Survival in Akame ga kill

Standing on the bank of the wide river, Budo waded deeper into the muddy water, the current swirling around his armoured legs. 

The battered Bane hung limply in his grip, dragged through the shallows without resistance. 

Slowly the salty water began to submerge Bane’s nose due to his smaller stature, but Budo didn’t care. 

The rebel’s strength had long since drained from his body, and he barely registered the cold bite of the river.

Blood and dirt scattered through the water as Bane’s body was pulled along. Budo could see it, the signs of a man on the brink of death. 

But it didn’t matter. There was still a mission to complete, and Budo never deviated from the task as he remained unfeeling.

As he reached a point where the water brushed against his armoured chest, Budo stopped. 

With effortless strength, he lifted Bane higher, suspending him above the water’s surface like a soaked, broken puppet. 

“Cough! Cough!” Bane coughed and gasped, water spilling from his mouth as he struggled for breath. The river’s salty taste lingered in his throat as he sputtered.

Budo held the rebel there, letting him choke on air and water alike. His grip remained tight around Bane’s throat, but he wasn’t applying pressure, for now. 

He waited, his icy eyes locking with rebel as if trying to measure the defiance still burning within him.

Holding him just above the water’s surface as he spoke, his tone cold and emotionless.

“I’m giving you one last chance,” he warned, voice low. “Tell me where she is, or the consequences will be... worse than you can imagine.” His gaze pierced through Bane, daring him to defy. “You’ve felt the bite of torture, yes... but drowning? It’s slower... crueller.”

Without waiting for a response, Budo pushed Bane downward, submerging him under the murky water. 

Bane’s eyes widened in panic as the icy river rushed over his face, filling his nose and mouth. He thrashed weakly, the weight of the water pressing down on his chest as he fought for air, but Budo held him down, his expression unchanging.

The moments stretched, the river’s muted sounds consuming Bane’s fading gasps beneath the surface. 

Then, just before the edge of unconsciousness, Budo yanked him back up.

Bane erupted from the water, coughing violently, his chest heaving as he struggled to draw breath. 

River water and blood spewed from his mouth as his body convulsed with the effort to breathe. Budo’s grip never loosened, even as Bane’s sputtering breath returned.

“That’s how it’ll feel,” Budo’s voice was deathly calm, almost conversational, as he watched Bane struggle. “Imagine that sensation... for minutes on end. Until the light fades. Until it’s all over.” 

For a brief moment, Bane’s eyes, a piercing azure, met Budo’s with a clarity that defied his broken state. 

His breath caught in his throat, his vision blurring as the world seemed to collapse inward, the weight of impending death settling over him. 

“........”

But as the seconds ticked by, something shifted. His shoulders began to shake, not with fear, but with something else entirely.

Then it started.

“Ha” A laugh escaped from his lips. 

It was weak at first, barely more than a hoarse whisper, but it grew, echoing faintly through the riverbank.

“Heh… heh… Ha… haha...haha.” The sound was broken, raspy, interrupted by coughs that sent splashes of blood into the water below, but it didn’t stop. 

“Ha..haha.” Even as the pain coursed through his body, even as Budo’s looming presence threatened to crush him, Bane laughed.

The sound of it was absurd in the face of such overwhelming power. It echoed faintly across the riverbank, mixing with the distant crackling of the burning chapel in the background.

Through his laboured breaths, Bane smirked behind his mask, blood staining his lips. “...The mighty general Budo... giving me a chance?” Bane’s voice was barely more than a hoarse whisper, but there was mockery in it. “How... benevolent of you. But let’s be real... you’re not getting a damn thing out of me, are you?”

Budo didn’t react outwardly to the taunt. He wasn’t the type to lose his temper over trivial insults, especially from a dying rebel. 

He was preparing to take further action, but he halted as something caught his attention.

The rebel’s battered mask broke apart, letting him see his face.

With a faint crack, the black devil mask shattered, crumbling away in pieces and falling into the river.

The rebel’s features were incomprehensible at first glance. His head looked bloody and hairless, with no eyebrows, and skin was marked by uneven, red patches that looked infected. 

But the scars and disfigurements were not the result of battle, but more likely side effects of a dreadful disease or nightmarish experimentation.

His appearance was eerie, unsettling, a reflection of something far worse than the damage of war.

And yet, despite the blood and destruction etched across his face, the rebel carried a smirk. One that didn’t belong to someone in such a condition.

“What, surprised by my beauty?” Bane chuckled weakly, his voice hoarse and filled with dark humour, as if mocking his own ghastly appearance.

Budo’s eyes narrowed as he studied the exposed face in front of him. He had seen many horrors in his life, many enemies of the Empire, but this rebel... this one was different. 

There was something in those azure eyes, a hidden gleam of venom so deep, so filled with raw hatred, that it sent a chill through even the hardened general.

The scars on the rebel’s body weren’t just physical. They were the marks of a broken soul, a man who had been shattered by something darker, something that had been done to him.

Budo, ever observant, pieced it together in an instant. He wasn’t just looking at another enemy of the Empire, instead he was looking at a being whom the Empire had created. A being born of suffering, twisted by the very system he served.

“What have you suffered?” Budo asked, his voice calm, but carrying a rare note of curiosity. He already knew the answer, but he wanted to hear it from the rebel’s mouth.

