"Now answer mine," Akame said. "What is the meaning of life?"
The words struck Kazuo with no warning — too large, too sudden, too absurd for the moment. The meaning… of life? His thoughts scattered. Of all things Akame could have asked, this was the last he ever expected to hear.
His mouth opened, but nothing solid formed — only fragments that felt hollow the moment they surfaced.
"I… I don't have an answer to that."
"The meaning of life is not a riddle to entertain the mind," Akame said. His tone held only conviction. His gaze was fixed on the steel of his blade. "To understand life is to understand oneself. Without that answer, a human cannot change. Without it, every choice is hollow — reaction, not growth. Only when one knows their truth can they choose, act, and become something beyond what the world shaped them to be."
Akame looked directly at Kazuo's eyes. "But you mistake refusal for freedom," he said. "You believe a door vanishes when you close your eyes to it. You are a man who wishes to stand untouched while the world chooses, and then you resent the world for making any choice at all."
He stepped once. It was not a threat, yet the room seemed to shrink around Kazuo.
"Until you earn an answer to my question, you will not change. That is my judgment."
Silence pressed against Kazuo's ribs until it burned. His jaw tightened, breath uneven.
"I don't know," he forced out — but the words didn't stop there. Anger cracked through his shock. "Why is it wrong not to know? Why do I have to change at all? I never asked for any of this. I didn't ask to be dragged into some grand fate. Why should I be the one to carry it?"
His voice rose, raw and shaking. "Because of my eyes? That's it? I'm supposed to change myself and the system just because I was born wrong? I never wanted to be part of anyone's war. I just wanted a life that was mine — quiet, simple. A place where I could breathe."
He looked at Akame, confusion and fury tangled in his eyes.
"It's not a sin to desire a simple, peaceful life," Kazuo said. He steadied his blade, fingers finding the familiar weight as if to anchor himself.
"What do you actually want from me? What are you after? If your goal is to kill me—then kill me."
Rei stirred, pushing against the floor with shaking arms. He managed to rise to one knee, breath ragged, barely holding himself upright.
"I did not come to kill you," Akame said calmly. "That would go against my leader's wish."His words cooled, and then his eyes shifted — not his body, only his gaze — drifting toward the presence behind him.
Rei stood weakly behind Akame, several paces to the right. All Rei could see was the back of the man with the katana speaking with Kazuo.
"However… your friend with the red hair has seen a person he was never meant to see."
Kazuo instantly realized what he was implying.
"Wait—!" Kazuo stepped forward, heart lurching. "He's innocent! He has nothing to do with this!"
Akame finally turned — pivoting toward Rei. Kazuo now stared at Akame's back, feeling the decision leave his reach.
"Let him go!" Kazuo's voice broke as water snapped to his fingertips. He hurled a volley of spinning water shuriken at Akame's exposed back.
Akame didn't turn to face them.
His head inclined a fraction, shoulders shifting with surgical precision. The first shuriken sliced past his arm, missing by a whisper. The second he deflected with a small motion of Kotetsu behind his back — steel flicking once, sending the attack splashing to the floor. The last he evaded with a slight lean, never granting Kazuo even a glance.
Akame continued walking toward Rei — untouched, undistracted — as though Kazuo's assault had been nothing but wind passing by.
"Damn it—" Kazuo hissed, jaw tight. He kicked off the ground, water surging beneath his feet. The floor lost all friction—Aqua Step—and the distance collapsed in a blink. He slid in front of Akame, body low, cutting between him and Rei.
A palm struck down. Water coiled and rose in a roaring sheet—Water Wall—thick, turbulent, a living barrier forcing a divide between them.
Akame didn't pause.
His Katana moved once—almost gentle—its spine grazing the surface of the current. The wall split down a perfect seam, parting as if by its own choice, crashing to either side in heavy spray. Water drenched the floor, but Akame walked through the opening without breaking stride.
Kazuo stared, breath catching. He cut water…? He didn't even use magic. He split a spell with a sword… like it was nothing.
For a heartbeat, his mind stalled — the reality of Akame's power sinking in like a stone in his chest.
"Rei—run!" Kazuo forced out.
Rei flinched at the sound. He turned, stumbled, and pushed himself into motion. It looked less like running and more like a man trying to escape a nightmare — limbs heavy, the ground clinging to his feet as if trying to pull him back.
Kazuo shifted his grip and swung for Akame's neck — not wild, not desperate. A clean, disciplined cut: blade aligned, footwork sharp, hips driving power through steel.
Akame slid into the arc, too close for Kazuo's sword to matter. Kotetsu rotated in his hand, the back of the blade striking Kazuo's sternum with a short, decisive impact — a pinpoint blow, placed with surgical intent.
The effect was instant.
"ARGH!"
A shock tore through Kazuo's chest, like lightning trapped beneath his ribs. His limbs seized; sensation vanished from them as if cut away. His legs buckled, folding under him, and he crashed to his knees. Breath jammed in his throat, vision pulsing at the edges.
He couldn't move. Couldn't lift his arms. His body refused him — as if Akame had struck the switch that controlled it.
Akame walked past him.
"Don't," Kazuo said. The word burst from a throat that had learned to beg only for others. "Please. He has nothing to do with this. You want me, don't you? Take me. I will stop. I will walk into your prison, your court, your blade—anything you want. Just don't touch him. He's my friend."
He stopped for a moment. Watching the Rei trying to escape.
"I understand the pain that drives you to protect what you love. But to plead for mercy from your enemy is to abandon your own dignity. And mercy is not something I am permitted to offer — not when the future hangs in the balance."
He started walking again. His blade was shining in the moonlight eager to draw blood.
Rei turned. The body understands truth before the mind accepts it, and he knew then—there would be no escape. If death had come to meet him, he would not greet it with his back turned.
He lifted his daggers, arms trembling, and drew himself upright. Fear flickered in his eyes—raw, unhidden—but beneath it lived a small, stubborn pride. He had survived a life without glory, without applause, scraping by on grit alone. He would not leave the world crawling away from it. If he had to fall, he would fall facing forward.
"Don't," Kazuo said again, forcing himself up. His sword slid from his fingers and hit the boards with a dull sound. He ran, empty-handed, because there are moments when a sword is not the right language to speak.
In the space of a blink, Akame was simply gone from Kazuo's sight—air folding where he had stood—then he was behind Rei, Kotetsu lowered, its edge resting in the final line of its motion.
For a heartbeat, nothing seemed to have happened.
Rei's breath hitched. His hand rose weakly to his chest as if sensing a sudden warmth there. His fingers came away wet. He stared at the red staining them, confusion crossing his features.
"…is that… blood…?" His voice was barely a rasp, his throat still damaged from before, each syllable thin and strained.
The twin daggers slipped from his hands and clattered against the floor.
A single drop ran down the katana's tip and fell, tapping the ground with a quiet, final sound.