Fighting Pit.

Morpheus woke me up the following day as he got hungry.

Stretching out, I went out of my tent after leaving everything in order. Getting a bowl of breakfast for Morpheus, I let him eat while I went to the sea and wash my face.

Something that I regretted shortly after. Returning back to the campment I greeted formally everyone while grabbing my breakfast, by now Morpheus finished his part and got out of the tent to pester me.

I didn't mind him while I heard Ymir complaining about Tahru. It seemed that the Freljordian wanted her man to be more... freljordian.

After a while, Karya sat beside me and after remaining silent for a few moments while we heard Ymir and Hyuna chatting nonsense, she opened her mouth and said "Sorry about yesterday, I wasn't able to think things carefully."

Hearing her trying to apologize for something that she didn't need to, I smiled at her and said "Don't apologize for nothing you dummy, you have your reasons to think like that I can understand them."

She raised her head and I saw her bright black eyes looking at me "I still feel I need to do it." She said with a wry smile.

Freeing one hand, I hugged her while saying "There's no need, everyone have different views and you now that. Just see this as a chance to see how things would progress." She nodded her head while hearing my words.

She then moved her gaze towards Morpheus and said "It's not fair that you're the only one that can carry him." Hearing her words I chuckled and felt proud of my little cat.

Picking him up from the ground I let him eat the remaining from my breakfast while Karya looked at him with curiosity.

We chatted for while until I order everyone what they needed to do.

Mostly, the majority would be in charge of protecting the whole place, while helping building the pier and the lumbers to retrieve more wood.

On an interesting note, the lumbers have to plant smaller trees for each one they took, mostly to prevent a backlash and fury of Ionia.

So it was quite time consuming getting wood and that was why someone needed to protect them.

The place were the workers selected to gather from, was at eight hundred meters away from our position.

So, during the day we helped building the pier and storage rooms.

At noon, we received ten workers from the village that decided to see what was going around. Still, the guards in the village remained alerted and eyed cautiously towards us.

Although I noticed the amount of people was less than before, after all we didn't showed any kind of movement or actions that justified having everyone there in constant alert.

Karya requested me a lot of times to speak with them and ask for them to plant the hemp or flowers. More so when according to her, we could actually force them to do it.

In her logic, due to me sparing their lives, the least they could do was providing us with money.

Something that although I kinda agree. I didn't seemed in the same way. They could focus on raising crops, while letting our workers be in charge of fishing for them.

Although, due to this I started wondering what does the people here did to survive, after all the infrastructure and the likes was almost non-existent for large scale fishing.

It was with such curiosity that during the afternoon I walked into the village and inquire to the female Noxian, who by the way was is called "Karenina", about the village incomes and how the hell they survived.

She looked quite troubled to ask but then she told me that before their arrival in the villagers seemed to harvest some kind of flowers, that stopped growing after their arrival.

It was due to this that they Noxians and Ionians started fighting in a arena on a costal village on the west. There they made quite a lot of money and was enough to fed the village.

Surprised by this answer, it brought up to me another kind of problem that may troubled other villages.

I didn't waste time and mentioned to her about the hemp and flowers, although we didn't have that many with us, I told her how does the plants look like for those who were willing to give a try to search for.

She didn't seemed to take seriously my words and I wasn't in the mood to continue arguing with her, thus after learning what I wished to knew, I returned just in time to see the tier being finally built.

It wasn't big nor anything crazy, but was enough for two rows of people walk through with baskets filled with fish on the sides.

Also, it wasn't that long, just enough for four medium ships to enter, and at least ten small boats.

The oven was also finished, although it needed to dry for one entire day and night before using it. It was recommended three days but we were in a hurry.

By night the whole place looked a lot better with the warehouse halfway completion, the pier already built and the stands around the oven finished.

There was also a boat halfway completion, but the next one we were told it would take two days to complete.

Nonetheless it was quite productive but extremely boring, the only good aspect was that everyone in the team could train without too much worry.

There was also the addition of Morpheus who joined into the training, the little kitty was fierce on his stance of passing through the same ordeal as Irelia, Hyuna and Ymir.