There was something dark in the rebel’s laughter as he replied, “Oh... just the usual. Parents murdered, tortured for five years, and used as a lab rat,” he gestured weakly to his scarred, disfigured skin. “They did quite the number on me, didn’t they?”

Budo observed him, catching fragments of vague explanations, but he didn’t require clarification on the person behind the narrative.

The smirk on Bane’s face widened. “But what really did the trick... was the incurable disease they left me with. Death is just a few months away, but not before I get to enjoy the pain while coughing blood every day until then.” 

His eyes flickered with amusement, like someone who had long accepted his fate but still found humour in the cruelty of it all.

He paused for a moment, his smirk widening as his eyes gleamed with mockery. “But now I don’t have to worry about that damn disease anymore,” he rasped as he pointed at Budo, “I’ll die at the hands of the Empire’s most honourable, valiant commander… the most loyal imperial dog, but too much of a pussy to just get it over with.”

Budo’s grip on Bane’s throat tightened slightly as he listened to the young rebel’s words. 

The mocking tone, the tale of pain and suffering, the insults. It all stirred something within him. 

Yet, despite the provocation, the general remained still, his calm demeanour unshaken.

Just then, Budo instinctively moved his other hand behind his neck, feeling something slither along his armour. 

Hiss!!

His fingers closed around it, and when he brought it forward, he saw a poisonous snake wildly hissing, its fangs bared but unable to strike.

Without hesitation, Budo crushed it in his iron grip, ending the snake’s life with ease. Its body fell lifeless into the water, sinking beneath the river’s surface.

Budo turned around to see Bane, who coughed faintly while blood started pouring from his nose and mouth, a hint of amusement in his gaze. “..And here I thought I did well enough to distract you...Shame you didn’t let your guard down. It seems I am bad at getting under people’s skin.

Budo didn’t respond to the failed assassination attempt. Instead, his gaze hardened as he asked, “What you told me about yourself... was it real?”

Bane let out a weak chuckle. “Oh, it was real. After all, the best distraction is the truth, isn’t it?”

Budo nodded. “It is.”

Budo spoke again, his voice even. “You’ve suffered greatly. But know this, what the Empire has done to you cannot be undone.” His words were cold, with a hint of finality in them. “However, I promise you... the rot that caused your pain will be removed.”

Bane’s smirk lingered, but he looked at Budo with something approaching scepticism. “Oh? You’re gonna fix the Empire now, are you?”

Budo’s expression remained stoic. “I will cut down the rotten stem of the tree when the time comes.”

Bane chuckled. “Then let me go. I’ll stick around to see it happen.” His voice was raspy, but there was an underlying challenge.

Budo shook his head. “No. You’re too dangerous to be left alive for the empire.” 

He paused, then added, “But I will grant you a last mercy as a human being. I won’t capture you or that girl. Instead, I’ll grant you death.”

Bane looked at Budo, his breathing ragged, and met the general’s gaze with the same mocking smile he had worn since the beginning. 

Although Budo’s determination to rid the Empire of its corruption was apparent to him, it didn’t matter much.

Would cutting away a few branches really fix the Empire when the very root was already decayed? 

Still, with the last of his strength, Bane smirked. “Then go ahead, you hypocritical bastard... not that I’m much better than you.” He rasped through gritted teeth, daring him. “Drown me like a dog, General. Make it count.”

Without another word, Budo thrust Bane’s head under the water once again, this time with no intention of pulling him back up. 

The river swallowed the rebel’s broken body as Budo forced him deeper into the cold, murky current.

Bane thrashed weakly at first, his hands clawing at Budo’s arm, legs kicking against the relentless force holding him down. 

The water distorted his gasps, turning them into muted bubbles that rose to the surface and popped in a grim silence. Budo watched, his face impassive, his grip unwavering.

The thrashing slowed, becoming less frantic as the moments dragged on. Bane’s body began to still, his struggles to fade as his strength gave out. 

The river, indifferent, wrapped around him, pulling him deeper into its embrace as his lungs burned for air he couldn’t reach.

Budo held him there, staring down at the submerged rebel until the final bubbles ceased to rise, and Bane’s body went completely limp beneath the water’s surface.

He waited a moment longer, just to be sure.

Then, with a slow, methodical motion, Budo released his grip. The rebel’s lifeless form slipped from his hands, disappearing beneath the water, swallowed by the river’s murky depths.

Budo stood still for a moment, watching the ripples fade. The rebel was dead. The mission was complete.

Swishh!!

But just as Budo prepared to leap away in search of the other rebel, a sudden force tore through the air. 

Budo narrowly dodged it, feeling a sharp graze along his cheek. He lifted a hand to touch the wound, seeing blood on his fingers. His gaze sharpened, and he turned toward the shore.

There, standing tall and menacing, was a muscular figure fully covered in white armour looking at him fearlessly.

“It seems,” Budo said, his voice calm but tinged with newfound tension, “I won’t need to search for the other rebel after all.”

The air grew heavy with the anticipation of another deadly encounter.

[A/N: And with this chapter, I’ve finally hit around 100k words in this novel. Phew! Never in my life did I think I’d write this much (especially someone like me), but thanks to the constant support from some of you, I’ve managed to get here. So, thank you! And if anyone hasn’t reviewed the novel yet, now’s the perfect time, go ahead and drop a review!]