feel dead, but then again he didn't exactly know what being dead felt like, or at least he had no recollection of it, so he couldn't confidently rule it out. The fact that he had fallen unconscious in such a state earlier was also less than reassuring, as he contemplated the idea of whether or not he was, in fact, dead, a very succinct sensation crawled up the back of his neck.

It was at that moment Tatsumi didn't feel alone, and the thought terrified him beyond belief. Everything remained as silent as it had before, but it no longer felt like an empty void surrounded him. In fact, it was something akin to feeling a breeze on a still day, and a faint pressure on one side of his body caught his attention in particular.

Was something trying to speak to him? It didn't feel like wind, it wasn't a constant pressure, but a steadily fluctuating one which rose and fell, indeed it almost felt like...

Laughter?

Was someone laughing?

The very instant that idea crossed his mind Tatsumi felt a sickening lurch in his stomach as if something had just struck him in the chest, followed by the sensation of being dragged downwards to the ground.

The lack of light - or anything at all - made it difficult to tell whether or not he was in fact falling, but the sense of inertia wouldn't cease no matter how much he tried to ignore it. Perhaps what was even more strange, however, was the fact that the inertia was all that Tatsumi could feel. There was no sense of air rushing over him, no whistling of wind in his ears, only the strange pressure on his side and the inertia gripping his body.

What felt like an eternity passed by and still the sense that he was falling remained until suddenly Tatsumi felt his body collide with something solid. It was impossible to guess when he would land in the first place, and the sudden force acting on his unprepared body brought Tatsumi collapsing flat on the ground.

Tatsumi's head was a swimming mess and his chest still hurt like hell, but it was a far cry from anything he was feeling earlier, so Tatsumi took the reduction of pain as a good thing as he rolled over onto his back, the ground beneath turning out to be strangely soft…

It was then that Tatsumi saw it. Instantly, as if he had only just decided to open his eyes, the abyssal sea of black disappeared in a blinding explosion of golden light. Well, not so much an explosion, it was more like the light had been there all along, and it was only now that Tatsumi could see it as if someone had flicked on the light switch in a pitch-black room.

It was enough to make Tatsumi doubt whether or not he had forgotten to just open his eyes.

Surely not, Tatsumi reassured himself, but he couldn't find any other explanation for the sudden change. Did God himself just forget to turn the lights on when Tatsumi came here? Tatsumi quickly cast aside such useless thoughts, as he clearly had other things to worry about, such as where he had just ended up for example.

Thankfully, it didn't take Tatsumi long for his eyes to adjust to the light and immediately moved to study his surroundings, wary of anything that may come his way. He appeared to have arrived in a hall of sorts, one which seemed to beggar belief as it appeared to stretch on forever in a single direction, almost as though there was no end to it.

There didn't seem to be any furnishings to speak of, but the atmosphere itself had a familiar feel to it. Tatsumi knew it well, as the memory had been seared onto his soul.

"Throne room," Tatsumi affirmed confidently as he took in the sights around him.

An unending line of black plate armour filed the walls, they seemed to be standing guard. Each colossus of metal dwarfed any man - even General Budo would seem tiny compared to them - and all bore what would have been great weapons of war, each holding aloft mighty lances bearing a heraldry Tatsumi couldn't recognise, while mighty swords hung low by their sides.

Such titans would have inspired fear and awe in any who saw them if only were it not for their condition. Time had clearly taken its toll on these masterpieces, and there was not a single one which Tatsumi could see that was not as tarnished as it was mighty. Looking upon such ruin, Tatsumi felt something strangely familiar to heartbreak, the vision of such great works falling into disrepair was a tragedy in its own right.

Still, in the end, Tatsumi tore himself away from the empty shells of armour, still standing guard even after centuries of neglect, and took in the rest of his strange new surroundings.

The question of "How the hell did I end up here?" was still at the forefront of his mind, but Tatsumi's curiosity was getting the better of him, and why shouldn't it?

Tatsumi found himself studying the walls and floors, involuntarily taking in every sight that appeared before him, however, all that greeted his vision was ruin and decay, it seemed as though this world had been a glorious vision at one point in time, but now it could be described as little more than a haunting echo of what once was. It reminded Tatsumi of the Empire, in a way, slowly succumbing to decadence and decay as it's very core corrupts and rots away.