Thus, I complied with his wish and used slight tremors on his body. Needless to say that he wasn't able to withstand for more than ten seconds that I have to carried him with me.

By the time we all went to a stream to clean ourselves and eat our meal, it was already quite late in the night.

The sky seemed to darken a bit and a storm could be seen on the distance of the ocean approaching us, so we started to prepare whatever we could to cover our tents.

While we were at that, one of the scouts we send the previous day came back and informed us of their discovery.

Two villages on the west, one of them being bigger than the majority we've been though these days. The other scout stayed behind while continuing gathering information.

This were good news, although it was left to check wether those villages were inhabitated by the Noxians like here.

At first sight, it didn't seemed to be like that according to the scout.

Nevertheless, after receiving that report we decided to have a team travel towards those villages and try to create a partnership.

After agreeing with that, we returned back to our tents and finalized the preparations for the storm.

"Hey, when are we're going to talk?" Before entering my tent, I heard Hyuna voice from behind.

Looking over her I breathed deeply and answered to her "Certainly not tomorrow, what about in three days? I'll call you both and we talk about it without worrying about other things. I don't want whatever happened then to affect your minds while we're outside."

This was also the reason I haven't brought up the matter, my mind was elsewhere and the daily tasks required more attention.

Hyuna just looked over my face while saying "Don't keep dragging it." with those words she turned around and I stayed looking over her.

With a sight I entered inside and lay awake for a couple minutes, thinking carefully what to do with those two.

With Morpheus laying beside my head, I drifted to the dreamworld.

By the next morning, I was jolt awake by a thunder, hearing the the pouring rain heavily hitting the leather hides and woods above my tent I sighed deeply.

"..Well, I guess I'm going to stay here for a while until it dimmed down..." I said under my breath while petting Morpheus who was laying lazily on my chest.

After rain stopped I finally went out and eat the breakfast while I planned alongside the group and teacher Tomura who should go towards the villages.

We then agree that would be me alongside Karya and two other disciples that would represent the Kiheji Wind School, while the rest will stay behind.

This mostly by taken into consideration our strength. With me going there I would at least make sure than an ambush or something among those lines couldn't work well, while also deciding on the spot how to handle them.

Thus, after noon we mounted three beasts and headed towards those villages with the scout leading them.

I was mounting with Karya since I didn't knew how to ride them, with quick speed we traversed through the plains between the beach and the woods on the other side.

I tried speaking with Karya, but due to the speed we were moving it was hard to speak and not curse by the movements, also I needed to take an eye on Morpheus since the little kitty was between us.

By the time we reached the first village, it was already the afternoon, with a normal speed we made our way through the village path as we saw some people starting appear outside with curious expression.

However something quickly took my attention, they were mostly vastayan. But surprisingly, Noxians were amidst them.

Both Karya and I furrowed our brows at the sight. I sighed deeply while I said to her "Well, it seems like we're going to see a lot of Noxians mixed with these guys."

Karya didn't answered my words and just moved forward the mount, the rest of the people accompanying us following closely.

As we entered through the village, we noticed that no one seemed to mind us, although the Vastayan looked with some dislike towards Karya and the three people following us.

After asking for the direction of the village chief, we started heading towards it as I whispered to Karya "We will change our approach with these villages."

I saw her turning her head and whispering "And how should we approach them?"

I furrowed my brows a little bit and said "We'll offer trading with and we'll mix with them. These guys will be like the previous village or worse." She nodded to my words as we spotted the chief of the village, an elderly wolverine vastayan with great physical appearance.

After noticing us and greeting us, with wary expression, Karya told them our wish to trade with them in the following weeks for food and other supplies.

Although suspicious, the elder agreed with the deal. The point was agree to be set on the salt village, where they would left the supplies and exchange it for bags of salts.

As much as I wished to inquire more about certain things from the village, we didn't wanted to push things more and continue our way towards the other village.

Along the path we talked with Karya about how should we sphere this people later on and which kind of troubles it would give.

What was more concerning regarding these Noxians tribes are the possibilities of someone raising their arms against us.

I didn't wanted to have a rebel faction within our productive lands. Thus, we have agree to talk this matter further with the rest of the group and the elders from the school.

