A few weeks had passed since Aria's death, and the ripples of that mission that had gone sideways still lingered among the members of Night Raid. Some bore it in silence, others with a clenched jaw or a distant stare—but all knew there was no time to dwell.
At the hidden Night Raid hideout, deep in the forest outskirts, Najenda summoned the entire squad: Leone, Mine, Sheele, Bulat, Lubbock, and Akame. They gathered around the large war table in the center of the strategy room, the air filled with tension and the scent of old parchment.
Laid out before them was a detailed, hand-drawn map of the Capital and its surrounding outer sectors, its edges curling with age. The flickering light of oil lanterns cast dancing shadows across their faces, mixing with the last gold rays of the setting sun slipping through the wooden slats.
"Our next target is Janis," Najenda announced, her voice calm but edged with purpose. "He parades around dressed as a nobleman—fine silks, gold trim, the whole charade—but make no mistake, he's nothing more than a smuggler, con artist, and petty thief. The client who brought this to us lost their entire savings to him—money meant for their mother's medical treatment. The woman died last week."
The room went quiet as the weight of that story settled into each of them.
"Bastard... he really deserves worse than death," Mine muttered, arms crossed tightly. Her eyes burned with quiet rage.
Sheele adjusted her glasses with a calm, distant expression. Akame remained quiet, but the way her hand rested on the hilt of Murasame spoke volumes.
Najenda leaned forward, voice low and steady. "As far as our rebellion is concerned, he's not a high-value target. But—"
Bulat cut in, arms folded, tone questioning. "Then why now? Is this a personal favor or something with more weight?"
"I looked deeper," Najenda answered. "Turns out Janis has more than just a few crooked gambling dens. He has ties to some mid-level officials in the Empire—his smuggling routes fund some of the loyalist mercenaries patrolling the southern borders. If we cut him off, we cut one of their quiet revenue streams. Small blow, but a blow nonetheless."
"So it's a strategic hit under the guise of civilian justice," Lubbock said with a smirk, letting one of his wires dance around his fingers. "I can work with that."
"And let's be real," Leone added, cracking her knuckles. "Every Empire bootlicker we take out makes this country just a little less rotten."
Najenda nodded. "Exactly. Here's the plan: tonight, Leone, Lubbock, and Akame infiltrate Janis's gambling house. It's in an area not patrolled heavily by Imperial guards, but crawling with cutthroats. Janis keeps his books, coin, and blackmail files in a private vault under the building. Lubbock, that's your domain. Akame, you find him and end it. Leone, you're our frontline support—handle the crowd and clean up the mess if things go loud."
"Got it," Leone said with a grin. "Let's make this one unforgettable."
"Make it clean," Najenda reminded them, eyes sharp. "And leave a message."
Everyone nodded. The mission was another stitch in the long tapestry of rebellion. Another necessary cut. Another shadow deed done in the name of a better future.
As the lantern light flickered, they moved silently to prepare. Their blade and resolve sharpened for what lay ahead.
As the sun went down, Gauri strolled around the market, his eyes scanning the crowd with a cautious sharpness. The usual bustle of vendors and buyers was slowly dying down as lanterns lit up the narrow alleyways. He moved deliberately, weaving through people with the poise of a man who had learned to watch his back.
Eventually, he stepped inside a modest coffee shop tucked between a tailor's stall and an apothecary. The scent of roasted beans and burnt sugar filled the air. At a table near the window sat Janis, dressed flamboyantly as always, legs crossed and posture relaxed, as if he owned not just the establishment, but the entire block.
Gauri walked up without a word, clutching a pouch heavy with silver. He slid into the seat across from Janis, setting the pouch down on the table with a soft thud.
"I come on behalf of Tatsumi," he said coolly.
Janis raised a brow, intrigued but unimpressed. He reached for the pouch and loosened the drawstring, peering inside. A few seconds later, he leaned back and covered his eyes with a theatrical sigh.
"Tell me this is a joke," Janis groaned. "The contents of this pouch are merely 200 silvers apiece."
Gauri tilted his head slightly, his expression unreadable. He said nothing, letting the silence speak volumes.
Janis uncovered his eyes and gave the pouch another incredulous look. He chuckled under his breath, then sighed again, this time with genuine frustration.
"Unbelievable," he muttered, fingers drumming irritably on the wooden table.
He then looked at Gauri, whose expression remained unreadable. A long pause lingered between them, charged with tension.
"Huh, you new lot have guts to pull this off on me, I give you that," Janis said with a smirk curling on his lips. "How about you abandon that lowlife you're under and work for me?"
Gauri's eyes perked up ever so slightly, but he said nothing.
"Trust me," Janis continued, leaning forward slightly, his tone coaxing. "That kid will only slow you down. He's new to the game, and in this world, only the strong survive. The clever, the ruthless, the ambitious. You have that look in your eye—you could go far, with the right hand guiding you."
Gauri still didn't speak, his face a mask of stoic contemplation.
Janis chuckled again, this time softer, almost condescending. "You don't have to rush. I'll be everywhere. Just give me a call."
With that, he stood up, straightened his gaudy coat, and casually walked out of the coffee shop, boots clicking against the tiled floor.