The walls and flooring were curious sights indeed and Tatsumi, and for once, found his attention glued to something that was neither female nor made of metal. They had a pattern that seemed to resemble the branches of burnt trees, cracked and blackened by soot and rot, while the spaces between them were lumpy and coated in black grime.

It seemed that the floors were the same, it was as if he were inside some fantasy kingdom of elves and fairies, except it had been sickened and burned to the ground, leaving behind this sad vision before him.

The once grand red carpet at his feet had been blackened by the soot and left to rot, and Tatsumi was quick to step off of the ruined cloth as he found it clinging to his soles, making a revolting tearing sound as he did so.

"And so the golden city was blackened, with each step you took in my halls. Marvel at perfection for it is fleeting, you have brought darkness to the heavens, and doom upon all the world..." A voice echoed through the hall, it sounded pained and strangely muted, as though the speaker was whispering through gritted teeth. Tatsumi whirled around to face the direction of the voice, but the sight that came before him made he wish that he hadn't.

Before him was a man.

A giant of a man, easily dwarfing even the colossal suits of armour lining the walls, was watching him while leaning back into what appeared to be a heavily tarnished golden throne, while his lengthy black hair masked much of his face as it drooped over his body and stopping just below his waist. If it was just that, then perhaps Tatsumi would only be surprised, but unfortunately for him, however, that wasn't all...

An endless torrent of barbed thorns swarmed over the man, many going so far as to bury themselves deep into his ashen flesh and causing the wounds they created to seep some kind of thick, black sap.

The mere sight of someone being ripped to pieces by countless barbed hooks was bad enough, but what made it that much worse was the fact that the poor man seemed completely unfazed by it all. Indeed, the man seemed completely clueless to the fact that his own flesh was being tethered to the ground by countless razor-sharp thorns and branches. He simply sat there watching him with a mixed expression of curiosity and a hint of what felt like disdain. It was as if he was disgusted by the fact that Tatsumi had even appeared here at all, yet had barely any idea as to why he was here either and was simply wondering why.

An uncomfortable silence descended between the two as both continued to study the other, thankfully, however, it did not last for very long, as with a deep sigh the man on the tarnished throne finally spoke.

"Welcome back, Tatsumi! I'll admit, I'm surprised to see you here so soon," he spoke amiably enough, however, Tatsumi could sense an immense irritation hidden behind his friendly tone.

It was as if he wanted to be furious, but something was holding him back, something Tatsumi would almost definitely expect to endure sometime later in the near future with a certain overweight individual. Tatsumi found himself slightly taken aback by the sudden break in the silence, however, his mind apparently being two steps behind everything else, as such it took more than a few seconds before Tatsumi could speak back.

"I've been here? Before?" he asked, obviously confused but attempting to mask it all the same. The ashen giant simply laughed in response, not at Tatsumi, however, neither did it seem to be directed at himself.

"I see. So that's it?" He asked as he stared up at the ceiling above. It was clear that his question wasn't aimed at Tatsumi, which of course just begged the question as to who he was talking to and perhaps more importantly, what he was talking about.

"Uhm... What are you talking about?" Tatsumi asked nervously, wondering exactly why he was so afraid of this thing that sat before him.

Regardless it seemed that he had regained the attention of the creature, which for some reason seemed to flit between feeling human and something else entirely at random. It, or rather, he turned his gaze back down towards Tatsumi below and the shame that came with it almost seemed to burn.

"You wonder why you feel shame," what he said was not a question, "It is because you have come back here, broken and ignorant of your crimes against your own soul, and you ask why?" His face cracked with that last word which just dripped hostility and malice, the veil of hair masking his face doing little to contain the aura of menace emanating from within.

"No, how about I ask you a question Tatsumi? Listen well now, because make no mistake..." The words dripped off the walls rather than from the body in front of him, and with them came a deep sense of unease.

It felt as if everything stood upon a razor's edge, and he was looking down into the abyss below.

"Everything that happens from here on out depends on your answer."

Tatsumi took a breath, awaiting the moment to come. It was all he could do now, that much was obvious. What was not obvious, however, was the question to follow, or the answer.

"What is life?" It asked, the voice barely a whisper amongst the now deafening silence of the halls.

