A few more weeks passed by and Akashi's marriage was around the corner. He spent those few weeks mostly in mansion and training with all kinds of things that have a sharp edge and can be used as a weapon since it was helping him gain a better understanding of his own path of blade master. During that time, a new organization named Night Raid became overly famous as far as to rumors traveling through the entire Capital about their assassination of the important person inside the palace itself. There were many other nobles who lost their lives by their hands.
Wanted Posters were everywhere across the Capital with Akame, Bulat, Green, Poney, and Najenda's faces.
"Hahaha" Akashi released unusual hearty laugh while reading some documents.
"?! What is so funny?" Poney who was together with Akashi in his study was slightly startled by his sudden laugh and after she calmed down, she asked with a confused expression. In the end, she chose to remain with Akashi since she really had no idea what to do. Thankfully, the atmosphere between those two was no longer awkward, it could be said to be quite merry since Poney can be sometimes real airhead and Akashi found it relaxing talking to her.
At first, when she accepted to remain here and work for him, Poney thought that she might not be able to forget about what he told her regarding Gai but she somehow got through it. Mainly thanks to spending more time with him, she was aware that at that time they were practically bad guys so she doesn't hold Akashi responsible. More like she started to hate herself for not noticing it earlier. She kept saying to herself that if she noticed earlier, none of the assassins that came after them would ever bother targeting them.
After accepting to be on Akashi's side, she got to know how he wants to reform this entire Empire and she found his idea appealing and interesting. Of course, he didn't tell her everything but only basics, and the prospering state of his territory only further helped Poney to find that idea appealing and interesting.
"Some nobles request to live in my territory, coincidentally they are the same nobles that previously liked to avoid my territory due to my harsh rules without any exceptions towards them. Night Raid is really doing a good job by scaring everyone with a lot of wealth, heh" Akashi threw the stack of documents to Poney so she can have a look herself while he explains it.
"I see...What will you do?" Poney muttered while looking over the document before raising her head and asking Akashi with a curious expression.
"I already have information collected on all of them, take a look for yourself!" Akashi said while taking a few files from underneath his table and threw them to Poney once again.
"child abuse...murder...rape...human trafficking" Poney muttered while going through each file belonging to each of those nobles. She didn't even have the heart to read any further since it was becoming only worse.
"Do you think I should let them in so they can save their asses from Night Raid?" Akashi interrupted Poney thinking about what she just read.
"Hm? Of course not! They are trash that shouldn't even exist in the first place!" Poney suddenly blurted out with an angered expression. When she noticed Akashi's smile, she blushed and covered her mouth and realized her unnecessary outburst.
"You are right...they aren't worth saving if they will only cause trouble in my territory plus why do you think that Night Raid very rarely assassinated anyone inside my territory?" Akashi said and then rested his chin on his hand while asking with a smile.
"Because you have some kind of connection with them? You previously said that you can get me to Akame and Green and they are part of that group so..." Poney said but she still had a slightly uncertain expression.
"Nah, that's not really the main reason. I have close to none corrupted nobles here, and those that got killed were difficult to get rid of without killing them so I am quite thankful to Night Raid for making some of my small worries literally disappear while taking full blame. Normally, such things would be partly blamed at the biggest family controlling the territory for bad security but Night Raid is so infamous that no one blames anyone, hehe" Akashi explained with his legs resting on top of his table, he was currently feeling quite content. Night Raid was actually helping him quite a lot without even being aware, of course, it would have been a different matter if any of his loyal guards got hurt or worse, killed.
Akashi placed high importance on hiring loyal people into his organization but it was hard to even hire 1 person like that, therefore losing anyone would be quite irritating and he would have to have a word with Najenda.
"I see...Tell me, is there any chance that we will be fighting them in the future?" Poney asked with a slightly sad expression.
"Hard to say, we stand in the middle, we might be forced to even fight on both fronts at the same time. Our goal aligns with their goal but our paths are a bit different." Akashi replied while looking at the ceiling with a thoughtful expression.
'I also don't want to see anyone from the Revolutionary Army in power. If they will win, they will be the ones deciding who is to be the next Emperor. They will also most likely try to take down my family since, on the light, we fully support the Empire. No way I am allowing it.' Akashi thought to himself.
"Anyway, I have a date today so I can't spend the entire afternoon talking with you, I am sorry, Poney!" Akashi suddenly said and jumped from his chair to his feet.
"Huh?" Poney who was looking at the ground with a slightly distressed expression raised her head and looked at Akashi with a dumbfounded expression.
"A d-date?" She muttered still with a dumbfounded expression.
