After a short break for (F/N) to recover from using all of his stored energy, Mine and (F/N) returned to Night Raid's base. They report on what happened and on the deaths of Seryu and Suzuka. (F/N) leaves out the fact that the Reaper was the one that killed Suzuka, not him. Najenda hears the report and agrees that (F/N) made the right choice in saving Mine even though it cost him all of the energy he had stored in his Teigu.
The following day proves to be uneventful for Night Raid as they make preparations for the attack on the cathedral to kill Bolic that night. It is decided that Najenda, Susanoo, Tatsumi, and Leone will go through the tunnels to attack. The other team is to be a decoy and try to lure as many of the Jaegers away from Bolic as possible. That team consists of Chelsea, Mine, (F/N), and Akame. They are to take an air manta and fly to the cathedral. Najenda is hoping that by splitting up like this they will be able to split up the Jaegers. Her only real concern is what Esdeath will do. If Esdeath stays near Bolic it will be hard for Night Raid to assassinate him as planned.
Meanwhile Esdeath is making her own plans for the night's events. As Bolic plans to kill the Lord of the Path of Peace the following day, Esdeath expects that Najenda will have to make her move tonight. Since Esdeath is not sure how Night Raid will strike she has ordered Run and Wave to patrol outside. Kurome and Esdeath are going to be inside the cathedral near Bolic. Esdeath is hoping that Najenda will come herself so she can kill her personally.
As night approaches Susanoo prepares a lavish dinner for all of the members of Night Raid to enjoy. He makes each member of the team their favorite meal. For Leone that is saka and other kinds of alcohol. Mine gets a strawberry parfait, while Akame gets a plate of many types of meat. Tatsumi said that he was not picky and got a small plate of rice, corn, and chicken. (F/N) got some wild boar meat from a danger beast boar that Susanoo found near Kyoroch. Chelsea got a dish including many different sweet flavors. While the team is eating Chelsea tries to share some of her food with Tatsumi, only to have Leone pull him away to pour her a drink. This annoys Chelsea greatly.
Once everyone has finished their meals the team heads out for the mission. (F/N), Akame, Mine, and Chelsea all get on the air manta and take off. Their team is hoping to draw Esdeath out of the cathedral. The air manta takes off towards the cathedral and gets fairly close before anything happens. However, once the air manta is near the cathedral feathers start flying at them. Looking up, (F/N) sees that Run is attacking them.
Chelsea, who is steering the air manta, tries to avoid the incoming feathers. This however does not work for long as the feathers pierce through the air manta's wings and then one goes through its head. This kills the beast and the whole team starts to go down. As the landing is sure to be a rough one the members of Night Raid all position themselves so that the air manta will take the blunt of the fall. The air manta crashes into some trees that are near the cathedral.
As soon as the air manta has hit the ground all of the members of Night Raid quickly jump off of the air manta and prepare themselves for a battle that they are sure is to follow. (F/N) sees both Run and Wave are outside of the cathedral and coming their way. Since Esdeath is not with them, (F/N) assumes that she is still inside protecting Bolic. The whole point of splitting up the team was to make sure that Esdeath was not near Bolic, so that Night Raid could kill him. Since that has failed (F/N) decides it would be best for as many members of Night Raid to head into the cathedral to help kill Bolic as possible.
(F/N): "We need to split up. Some of us should head into the cathedral."
Mine: "I can handle Run. Since he is flying it would be hard for any of you to fight him."
Akame: "I can go after Wave."
(F/N): "Let me take Wave. Akame you go inside with Chelsea. Your sword will not do much against him."
Meanwhile inside the cathedral Najenda, Susanoo, Tatsumi, and Leone have reached the end of the tunnels that they were using. As they slowly enter the cathedral a shard of ice comes flying right at Najenda. Tatsumi, wearing Incursio, jumps in front of Najenda and the ice shatters against his armor. Looking ahead the team sees that Esdeath is standing there with a sadistic smile on her face.
Having no better plan as to how to deal with Esdeath, Leone, Tatsumi, and Susanoo all rush forward at her. Esdeath easily avoids each of their attacks while delivering powerful blows herself. Before long Kurome summons Natala. He heads over and begins to attack Tatsumi. This pulls him away from the fight with Esdeath.
