Pre-Story A/N: This story will be using the English-translations for each names which were provided by Akame ga Kill's creator. Also, for anyone who hasn't read the manga, this story begins around Chapter Fifteen and will continue on from there. I highly recommend you read it, as it has become my number one manga after I read only the first thirty chapters, and my love for it only continues to grow each day.

Chapter 1

"Hello there," a blonde man came up and greeted the tournament's registry desk clerk. "Is this where I put my name down to kick all those other guys' asses?"

"Not anymore," the gruff man grunted. He continued gathering his materials and informed the stranger, "Tournament's full now, and registration ended half-an-hour ago. Too late and bad luck."

The man's lone-visible blue eye blinked in shock. I'm too late? he thought. He then asked, "You're certain there's no way to get me in?"

The register's beady black eyes scanned down to the man's fat coin purse on his hip and flashed with greed. The small, toad-like man offered him, "Well, there might be one way…"

The blonde's lone-visible eye nearly rolled in exasperation as he recalled, Of course. This is the Capital after all. Honest destroyed what little honor was left when he took over nine years ago. He then leaned onto the desk with one arm and his voice took the tone he'd used far too many times for him to bother counting, "Why, a hard-working man like yourself must have a family at home to feed, yes?"

"I do, indeed," the other man nodded, attempting and failing miserably at trying to sound innocent. "And on my meager, government salary it's so hard to keep the wife happy and the kids fed."

"I find women are generally like that," the blue-eyed, hooded man nodded as if he were a companion understanding another's plight. "It's why I decided against ever settling down in the first place; too much nagging for my tastes."

"My dear Scarlet does complain, but with good reason at times," the greedy little fucker returned. "But if there were, perhaps, a generous soul willing to help a poor man out by sparing a little spare money, why then I might just feel indebted to them and be willing to help them out for whatever they wanted."

Yeah, right, the man mentally snarked, but didn't allow any outward signs to show his thoughts to the other man. "Would –"

"You!" a voice the hooded man immediately recognized, for he could never forget it no matter how much he tried. "Do you have the roster ready for me yet!?"

Both the greedy little man and the stranger turned towards the newest voice. Esdeath, the man thought to himself with his chest hurting. It took all of his willpower to not reach underneath his lengthy bangs to touch his scar.

"Y-Y-Yes, Lady Esdeath," the register stuttered out in copious amounts of fear. "I-It's right here!" he squeaked and shakily held out a sheet of paper to the beautiful General.

"It's about time," she sneered at the pathetic, sweating man. The aquamarine-haired woman turned towards him and asked, "Are you a competitor?"

"N-N-No, Lady Esdeath," the small man answered quickly before the stranger could. "T-This ruffian was attempting to bribe his way into your competition!"

One of the beauty's eyebrows arched in curiosity at him and she asked simply, "Why?"

"Why, to impress the greatest in the land, General Esdeath," the blonde told her while bowing respectfully in order to hide his face. He then continued with his voice staying altered with practiced ease, "Tales of your beauty and strength leave a lowly traveler like myself in awe of your very presence. Why would I not wish to impress someone as graceful as you?"

"Flattery; how crude," Esdeath snorted in derision. She then offered him with a vicious grin, "If you're so eager to earn favor then why not do so directly?"

"Oh, I could never hope to defeat you, General Esdeath," he backpedaled quickly and held his hands out in surrender – coincidently blocking her direct line-of-sight to his face. "Surely I wouldn't even be able to amount to much of a challenge to you, the strongest woman in all of the Empire."

She frowned in dissatisfaction, "Hmm. You're most-likely correct." The woman then looked at the roster in her hand and informed him, "The contest's contestant block has reached its limit, and that means that no other may compete unless another withdraws. You'll need to show up sooner next time if you wish to fight in something like this."

"Of course," he nodded low, a few strands of his blonde locks falling out of his shadowed face and into the sunlight.

"Something feels odd though," Esdeath commented idly as she began to walk away. She suddenly stopped and queried without turning, "Have I ever met you on the battlefield before?"

"If we had, then why would I still be alive?" the stranger wryly grinned from beneath his hood.

