My Life Across The Multiverse With Mangekyo Sharingan 3
Huh?
Mid thought, I finally pulled my blade from the sheath and made my move.
Chakra flooded my body and ran through my blade, mixed with a slight trace of lightning. Following which, I exploded forward at full speed.
SQUELCH!
I appeared a dozen meters away, blade raised in the air in a full upward slash.
For a brief instant...
Nothing happened. The courtyard fell deathly silent.
A faint breeze drifted through the open square, carrying with it the metallic scent of blood.
"..."
"..."
Tatsumi's eyes darted between us.
'...What?' The exchange had been so fast that he'd completely missed what happened.
He only remembered the blur that had erupted the moment the masked swordsman drew his blade.
Behind me...
Zanku remained frozen in the middle of his charge.
His grotesque grin was still plastered across his face.
"..."
Then—
A thin crimson line appeared diagonally across his chest.
"...Guh?"
Blood erupted.
FWOOOSH!
The slash tore across his torso from shoulder to waist, spraying blood into the sky. His enormous body staggered violently before crashing to one knee.
"B-Bastard..."
His eyes widened in disbelief as he instinctively reached for the wound.
"No..."
"...Impossible."
It was deep. Far deeper than he'd realized.
But now ... How had his Imperial Arm not warned him.
It...
It couldn't have.
"I..." he muttered, staring at the blood coating his fingers.
"I read your thoughts..." Zanku choked out, his voice trembling as the crimson pool beneath him spread across the stone. "I saw the ... BLERGH! .." He coughed out a mouthful of blood.
It was the ultimate, cruel irony of his cheat code. Spectator could show him the future, but foresight was entirely useless if his physical reactions couldn't match it.
He had simply watched his own defeat play out in his mind a split second before it happened, completely powerless to stop it.
My sword gave a light flick. The blood slid cleanly from its edge.
"Your equipment really is great," I said, lowered my blade and turned to look at his fallen form. "But it doesn't make you any faster."
Zanku's breathing hitched.
"...Heh..."
Then, despite the blood pouring from his body...
He laughed.
"Hahaha..."
"Hahahahaha!"
"What..."
"...what a monster." With a ragged gasp, Zank’s strength finally gave out. He collapsed forward against the stone pavement as his life force quickly drained into the night.
Throughout the fight, he hadn't even had the chance to use his trump card.
The courtyard fell into a dead, freezing silence.
Confirming his perfectly still muscles with my Sharingan, I casually walked over to the corpse, sheathed my sword with a crisp click, and reached down to wrench the glowing eye of Spectator away from the dead man's forehead.
"Sorry Barry. You simply weren't fast enough. Try to be faster next time." I tossed the legendary artifact lightly in my hand, a satisfied hum escaping my throat.
Behind me, Tatsumi unconsciously tightened his grip on his sword.
He stared at the masked stranger before him.
One question echoed through his mind.
'...Who is this guy?'
The courtyard fell silent. Only the soft patter of blood dripping from Zanku's corpse disturbed the night.
I turned.
My crimson eyes settled on the only person still standing.
"..."
Tatsumi immediately stiffened. The young swordsman's fingers tightened around the hilt of his blade despite the tremor running through his injured arms.
"...Uh." He forced an awkward smile, scratching his cheek with his free hand
"So... Nice weather we're having?"
"..."
There was no response.
"... So .. You aren't with the Empire... right?" he asked cautiously.
"..."
'Man, this guy's scary.' Tatsumi swallowed.
'Come on, say something... anything.'
Meanwhile...
My gaze drifted past him.
"..."
'Huh.'
I swept the surrounding rooftops with my Sharingan.
Nothing.
The nearby alleyways.
Nothing.
The distant watchtowers.
Still nothing.
'Where is she?' According to canon... Akame should've been here by now.
'Don't tell me she's...'
I frowned slightly. My eyes paused on a particularly dark rooftop overlooking the courtyard.
'...lurking somewhere like a creepy little stalker.'
Honestly...
From what I remembered, that sounded about right.
She was silent. Majorly expressionless, and was a qualified assassin. Observing a potential enemy from a distance? Yeah, we do that for a living.
Man did I hit close to home. After all, I had gone through my own days of watching from the shadows while deciding whether or not to stab somebody.