Now Esdeath is fighting Leone and Susanoo. She draws her sword from its sheath at her side and begins to strike at Susanoo. He is able to heal from each of her slashes, as he is an organic Teigu. Esdeath sees an opportunity to strike as Leone swings at her. Esdeath ducks under Leone's strike and then cuts her along the midsection. Leone uses her trump card to heal this wound, which intrigues Esdeath quite a bit.
Thinking that Esdeath is distracted, Najenda rushes forward to strike. Despite Najenda being somewhat skilled in fighting she is no match for Esdeath, who strikes her hard in the stomach using her elbow. Najenda keels over in pain. Susanoo rushes over and grabs Najenda. He manages to just get her out of harm's way as Esdeath was about to kill her.
Meanwhile outside the cathedral, Mine is shooting at Run, who is dodging her attacks. He returns fire by throwing feathers at her. Neither one of them is able to hit the other. However, Mine is just trying to keep Run busy at the moment. Run has a similar plan, as he suspects that a sharpshooter like Mine would have the best chance at killing Bolic inside the cathedral, as she could strike before anyone could stop her.
Wave and (F/N) start to do battle. Since (F/N) no longer has the added benefits from his Teigu, he makes sure to dodge Wave's attacks primarily. This is because without the added power of his Teigu, (F/N) is unsure how effective his attacks would be against Grand Chariot. Wave is not nearly fast enough to hit (F/N), so he continually misses hitting him. After trying several more attempts to strike (F/N), Wave finally decides to give up.
Wave: "I can tell that I am not going to be able to hit you."
(F/N): "Well I am glad you finally realized that."
Wave: "You however cannot hurt mean while I have Grand Chariot on either."
(F/N): "I probably could if I kept chipping away at your armor. However, it would take a long time."
Wave: "Last time we spoke you mentioned how you only go after rapists and serial killers."
(F/N): "I didn't say I only go after those kinds of people. However, most of my targets do fit that description. I know that you probably think everyone in the Empire is a good person, but that is simply not true."
Wave: "I know that not everyone in the Empire is good. That does not mean that you have a right to just kill them. People that are wicked should be punished after a fair trial."
(F/N): "Do you think that they would get a fair trial? The way I see it, the Prime Minister will have killed anyone that he does not like and will let anyone that he likes get off without any punishment."
Wave: "Why do you think that?"
(F/N): "You have met Bolic. I am sure you already have a good idea of the kind of person that he is. The Prime Minister quite likes Bolic, so any charge against him would be immediately dropped."
Wave: "I suppose you are right on that, but still just killing people like you guys do is not right."
(F/N): "Wave I don't just kill randomly. Frankly if the Prime Minister and Emperor could be replaced peacefully that may be the path I would recommend someone take. However, I was trained from birth to kill people. You cannot expect me to know of any other way to solve the problems that are currently going on other than what I am doing."
Wave: "If you cannot think of a better way, than you should not be trying to fix the problem."
(F/N): "If no one fixes the problem soon, then it will be too late. Do you think that it is just mere luck that the revolutionary army is getting bigger daily? Do you think that people are happy with how things are happening in the Empire? The answer is obvious. People want change. If a major change does not happen it is only a matter of time before massacres start happening all over to prevent rebellion. It will not get better with time it will only get worse."
Wave: "I can see that we will never agree on this point. You know it really hurt Kurome to learn that you were with Night Raid."
(F/N): "I imagine that it did. Honestly, she is a big part of why I think the Empire needs to be destroyed."
Wave: "What do you mean?"
(F/N): "When Kurome was little she was sold by her parents to the Empire to be trained as an assassin. She survived all of the training, but was not good enough to be placed in the elite squad that my adopted father was creating, so she was sent to the Capital. They used performance enhancing drugs on her to make her stronger. As a result she is much stronger, but her lifespan is dramatically shorter than it should be. In addition, she is highly addicted to the drug."
Wave: "I have never seen her taking drugs."
(F/N): "You probably have. From what Tatsumi told me, she probably puts it in the cookies that she eats. She has to have the drug a lot, or else she has a major relapse."
Wave: "I had no idea. Is there a way to help her?"