As we continue our path forward, we passed some groups of people wearing cloaks and heavy weapons. They all seemed to head too towards this big village.

We reached just before dawn, and as much as we wanted to take a rest we prevent ourselves from doing so when we noticed the Noxians on the walls.

Different from the other two villages, these guys didn't looked like they joined the village, but more like an actual battalion using this place as their headquarter.

The village have actual walls that were being guarded by Noxians. However the most eye-catching part was the large line waiting to enter the village.

Ordering our group to also line up we didn't speak with the person in front of us as we looked everything with closeness.

There were two Noxians in the village gates body searching everyone that wished to pass while also taking a fee.

Noticing the last part, we looked with Karya and I said to her "Ask our little friends behind to pay us this time, we'll return back the money to them later on." I was a little bit embarrassed but we were too broke to afford that.

Karya chuckled at my words but told them nonetheless.

"Brothers from the Kiheji village, please pay for our fee on the gates, we'll return them later on."

When both disciples hear her words they choked while giving her incredulous looks.

They didn't expected that we couldn't afford the fee. Karya not wanting to smear our name added quickly "It happens that we didn't expected something like this happening, thus we didn't brought with us anything." There was an apologetic expression and the apprentices seemed to understand now.

They agreed and both Karya and I chuckled while looking at each other with complicity.

After waiting for a few minutes, we were finally in front of the gate guards as they asked to us while looking around the mount and searching through our bags.

"Name your reason for the visit, village and names." Said one with a stern voice as he looked over Morpheus between me and Karya.

"Business deal with the village chief, we're from the Kiheji village. I'm Karya and the guy behind me is Renzo." As she finished her words, the guard moved his chin to the other one that was searching through our bags and asked him "Have you hears of the Kiheji village?"

The other shook his head and the man glanced back at us, he then posed his gaze on me for a moment.

"You can pass, pay the fee." He showed his hand while Karya smiled at him and answered "Our fellow brothers behind will pay the fee, we're here together after all." As she said that, she signaled the mount to advance while the two disciples agreed with her words and were searched by the same guy who did to us.

After paying the fee, that seemed to be pricey looking at the ugly expression on both swordsman faces, we followed the people lining up with curiosity.

Why were they waiting so diligently at this hours in this village? It was something we didn't saw anywhere else in Navori until now. Thus our curiosity grey wider as we made our way through the village streets.

As we headed closer to a really big building, we started to hear some noise from it while noticing people body laying around the street.

They seemed to be heavily beaten, slashed, or minced apart, making a mess within their pool of blood and body parts.

The bodies grew less the nearer we approached this building and saw the various soldiers guarding this place.

There were eight soldiers that were speaking with the people as they let them in after a while.

We left our mounts on a side, grabbing our bags we waited for our turns.

As we're all were called, we walked individually to one solider, the one that attended me asked "You're fighting or betting?" Slightly taken aback, I answered to him without thinking too much "Fighting." He nodded his head and write it down in a note.

He then looked me from head to toe, stopping briefly glaring at Morpheus on my side.

"How are we going to call you?" He asked as I took my time to think this for a moment.

'I don't know where I'm getting into, so let's not get more implicate that I should.' Thus in a brief moment I answered the Noxian "NoobMaster69"

The soldier just looked at me with a questioning look while not believing what he heard.

"Sorry, what did you said?" He asked again as he thought he may be imagining things.

"I said I want to be called NoobMaster69." The soldier shook his head while murmuring something under his breath, he then gave tore apart a paper and give it to my on my hands.

I grabbed the paper while he said "Since you're a new fighter follow the helpers around the cage as they would take you in the changing room where you would wait for your match. Also you are held into account whatever that pet of yours do inside, now move!" He roared to me as he tried to push me inside from my shoulder.

However he furrowed his brows as he wasn't able to move me, I simply took Morpheus on my arms as I made my way inside,then I moved my gaze towards the paper and saw it written "0690", looking around for the rest I saw them grabbing a piece of paper like I did.

After gathering inside, Karya asked "So I guess we're now fighting here, right?" We all nodded to her while a disciple looked troubled while saying.

