Fate: Kill

Chapter 4

He could almost feel her anguish when he heard Anna asking Elaine a question.

"Town after?"

His mouth slowly curved upward before pausing as he considered the matter of provisions once again while left alone in his father's study.

However, he wasn't actually alone.

After Elaine and the other two left, a figure dropped down gracefully from the ceiling at the corner of the room. Wearing a brown cloak that she refused to remove, Akame silently stared at him.

She had decided to take him up on his offer in the previous night for two reasons. One because she wanted to observe him and his Teigu, and the other because it was likely that her target would eventually return if she waited long enough.

"You know," he called. "You don't have to keep hiding. People here don't know anything about the Capital."

Akame stared at him before shaking her head and pulling the hood of her cloak down further. The first lesson all Assassins learned was that there was never such a phrase as being too cautious. Although the Border Town was in a remote area of the Empire, so long as the chance existed of her being identified, she'd rather play things safe.

"No need," she said coldly. "I won't be showing my face to you again."

He could tell that she didn't mean that she would be leaving, but that she would be secretly tailing him instead. Besides, it wasn't in the nature of an Assassin to be out in the open. In fact, her wearing her cloak would probably look even more inconspicuous in a small town where everyone seemed to know each other.

In that case, why would she even bother revealing herself to him rather than remain hidden?

The answer came blatantly when she stuffed the food, he had prepared prior for an early lunch, into a storage bag she was carrying on her person without even pausing.

His lip twitched, her behaviour somehow reminding him of a glutton he once knew, but all the same. He watched quietly as she took the food and returned to where she had been hiding, leaving the silence as his only companion.

It didn't bother him much.

Instead, he got up and decided that it was best to get through with the day's activities while contemplating the impending food shortage. Slipping by past Elaine and his siblings, he made his way towards a certain part of the town, a lithe shadow trailing behind him while staring in wonder at the food in her hands.

Small as the town was with a population barely reaching a hundred, the distance between his home and his destination was relatively short. It was a simple cottage made of thatch held together by gathered resin and bound thread overtop a wooden foundation. The musk of its scent was particularly strong, but it was a smell attributed with the locals as medicinal due to the importance they placed on the simple building.

It was his accommodation as the town's only healer which in comparison to other such facilities elsewhere appeared lacking. To him however, it was fine so long as it could serve its purpose.

In that regard, there was already someone waiting for him by the front door. A bearded man wearing a bandana over his tussled hair and a fur tunic over his body and bound leather pants.