(F/N): "Akame thinks that the best thing for Kurome is to kill her to end her suffering. I don't agree with that though. My thought is there probably is a way to help her get off the drugs, but her lifespan will never return to what it was. I know of a hot spring that has healing properties. If she used it frequently after getting off the drug it could help with relapse and lengthen her life a little. My hope is that there exists another solution that I am not aware of, which will completely help her."
Wave: "I will take her there then once the revolution is finally put down."
(F/N): "Even if the revolutionary army is destroyed and Night Raid falls that will not end the uprising. Only a change in government will do that. Anyway I think we can call this fight a draw for now. I am leaving."
With that comment (F/N) walks off away from the cathedral. The battle inside the cathedral has almost concluded as well. With Susanoo no longer attacking her, Esdeath is able to turn her full attention to Leone at least for a second. Even with Lionelle's help Leone is not able to last long against Esdeath. She has her left leg cut off. Esdeath then proceeds to cut off pieces of Leone slowly. Since Leone is able to heal herself, Esdeath wants to take her time torturing Leone to see how long she can last through the pain.
Seeing what is happening to Leone, Najenda orders Susanoo to use his trump card. With his trump card activated Susanoo summons his huge sword and swings it at Esdeath. She sees the strike coming and creates walls of ice to block the sword. The sword slowly goes through layer after layer before finally coming to a stop. Esdeath rushes in to attack Susanoo.
While Esdeath is distracted by Susanoo, Akame and Chelsea reach the cathedral. Doya is standing guard near where they are at, so Chelsea goes to take care of her while Akame goes after Bolic. As Akame gets near Bolic, Kurome moves to stand in her way. When their two swords clash a sharp pain shoots through Kurome's neck as a result of the needle wound. Akame realizes this and uses that as a chance to knock Kurome down. She then goes after Bolic as he is the target. Akame reaches Bolic quickly and slashes into him with Murasame.
Bolic lets out a scream as he dies from Murasame's poison. This alerts Esdeath to the presence of the other members of Night Raid in the cathedral. It however also distracts her for a second. Susanoo is able to get close to her and is about to strike her when Esdeath shouts, "Mahapadma!" This activates her trump card. As a result, time freezes. Susanoo's blade is just inches away from striking Esdeath, but it never will.
With time frozen Esdeath walks over and stabs her blade right into Susanoo's chest. She then pries the core from Susanoo's chest. At this point time starts to run as normal. Esdeth then throws Susanoo's core to the ground and crushes it under her boot. This causes Susanoo to die as a result of his core being destroyed. All of the members of Night Raid are now somewhat worried about what to do. Akame decides to rush over to attack Esdeath.
Even though Akame is quite quick, Esdeath is able to block her strikes using ice so that Murasame never is able to touch her. Esdeath also uses her sword to strike at Akame. Akame is not fast enough and the sword cuts her along the leg, slowing her down dramatically. It is clear to everyone there that Esdeath will win the fight no matter how hard Akame may try to win.
At this point to everyone's surprise Susanoo's core reforms and he reappears in his trump card form. At this point he charges at Esdeath. As he is running to battle against Esdeath, Susanoo shouts, "Everyone, run! I will hold her off!" With that he begins to engage Esdeath in battle. As a result of his trump card overlapping he is slightly stronger than before.
Seeing this and not wanting Susanoo to sacrifice himself in vain, the members of Night Raid begin to run. Chelsea runs out the main entrance that she was standing by. Wave is on his way into the cathedral, but fails to catch her. Najenda grabs Leone and takes off into the tunnels. Akame and Tatsumi also rush off into the tunnels. Esdeath sees them starting to make a break for it, but Susanoo attacks her forcing her to break off the pursuit. As a result of this all of Night Raid's members, but Susanoo are able to get away safely.
Once all the members of Night Raid have gotten away Esdeath turns her attention back to Susanoo. He tries to fight her to the best of his ability. Despite his best effort he is no match for her. Eventually Esdeath breaks her attack off.
Esdeath: "What is your name?"
Susanoo: "I am called Susanoo."
Esdeath: "I will remember that as the name of a warrior, not a weapon."
Esdeath then advances forward. Susanoo tries to dodge the attack, but is too slow. Esdeath manages to touch him and freezes him solid. She then breaks the ice with Susanoo in it. This results in the death of Susanoo. His core breaks this time and will not be repairing itself again. His sacrifice was not in vain though as all of Night Raid was able to get away.