One name.
It was only one name that came from her mouth as a faint whisper, yet in the sudden silence on the balcony, its echo felt louder than a dragon's roar. "…Tatsumi?"
Hearing Akame say my old name—a name that shouldn't exist in this world, a name tied to the soul of Incursio—hit me with incredible force. In that moment, the resonance between us exploded. This was no longer just an echo or a heartbeat. It was a flood. My mind was assaulted by flashes that were not my own. I saw a dense forest from a hunter's perspective. I felt the cold steel in my hands as I trained until my fingers bled. I felt a piercing grief at the sight of a falling, yellow-haired friend with a lion's shield. I tasted delicious roasted meat after a successful mission. I felt the weight of a cursed sword on my back. I felt Akame's life—her pain, her loss, her cold determination.
At the same time, I knew she was feeling it too. She must have seen flashes of my old world: the lights of a modern city, a computer screen, the monotonous feeling of an office job, and then, a brief flash of a truck before darkness. She felt my confusion, my shock, and the burden of my knowledge of this world as a work of fiction. For a few, eternal seconds, we were no longer just two people facing each other; we were two lost souls accidentally showing each other the shattered maps of our lives.
"It's been a long time, Akame," was all I could say, my voice hoarse with emotion and exhaustion.
That strange tranquility was broken by a roar from below. "WHATEVER SPELL YOU'VE PUT HIM UNDER, KILLER, STOP IT NOW!"
Ryukyu had landed in the main hall, her dragon form too large to get back to the balcony quickly. She saw the two of us in a tense silence, and from her perspective, it must have looked like I had fallen under some kind of brainwashing Quirk. Nejire shot down, landing between Ryukyu and the balcony, ready to launch an attack.
Seeing the renewed threat, Akame's discipline, forged over two lifetimes, took over. The look of shock on her face hardened back into the mask of a soldier. "We can't talk here," she said to me, her voice once again cold and urgent, though her eyes still held a storm of confusion. "We have to go."
She moved, grabbing my weak arm. Her intention was clear: she was going to take me with her, away from these heroes, to get answers.
"DON'T TOUCH HIM!" Nejire yelled.
A massive wave of spiral energy, a Nejire Flood, shot toward us, aiming to separate us and incapacitate Akame. Ryukyu, from below, prepared to charge. We were trapped.
Akame reacted with inhuman speed. She pulled me, using my body as a momentary shield from Nejire's energy, while throwing herself backward, away from the edge of the balcony. Her movements were so fluid and efficient, even while dragging my dead weight. She didn't try to fight the force directly; she used it, letting the shockwave from Nejire's attack hitting the floor push us deeper into the dark and chaotic ballroom.
"She's got Tatsumi!" Uraraka reported frantically over the comms from the floor below.
"PURSUE THEM!" Ryukyu commanded.
The scene that followed was an impossible escape. Akame, while pulling a half-conscious me, moved across the ruined ballroom like a phantom. She ran along walls, leaped from overturned tables to marble pillars, all while avoiding sporadic energy blasts from Nejire and Ryukyu's attempts to corner her.
I wasn't a complete burden. Though my body screamed, I tried to help. "She's to the left!" I yelled when I saw Nejire preparing an attack from Akame's blind side. "Use the rubble for cover!"
Akame, without hesitation, followed my direction, pulling us behind a ruined statue just as a wave of energy slammed into where we had been seconds before. For a moment, we worked together, an impossible team from two different worlds.
We had almost reached the other side of the hall when Ryukyu finally managed to cut us off. She landed before us, her giant dragon form blocking the exit, her golden eyes blazing with fury. "Enough," she growled. She opened her mouth, blue fire beginning to gather in her throat.
We couldn't dodge. There was nowhere to run.
Akame looked at the forming dragon fire, then looked at me. In her eyes, I saw a cold decision. She wouldn't be able to escape while carrying me. But then, she saw something in my eyes. An idea. A trust.
"Armor!" she commanded, her voice sharp and authoritative, the same tone the leaders of Night Raid once used.
That command, spoken in a voice so familiar from my memories, triggered something in me. I had no energy for a full manifestation. But maybe... maybe enough for one part. I focused the last dregs of my will, feeling my dragon's heartbeat respond to my desperate call. With a pained groan, I felt Incursio's chest plate forcibly materialize over my torn uniform.
It was all I could do. But for Akame, it was enough.
As Ryukyu unleashed her torrent of fire, Akame didn't try to dodge. She did the unthinkable. She spun around, placing my now-armored back directly in the path of the flames. She was using me as a shield.
The incredible heat slammed into us. I could feel my armor absorbing most of the fire's energy, just like against Todoroki, but Ryukyu's flames were far purer and more powerful. Some of the heat still broke through, feeling like it was scorching my skin. The impact of the blast threw us both violently backward, crashing through the thick glass wall behind us.
The glass shattered into a million pieces, and we tumbled out of the building, landing hard on a lower roof several floors below. I landed with a painful thud, the armor on my chest shattering into particles of light, and my consciousness began to fade.
I lay on the cold rooftop, the police sirens now sounding deafeningly close below us. We were still surrounded. Akame quickly got to her feet, seeming largely unharmed. She looked down at me, lying helpless.
"You're... really..." she whispered, still unable to fully believe what had happened.
"I don't know how," I replied, each word an effort. "I just... woke up here. I guess… just like you."
She looked down at the streets filled with flashing police lights, then back at me. I could see the struggle in her eyes. Leaving me here felt like a betrayal of everything she had ever fought for with her Tatsumi.
"I have to go," she said, her voice filled with regret. "They can't capture me. Or you. Your secret will be safer if I'm not here."
"Go," I whispered. "I'll be fine."
She knelt beside me for a moment. "I will find you again," she said, not as a threat, but as a promise. "I need more answers."
Before I could reply, she pressed something small and cool into my hand, closing my fingers around it. Then, as quickly as she had come, she leaped from the edge of the roof and disappeared into the labyrinth of the city's dark alleys, a ghost returning to the night.
I was left alone on the cold roof, the sound of Ryukyu's furious roar and Nejire's panicked shouts coming from above as they realized where I was. Slowly, with the last of my strength, I opened my palm. Lying there was a small, finely carved wooden token, shaped like a single cherry blossom. A marker from the Yozakura Clan.
This insane night felt like a long fever dream. But this small object in my hand was the proof. It was real. All of it was real. I gripped the wooden token as the first light of dawn began to color the eastern sky, the pain and exhaustion finally pulling me into an unavoidable darkness.