Slash · Sister

Splash~

Tatsumi traced an arc through the air and fell into the water.

Tatsumi hit the water with a splash, then vanished from sight.

"Trying to run!?"

Lilith's eyes lit up. Rather than being alarmed, she was delighted.

She had been worrying over how to let him go without him noticing, but she had not expected the kid to be so cooperative.

She had nearly been fooled by Tatsumi's look of wanting to avenge his big brother, as if anger and hatred had clouded his mind.

Tatsumi's youthful appearance really was quite deceptive.

Lilith walked to the side of the ship and looked down at the rippling river, wondering whether it would be inappropriate to let him escape so easily.

Then Lilith lightly pressed both hands down through the air.

Rumble~

An explosive boom rang beside the Three Beasts' ears. Like the sky itself had collapsed, a colossal column of water rose into the air, blocking their entire view.

At that moment, aside from the Dragon Ship they were riding, which was supported from below by a pillar of water, all the water within several hundred meters around them was lifted into the air, and then...

It came crashing down!

An even more violent explosion rang in their ears.

For a moment, their ears rang.

For an instant, they all thought they had gone deaf.

The enormous volume of river water crashed down, churning up the entire riverbank and threatening to whip up huge waves, but Lilith effortlessly suppressed them.

Only then did the corpses of aquatic creatures such as dead fish and rotten shrimp slowly float to the surface of the river Lilith had forced calm.

Without exception, none of those corpses had intact bodies.

"Lady Lilith is actually this powerful!?"

Until now, Lilith had always controlled droplets of water or water blades to attack her enemies. They had never seen an enemy survive Lilith's water droplets and water blades.

But this was the first time they had seen Lilith control so much water at once. And judging by her appearance, she was not even straining in the slightest. She made it look so effortless.

The water droplets and the massive wall of water dozens of meters high from earlier—the impact those two things had on them could not be summed up so simply.

Looking at the water surface she had forcibly calmed, Lilith waited for a long time, but she did not see anything resembling a human corpse float up.

Judging by Incursio's defense, it should be able to withstand an attack of this level... right?

In the end, Lilith decided to trust Tatsumi's protagonist's luck. Since his corpse had not floated up immediately, that meant he was still alive.

"Take this corpse with us. We can head back now."

"Lady..."

Just as Lilith was about to use the current to push the ship toward the shore, Liva looked as though he had something to say.

Lilith looked at Liva in silence, her expression cold.

"It's like this, Lady Lilith. This Night Raid assassin has some connection to me. Could you spare him an intact corpse for my sake?"

Liva bowed to Lilith. With a patter, sweat dripped from his face onto the deck.

"You should be saying that to Esdeath, but..."

Lilith's words made Liva tense up, but her latter half delighted him.

"Given Esdeath's personality, she will not care about such trivial matters. It is only a corpse, after all."

"Thank you, Lady."

Liva expressed his gratitude to Lilith.

Although Lilith had mentioned Esdeath, Bulat had been killed by Lilith, so his corpse rightfully belonged to Lilith. Given Esdeath's personality, she would not touch Lilith's spoils of war.

And Lilith's words had tacitly permitted it.

That made Liva breathe a sigh of relief.

Looking at the large chunk missing from Bulat's shoulder, through which he could even see Bulat's internal organs, Liva sighed.

"Bulat, this is all I can do for you."

His feelings toward Bulat were extremely complicated.

Once, Bulat had been his subordinate, but he had also been a comrade who fought at his side.

They had shared a friendship forged in life-and-death battles.

But after he had been framed by the Minister and thrown into prison, Bulat had also defected from the Empire.

He had never expected that when they met again, they would already be enemies.

It was not as if he had never considered persuading Bulat to surrender, but knowing Bulat as he did, he understood that nothing he said would matter. In the end, all he could do was helplessly watch him die at Lady Lilith's hands.

The ship began to move.

The current pushed the ship forward.

The Three Beasts had long since stopped finding such things strange.

They had seen things far more outrageous than this. What was there to be surprised about?

During the time it took the ship to approach the shore, Liva found some needles and thread aboard.

Though the needle was the thick kind used for sewing burlap sacks, there was no need to be too particular when stitching up a corpse. Bulat himself probably would not have minded.

As for Nyau and Daidas, the two exchanged a glance.

Come to think of it, they had come to assassinate the civil officials. So, were they still going to kill those officials now?

They looked at Lilith, who stood at the bow and pushed the Dragon Ship toward the shore, then at Liva, who was sewing up the corpse.

Yeah, the two of them should probably go into the cabin and get something to eat.

Liva quickly sewed Bulat's arm back on, then closed his still-open eyes.

Liva knew Bulat had died with his eyes open because he was worried about the young man who had been with him.

"Lady Lilith, do you think that young man is still alive?"

It was not just Lilith. Liva, Nyau, and Daidas had all noticed that the young man's body had not appeared on the water's surface.

That meant there was a very good chance that he was still alive.

The reason Nyau and Daidas had not dared ask Lilith whether they were still going to kill the civil officials was that they feared provoking her anger and becoming the targets of her wrath.

Liva had only forced himself to ask the question.

"Since his body didn't appear, that means Incursio blocked my attack."

The anticipated fury never came. It was as though Tatsumi's failure to die at her hands—his escape from her grasp—was not worth mentioning at all.

Liva frowned.

Such a terrifying attack had failed to kill him. And the first time he summoned an Imperial Arm, it had produced such a terrifying phenomenon. That young man would likely become a formidable enemy!

Liva's words suddenly reminded Lilith, who was still pushing the ship, of something.

Akame ga Kill! seemed to have another nickname: Girl Killer.

In the early stages, the girls died one after another, and then the members of the protagonist's group also died one after another.

In the end, just when people thought Tatsumi was the protagonist and surely would not die, he died too.

By the very end, only Akame, the protagonist, was still alive.

That left Lilith somewhat uncertain whether Tatsumi was truly alive, because the protagonist's plot armor did not seem all that powerful!