The woman's lips twitched upwards and she agreed, "Indeed." She then took her leave and disappeared behind a doorway and up the stairs to her seat.

The hooded man ignored the shivering man behind the makeshift desk and began to walk towards the tournament's stands. If I can't partake, then I might as well see if there's anyone worth fighting out here anymore aside from Esdeath and Budo, he thought to himself while he walked slowly.

He traveled around the arena until he was sitting directly opposite the V.I.P. Spectator's Box, where Esdeath and one other sat. Not seeing any open seats, he decided to simply stand atop the stands and observe the soon-to-come bouts.

After scanning the crowd of participants and finding precious little to impress him, his cerulean gaze went back towards the aquamarine-haired full-grown woman and her company – an orange-haired young woman with a dog-like thing on a leash bouncing around the Box. That must be this Seryu, he calculated calmly. If rumors be true, then that dog is her Teigu and she took on two members of Night Raid at once, and she even managed to kill one. As expected of you, Esdeath, the man grinned knowingly. Only the best around you.

Not fearing his possible discovery in the slightest, he reached one of his tanned hands up and pulled his dark hood back, revealing his face to the Imperial World once more.

The man had long, spiky-blonde hair that grew long over the left side of his face, covering an extended, diagonal scar that a gust of wind flashed glimpses of. His bright, cerulean eyes shone with a mixture of mischief and jaded intelligence the type one could only receive from the full mixture of experiences he'd had in his years on this world. A thin layer of facial makeup, nigh undetectable unless you knew it was there beforehand, covered his six whisker-like birthmarks which prevented anyone from recognizing him from his long-defunct 'Wanted' posters.

"Excuse me," a small voice tore his gaze from the General across the way and down to a small girl and her younger brother. "Do you mind if my brother and I stand here with you, Mister?"

The disguised former fugitive smiled kindly to the pair and nodded, "It's not a problem, little ones. What's your names?"

The brother – who could not have been older than five at the most – ducked behind his cloak quickly and the girl responded, "I'm Jenny, and he's Lenny."

Not even looking away or losing his congenial smile, the man gripped the boy's arm before it could reach his coin purse. He then grabbed the stunned girl and scolded them both while holding the two siblings off of the ground and in front of him, "Now, now, if you're going to try and pickpocket someone you should do a better job of scouting your targets out, Jenny. For instance," he put them down and nodded his head towards a drunken Noble whose guards weren't paying attention at all, "take Ol' Fatso over there. He wouldn't miss a few hundred pieces of gold."

The brown-haired boy stopped his squirming in his hand and looked at the man in awe. "Really?" Lenny asked. "My 'nee-san and I never get that much."

"Really," the man told him with a confident nod. He let the pair down and began to instruct again, "Now, the art of being a good pickpocket is teamwork in you guys' case. Usually, one should distract while the other sneaks in and grabs the loot. Lucky for you, though," he grinned, "I'm already on that."

It was right then that a patron of the arena suddenly shot straight up from his seat right in front of the Noble's and accidently sent his drink flying directly into the fat man's red face. The large excuse for a man sputtered indignantly at being forced to experience such a disgrace and immediately called for the man's head as penance. His guards were immediately in action and chased the seemingly terrified man out of the stadium and back into the city.

While everyone's eyes were transfixed on the scene as it played out, an unseen young female snuck up the stairs and came to meet with the odd trio standing atop the crowd. "Here you go, Boss," the teenage girl greeted and tossed the man a fat purse that jingled with all its gold. "Fat-ass didn't even feel it he was so pissed off."

"Good work," he grinned at her. The man looked down at the shocked pair of siblings and told them, "You see? That's how it's done."

"But that man's gonna d-d-die!" the girl protested vehemently.

"Nah," the man dismissed her concerns with a lazy swipe of his hand. "He's a little like me; he'll get away just fine. I know him pretty well."

"I'll say," the accomplice mumbled under her breath, but wasn't unheard by the man. "'A little like me,' he says."

