Tatsumi and the other members of night raid where currently walking down a rather crowded hallway. "Please remind me why we're here again," Leone said as she and the others walked through the crowd.

"We're here to participate in the tournament," Chelsea said as she looked at the blonde female in front of her.

"Okay so why are we in this tournament?" Leone asked looking at the group in front of her.

"Because the winner of this tournament gets a huge pay off and a tour of the palace. Which means the winner will not only meet the emperor but the Prime Minister as well." Chelsea said looking at Leone.

"Okay well that makes sense," the blonde said looking at the female that she had been talking to.

"Yeah although it's kind of obvious that all of us won't be able to enter the tournament so only three of us are going to be entering. This will help cut down on suspicion." Chelsea said looking at Leone.

"Okay well which three of us are going to be in the tournament?" Mine asked looking at Chelsea.

"Well a lot of things are allowed in this tournament unfortunately starting the fight with the intent to kill isn't one of them. They'll even alliw you to use imperial arms if they don't think you'll use them to kill your opponent. So we're entering Leone, Bulat, and Tatsumi." Chelsea said looking at Mine.

"What happens if we end up having to fight each other?" Tatsumi asked Looking at Chelsea.

"Then one gives up. You three can work out who gives up when the two of you meet I don't really think it matters." Chelsea said looking at the male in front of her.

"What happens if neither one of us want to give up?" Bulat asked looking at Chelsea.

"Then the two of you fight and the winner moves on," Akame said looking at Bulat.

"I think I'll just give up if I have to fight either of you." Tatsumi said looking at the two in front of him.

"Well that kind of takes all the fun out of it." Leone said looking at Tatsumi.

"Yeah maybe for you but it also takes out a lot of the pain for me." Tatsumi said looking at the blonde in front of him. The group was walking down the halls until they heard a loud voice ring throughout the halls.

"Hello everyone may I have your attention please. Would all contestants please head to the waiting room the tournament is about to commence. I repeat would all contestants please head to the waiting room the tournament is about to begin." The voice said before it cut off.

"Where's the waiting room?" Tatsumi asked looking at Bulat and Leone.

"Follow me I know where it is." Bulat said looking at the shorter male in front of him. When he said this Tatsumi nodded and followed behind Bulat as well as Leone.

The three of them continued down the hallway. The three of them walked in front of a room with a red door. When they did they saw a female standing there. "Are the three of you participating in the tournament?" She asked looking at the three of them.

The three of them nodded and she handed each of them a tag. They looked at the tags that they were given each tag had a number on it. "You'll need these for the tournament." She said looking at them.

"What number did you get?" Tatsumi asked looking at Bulat.

"I got number 2,558. How about you?" The larger male asked looking at Tatsumi.

"2,559" Tatsumi said looking at Bulat. He then turned to Leone who was wearing her tag letting the others see it. "Leone got number 2,560" Tatsumi said looking at the blonde in front of him.

"Yeah that's what number I got." Leone said looking at Tatsumi. Leone then got a little bored listening to Tatsumi and Bulat talking to each other and walked off. When she did she saw that three members like her and her friends where sticking together.

Ahe walked close to them and leaned aginst the wall so that she could hear what they were saying. She heard the female speak first. Leone looked over at her and saw that she had dark red hair and red eyes that matched.

"I don't like the numbers we got. I feel like it should be in the triple digits heck I'd even settle for the double digits. The numbers one, two and three. They just look odd and are aure to attract attention." Leone heard the female say looking at them.

"Scerea look we got here first they gave us the first tags. There's nothing unusual about it. We showed up first we got the first tags. That's just the way that this works. There's nothing unusual, odd, or threatening about it." She heard a male with say.

Leone like before opened up one if her eyes and turned her head to the side to see which of the two males had spoken. She saw that the male that had spoken had blonde hair and green eyes.

"Even so I just feel like these numbers are a little odd." The female that Leone now knew as Scerea said looking at the male.

"Look even if you don't like the numbers we can't do anything about it now. Besides that girl that gave us these tags said that we'd need them for later parts of the tournament." Another male voice said. Leone sighed and did the math in her head.

