Akame Ga Kill - Split The Earth In Two, Quake

Chapter Seven: The Kidnapping

A week has passed since Bulat's death and some have moved past it faster than others. For the moment however, most of the team is in the training yard exercising. Tatsumi, Lubbock and Minazuki are all doing push-ups while Akame, Sheele, and Leone sit on their backs to add to the weight. Sheele is on Lubbock's back and he's completely shirtless and sweaty. Akame is on Tatsumi's back and he's in the same state as Lubbock. Leone is on Minazuki's back, but Minazuki is also wearing his extremely heavy coat without a single sign of sweat coming from him. Even with the additional weight from the coat, Minazuki is still ahead of both Lubbock and Tatsumi in push-ups. "Come on guys! Minazuki's leaving you all in the dust here!", Leone says mockingly as she pats Minazuki's back. "Are we even sure he's human!? He isn't even sweating and he has that jacket on too!", Lubbock shouts as he struggles to lift himself and Sheele all at once. "What kind of training did you go through to be able to do that without breaking a sweat, Minazuki?", Tatsumi asks as he manages to lift himself and Akame. Minazuki switches to using one arm to lift himself while saying, "My mentor was a strong and powerful monk. He taught me all he knew and every training method he ever endured, he pushed me through. These are just the results of that training." "Now you're doing it one handed!!! What even are you!?!", Lubbock shouts before the weight of Sheele is too much for him to bear and he falls on his face. The door to the base suddenly slides open and they see Mine dressed up in her usual pink dress shout, "Anybody here? I need someone to train with!" She sees that everyone seems to already be training and Leone says, "Well, it seems Lub finally gave up, so Sheele should be available, right Sheele?" "N-no I'm not! I can keep going, see!?", Lubbock shouts as he manages to lift Sheele and himself off the ground, but his arms seem to be wobbling. "So you've finally recovered! That's nice to see!", Sheele says with a smile. "What are you guys doing?", Mine asks with a slightly confused look. "We're helping the guys out with their training. Adding a bit of additional weight for their endurance training should help increase their endurance even faster.", Leone explains. "As we all know, Imperial Arms take a lot of mental and physical energy to wield. This training will allow us to use our Imperial Arms for slightly longer.", Minazuki explains as he continues to do his push-ups much faster than Tatsumi and Lubbock. "After equipping Incursio for the first time, I realized that was far more true than I first thought. In order for me to be able to be even half as good as Bro was, I need to train even harder. As I am now, I can't even use its invisibility for a second before it releases.", Tatsumi says as he forces himself to continue on. Mine turns to Lubbock and asks, "What about you Lub? Isn't it a bit unusual for you to be getting this physically active?" "Well, there's one less guy in the group now, so I got to thinking that maybe I should start pushing myself a little harder like Tatsumi is.", Lubbock replies with a slight grin on his face as he starts to match Tatsumi's push-up speed. "That sounds cool and everything, Lub, but even if we add yours and Tatsumi's push-ups together, Minazuki's still blow them out of the water.", Leone says to him mockingly. "I'm more impressed by how he's been able to out pace them even with the major weight differences between them. There's a large difference between Leone's weight and ours.", Akame says as she reads from a book before she's met with a punch to the head from Leone. Through the confusion, Najenda walks into the training yard and says, "Hey, you're all here." Everyone turns to her and sees she has a giant backpack on her back. Everyone greets her and Tatsumi asks, "What's with that getup, Boss?" She sets down the backpack and says, "I'm heading out to the Revolutionary Army HQ. I need to deliver the Imperial Arms we've been finding.", before the Axe Imperial Arm falls out of the bag. "That one's unbelievably heavy, Boss.", Tatsumi says as he points at the axe, but Najenda disregards his warning and simply picks it up with ease as she says, "Ah, I can handle this much at least. See? I wouldn't be able to use it as a weapon, but I can at least carry it without any serious problems." Tatsumi's amazed by her ability to lift such a heavy weapon without any visible effort and asks Lubbock, "was the Boss always