The blonde man opened the stolen purse and let out a low whistle, impressed, once he saw the fruits of his rather easy labor first-hand. Gotta be at least three-hundred in here, he noted. He then reached in, removed a handful of coins as a finder's fee, tied it back up, and gave the velvet purse to the sister. "Take care and hide all of this, okay? Only use it to buy food for yourselves. Never carry more than you need. People will be on the lookout for little kids like you carrying around this kind of cash. It should keep you both fed for a few years if you're careful and don't let anyone know. Got all that?" he asked with a serious look.

The girl gave him a steely nod once she shook her head of her awestruck look and replied, "I do, and we'll be careful. Lenny and me only got each other. We don't trust nobody here. Mommy and Daddy did, and now they're gone for good. I won't lose Lenny too."

A soft smile coated the man's features and he told her, "You're a good sister, Jenny. Take good care of your little brother," he ruffled her hair affectionately.

"I will!" she chirped with a bright smile and a nod. Jenny then turned and began to leave, but stopped when she realized that her brother wasn't following like he was supposed to. "Lenny, let's go!"

Lenny ignored her and just stared up at the tall man's half-hidden face. After another moment he finally asked, "What's your name, Mister? You know ours so isn't it fair if we know yours?"

The teenaged woman present looked at the 'Boss' with a sharp look, but that proved to be entirely useless when he told the boy, "You can call me Naruto. Naruto Uzumaki."

"Na-ru-to," the boy tried out the name. He cheekily grinned up at him and informed the man, "You've got a funny name, Mister."

"Yes, yes, I know," Naruto chuckled. "Blame my mother." He then gently pushed the boy towards his sibling and reiterated, "You help your sister out now too. Don't let her just take care of you, you help take care of her, you got that?"

The pair of small children thanked him and then took their leave from the stadium right as the first round of the tournament came to a close. The girl who'd brought up the gold glared at him and berated his decision, "You really shouldn't have told them our real name, Boss."

"That's not for you to decide," the blonde man reminded her sharply. He then shrugged uncaringly and responded, "Besides, it was only a matter of time before news that I'm still kicking gets around; though nobody knows me as Uzumaki."

"You know full well that she will put it all together though," the woman reminded him. "We got off easy when she didn't recognize you earlier, but we won't be so lucky next time."

"And here I thought my clones were supposed to be on my side," Naruto whined rhetorically. "Tell me, did it ever click inside your thick noggin' that she no-doubt already suspects. Hell, she's probably known I didn't actually die two years ago!" He quickly cut off the woman before she could attempt to protest again, "Look, it's my choice who I tell, not yours. Just tell me what all you've found out since the last check-in."

The woman crossed her arms in a huff before saying, "Not much more. Kurome is a Jaeger for certain – that much we confirmed with our own eyes this time. Akame, though, is much harder to locate. She definitely learned well."

Naruto pulled out a 'Wanted' poster and his lone-visible eye softened as the image of a dark-haired teenage woman greeted him. "Yeah," he agreed wistfully, a mixture of pride and affection welling up inside his chest. He rolled the piece of parchment back up and put it away while saying, "Yeah, she did. But I can't help but wonder about this 'Night Raid' group I keep hearing about; even Najenda's in it if the 'Wanted' posters are anything to go by."

"She's the leader, according to the guardsmen," the girl corrected, making the man blink in shock. She then further explained, "Night Raid, as they're called, is a group of assassins whom target the wealthy and important Imperial personnel."

"Translation: They kill the corrupt and the trash in the Capital," the blonde man concluded. "Anything else?"

"Yes. They apparently have close ties with the Revolutionary Army."

"I figured that," he deadpanned back. "You know, what-with Najenda supposedly being the leader and all."

"Then there's not much else as of yet," she shrugged back. "Well, nothing concrete at least. Some rumors have Night Raid's numbers as large as twenty while others have it as low as five. Personally, I think it's around eight."

"A good estimate," the man nodded sagely. "I'd heard that each of these 'assassins' carry a Teigu, so ten would be the absolute limit – you don't want to risk losing all the Teigu at once if their base should ever be pinpointed. Anything else worth mentioning?"

"Nothing at all," the young woman answered him. "Any new orders?"