"Yep, with that Aria" Akashi said with a smile.
"Why are you even doing it if you don't want to marry her?" Poney asked with a blank expression.
"It's my training" Akashi replied unexpectedly which caught Poney off guard.
"What? Training? Are you training how to date a girl or what? If that's so I don't mind teaching you, you don't have to spend time with her..." Poney replied with a confused expression.
"Pfft, no...It's training to endure being with a miserable company while constantly wearing a kind smile across your face. You women are pretty good at it, I think...But I will hold you up on that offer." Akashi chuckled and then replied with a bit of teasing at the end.
"Y-You, what the hell do you think we are?! It's called a polite smile! You are the one here playing with someone's feelings." Poney felt ashamed of how Akashi took her offer and used it against her to embarrass her so she blurted out in counter-attack while holding up her fist and swaying it at Akashi.
"Can you even call her 'someone'? I think better word would be 'something'. Don't worry, I also don't like playing with other people's feelings and that's one of the reasons why I also told you about Gai even though you wouldn't have a chance to discover it." Akashi replied while opening the door to leave.
"Wait!" Poney called out before Akashi could close the door.
"Hm?" He turned at her with a confused expression and waited for her to continue.
"I didn't mean it that way...I got carried away, I am sorry." Poney said with a regretful expression while looking at the ground.
"I wasn't offended, I understand that as a fellow girl, you think that what I am doing to that...Aria is unacceptable but this can't be compared to what she and her family had done to others." Akashi said with a gentle smile before he closed the door.
----Night Raid recently new hideout in the outskirts of the Capital inside the forest----
*BANG* concentrated shockwave of spirit energy saw seen traveling a few hundreds of meters before destroying a smaller boulder lying between two trees.
"Nice shot, Mine! I guess you are already getting accustomed to Pumpkin, right?" Leone exclaimed with an impressed expression while looking to the distance with her hand shielding her eyes from the sun
Mine is the recently new member of their group. She is a young girl of below-average height. She has very long pink hair tied in twin-tails on the right and left sides of her head. She has pink eyes and she wears a pink outfit, consisting of a tied shawl with a high collar, a pink long sleeve shirt, a gown, and black stockings with pink shoes.
If one imagines a girl like her description, they might think of a very cute and shy girl, generally liked by everyone but...
"Hoho, of course, I am not a Genius Sniper for nothing!" Mine replied while putting the Pumpkin over her shoulder and raising her head up while proudly sticking out her small nose.
Her attitude combined with her outfit made her only more annoying.
"...Y-Yeah, suuure...What about you, Sheele? How are you doing?" Leone replied to Mine with a forced smile before she turned her attention away from her to another girl sitting nearby, reading a book.
Sheele is also a recently new member and she is a slender woman with long purple hair and purple eyes. She is wearing a revealing sleeveless lilac cheongsam with detached lilac arm sleeves and white boots. She is also wearing a glasses and has a small scar on her right cheek. On the first sight, she appears to be a very collected and mature woman with a gentle air around her contrary to Mine's bossy air.
"Hm? I am doing very well, everyone is extremely nice here! Oh? Oops!" Sheele raised her head and replied to Leone with a bright smile but while she was trying to move her hair behind her ear, she suddenly knocked off her glasses on the ground. She exclaimed and started searching for them before Leone shook her head with a smile after a short moment of watching, she took Sheele's glasses off the ground and offered them to her.
"Oh? Thank you, Leone!" Sheele who suddenly saw a blurry object in front of her thanked Leone but when she tried to grab her glasses...
"Oh no!" Instead of grabbing them, she knocked them of Leone's hand since her vision of them was blurry. She once again kneeled down and began her search.
*Slap* Leone just facepalmed herself.
"?" Both Sheele and Mine looked towards Leone with confused expressions after hearing her facepalm.
'These two...' Leone thought while watching how Mine after a while of watching her just shrugged her shoulders and helped Sheele grab her glasses and this time, she put them on Sheele herself.
"Thank you, Mine! And I am sorry, Leone!" Sheele thanked and then immediately bowed to Leone.
"It's alright, don't let it get to you!" Leone said with a smile but she also noticed Mine proudly puffing out her almost non-existent chest as if to say 'That's how you do it'
A thick mark appeared on Leone's forehead so she also puffed out her 2 mountains almost bigger than Mine's head itself as if to say 'And that's how you truly do it!' with a proud smile across her face.
"Hmph!" Mine just hatefully glared at Leone's melons before she threw her hair to the side while looking away from Leone, however, she couldn't stop herself to take a last glance at those 2 jiggling melons.