Silence descended over the hall for several long seconds until Tatsumi spoke at last, although he still could not stifle his surprise, "Eh! How the hell am I supposed to answer that!? It's not possible!" He cried in disbelief.

"I could say the same to you," he replied straight back, "how are you not able to answer that question? Because last time I checked, you are alive, for the second time I might add."

"He has a point," Tatsumi thought to himself, "but how does anyone just answer that kind of question? It should be impossible, right?"

"So then why do you have an answer already?" The man asked, interrupting his thoughts and sending shivers down Tatsumi's spine, "I know, because it's the only reason you came back here of all places. You want to be able to use the armour despite knowing what it will do to you, and do you know why?"

Tatsumi didn't speak, or rather more accurately, he couldn't upon finding himself completely unable to reject what it was the man before him was implying. That there was something missing somewhere in his mind, which only sent his mind into overdrive obsessing over everything he could recall so far in search of some hint or clue to help him piece it all together.

In a flash, every event since he fell atop Esdeath's lifeless body, waking up on the road in the middle of the woods near his village, his time in the village with his friends, all of it swarmed into his mind at once. Every thought and every plan quickly followed, all the thngs he knew about his options were boiled down to their base components, eventually leaving only two truths. He still needed to save his village, and he could not join Night Raid, but that only asked the question as to why. Why was it that he couldn't join Night Raid? What made it so impossible for him to do so?

Tatsumi pondered this for the longest, but then the answer came to him, hitting him like a freight train.

"The Armour..." His voice was barely a whisper, an echo of his thoughts if nothing else.

The Armour was the reason, it must have been, there was no other reason for it, but what about it made joining Night Raid so unviable for him? The man in front of him didn't seem to keen on spilling the secret for him, which could only mean he was getting closer right?

"True enough," he said calmly, waiting patiently for Tatrsumi to give him his answer.

"So what is it about the armour that makes it so impossible?" Tatsumi asked tiredly, "It can't be because of my lack of control while wearing it, that's something i can just train for!"

The man just shook his head in response, "We both know that you know that isn't true. You already know why you can't control it, you just can't accept it because you'll have to admit to yourself that you will never have friends in Night Raid again."

Tatsumi shook his head violently in response, "You don't know that! You don't know them! If I can make them understand that I'm after the same things that they are then maybe I can still-" He would have continued but the man cut him off.

"-We both know what they'll think, you might be allies or even co-operative to eachother, but they will never be your friend. You love their greatest enemy after all!" The man laughed, but there was no joy in it, that much was clear.

Perhaps it was due to the lack of happiness in the man's voice, but Tatsumi couldn't bring himself to refute his assumptions. He knew his comrades, they wanted to make the Empire a better place and they were willing to kill and sacrifice themselves to do it. How could someone like that accept someone like himself? Someone who fell in love with the one person who was by far the largest obstacle to their goal.

"Life is cruel... Isn't it?" Tatsumi asked, his voice empty and cold.

"It truly is," the man replied with a deep, accepting sigh before stepping up off his throne and slowly down the steps.

Naturally, the sight was grisly and pure torture to behold, but Tatsumi just couldn't bring himself to care, it simply was what it was. In truth it felt like his own existence was hardly any different, as no matter what decision he could make, it would only serve to tear him apart. In the time it took for the first sound of his feet touching the steps to reach his ears, Tatsumi could already feel the man walking past him. Tatsumi never saw when he passed him, nor could he understand how the man could get behind him despite moving so slowly, but there he was regardless.

"Come with me," he said quietly, continuing his slowly, monotonous pace down the halls behind him.

Tatsumi said nothing, but proceeded to turn around and followed close behind, the man only nodded in response and resumed walking ahead without pause. The two of them continued to walk for quite some time before coming to an abrupt stop. At some point the two of them had turned a corner and had entered into a side passage leading into a small altar room.

The walls were much the same as before, but the floor was different, like it had been paved with cobblestone and engraved with strange symbols, most of which seemed to be centered around the edges of a large, deep basin, a pool of what appeared to be oil. Tatsumi stepped forwards into the strange room and instinctively peered into the pool, it was the only thing in the room after all, inside which seemed to reside some kind of red eel.

"Those aren't eels Tatsumi," the man explained, further reinforcing Tatsumi's belief that he could read his thoughts.

