AKAME ASSASINATION (33)
A LITTLE BIT AFTER KOJI HAD PARTED FROM GIL
Yes, the man in white was right in his assumption, he also thought that something more was going down. Something more than met the eye. "Gil, I'll leave whatever it is there to you."
Hunter sorcerers are born (Or develop) an adaptation for the thing they are going to start hunting. A perfect example would be Koji's ability to help him hide in plain sight. As an assassin type hunter, he often muffled his footsteps to easily sneak up on people… among other secret abilities he might not want anyone knowing.
The followed his base intuition without a second thought, understanding that something was wrong and that it might affect them leaving this place. After running for a little while he noticed a great fragment disruption just left of where he was going. Naturally for any sorcerer they would be inclined to go and see what was happening.
As such he moved swiftly across the plains with the sheathed blade right by his side held by his left hand. The man moved with a swift precision arriving at the scene in mere moments.
What he gazed upon in that moment would continue to shock him for the remainder of his existence.
"Fragment voids?"
But these weren't normal voids, instead they had more human like features than anything he had ever witnessed before. What seemed to be more concerning was what they fed on. Normally it would be fragments, fragment voids have no innate urge to feed on human beings.
However, to Koji's horror, they fed on human corpses that lay there in the grassy planes of this vast Savannah.
'Probably a native tribe, but not massai. With the markings on their arms I'd say most are Pokot.'
Koji unsheathed a bit of his blade, only a bit needed to be exposed for the technique to activate.
SHIZEN: UNDERGROWTH!
From the blade itself vines stretched out grabbing a void by the leg.
"!"
The creature looked back, it looked even hideous than Koji thought. Its face was black and ashy with torn flesh stained now with human blood. It snarled.
IAI: SWORD SHEATH STYLE!
In just one swift motion, Koji chopped off the voids head. Normally killing a void without F.E would just bring it back to life elsewhere, but all artifacts naturally produce F.E so Koji didn't need to worry about that.
Also, the vines Shizen released drains life force from all creatures they come into contact with. As such if the void doesn't die immediately, the vines will slowly drain the life from it. But it would appear that the death of one their own sparked a bit of resistance from the other voids regardless of their distance from Koji.
Each void had a distinguishing feature, unless they were part of a group, meaning they were extremely weak and easily taken care of. And this was proven when Koji with minimal effort blocked and incoming strike from one of them.
Its teeth gnawed on Koji's blade as it tried to break through his defense. But there was some team co-ordination among the voids, one jumped from behind Koji trying to strip him of his flesh. But before it could vines emerged grabbing the creature by its wrists and ankles pulling it back.
With his right hand holding the hilt of the sword and his left holding the sheath, Koji charged up the F.E of his sword, more specifically the blade. After condensing that energy, he would then fire it off in the form of a small Iai slash with little movement of his hands. Its the most basic use of emission.
This small slash would cut through the creatures brittle skin killing it in mere moments. And if it didn't, well then the vines would.
He then swiftly turned meeting another one head first, he easily dodged a punch from a void before hitting it in the chest with his own version of.
PALM!
Right in the lower gut, creating a giant hole in its abdomen. But finishing it off with his sword before it regenerated.
He waited on guard for a bit before sheathing his sword again, there didn't seem to be anymore coming his way. The body of the dead creatures began to leave this world in the form of small light blue fragments.
Normally Koji would walk away, but he stayed to see what would remain. To his horror, what remained was a white skull and black substance.
"What even is this?" He knelt down close to one of them, he then tore off a piece of his cloth and took a sample of the substance hoping to get answers later.
After that little refresher he proceeded with his mission to locate Akame and Catherine… or he would have if he hadn't encountered most of these creatures along the way. Simply put, this wasn't a matter of kill and continue.
No, his intuition was screaming at him that something was going on. So for the rest of the day he moved slowly observing the movements of the Pokot people across their land. It was a short reconnaissance, one he was reluctant to do, but still did none the less. He observed all there movements and even mapped out potential routes, like the ones he saw multiple women moving along to go and water from a small spring.
He couldn't get accurate data simply because there was not that much to go off of. But there was something that stuck out to him.
'Why would they be herding animals at a time like this?'
The sun was about to go down, and it was at that time that he saw multiple older men with their flocks of sheep and herds of cattle moving out of their houses and heading towards the fields.
'What are they doing?'
He had a hunch, perhaps it was because they thought fragment voids or whatever those creatures were now couldn't hunt at night. He thought this because most of them carried weapons. He decided to follow one of the herd's men as they went into the grassy plains to herd their cattle.
Hours had passed but nothing of interest was happening. The man just sat there staring at the night sky or perhaps a sleep.
'This is just a big waste of time.'
Koji sighed wondering why he even took the time to come out here. However, just as he was about to leave. He sensed a fragment signature. It wasn't produced by a void…. no, this one was a human's. And one that didn't have any good intentions.
Koji concentrated F.E into his eyes, he saw the figure creeping up on the sleeping man. In one swoop he grabbed the man and took off. Koji followed instinctively, moving silently along the grass. Making sure his own signature was suppressed so the other guy wouldn't catch on to him.
A few hours into the chase, Koji would spot another void and a man watching his flock. A man he would have an interesting conversation with about war, truth and hope before continuing his hunt.
***
PRESENT TIME, WITH GIL AND THE CREW
"Put on a shirt goddamn it!" Jericho yelled, "No body wants to see you like that."
"My shirt got ripped fighting a silver haired guy." Gil said.
"I've got a spear shirt in the back." Justine offered.
"Really?"
"Yep."
"Why the hell do you have a spear shirt?" Angel asked.
"Just in case things like this happen, you know."
"How often does this happen?" Gil asked.
"Maybe like… zero times before this, but the odds are never truly zero my friends." Justine remarked.
As the crew argued about a shirt, Teddy stood there silently smiling at how good everyone was getting along.
TO BE CONTINUED