this awesome?" Lubbock nods and says, "Isn't it obvious? She's a former General." Najenda turns to Akame and says, "I leave the base in your hands, Akame. Standing orders are 'everyone train,' understood?" Akame simply nods while saying, "Understood.", causing Tatsumi to shout, "Are you really leaving the whimsical one in charge!?" "It's probably for the best. Just look at her other options.", Minazuki says causing Tatsumi to really think about it. "Sheele is a bit of a kluts, Mine's too bossy as is, Lubbock would do something perverted, with Leone no work would get done, and Minazuki and I are too new to be trusted with such responsibility yet.", Tatsumi thinks as he looks at everyone else in the group. Tatsumi sighs and says, "I guess you're right. Akame's probably best suited for the job right now." "Yeah, and she takes her orders pretty seriously, so there won't be any problems there.", Lubbock says with a chuckle at the thought of being in charge. "But, really, the main reason I'm going is to see if we can get a few new members. As we are now, even if we were all to unite our power into a perfect fighting force, we wouldn't stand a chance against Esdeath for a second. We need to prepare for an encounter with her at any moment. Besides that, we lost a strong member and we'll need some extra help replacing that strength he brought to the table.", Najenda explains as she lights herself a cigarette. Tatsumi gets a sad look on his face and says, "I'm sorry... I was, just too weak...." Najenda looks up at him and sighs before saying, "The ones you were put up against, The Three Beasts, they had some of the strongest offensive capabilities in the entire Empire. They were some of the strongest men in Esdeath's personal army. All three of them were eliminated and on top of that, you were able to recover their Imperial Arms. Esdeath's power may have no equal, but her army has taken a major blow due to your actions, Tatsumi. This will do a lot to help the Revolution. Not only did you save all the people on that ship, but you've also save countless Revolutionary Army soldiers by eliminating such a dangerous threat. You're strong Tatsumi. You did well." "..Boss..", Tatsumi says as tears start to well up in his eyes. Leone sighs and says, "I wasn't going to tell you this since I didn't want to make your head any bigger, but Bulat told me something a while back. He said that he believed in you, Tatsumi. That with enough hard work and training that you might be able to one day surpass even him. He seemed to really be looking forward to it too." "Bro...", Tatsumi mumbles to himself as tears continue to well up in his eyes. Najenda tosses the backpack over her mechanical shoulder and says, "Be proud of yourself and live on, Tatsumi. Show Bulat that you can become the kind of man he was looking forward to watching you become." As she walks off on her own, Tatsumi wipes away the tears forming in his eyes before looking to Minazuki and asking, "Minazuki, can you help me train?" Minazuki turns to him and says, "Of course, but it won't be easy. It'll probably be the most agonizing thing you could ever imagine." Akame tossed Tatsumi one of the practice swords as Minazuki took his usual fighting stance. "You aren't going to be using a weapon?", Lubbock asks. "I don't need a weapon.", Minazuki replies as he charges at Tatsumi. Tatsumi tries to defend himself, but Minazuki just knocks the sword out of his hands and forces him into hand-to-hand combat. With each hit, Tatsumi's movements start to get slower. After three to four hits, Minazuki just walks up to Tatsumi and flicks him on the forehead, causing him to fall to his knees from fatigue. "W-what the hell was that?", Tatsumi says as he gasps for air. "That's the amount of agility you should have after undergoing this training I'm about to put you through. My master put me through many trials to increase my agility, endurance, strength, awareness, and many other things. I'll put you through one of these trials and see how you do.", Minazuki replies as he holds out a hand to help Tatsumi up. "Amazing! That's about Akame's level of agility!", Sheele says with a mesmerized look on her face. "So, what do you say Tatsumi? Do you think you can handle my methods for such a reward?", Minazuki asks as he takes off his mask to be able to breath a little easier. Tatsumi thinks for a moment about how strong Bulat was and how powerful Minazuki seems before looking up to him with determination burning in his eyes and saying, "I'll do it!" He takes Minazuki's hand and