Reaper of the Empire (Akame Ga Kill x Male Reader)

Chapter 21: Aria's Kindness

The following morning F/N raises early to get in some exercise before everyone else gets up. He also gets dressed and leaves his room to search the mansion to see the layout. He in particular is looking for anything that could verify to him that this family is the one that he is planning on assassinating. F/N finds that the guards are not really paying any attention to him, which allows him to explore the entire mansion with relative ease. F/N is grateful for their stupidity, as them not paying attention to him makes his job much easier. Despite having a near free run of the house, he does not find anything that is all that incriminating in the house. This makes F/N think that perhaps he is being paranoid.

After having explored all of inside the house to the best of his ability F/N heads back to his room. When he turns down that hall, he sees Aria knocking at his door.

F/N: "I am not in there. Do you need something?"

Aria turns rapidly and is clearly startled.

Aria: "Don't sneak up on me. You nearly gave me a heart attack."

F/N: "Sorry I didn't realize I would startle you that badly."

Aria: "Anyway F/N I was wondering if you and Tatsumi would like to go into town shopping with me today. I figured it could be your way of paying me back for finding you on the street."

F/N: "I cannot speak for Tatsumi, but I guess I have time to kill so sure."

Aria: "Great. Also breakfast is ready downstairs."

With this Aria leaves the guest room area and goes downstairs. F/N decides to check on Tatsumi, not trusting the family. He knocks on Tatsumi's door.

F/N: "Are you up yet Tatsumi?"

Tatsumi: "Yeah I am up. Just give me a minute to get ready."

After five minutes Tatsumi comes out of his room and they both head downstairs to go and have breakfast with the rest of the family. When they get downstairs they find that there is a massive amount of food prepared including bacon, eggs, sausage, toast, pancakes, waffles, and more. F/N is stunned that they went to so much effort to make breakfast. He starts to wonder even more why the family is being so nice to them. To this point F/N has found nothing that would suggest to him that they are serial killers, other than their behavior is too nice.

Once the meal is over F/N, Tatsumi, and Aria all head outside to the carriage to go on a shopping trip. F/N soon learns that Aria is a big shopper as they go to dozens of stores buying a large number of items. F/N is starting to regret agreeing to come as he never expected that she would be this involved in shopping. He thought she would only go to one or two stores, not every store in the Capital.

When F/N had gone shopping with Anne on occasion she did not buy half as much as Aria is buying. Even though Aria's family is clearly richer than Anne's family was, F/N still cannot believe that Aria would buy so much. She buys shoes, clothes, along with a ton of other things. To F/N all of what she buys are things that she did not need in the first place.

Eventually Aria leaves with some of her guards. This leaves F/N, Tatsumi, and one of Aria's guards standing at the carriage. The guard points to the palace on the hill.

Guard: "You are new to the Capital right? Well that is where the whole Empire is run."
Tatsumi: "Wow I have always wanted to see where the Emperor makes all of his decisions for the whole Empire."

Guard: "Well the emperor is still only a child, so most of the government is run by his Prime Minister. In truth he manipulates the emperor to do his will. Everyone in the Capital knows about it and does nothing."

Tatsumi: "So he is the one that is responsible for my village being so poor from taxes."

Guard: "That is right. He is a monster of a man that is constantly eating meat along with other things. He has grown fat as a result of the easy life that he is living."

Tatsumi: "He sounds like a terrible leader."

F/N: "From what I understand he is. To make matters worse those that speak out against him, or just do something that he does not like are killed. He has this entire Empire under his control. It could all be fixed if the child emperor would not be so blind to what is going on in the Empire. He won't change though, because he thinks the Prime Minister is always right."

Guard: "It sounds like you have personal experience with him."

F/N: "I had a bad experience as a result of him is all. I lost my home and father as a direct result of the Prime Minister. One of my friends was also killed by his order, even though she had not done anything wrong."

Tatsumi: "The Capital is starting to not sound like it is all that it is hiked up to be."

Guard: "That is not even the worst of it. The real monsters are a group of assassins called Night Raid that go around executing people in the town. Over there are wanted posters for them."

The guard points to a wall that has pictures of four individuals. F/N can see that the names include Najenda, Akame, Bulat, and Sheele. F/N thinks, "I am not surprised that they have wanted posters up for several members of Night Raid. Since Akame and Najenda were both part of the Empire they make sense. I am curious how many members of Night Raid there actually are. I bet that there are some the Empire has yet to identify. Those ones could be anywhere right now." While F/N is pondering this the guard continues to speak.

Guard: To make matters even worse there are believed to be other assassins that go around the city killing people. As of right now no one has spotted any of these assassins, but basically they are a group that is believed to work independent of Night Raid. They seem to kill anyone that they don't like along with robbing belongings after they kill the person. The worst of them is called The Reaper. He has never been spotted, but he kills without warning and is unlike anything the Empire has ever faced. Supposable this guy has been working as an assassin for longer than anyone can remember, yet he has never been caught. He kills any guards sent after him."

Tatsumi: "This place is starting to sound really terrifying. Regardless though I need to make money to send back to my village."

F/N: "Also don't worry about assassins. Usually assassins only strike someone if that person is a target. So unless you tick someone important off you will probably be fine."

Tatsumi: "That is reassuring."

F/N: "It wasn't meant to be. I was telling you to make sure not to piss off important people."

Guard: "There is no use in worrying about all of this right now. We should be more concerned about that."

The guard points to Aria jogging back to the carriage in front of the rest of her guards carrying a box bigger than the carriage. F/N thinks, "What could she possibly have gotten that is so big? It looks like she bought a whole store." The guard along with Tatsumi and F/N rush over to help the guards that are struggling to carry the box. With all of them working together they are able to make it back to the carriage and strap it on top. At this point Aria decides that they are done shopping for the day and the group all heads back to the mansion.

For the rest of the day Aria, F/N, and Tatsumi play games in the mansion. F/N is starting to wonder if his intuition about this family may be off. They have not tried anything weird yet, which he was expecting to come quickly. Regardless of this fact, he still has one more area that he needs to check out before he can clear them of suspicion. F/N noticed that there is a brick shed on the property. He is not sure what is in it, but figures he may as well take a look as that is the only area he has left to check. Part of F/N knows that the family is hiding something in there, as no one in the Capital is as nice as they are acting.

Everything that this family is doing is too suspicious for F/N to just give up on the idea that they are serial killers. F/N thinks, "If I had never met The Reaper I would probably give this family a free pass by now. They have shown no signs that would suggest to me that they are bad people. Yet, I know that something is up since they are acting so nice. The Reaper taught me enough for me to know that a family that is acting like this is definitely hiding something. Maybe they are not serial killers, but they are definitely not good people either. I am sure that tonight I will find out the truth though when I go and look in their shed.