Well...
'If she wasn't going to show herself ...'
I raised my right hand.
Puff!
A small cloud of white smoke burst from my wrist.
As it dispersed, a single black kunai rested neatly between my fingers.
"..."
Tatsumi blinked.
"...Eh?"
His eyes darted from my empty hand...
...to the weapon that had seemingly appeared out of thin air.
'Where did that come from?!'
There was no pouch or sleeve he could see.
It had simply appeared.
"What the .."
Fwip!
Without the slightest warning, I flicked my wrist.
The kunai tore through the air.
"...?!" Tatsumi's pupils shrank to pinpricks.
'OH, COME ON!'
His exhausted body barely had enough strength to react. There was no way he could dodge the spinning blade rapidly filling his vision.
CLANG!
Sparks exploded with the collision of metal. The kunai was violently knocked off course, spinning away before burying itself deep into a concrete earth.
At the same instant—
THUD!
A second blade plunged point-first into the stone pavement between Tatsumi and myself.
'Huh?'
Both our eyes looked up as a shadow descended from above.
A pair of black boots landed atop the sword's hilt for the briefest instant before their owner stepped lightly onto the ground.
".."
Alright, aurafarming in front of me. Well played Akame, well played.
I thought with a sour look at the new arrival.
Long black hair swaying gently in the night.
Red eyes and a black dress. Without a word, she wrapped one hand around the weapon's hilt and pulled it free from the earth like queen artoria with her Excalibur.
Shiiing.
The blade settled into a perfectly steady guard.
Its tip pointed directly at me.
Tatsumi's eyes widened.
"...Akame!"
He let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.
"You finally made it!"
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, and failed anyway.
What a convenient entrance. Ninety nine percent chance she was just watching the whole time.
The dark-haired assassin didn't spare the boy a glance.
"Are you alright?" she asked, her crimson eyes remaining locked on me with intense focus and her voice completely devoid of emotion.
"I-I'm fine," Tatsumi stammered, holding his shoulder. "But Akame, watch out! This guy... I don't even know what he did. But this guy's dangerous. Even Zanku was instantly beaten."
"I know."
Her voice remained calm. "I arrived shortly after he entered the fight."
Just as I expected, she had been observing since. I probably eliminated Zanku faster than she could interfere, if she had plans to interfere to begin with. After that, silence descended over the courtyard once more. Akame's scarlet eyes studied every inch of the masked swordsman before her.
My posture. My breathing. The angle of my shoulders. The sword at my waist. The clothing.
Even the peculiar crimson eyes staring back at her through the darkness. Not a single opening.
'A master...'
She reached her conclusion and adjusted her grip on the hilt of Murasame. The faint, damp breeze of the Capital ruffled the hem of her dark dress.
"...So you're Akame." Across from her, I couldn't help but study her in return. Seeing her like this was...
Honestly... Kind of surreal. For years she'd been nothing more than a character on a screen.
Now she was standing barely a dozen meters away, sword drawn.
My gaze wandered over her from head to toe. The silence stretched for a while. Until finally ... "I'll be honest..."
"I expected you to be taller."
"..."
"..."
Tatsumi blinked and Akame blinked, somewhat stunned.
"...What?"
"I mean... don't take it the wrong way." I held my hand out flat, measuring somewhere around eye level.
"I guess your reputation made me picture someone..." I gestured vaguely into the air. "...bigger."
"..."
"No. That's definitely it."
"You've got the same expression. The same hair. The same sword."
"I just..."
"...expected you to be about this much taller."
I lifted my palm another five centimeters.
"..."
'Is this supposed to be some kind of mind game?' Akame stared, not understanding what the opposing party was trying to pull.
"...I see." She narrowed her eyes slightly. "...Does my height bother you?"
"...Not really." I shook my head. "I mean, it's not that big of a deal. If I were to go off stereotypes, then I would expect more scars for one of the Empire's most infamous assassins."
"I would picture at least an eyepatch."
"...Maybe a missing ear."
"..."
"Or one of those dramatic scars across the face."
I shrugged. "You look..." I searched for the right word. "... healthy for someone in your line of work."
"..."
"..."
"..."
