AKAME ASSASINATION (50)
As the last of the masonry dust settled, a fine, grey snow in the still air, a lone figure was already moving in the ruin. He knelt amidst the skeletal remains of what had been an inner sanctum, his motions methodical, almost tender, as he lifted chunks of carved stone and tossed them aside with a casual, frightening strength. Each piece—some weighing as much as a man—landed with a muffled thud in the growing pile behind him.
He was a study in sharp contrasts against the monochrome debris. Black hair fell in a tousled cascade, framing a pale face dominated by eyes of a deep, luminous crimson—a red so rich it seemed to bleed light into the dim air around him, painting the dust motes with a faint, hellish glow. He wore a large, white long-sleeved shirt, the top several buttons carelessly undone, tucked into tailored black pants and heavy boots. Over it all was a sleek black jacket, unzipped, that fluttered with each powerful heave.
Beneath the final slab of a collapsed archway, he found his target.
The figure lay on its back, spreadeagled and utterly still. Long, wheat-blonde hair fanned out like a halo in the dust. Prominent, sharp canines were visible even in the relaxed line of the mouth. A beautifully crafted longsword, sheathed, lay across his stomach. His arms were folded peacefully over his chest in the classic posture of the laid-to-rest.
Akame shook his head, a dry, exasperated sigh escaping him. "My God. What are you doing?"
One crimson eye cracked open, then the other. Germain's voice was a low, sleep-roughened rasp, utterly devoid of alarm. "I require sleep on occasion. You were taking an unconscionably long time."
"I didn't see the point in rushing to save your lame ass," Akame retorted, hands sliding into his pockets, his posture the picture of bored indifference. "Also, aren't vampires supposed to be nocturnal? Why are you even conscious right now? It's practically noon."
As he spoke, a boot—moving faster than sight—connected solidly with the small of his back.
THUMP.
Akame stumbled forward a step, more from surprise than force. He turned, a scowl etching his features. "What's wrong with you?!"
Germain now floated a few inches off the rubble, still reclining horizontally, hands serenely crossed over his chest. He cracked his neck with a sound like popping gravel. "You looked very pushable from where I was lying."
"I am this close to killing you in your sleep," Akame growled, holding his thumb and forefinger a millimeter apart.
"I'd enjoy watching you try." In a blur of motion, Germain was upright, his boots touching down silently. He drew his blade with a soft, metallic whisper. The steel gleamed with a cold, hungry light. "Frankly, I'm growing weary of you and your execrable manners."
"My manners aren't execrable. Yours are just pathologically petty." Akame dismissed him with a flippant wave and began picking his way through the rubble toward an exit.
"So," Germain said, falling into step beside him, his blade vanishing back into its sheath as if it had never been drawn. "What story are we telling the First Saint?"
"We?"
"Yes, we. Unless you'd prefer to fabricate an explanation by your lonesome? I hear he's in a particularly inquisitive mood."
"Oh, please," Akame sneered, a sly, mocking grin spreading across his face. "Since you're such a consummate 'goody two-shoes,' I'll leave the creative writing to you. The floor is yours, Count Saint."
"Why must I perpetually be the one to sanitize your catastrophes?"
"Because you seem to enjoy it so much," Akame explained, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Normally, I'm the guy who stands there looking effortlessly nonchalant. It's in my nature."
"To be a profound disappointment?"
"To be calm and collected under pressure."
"If you're going to lie, at least have the dignity to do so with conviction."
They emerged from the shattered husk of the ancient temple into the weak, high-altitude sunlight. Before them stretched an old cobblestone path, a decaying artery of a forgotten pilgrimage. Time and neglect had not been kind. Many of the hexagonal stones were missing, leaving gaping, dirt-filled teeth in the roadway. Others were thrust upward by stubborn roots or shattered into brittle shale. The path was littered with the poignant detritus of abandonment: a single, mouldering leather boot; the sun-bleached rib bone of some large animal; tattered scraps of homespun cloth, snagged on thorns and fluttering like ghostly pennants. It wound its way along a precipitous cliff edge, where the only guard against a several-thousand-foot drop was a crumbled, lichen-crusted stone wall.
"But seriously," Akame said, his gaze fixed on the treacherous path ahead, his tone losing its edge for a moment. "What are we going to tell him?"
Germain glanced sideways, his crimson eyes unreadable. "What is there to tell? The objective was neutralized. The temple, regrettably, was collateral. The details are… fungible."
