"Mr. Lamur!"
Akame's surprised voice rang out.
The girl stared in shock at the figure walking out of the passage.
That familiar mask had seemed somewhat sinister when she first saw it, but now it looked strangely reassuring.
Noah casually brushed the dry leaves from his shoulder and followed the sound, where he saw Akame's face filled with surprise and relief.
"Good to see you still have that much spirit, Akame. Kurome too."
Compared to Akame, the instant Kurome saw Noah appear, much of the tension inside her seemed to ease, as if she had finally found someone she could rely on.
But Merraid could not share that feeling with them at all.
Hearing his "long time no see," Merraid spoke in a mocking tone.
"Only a short time has passed since we last met, short enough that the wounds you left me still ache faintly. Men really are heartless! When it comes to women, you turn around and forget them so easily."
She put on the look of a pitiful woman who had been abandoned, even squeezing out two tears.
It honestly looked quite convincing.
But what she said was also true.
Because she had not received enough rest, her injuries had never fully healed and had continued dragging her down.
Gilberda was in an even worse state.
After battle after battle, it was no longer certain whether she would ever completely recover.
And all of it was thanks to the man in front of them.
"I didn't abandon you. You were the ones who ran away without caring about anything else, weren't you?" Noah's sarcastic reply made Merraid's smile crack, and her gaze quickly turned cold.
"But I didn't expect a monster like you to catch up as well... what a miscalculation. Still, I should thank you. This way, I can prove to Akame that everything I said was true."
'Hm?'
Noah raised an eyebrow.
Was this woman planning to stir up trouble?
The mask hid his gaze, so he observed Akame's expression instead and found many details worth considering.
It seemed the thing Gozuki had been worried about might have already happened.
Sure enough, after hearing Merraid's words, Akame's face immediately darkened.
She looked at the figure before her, biting her lip, her expression filled with hesitation and visible turmoil.
However, her personality was exactly as they had analyzed.
So she spoke.
"Mr. Lamur... no, what I want to ask is... are you Doctor Noah?"
Beside her, Kurome's eyes shifted slightly.
The thing she had been told to keep secret from her sister had been revealed by that woman named Merraid.
And her sister did not know that Kurome knew those things.
Noah fell silent for a moment.
'I see.'
He had not expected them to attack from his side.
This was probably information Chelsea had provided as well.
But it did not matter.
Although he did not want to draw too much attention, that did not mean he needed to be afraid of anything.
Keeping his identity secret had only been a verbal agreement with Gozuki.
Since they could be considered acquaintances, Noah had gone along with these troublesome things.
He raised his hand, hooked his fingers around the edge of the mask, and gently took it off.
The instant Akame saw his face, she froze.
Her eyes widened slightly, and her pupils trembled faintly.
"It's... true..."
That woman named Merraid had actually been telling the truth.
Mr. Lamur and Doctor Noah were the same person!
Not only that, the genius from the Science Division they had talked about many times was actually Doctor Noah.
The Air Blade, the parts for Tsukushi's Prometheus, all those things had been made by Doctor Noah?
Doctor was only a false identity.
Then what about Martha's cousin?
Was Martha, the woman she had killed with her own hands, really a spy for the Revolutionary Army?
Were the other people in Longxi Village really just ordinary villagers?
Why was Longxi Village so different from every other village in the Empire?
Ever since she left the village and began carrying out missions for the Empire, all she had seen were impoverished villages where people struggled to survive.
There were even many people who starved to death because of it.
When she was in Longxi Village, supplies had not exactly been endless, but they had been very abundant.
That was why, when Father said the Empire was great, she had never doubted him.
But if all of that had only been an illusion...
Then had she been living in a beautiful dream all this time?
"Martha... did you know about Martha-san?"
"Martha?" Noah tilted his head.
He thought for a moment before remembering that Martha was the owner of the restaurant in Longxi Village.
"I remember her now. But I'm sorry, I didn't know that person well."
"What... what are you talking about? She—Martha was your cousin, wasn't she? Please stop lying to me. Tell me the truth!"