Minazuki smiles before saying, "Perfect. Let's get started right away then." He takes off his jacket and places it on Tatsumi before saying, "You'll be training with this on by the way." "What!?", Tatsumi shouts as he's almost crushed by the unexpected weight increase. "Trust me, it's worth it.", Minazuki says as he returns the mask to his face. "Well, it was nice knowing you, Tatsumi.", Lubbock says as he puts his shirt on and heads back inside. Everyone starts to leave, except for Akame who looks to Tatsumi and says, "You can do it Tatsumi, I have faith in you." Tatsumi manages to get a stable footing with the jacket on his back before saying, "Alright, I think I've got a hang of this. Now what?" "Good, now just walk around for a moment. Get a feel for the added weight of the world on your shoulders.", Minazuki says as he motions for Tatsumi to move around. Tatsumi remains on guard as he starts to walk around in the jacket, still trying to get one hundred percent used to the added weight. Minazuki reaches into the left jacket pocket and pulls out Shoryu's journal before saying, "Alright, now that you've gotten a hold of how to walk now, let's go for a bit of hand-to-hand sparring. I'll keep one hand on this book and fight you with the other. Don't forget to give it all you got." He opens the book with one hand and starts to read from it as he waits for Tatsumi to make the first move. A grin forms across Tatsumi's face as he says, "You're underestimating me Minazuki! You shouldn't leave so many openings!" He rushes at Minazuki with all his might and throws a plethra of punches, which Minazuki easily deflects and dodges with just one hand without even looking at Tatsumi. Tatsumi goes for a leg sweep, but Minazuki jumps over it and Tatsumi at the same time, landing behind him. Minazuki finishes reading the entry he was on and flips to the next page to see the same symbol he saw on Esdeath's chest as the picture for one of the Imperial Arms. There isn't a name for the Imperial Arm, but instead just question marks. The entry reads: "??? Blood Type Imperial Arm. Abilities: Allows the user to create and manipulate ice at will. Trump Card: Unknown. Side Notes: This Imperial Arm is one that I have not seen in action yet. I have seen the Imperial Arm, but all who try to use it end up being driven mad with its power and die within an hour of ingestion. According to the Great Emperor however, the abilities I've listed are what it is intended to allow the user to do, meaning that it's possible that it can do even more than that if the user is strong and cunning enough to find new ways to use it." Minazuki continues to easily block Tatsumi's attacks as he reads on about how this Imperial Arm works and what drawbacks it may have. "It's possible that this Imperial Arm drove her mad with its power and now, because of her strong will, she's just barely staying alive. No, I sensed her murderous intent. She isn't mad, she's just a monster, and that's probably why this Imperial Arm didn't reject her. Because their personality types matched up perfectly.", Minazuki thinks to himself as he senses an opening in Tatsumi's defenses. He throws a seemingly random punch at Tatsumi which lands perfectly in his gut, stopping him dead in his tracks. "You shouldn't leave the tiniest of openings, Tatsumi. They'll be your downfall.", Minazuki says as he pulls his fist back and Tatsumi drops to his knees. As Tatsumi gasps for air, Minazuki sighs and says, "You have potential, but you need to understand that fights are more than just being on the offensive." To Minazuki's amazement, Tatsumi actually gets back up to his feet and throws another punch, which Minazuki catches. "I won't stop.", Tatsumi says as he pulls back his other hand and throws another punch, which Minazuki also catches. "I'm just getting started!", Tatsumi shouts as he pulls his head back and headbutts Minazuki with all his strength. Minazuki staggers back thinking, "Now wasn't that just resourceful. I guess I was the one underestimating him." "If the Boss and Bro believe in me that much, then I have to live up to their expectations and get even stronger!", Tatsumi shouts as he rushes at Minazuki again, this time with more precise and agile punches. Minazuki manages to deflect them as he's pushed back by Tatsumi's approach. "That's the spirit Tatsumi! Keep that spirit burning!", Minazuki says as he continues to deflect his attacks. They continue to train like this for about a week and thanks to that time, Tatsumi becomes an expert at hand-to-hand combat.