For perhaps the first time in a long while... Akame genuinely didn't know how to respond.
She had faced nobles.
Imperial officers.
Danger Beasts.
Execution targets.
None of them had ever begun a confrontation by critiquing whether she looked intimidating enough.
Tatsumi looked between us, completely lost. '...What is this conversation?' He couldn't understand how this was what we were talking about.
'...Seriously?'
"Well as you can see, your stereotypes are wrong." Akame however, had had enough. "Now if I may ask, who exactly are you?" The courtyard fell quiet. I looked at her for a moment.
Unfortunately, I simply looked away.
There wasn't really anything to say. Just then, that familiar anime breeze drifted through the courtyard once more, stirring the scent of blood and rustling the loose strands of her dark hair. Neither of us spoke.
Behind her, Tatsumi looked between us, opening his mouth as if to say something before deciding against it.
The silence lingered for another heartbeat.
Then I shifted my attention back to the Imperial Arm resting in my hand.
'Right.' I still had work to do.
With that, I turned my gaze away from Akame and crouched to the earth besides Zanku's body.
"...?"
Akame's brows drew together slightly.
What is he doing?
Ignoring the two of them completely, I reached into my clothing and pulled out a small sealing scroll.
"..."
Damn.
It's my last one. No surprise, sealing scrolls were unbelievably convenient. When I first started this little world-hopping gig, I had grabbed a handful of standard storage scrolls thinking they'd last me a lifetime.
In the years that followed, I had also stored enough stuff to last me a lifetime.
Staring at my very last blank canvas, a wave of minor regret washed over me. Once this baby was full, I was officially out of spatial storage.
‘Great. Now I'm going to have to plan a quick vacation back to the ninja world just to stock up. Or worse, actually sit down and learn how to make the damn things.’
Considering the amount of random junk I kept collecting during my travels... It was probably time to stop relying on other people's handiwork. Hopefully, Tenten’s shop offers wholesale discounts to bulk buyers.
"I really need to stop underestimating how many of these I go through." Shaking off the brief annoyance, I focused chakra into my fingertips. The intricate ink kanji on the paper lit up.
Fwoosh!
With an eruption of white smoke, Zanku’s massive body vanished cleanly into the ink, leaving behind a blank space on the stone courtyard where a massive puddle of blood remained.
The scroll snapped shut in my hand.
"..."
"..."
Tatsumi's eyes were practically glowing. "WHERE DID IT GO?!"
Akame however, looked at the scroll with even more confusion.
'That's ... An Imperial arm?' I on the other hand, quickly rolled the scroll back up, tied it with the cord, and slipped it horizontally into the small of my back. Then, "Later." I gave a smaller wave, and without so much as another glance, turned around to leave.
'Huh?' Akame was stunned. Did he just turn his back to her ... No, was he just leaving after that?
'A bounty hunter maybe?' This was the only thing she could come up with at the time. However,
"I can't let you leave with that Imperial Arm." She said, eyes fixed on the area I had hidden spectator.
My footsteps didn't halt as I nonchalantly replied. "Meh .. and I would very much like your sword Murasame as well. So unless you want to trade, we're both out of luck."
".."
"Didn't think so. Tell Sheele and Leone I said hi."
".."
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
The sound of my footsteps echoed through the deserted courtyard before gradually fading into the Capital's night.
Neither Akame nor Tatsumi made any move to stop me.
"Are we just going to let him walk away?" Tatsumi asked. Akame finally lowered her sword, processing my last words.
"It's unfortunate but yes. After all, you're still injured."
And so, I disappeared into the capital, the fruits of my success in hand ... Or breast pocket but still.
I'd seen the fight. Killed Zanku. And now I'd met Akame. Today's schedule had been surprisingly productive
Honestly, I'd prepared for a lot more stabbing. Instead, I'd gotten exactly what I came for.
Spectator.
The first piece of the puzzle. A faint smile tugged at my lips beneath the mask. As for the one hit killer Murasame ... As a collector with a penchant for taking souvenirs, there was no way I was passing up such a collectable relic with actual usage. I would get that weapon soon enough.
Now...
'Let's find out why nobody's managed to recreate a Teigu in nearly a thousand years.'
The darkness swallowed my figure.