'Alright let me see there were two guys and one girl. I know that one of them already talked and there's no way that voice belonged to that girl. Which only leaves the other male. If I remember correctly from looking at he has black hair and brown eyes.' Leone though to herself as she continued to listen.

"Zero I'll meet up with you and Jason later. I'll be back in a few minutes I want to go check something out." Leone heard the redhead say. She then heard footsteps start to make her way towards her. Leone grew a little nervous however that nervousness quickly faded as she heard the female walk past her.

Leone then got off the wall and walked away decided that she had overstayed her welcome. As she walked around she soon saw a figure standing in between two others. She didn't recognize two of them but the one in the center stood out plane as day.

It was none other than Esdeath herself. She saw that she was talking to two others in front of her. One of them looked to be a few years younger than her. She had short black hair and red eyes and now that Leone was looking she looked a little like Akame.

The other was a male who was a little taller than Esdeath and looked to be just a few years older. He also shared her blue hair and blue eyes. Leone turned around a corner when she saw them and like before began to eavesdrop on their conversation.

"I would once again like to think the two of you for coming here with me." Leone heard heard Esdeath say.

"It's no problem Esdeath after all you are my superior." She heard a feminine voice say. She assumed that this was the female that she had been talking to.

"Yeah and you really shouldn't thank family for such a tedious task. It's not what father would want." Leone heard the male of the three say.

"Even so Kurome, brother I would like to thank the two of you for agreeing to accompany me on this task. After we received work that their might be peolpe who are entering this tournament to harm the Prime Minister or even worse the Emperor then of course I had to enter." Esdeath said looking at them.

"Right now let's go before someone recognizes you and asks for an autograph or something else tedious." Leone heard the male say. She then turned around and began to walk away. As she was walking she ran into Tatsumi almost knocking the male off balance.

"Tatsumi we got a problem." Leone said looking down at the shorter male.

"Really well what's the problem?" Tatsumi asked looking at the blonde female in front of him. Leone then jerked her head to the right a couple of times. Tatsumi got the hint and looked behind her only for his heart to drop when he saw Esdeath.

"Yeah let's go tell Bulat about that then." Tatsumi said looking at the female in front of him. Leone nodded when she heard this and two walked walked off to find the third member of their group. As the two walked around they finally found the third member of their group. However much to the blonde distress he was talking to the redhead that she had been listening to just moments ago.

"Really?" The redhead asked looking up at the male in front of her.

"Yeah," Bulat said looking down at the female in front of her.

"I never would have guessed it." The redhead said looking at Bulat.

"Yeah sorry to have disappointed you." Bulat said looking at her.

"No it's fine I mean theirs got to be at least one man who's willing to entertain me for the night." The female said walking away.

Leone and Tatsumi then walked up to Bulat. "Who was that?" Tatsumi asked looking at Bulat.

"That was Scerea she was looking for someone to keep her company for the night. She was quite presistant so I ended up having to tell her that I wasn't interested in women. She took the news better than I expected her to." Bulat said looking at them.

Leone was about to tell Bulat what she and Tatsumi had just seen. However a loud voice saw to it that no one was speaking for a moment or two. "Hello everyone would all contestants please make their way to the arena I repeat would all contestants please make their way to the arena." The voice said before it faded away.

Leone then sighed and followed Tatsumi and Bulat as the they walked out a door and into a massive opening with a huge tower in the center. Leone and the others were quite for a few seconds before the voice once again started to speak. "Alright now that everyone's here we have determined that there are 2,560 contestants this year." The male said looking at everyone.

"So this year we're going to have a preliminary round to help narrow down the competition. So we have determined that if you want to proceed to the next round you must complete a task for us." The male said looking down at the contestants.

"So this year we have decided that in order to proceed you must obtain the tags of twenty other members tags then make your way to the top of this tower. If you can do this then you pass the first part of the tournament and are ready to advance to part two." The man said looking at the many peolpe that were on the ground.

"Now you can obtain these tags by any means necessary as long as that does involve killing your opponent. Now if there are no further question please let the preliminaries BEGIN!" The male announced looking down at the contestants.