"Man," Akame grumbled, kicking a loose stone over the cliff edge. They listened as it clicked and bounced down the sheer face for a disconcertingly long time before silence reclaimed it. "Why did I get stuck with you, of all people?"
They reached the path's terminus. It didn't end at a gate or a village. It ended at the sky. The solid ground simply stopped, giving way to a vast, empty expanse of rushing wind and dizzying blue. A hundred yards away across the chasm, another landmass hung suspended in the air—a floating island of rock and greenery, connected to their own only by a series of wildly disjointed, slowly drifting stone platforms: the Greek Sky Tramps.
Akame peered over the edge into the bottomless abyss, then at the first distant, wobbly platform. He pointed. "How, exactly, are we supposed to get there?"
Germain didn't bother looking. A faint, dark aura shimmered around him. "Well, I can fly. So, you'll have to figure something out." He began to levitate, rising effortlessly off the broken cobblestones.
"I hate you," Akame stated flatly, looking up at him. "Like, a lot. Very much so."
A smirk touched Germain's lips, a flash of sharp canine. "You're just a sore loser. But if you apologize… I might consider giving you a lift."
SWOOO!
A fist-sized piece of temple rubble shot past Germain's head, missing his ear by a hair's breadth and vanishing into the void with a diminishing whistle.
"Seriously?" Germain deadpanned.
Akame was already bent over, selecting another, smoother stone. He hefted it. "Hey, man. Sometimes a friend's gotta kick your ass back into shape. You stay this cocky, you're gonna get humbled one of these days."
He threw again. This time, Germain had to tilt his head to let the missile pass. "Don't be so sure. You're exponentially more arrogant than I am."
"That," Akame said, pointing an accusatory finger at the floating vampire, "is exactly what a prideful dumbass would say."
"Well then," Germain's voice took on a teasing, challenging edge. "Try and prove it. If you can."
With a sound like ripping silk, he shot forward, not toward the distant platform, but straight up, leaving a fading series of crimson-tinged afterimages in his wake before arcing toward their destination.
Akame was left alone on the crumbling edge of the world, the wind whipping his hair. He stared after the vanishing dot, then down at the abyss, a grudging, almost imperceptible smile on his face.
A MEMORY, 20,000 FEET ABOVE SEA LEVEL: THE GREEK SKY TRAMPS
'That was such a simple time,' Germain's memory whispered.
'I wonder what went wrong.'
Your gravity was meant to pull me down
But you keep blaming everyone but yourself.
God isn't here anymore.
The devil smiles on you all.
A younger Akame's voice, stripped of its usual lazy mockery, laced with something colder, more absolute, echoed from the past:
"God isn't here anymore… I'll be the new god of this world, Germain."
***
PRESENT DAY – BLAKE'S VILLAGE
Germain's eyes snapped open.
He was in his borrowed study in Blake's village, the late afternoon sun painting warm stripes across the rough-hewn wooden desk. He'd been leaning on his right palm, a report on village grain yields half-unrolled before him, and had slipped into a shallow, unbidden sleep.
'Why was I remembering that?' he wondered, the ghost of high-altitude wind still chilling his skin. 'The Sky Tramps. A mortifyingly tedious first joint mission with the one person on the planet I found most insufferable.'
And yet… the memory lacked the acidic bitterness he'd expected. The missions that followed had been, if not enjoyable, then… tolerable. A familiar rhythm of insult and competence, danger and dry commentary.
"Mr. Germain?"
Joy's voice, bright and slightly hesitant, pulled him fully back to the present. She stood in the doorway, her hands fiddling with the ends of her intricate braids.
"Yes?" he asked, slightly startled, the vestiges of the memory still clouding his crimson eyes.
"Can we go now? For the tour? You said after you finished…" She trailed off, gesturing at the forgotten report.
"Ah. Yes, of course." He stood, smoothing his jacket, a rare flush of embarrassment touching his pale cheeks. The profound, deceptive calm of this place—the scent of baking bread, the distant laughter of children, the absence of imminent, world-ending threat—it was getting to him. Lulling him. Making him remember things best left in the thin air of floating islands.
He offered Joy his arm, the gesture old-fashioned and automatic. "My apologies. Lead the way."
As they stepped out into the golden-hued village lane, a capricious mountain wind swept down, rustling the thatched roofs and tugging at their clothes. It carried the scent of pine and distant rain, and for a moment, Germain could have sworn it also carried a whisper—a faint, mocking echo of laughter and a challenge hurled across an impossible gorge.
THE WINDS WHISPER OF A MEMORY LONG FORGOTTEN.
TO BE CONTINUED!