'Hm?'
Oh, right. That did seem to be the cover story Gozuki had given him back then.
"The truth is that I belong to the Science Division. I spent quite some time with you in Longxi Village because of a mission. That's all. I can't explain any more than that. After all, I promised Gozuki I wouldn't say too much about these things."
"Father...?"
Akame clenched her teeth, tightened her fists, and showed an unwilling look.
Beside her, Kurome hugged her, as though trying to give her warmth.
Because of that, Akame suddenly remembered something even more important.
She questioned him, "Kurome. What exactly happened to Kurome in the Enhancement Division? Do you know about her physical condition?"
"Sister?"
Kurome quickly held onto Akame.
"Sister, what are you talking about? I'm fine. There's nothing wrong with me."
"No!"
Akame grabbed Kurome's shoulders and stared at her with pity.
"Kurome, listen to me. The medicine you've been taking all this time is dangerous. If you keep using it, you... you might die."
How could she, as an older sister, say those words so easily?
"Sister! I understand all of that! But it's for the Empire!"
"What?"
Akame froze completely.
"You... you knew there was something wrong with the medicine?"
She stared at Kurome in disbelief.
At her dearest little sister.
"Wh-why?"
Kurome lowered her head, her expression filled with loneliness.
"Because I'm not strong like you, Sister. If I wanted to stand beside you and eliminate the Empire's enemies together, there was no other choice."
"Kurome..."
Akame's expression twisted.
She looked at Kurome in pain, and it was as though all strength had suddenly drained from her body.
Her legs shook several times before she barely managed to stand firm.
Ah.
Now she understood.
Merraid Oarburgh had been right.
This was brainwashing.
The people of the Empire had taken advantage of the weakness in Kurome's heart and turned her into what she was now.
Why?
She had already decided to fight for the Empire!
So why did her little sister still have to bear this kind of pain and fate?
What exactly were they?
Weren't they allies of justice?
Weren't they heroes who would save the Empire?
Could it be that, from the very beginning, they had only been "tools"?
"Kurome! Don't keep taking that medicine. I'll take you to a doctor. If there isn't any doctor in the Empire who can cure you, then we'll go to another country. Even across the sea if we have to!"
"Sister?" Kurome froze for a moment. Then the light in her eyes quickly vanished, and her tone turned dark.
"Sister, what nonsense are you saying? What you just said is nothing less than betrayal of the Empire!"
"I..."
Akame's breath caught.
Looking at Kurome's cold expression, she suddenly felt that this little sister of hers had become unfamiliar.
"Hehehe."
Merraid laughed softly.
She took the initiative to connect with the insect eggs inside Kurome.
Then Akame saw Kurome suddenly collapse to her knees, painfully clutching her own throat.
A few seconds later, she vomited up a large amount of stomach acid along with several white larvae.
The moment Akame saw this, she instantly understood the cause and turned toward the smiling Merraid, her entire body filled with killing intent.
"You bastard! Stop it!"
"Hehe, don't glare at me with such a scary expression, Akame. Pick up your sword and kill the man in front of you."
"You... what did you say?"
"What's wrong? Don't you care what happens to your little sister?"
Akame gripped Kiriichimonji tightly and looked at Noah with a face full of pain.
Noah, meanwhile, sounded puzzled. "What exactly is your plan here? Are you buying time?"
"It's not good to be too arrogant. I have very high hopes for Akame, you know."
Merraid's face remained smiling.
Of course, she knew that Akame did not have even a one-percent chance of defeating the man before her.
After all, even when Merraid, Gilberda, and Cassandra fought him together, they could only run away.
For Akame alone to kill him was pure fantasy.
"Akame, do it," Merraid ordered again.
At the same time, she controlled the insects to rampage inside Kurome's body, making Kurome let out a terrible scream.
Akame listened to Kurome's screams, her face pale.
At that moment, she remembered the spell Gozuki had taught her.
Whenever her heart was lost, she was to recite that phrase.
