Leone

Leone was one of the older members of the assassination group, Night Raid. She excels at gathering information and exercising calm judgment when necessary. Leone is often the one who's seen confirming the validity of the targets which Night Raid is assigned to assassinate.

Appearance
Leone was a young, curvaceous woman. She had short blonde hair with two long tufts that framed the sides of her head and golden eyes. She wore a revealing outfit with a black tube top, detachable sleeves with what looked like gold bands, pants, boots and a scarf around her neck. When she transformed, her hair becomes longer and she gains lion-like ears, a tail and claws. When her teigu, Lionel, fused with her, her hair becomes longer, and ears a bit bigger, she also sports out lionlike feet and many areas of her body are covered with fur, overall having a more beast-like appearance.

Personality
She had a very relaxed, upbeat, and cheerful personality, and tends to display a lack of lady-like manners, often seen shoving Tatsumi into her breasts, putting her feet on the table, or consuming large amounts of sake and other alcoholic drinks. She serves as a sort of big sister figure to Tatsumi and the younger members in Night Raid, often referring to herself as "Onee-san" or "Big Sis". Despite the morally-dodgy nature that she sometimes displayed, Leone is not one to tolerate injustice, and can be especially vicious to those who commit the vilest of acts. She also enjoyed fighting her enemies a lot, as said by Najenda, who told her that she needed to change that habit.

History
Leone grew up in the slums of the Capital where she had worked in a massage parlor ever since childhood. She was apparently scouted by the Revolutionary Army after saving some slum children from a group of nobles who were abusing them for sport.

She was the first member of Night Raid to meet Tatsumi in the beginning of the story, offering to get him into the Imperial Army in exchange for a favor. Taking advantage of his naivety at the outset, she tricks him into treating her to dinner and drinks, and then swindles him out of his money. Later, she reappears and is revealed to be a member of Night Raid. After the confrontation at Aria's mansion is concluded, she recognizes Tatsumi's skills and tells him from now on, he'll be a member of Night Raid, serving as a way of paying him back for her earlier conning of him.

Still devastated over the loss his beloved childhood friends Sayo and Ieyasu, Leone shows up to cheer him up and to find out if he thought about joining them, but Tatsumi was still hesitant about accepting her offer. She shows him around the hide-out and introduces him to the other members of Night Raid: Sheele, Mine, Bulat, Lubbock, Akame and Najenda. When she meets Najenda, she tells her that she wants to recommend him as a new member of their team. Najenda asked if he showed promise, which Leone affirms. When Tatsumi was given a choice to become part of Night Raid, he wrongly states they are assassins of justice, which caused them to laugh at him. He asked what was so funny and Leone replied "Tatsumi... No matter how you dress it up, what we're doing is murder." When they were under attack, Leone stated that her Teigu gives her superhuman strength to beat her enemies to death.

She is placed with Tatsumi and sent to the Capital to complete their mission. He realizes that she is very popular in her home district. The two were separated when a gang of men that she had also swindled out of their money came after her, but reunited on time to start their assignment. They enter the targeted building and witness a gang kill a drugged prostitute, a girl who Leone knew from the streets. Together, they eliminated the gangsters in the building. When they finished their mission, Tatsumi asked her what will happen to those girls, she replies that it isn't their problem, but then tells him there is a doctor in the slums who will look after them if she asks him to. Tatsumi notes her kindness with a smile and then she "marks him" as hers by licking his ear.

They are once again sent on another mission. Their target was the Kobore Brothers under the orders of the Revolutionary Army HQ. The two complete their mission, slaughtering the brothers, and as they leave, Tatsumi hears a child's voice calling for his father, who was one of the brothers. Angry at himself, Tatsumi leaves as fast as he could. The next morning, Tatsumi attempts to clean his bloodstained sword while thinking about how the boy only saw the Kobore brother as a good father, instead of the villain that he was. Leone shows up and tells him that he could scrub the sword for his entire life, but the stain will never fade. While she tries to cheer him up and tell him that she was worried about him because he is too kind, he asks her where she got her teigu and why she fights the Empire. She replies she got her Teigu from a merchant for a good deal who didn't realize how good of a fine object he had on him and she takes great joy in killing people who abuse their power on the weak and helpless. While he finds that her reason gives him strength, he is still troubled. She also told him yet again that moping around isn't going to bring back the person you lost.

Later, she is assigned the task of spying on the Imperial general, Esdeath. Leone hides in the air vents above the room Esdeath was resting in, planning to kill her if the chance arises, but is scared off by a particularly violent display of killing intent from the general, who noticed the presence of someone hidden nearby.

During the attack on Night Raid's hideout by Team Stylish, she is hit in the face with a throwing dagger and presumed dead, only later to show up and kill the Stylish-minion who threw it with a single blow, revealing that her Teigu increases her natural regeneration.

After Night Raid's fight with Stylish, Leone and Tatsumi fought a group of Danger Beasts together. While they were fighting, she was surprised and impressed by Tatsumi being able to use "Neuntote", Incursio's special move, Leone also stated that Tatsumi is coming closer and closer to Bulat. Leone displays that her Teigu also increases her sight and speed as well, She was able to beat the strongest Danger Beast in their area without having a single injury.