"Get more info on the rest of these Jaegers first," he ordered after a minute of thought. "If Najenda's really the leader of this 'Night Raid,' then we'll be lucky to find anything else on them without first encountering one of their members."

"Roger," the transformed clone saluted in acceptance and then disappeared with the breeze.

The blonde man shook his head and murmured, "I really do have too big of an ego for my own good. Really? Right here? Right in plain sight; where Esdeath can see it ?"

His half-covered face then rose and found the startlingly blue eyes of the beautiful General staring directly at him, as though she were calculating his risk potential and determining if he would be a worthy opponent to break. The blonde gave her his trademark cheeky grin and returned to watching the tournament below, which had somehow made it all the way to the final match in the meantime.

Damn that was fast, he noted absently. "So who's left?" he wondered as he looked down into the ring. "Let's see, a disgraced martial arts master and some blacksmith apprentice." He chuckled in amusement and idly commented, "Well that's a cover story if I've ever seen one. No simple apprentice would make it all the way to this thing's finals, and I can tell from the look in his eyes that he's much more than he seems; that kid's a warrior, and you're a fool if you don't believe it."

Listening to the announcement of the competitors, the kid's name was Tatsumi. The young man seemed to be in his late teens, around the age Akame should be by Naruto's estimate, and stood at just above an average height. The boy's frame was lean and muscular, which spoke of serious training in the art of the blade, and his stance spoke of complete and absolute confidence in the face of his undaunted opponent.

However, it was the look in his bright green eyes that gave the experienced warrior in the stands his certainty of Tatsumi's coming victory; Tatsumi's eyes were hardened through heart-wrenching agony and revealed to anyone who could see it that his pain had only solidified his determination. Those cold eyes made the blonde man grin and begin to respect the kid's potential.

I know how it feels, Naruto mentally communicated, to lose someone you care about. His gaze panned across the arena and he finished aloud, "I know that pain more than you could ever know, kid."

Naruto then leaned back against the railing and watched as the final tournament bout played out. He couldn't help but viciously grin while Tatsumi easily dodged his arrogant foe's blows and lulled the disgraced Master into complacency. It was after a few minutes then that, in the blink of an eye, the monstrous opponent was sent careening across the arena and crashed into the wall, unmoving upon the ground.

"I like this guy already," the blonde thought out loud with a feral smile. "After this whole thing's over, I'm gonna ask for a spar; he's got a Teigu, I can just feel it in my gut. I wonder which one though."

The boy below had a happy grin on his face as the entire attending audience applauded his great, seemingly unexpected victory. However, both he and Naruto froze solid when they saw Esdeath herself walking down from her Box towards the arena, and the entire building went as quiet as death the second her booted heel struck the concrete ring.

She slowly strutted across the battleground, making Naruto extremely curious as to why she would do such an out of character thing. It's not like her at all to personally congratulate someone not under her command. Does she intend to demand him to Enlist under her?

However, instead of the expected congratulations, Esdeath pulled a collar out from her General's Coat and put it over Tatsumi's neck before anyone could react. "You're mine," she declared simply and then dragged the boy off with red staining her cheeks.

Naruto face-faulted onto the ground and angrily thought, What the hell!? I try for three goddamn years and don't ever get her to admit her feelings, yet he just has to win a single fucking tourney she decides to throw!? "Ugh! It's too unfair! Why does he have to get her!?"

"I know!" another angry voice shouted out in agreement from within the arena's stands. "Why does Tatsumi always get the girls!?"

"Oh, shut up, Lubbock!" a woman's yell rang out, followed by a cry of pain.

"Ow! What the hell was that for, Leone!?"

"For being an imbecile! We've got more important issues to be worrying about!"

"What could possibly be more important than this!?" Naruto screamed.

Leone then shouted back at him, "You shut it too, whoever you are! All you're gonna' do is just make it worse!"

A/N: Well, here's this new child of mine for everyone. This idea popped up one day last week and I managed to create this chapter and a decent outline in just a few days of work, so I figured I'd go ahead and test the waters.

Naruto's presence alters many things. I hope you all will be willing to enjoy the story with me as I traverse arguably the darkest story I think I'll ever write.