"Then what are they?" Tatsumi didn't bother asking, he didn't particularly care. He was too pre-occupied by the fact that his armour, the very tool he had to create his second chance in the first place, was turning out to be the very thing stopping him from achieving it, although it had not yet been explained exactly why.

"Something you're really going to start hating very soon," he answered with a dark chuckle, "Now step into the pool and we can begin to correct your mindset and your ability to use the armour."

"What's going to happen?" Tatsumi asked warily as he peered in at the strange red tendrils snaking their way around the oily pool.

"Life is cruel Tatsumi," the man explained solemnly, "Even after coming back from the dead your situation has only grown worse. It may have left you with hope, let you see your long lost home, your friends and family, it has given you another chance where none existed.

"But in return it has left you without options, unable to use any teigu other than the one that you cannot hope to master. As I said, life is cruel, but it is not unnecesarily so. It has given us the tools to forge ahead, but in return we will have to extract an even more terrible price from you."

Something was strange. Why was he telling him about this if there was no other option? That was what bothered Tatsumi the most. He could only guess why he wasn't simply ordered to go through with it, was it something to do with how it would affect their relation to eachother?

"More or less," The man answered, "What we are going to have to make you do is tantamount to torture in its most brutal form, you'll probably understand more if you go into this willingly and without hesitation."

Which is why he's being so unnaturally informative? Tatsumi thought to himself. The man nodded and gestured to the pool.

"Step inside when you believe you're ready," he spoke with the look of a doctor waiting on a patient, all the while knowing it was his only option.

Still, Tatsumi couldn't help but hesitate at the waters edge. The tendrils of red seemed to sense his agitation and their movements only grew more frantic with each passing second like sharks smelling blood in the water. Terror gripped at his chest as he stood staring into the depths below him, what horrors would he see in there? What torment awaited him beneath the surface? How much longer would he wait before diving in?

Tatsumi's answer finally came the moment he felt the slight breeze in his face, followed by the surreal rush of oil rushing into his ears, mouth and nose. He had dove in before he knew it. Soon everything had turned to a dark, viscous black before him and Tatsumi was reminded suddenly about the scene which greeted him when he first arrived. The countless wounds revealing blackened flesh and blood. With nothing else on his mind Tatsumi couldn't help but wonder what the reason behind the thorns actually was, and out the blackness a voice emerged. It was distorted but oddly clear at the same time, and felt as though it was coming from various points at once, though Tatsumi rationalised it as being due to being inside the oil.

"Oh... So that's what you saw? I was waiting for you to ask about that... How interesting," The voice replied slowly, it was masculine but utterly inhuman, and it seemed as if he was discerning some hidden meaning behind what Tatsumi saw.

"You must have had a very strong sense of right and wrong before you came here Tatsumi. At least, until your heart was torn from your chest and ripped to pieces before your very eyes..."

Silence soon descended around him, the reverberations of his voice had ceased, and in that single instant Tatsumi's heart had sunk into the deepest recesses of his chest. Upon hearing just those words alone Tatsumi understood what it was he would be facing immediately. Now knowing what was to come, all Tatsumi could hope was that whatever he'll gain from this would be more than worth what was to come, and as the red tendrils began emerging from the shadowy depths Tatsumi could only resign himself, close his eyes and wait, and wait and wait until...

The world flashed into existence.

The Revolution was coming to an end at last!

With every member of its groups either dead or deserting the Empire's most powerful warriors were now out of the picture, and with the Freedom Fighters now equipped with as many Teigu as possible, the imperial forces were now little more than scattered remnants fleeing through the Capital's streets.

That wasn't all, with General Budo having been defeated shortly after Tatsumi's execution, all that remained in the way of Teigu users were the Emperor himself and of course, Esdeath. Neither of which had been seen in the fighting and the fact that the battle maniac of a general being nowhere to be seen was, while an absolute godsend for the war effort, incredibly unnerving.

"What was going on?" Najenda had had that look on her face for a while now as the remaining members of Night Raid carved their way through the remaining palace guards, who at this point were little more than a pathetic last minute resistance.

The same couldn't be said for the rest of the group, however, with Leone and Tatsumi being the most optimistic of them all, while Mine simply continued to argue with them, or Tatsumi to be more specific, the entire way to - and through - the Palace. Even tough Akame was still in assassination mode, there was little doubt that at least half of her concentration was slowly turning to which meat she wanted to eat for dinner later.