During the fight with Bols, Kurome, and Wave, Kurome cuts off Leone's left arm. Leone uses her regeneration powers to stop the bleeding but comments that Lubbock would have to come and sew it back together.

Night Raid's next major assassination would involve Leone being apart of the underground attack team assigned to distract Esdeath. Unfortunately, thanks to Wave & Run holding off the air team along with Esdeath not coming out, they were forced to confront her head on. While Tatsumi snuck around to Bolic, Najenda, Leone, and Susanoo engaged Esdeath head-on. During the battle, the team while easily overwhelmed and Leone suffered brutal torture at the hands of Esdeath herself. Once Akame and Mine arrived, Leone held back a fleeing Bolic allowing Akame to kill him and at Najenda's command began to retreat.

Three months later, Leone would join in the mission to rescue Tatsumi from being executed by Esdeath and General Budo. During Mine's assault on the duo, Leone arrives & saves her along with Akame from Esdeath's barrage and prepared to engage Esdeath and an angry Budo. She and Tatsumi tag-teamed against Budo while Akame and Mine fought Esdeath. Sometime during the battle, Leone was joined by Mine and Akame to combat a weakened Budo only to overwhelmed and nearly defeated. Najenda arrived as evacuation only for Budo to follow them & attempt to kill them. To save everyone, Mine pushed Pumpkin to its limit and ultimately killed Budo at the cost of her becoming comatose.

Later on, when the attack on the Capital commences, Leone was tasked with killing the Revolutionary Army's enemies from the inside. Alongside Akame, she snuck into the Capital and they assassinate their targets. While the two of them had split up to kill their enemies quicker, Leone attempted to kill the Prime Minister herself.

Leone and Minister Honest began their fight, and she was surprised as she found out that Honest was a Teigu user and was actually skilled at martial arts. Eventually, however, Leone gained the upper hand and almost managed to kill him once and for all, but Honest then revealed the power of his Teigu. The Teigu used its ability to destroy Leone's Lionelle, causing her to return back to her normal state. Honest then used a pistol and fired a shot at her, weakening her significantly. Minister Honest threw Leone off the top of the building causing her to fall down several floors and she seemingly died.

However, after the battle between Esdeath and Akame, Leone is revealed to have survived as she follows Honest underground as he tries to escape. She has fused with what's left of her broken Teigu, giving her a more lionlike appearance. She proceeds to easily beat down Honest and even rips his guts out. Leone then drags him all the way to the top of the Palace and throws him over the ledge, just like he did to her earlier, sarcastically telling him to enjoy the time he has left. After the battle, Akame meets up with her and is about to get medical assistance, but she declines and hugged her, revealing that she was only alive because she fused with her Teigu temporarily. She tells Akame that she wants to choose where and when she dies and then says that Akame is her best friend. She bids Akame farewell and enjoys one last night out drinking with her friends. When she walks by the spot where she first met Tatsumi, she smiles while remembering him and falls on the ground. Leone then dies in the street with her last smile still on her face.

Equipment and Skills
Leone possessed a Teigu in the form of a belt, named Lionel. When activated, it enhanced her speed, reflexes, strength and regeneration, as well as giving her animal-like characteristics. She was also a skilled spy and manipulator, occasionally using her skills to swindle people out of their money, as seen with Tatsumi. Leone was also a very skilled hand-to-hand combatant, using such skills to fight her enemies, and has managed to fight even the most skilled enemies on even ground, although she usually killed them rather quickly.

She stated herself that she preferred sneak attacks to kill her enemies before they could react. Considering this and the fact that she was shown to infiltrate different areas on multiple occasions, it was implied she was incredibly skillful at stealth. She is a valuable member of Night Raid and had shown to be quite powerful. She was able to kill three men with a single kick as well as killing a large Danger-Beast with a single blow.

Once using Lionelle's transformation, it was shown that Leone became a deadly fighter. She was shown to easily keep up with Tatsumi while he used Incursio's armor, as they killed several Danger Beasts together as a training method. Lionel has enhanced Leone to inhuman durability, during a fight with General Budo where she was struck down with powerful thunderbolts, she was able to move after a few moments.

Also, she seemed to have a sixth sense, being aware of danger beforehand, as shown when Night Raid was attacked by Dr. Stylish. An assassin had used a sneak attack on her, attempting to kill her with a knife before she could react, but she was able to catch the knife in her mouth instead.

Lionelle also gave Leone an impressive regenerative ability. During her battles, Leone had lost both an arm and one of her breasts but was able to regenerate them. However, the regeneration is not instant, and takes a very long time to finish.

Trivia

 * It seems that using Lionelle has affected some of her personality traits, even when it is not activated. For example, she literally marked Tatsumi as hers, showing territoriality. At the end of the manga, Lionelle has also mutated Leone's physical body to keep her alive and made her more lion-like in appearance.
 * Leone herself said that she loves to use sneak attacks, but hates being a victim of them.
 * Her measurements were 90-57-86.
 * Leone was the only member of Night Raid who isn't known as a member by the Empire.
 * Her original design varies quite a bit from the current one:
 * Her hair is brown in the original.
 * She is missing her long bangs.
 * She has much longer claws in her Teigu form.

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Leone Леоне Leone 雷歐奈