"Bury..."
Akame murmured and walked straight toward Noah.
At first, she only walked slowly.
Then she broke into a jog, and finally, she started running.
Seeing her charge at him, Noah showed no fear.
Instead, he seemed amused.
"Yah!"
Akame swung Kiriichimonji, its sharp blade falling straight down.
Noah avoided it by turning sideways, then moved after she had already committed to the strike, directly pinching the back of Kiriichimonji's blade between his fingers.
With the back of the blade trapped, the girl tried to pull it back, only to find that her sword felt as though it had been stabbed into solid rock.
No matter what she did, she could not retrieve it.
And the thing causing that effect was merely two fingers!.
Cold sweat appeared on Akame's forehead.
With no other choice, she abandoned her weapon and punched Noah.
There was a bonk sound.
Clearly, that was not the sound a fist should make when striking a human body.
Merraid narrowed her eyes and carefully observed every detail of the battle.
That was one of her goals as well.
Although she had fought Noah once, she had barely grasped anything about his ability.
Metal manipulation, air currents, the ground, even explosions.
On top of that, his strength and speed could rival Gilberda's.
His abilities were simply too varied, and there seemed to be no connection between them.
An opponent like this was far too troublesome.
Since he showed no killing intent toward Akame, this was an excellent chance to probe him.
"An invisible wall?" Akame stared blankly at her fist, which had stopped in midair.
From the sensation, her punch had struck a solid wall, but there was clearly nothing there.
Noah pinched the blade with his fingers and released an electric current.
The instant Akame was touched by the current, her entire body stiffened.
Because the current was very weak, she did not collapse outright. Instead, she managed to let go of Kiriichimonji in time and pull back.
Noah held Kiriichimonji and pointed it toward Merraid.
Cassandra immediately flashed in front of her master.
"How pitiful. Allow me to be your oppo—"
The twin-tailed maid looked as though she was ready to sacrifice herself.
But at that moment, Merraid patted her on the shoulder.
"It's all right, Dora. It's time."
'Hm?' Noah noticed it as well.
A group was approaching, five people to be exact.
However, those five did not seem ordinary.
Whoosh!
A flash of light rose from behind the dense trees.
Noah caught sight of that light at once. At the same time, he condensed an ice shield in front of himself.
In the blink of an eye, a dazzling beam broke through the forest and arrived before Noah, crashing into the crystalline ice shield.
Crack.
Noah was surprised to find that cracks had appeared in the ice.
He quickly shifted his body.
Almost simultaneously, the beam pierced through the ice shield, brushing past the tip of his nose before punching through two or three large trees behind him.
"This attack..."
On a certain night in the Imperial Capital, he had seen this light before.
This was the Teigu of the Empire's former general, Najenda.
Which made it very obvious who had arrived.
Clop, clop, clop—
The sound of horse hooves approached from afar, and in less than half a minute, several figures appeared before everyone.
That familiar white hair.
Led by Najenda, with four other officers in military uniforms beside her, the group rode their horses into this place.
The moment she appeared, she spoke to Merraid and the others, "Sorry to keep you waiting, comrades. We've arrived."
Although they were reinforcements, Merraid was not particularly polite toward Najenda.
She directly rejected the wording.
"Although I appreciate your assistance, don't call us comrades. Oarburgh and your Revolutionary Army are merely in an employer-contractor relationship. Even if you want to make it sound closer, at most, we're cooperating."
Najenda had been greeted coldly despite her enthusiasm, but she did not look embarrassed at all.
Not only that, she even stated openly, "Is that so? What a shame. I hope that in the future, we can become true companions."
With that, she dismounted.
The cannon in her hand was still smoking, proving that the earlier attack had indeed come from her.
Noah saw her turn toward him and thought, 'So it's finally my turn?'
Najenda stepped forward a few paces, though she did not come any closer than that.
She looked at the man before her and sighed softly.
"Well, Sir Noah. Compared to the last time we met, it seems our positions have changed dramatically."
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