In short, none of them were truly taking this seriously despite the fact that Esdeath was nowhere to be seen, though it was also because of this that everyone seemed to relax, even more so now that they reached the final set of doors before the throne room.

Perhaps she had simply moved on to bloodier pastures? Tatsumi hoped this was the case, he certainly wasn't looking forward to facing her, although Najenda had a sort of desperate look on her face. Disappointment?

"Hey, boss! You ok?" Leone called out, stealing the words fom Tatsumi's mouth, it seemed she had picked up on it as well. Najenda simply sighed in response, or perhaps she hadn't heard Leone calling her, Tatsumi couldn't tell which it was but the boss clearly wasn't acting like her usual self.

"B-Boss?" Tatsumi attempted to grab her attention again, something wasn't right.

"Hm? What is it?" Najenda replied suddenly sounding alert, although it could have just as easily been surprise if nothing else.

"You seem to be spacing out, you ok?" Leone cut in before Tatsumi could even get the words out of his mouth.

"I-I'm fine, it's just..." The boss trailed off into silence again.

"You're looking for the beloved General right? She isn't here, if she was we would have seen her by now. You know her best after all, if she wasn't here at the start, she wasn't here at all!" Mine broke the silence and despite herself, she had a point.

Esdeath was far from the kind of woman to run from a fight, if she were here at all, then she would have appeared right from the start.

That being said, however, if she wasn't to be found here, then where else could she be?

That thought sent a chill down Tatsumi's spine, but at the same time, it also sent a pang of warmth through his chest.

"What the hell was that?" Tatsumi spoke out loud thoughtlessly.

"Tatsumi? What was what about?" Najenda asked she was probably concerned that he might have noticed something.

"Ah! It's nothing Boss! It's just... I'm not sure what just came over me. Just-" He explained as best he could, but was interrupted by a mighty crash.

"Enough waiting around! Let's finish this already!"

"Ah," Tatsumi thought, "it was Leone. She must have gotten impatient with all the standing around doing nothing and broke down the door, along with a great deal of the wall around it."

"Well, here we go!" Mine yelled out as she followed Leone through the dust, quickly followed by Akame, who only gave a quick nod before disappearing through the hole in the wall, leaving Najenda and Tatsumi to pick up the pace and join the rest of them in the throne room...

They never stood a chance.

The moment they broke down the doors and flooded into the throne room was the moment all time seemed to stop.

The scene which lay before them was one no-one could have expected. The outcome which Tatsumi - along with most of Night Raid - expected, was one in which they found the Prime Minister cowering behind the throne. There was a little debate over whether or not he could actually fit behind it, but that was the basic idea, and the plan was to beat him half to death before dragging him out to a public execution - probably a stoning or public beating, such were the levels of his countless crimes against the Empire.

The first thing Tatsumi noticed was the fat man's face. It was stained with red, and the Demonic mark had covered the whole of his face, which seemed torn between an ecstatic glee and a mad terror.

Tatsumi didn't have to wait long before finding out what had happened to her. Glancing to the side, he could see her body hung lifelessly beside the throne, while the child Emperor was skewered to it.

Honest - or what remained of him - made the first move, firing an unrelenting barrage of ice spears towards them, but everyone managed to get out of the way. Everyone except Najenda and Tatsumi, who were unable to accept the reality before them and tear themselves away from the almost lifeless body of Esdeath. Before anyone could do anything, the two of them found themselves on the receiving end of the lethal bombardment.

While Tatsumi was able to deflect most of the initial projectiles thrown at the two of them with the use of his halberd, the rain of ice never ceased and through the sheer weight of numbers, he was steadily pushed back as fatigue set in.

The stream of death made it impossible for those who made it out of the way to do anything to help, the only thing they could do was stop it at the source.

The momentary lapse in the river of ice caused by their distraction wasn't anywhere near enough, however, and the fresh shards broke past his guard.

The sound of ice striking metal rang out from behind him, followed by a pained groan. There was little Tatsumi could do to help the general behind him further than what he was already doing.

Out of the corner of his eyes, Tatsumi could see the others making their move at last. They raced forwards towards the possessed Honest.