Gauri remained seated for a few more moments, watching the door Janis had exited through. He slowly rose from his seat, adjusted his coat, and exited the shop as well.
As he stepped into the fading daylight, he tipped his hat slightly—toward the rooftop above the shop, where a faint silhouette had just shifted.
Without another word, he turned on his heel and made his way back to the inn.
As Janis walked along the narrow cobblestone path, the con-man remained oblivious to the vigilant eyes tracking his every step. Leone moved through the bustling crowd with ease, her form seamlessly blending among the masses as she kept her gaze fixed on his back. The mission's danger was only heightened by the fact that they were operating deep within enemy territory—one misstep could cost them everything.
Hah… I'm not exactly built for stealth, Leone thought with a dry chuckle. I'd rather just barrel through like the old days.
Despite the risks, she moved with a strange confidence, unshaken by the looming threat around her. It wasn't arrogance—it was experience. Leone had long grown accustomed to this life of danger, where getting burned was just another part of the job.
Further down the street, ahead of Janis, Lubbock surveyed the surroundings with a predator's intensity. His green eyes flicked from face to face, reading the flow of movement, cataloguing potential obstacles. Tonight, Janis had chosen the worst possible time to take a leisurely stroll through the district.
"Yeah, keep going, you little prick," Lubbock muttered, keeping a steady pace. "Just walk straight into our web."
Above them, silent and sure-footed, Akame leapt from rooftop to rooftop; shadows her only company. Her breath even, her gaze sharp, she mirrored the pace of her comrades below, timing each leap perfectly. The skills she'd gained during her time with the Elite Seven made this level of infiltration look effortless.
"Target remains unaware. Leone's presence is still undetected," she muttered to herself, her voice a soft whisper in their ears.
The trio maintained their pursuit with disciplined coordination. Janis, the target of their mission, seemed to be on a casual errand—completely unaware of the silent hunters in his shadow. He sipped tea from a well-decorated street vendor, examined trinkets from a flashy jeweler, and exchanged insincere pleasantries with merchants and minor nobles alike.
With every stop, he revealed more of his character—vain, entitled, and wrapped in a false sense of invincibility. His overconfidence made him sloppy, an easy mark in theory, but Night Raid knew better than to underestimate their prey.
Their trail led them to a run-down apartment block nestled between two crumbling brick buildings, where Janis slipped inside without so much as a glance behind him. For Leone, who had expected a more elaborate hideout or at least some form of resistance, it was an anticlimactic end to what had seemed like a promising pursuit.
"The intel did say there were no Imperial Guards patrolling the area," she muttered with a sigh, crouched behind a row of crates stacked against a dim alley wall, the lingering stench of garbage in the air.
Far above, perched along a narrow ledge just beneath the rooftop, Lubbock shook his head as he surveyed the situation through his wire threads. He had hoped for more excitement.
"Forget the intel… I didn't think this guy was more of a wimp than we thought," he said quietly, his fingers adjusting one of his threads with mechanical precision. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Akame slipping through a third-story window like a passing breeze.
"It's all up to our resident ace now," he added with a smirk, his voice tinged with both confidence and admiration.
Neither Leone nor Lubbock noticed another figure lurking in the gloom. Dressed in muted grays and browns, the unknown person moved fluidly through the shadows, slipping through the back entrance of the apartment. In their hand was a small, dense object—metal glinting briefly in the dim light like the edge of a blade or the barrel of a compact firearm.
Inside the apartment, Akame found a narrow window opening and stepped lightly inside, her landing as silent as a feather's fall. Her feet touched the cluttered wooden floor, dusty and warped with age. The interior was a disaster—documents, notes, ledgers, and even crumpled receipts lay scattered across the room as if someone had ransacked the place or simply never cared for order.
Messy, she thought, her sharp eyes skimming over transaction records, names, and coded symbols hastily scribbled into open notebooks.
Her assassin's training had taught her to analyze such data quickly, but she didn't need to read it in depth. The chaos spoke volumes about Janis's recklessness.
She steadied herself, grabbing the hilt of Murasame in anticipation, its ominous aura whispering death into the air. She moved silently to the center of the dimly lit living room, standing alert in the shadows. Her senses, sharpened from years of training and experience, caught the sound of approaching footsteps beyond the apartment's main door.
A second later, the doorknob began to turn. The faint squeak of the mechanism echoed faintly.
Akame raised Murasame, body low and coiled like a spring, poised to strike the moment the door opened.
But then—the motion stopped. The door remained closed, the silence stretching.
She listened, heart steady but alert. Then a voice, unfamiliar and laced with casual curiosity, spoke from the other side of the door:
"Huh… what you got there?"
Bang!
The thunder of a gunshot tore through the silence, shattering the calm. A window across the room cracked violently. The echo of the shot bounced between the walls of the narrow apartment corridor, followed by a sharp intake of breath and then a tense, chilling stillness.
Akame didn't flinch, but her expression sharpened, and her stance adjusted slightly. The script had changed. Something—or someone—had intervened. And now, what was meant to be a simple assassination had just become a tangled knot of uncertainty.
From her position, she remained vigilant, every fiber of her being ready for what came next. Outside, Leone and Lubbock tensed as well, sensing that the mission had taken an unexpected turn.