Mine fired Pumpkin at point-blank range to clear the way, while Leone and Akame simply punched and slashed their way forwards through the ice, ignoring any of the projectiles thrown at them.

Everything they did to clear their way, however, seemed completely pointless before the sheer volumes of ice that Honest had summoned. Pumpkin's blast was met with a wall of ice, while hands of ice appeared from thin air around Akame and Leone, grabbing at their limbs in an effort to slow them down and allow them to be whittled down by the shards like with Tatsumi and Najenda behind them, and all the while a thick blanket of icy mist slowly gathered around the hall.

In short, it wasn't looking good. Honest was more than just holding off the four Teigu users before him, he was dominating them.

The sheer variety of attacks and defences committed to them at once was staggering, not to mention overwhelming, and they only increased in their intensity as time dragged on until...

Silence.

It all ended just like that.

One final move ended it all in an instant, and a maniacal laughter erupted from the centre of it all, a ghastly scream broke out shortly after.

All of it came from the same man.

Akame, Leone and Mine lay scattered about the room, what was left of them anyway.

A thick mass of red pooled the ground where they once stood.

Leone still remained conscious, the regenerative effects of her Teigu preventing her from bleeding out straight away from the countless wounds on what was left of her body. Her wordless expression of agony said far more than her screams ever could, but she wouldn't last much longer.

Meanwhile, Akame and Mine seemed far more fortunate in that regard, having died instantly they had been spared having to endure the pain that followed.

Tatsumi could only stand there, his heart ripped apart. He wouldn't break down though, no, he had come too far to give in to grief. Tatsumi turned back to Najenda who still stood behind him, he needed orders, his heart was too chaotic to make any rational decisions and he knew it.

"Boss? What should we do?" he asked in desperation, but he heard no words in reply.

A brief look back explained her silence.

He was alone. Everyone was dead or dying around him, and the cause of it all was right there in front of him.

Tatsumi charged forwards, howling with the rage and loss in his heart, but then he saw something.

Someone was moving in the corner of his eye.

"Esdeath..." Tatsumi stopped and turned to race towards her.

Why am I doing this? He thought.

Honest was right there, so why didn't he try to kill him? Tatsumi kept moving regardless, however, even as a hail of ice flew towards him.

Tatsumi didn't stop and instead began picking up speed as he raced closer towards the throne.

Tatsumi passed the bodies of his fallen comrades, the raving madman of a Prime Minister, the throne and the bloody corpse of the late Emperor, only barely stopping in order to save the almost lifeless woman before him.

Why was he doing this?

The pain in his chest revealed why...

He had nothing left to lose...

He was already dead...

He was almost out of time...

Both of them were...

Tatsumi could do nothing except watch on as his own final moments played out before his eyes. He stared on in abject horror as he witnessed the light die in his eyes as the Tatsumi before him let out a final, wordless roar that carried with it all of his unspoken hatred, grief and pain. It echoed out into the air before ebbing away into silence, and the world seemed to stand still as Tatsumi saw himself fall lifelessly, like a puppet with its strings cut. That was it. His final moments ended in silence, and everything he ever stood for ended along with him.

Tears ran unbidden from Tatsumi's face at the scene before him, not from witnessing his own death, but at the realisation that all of his past struggles, all of the sacrifices, all of the people who gave up their lives for the cause.

All of it meant nothing in the end...

More notes from you know who:

I think it was around the 2nd attempt at this that I wanted Tatsumi to have a real demoralising experience, at first I thought I should just add in some gore and carnage, but I changed my mind... Again, and again and again until at last I reached the limits of what I wanted and attempted to patch it all together, which coalesced into that botch job that I call chapter 4.4

Another 4 "serious" re-attempts later and here is where I'm at! That's 8 attempts there, 8! Do you know how many times I looked at this in my folder and just thought "Why do I bother with this?" I spent so much time just looking at paragraph after paragraph, word upon word, hating every single second of it! At least, that is until I look at all of the comments, the suggestions and excitement from you guys and I just feel guilty for being so down on myself and preventing you guys from enjoying the story you came here for. I don't know how many chapters I've scrapped getting to where I am now, it's probably well into the twenties I'll be honest, and I don't know how many more it'll have to be either!

But it'll be worth it.

Talk to you later!