"This place seemed to be like those Noxians arenas I heard before from the wandering bards. I didn't believe that they would bring such places in Ionia." He shook his head while his fellow brother nodded in agreement.

I shared a look with Karya of understanding while we continue walking inside.

The place was awfully noisy as shouts, screams and grunts could be heard through the wooden walls. We saw a signal on the wall that showcased the directions as we followed right through the dimly illuminated corridor.

The whole building was entirely different from the Ionian architecture, the floor was made of unpolished dark rock, the walls were made of wooden with some pillars and arches made of stone.

As we continue walking forward, we saw a soldier that signaled us to come to his place. We did as he said as he took the papers from our hands, quickly copying the numbers that we held each other.

He then said to us "Since you are all new fighters I will explain the rules while I take you to the changing room." As he said that he turned around and continue walking through the corridor, we closely following him behind.

"You'll be given the chance to choose your weapons inside, once the fight start you have to either knock unconscious your opponent, or kill them. There's no other rules to follow. After you win the fight it depends on you wether you want to continue fighting or call It for a day and receive you money." He said as we turned left and entered through a tunnel that was guarded by two Noxians.

The shouts muffled a bit as he continue explaining "Now, since you are almost near the closure of the event you need to understand that only the strongest fighters would remain, so I hope you don't show something shameful inside and give us a good show." As he finished, he opened a door and we saw a large room where various people were changing, resting or speaking. The vast majority of them filled with blood from their opponent and their own Injuries.

As we entered inside everyone looked towards us and didn't utter any word, meanwhile I made my way inside while looking for somewhere I can safely save my bags with the devil fruits.

Karya looked at the people in the room and saw them inspecting each one of us intently. She then moved her head towards my shoulder and whispered "I think our curiosity took us in a problematic place."

As the people saw her whispering to me, I saw some of them chuckling while others scoffed and continue chatting.

I just smiled at her words and said to her with a confident smile "We'll be alright, you know we can easily escape from here." Then I turned around and headed towards bowl and rest my bag on there.

Morpheus looked around with a nonchalantly expression while he sat above the bags.

Patting his head, I spanned the room while looking at each fighter.

There were eighteen people inside, add our numbers and we were twenty two people currently.

With Karya and the two disciples we formed a group near a big gate, at our left there was a ginger man with light armor and a warhammer on his hand, he was sitting on a bench while looking at the floor with a thoughtful look.

A few meters after him, there were two man speaking with each other, they didn't seemed remarkable aside from having a lot of scars on their faces and bodies. They didn't wear any form of protection on their upper bodies while only wearing a monk belt and leather pants.

After them was another group, this time of four people that were looking towards our direction while speaking with each other, they were conformed by three males and one female.

The female was an Ionian with plate armor and wielding a staff, her dark brown hair was in a ponytail as she rested over the shoulder of a tall looking foreigner, seemingly from Noxus, he was only wearing a chest piece of armor on his upper chest, while the complete set of Noxian armor on his legs.

I didn't saw him wearing any weapon.

The other two people were one normal looking adult Ionian with light armor and wielding a Ionian sword, it wasn't a katana but a eastern looking one, he was bending over with one feet raised on the bench while the last remaining Ionian was sitting on it.

He was a baldy that was also wielding a light armor, surprisingly enough he was wielding a farmer fork.

"...What the fuck?.." I couldn't help but exclaim at the sight, Karya heard my words and chuckled as she looked at the direction I was glaring at.

However, just before I continue spanning the room I noticed this tall and sturdy vastayan. He was sitting on the middle of the entire room like he owned the whole place, wearing just a simple piece of clothes and bandages around his fist, I saw him looking cockily towards us.

But the thing that took my attention was something else. He looked familiar to me. Thinking quickly who could match his appearance, his name struck my head.

'Sett.' The fighter vastayan was in front of me, although with a much younger look on his face and different clothes.

I was honestly a little bit surprised for finding him here, not only because of the place, but also due to not knowing anything about him.

'Well, let's see how things goes.' I said to myself while I continue looking for the other people.

Continuing spanning through the room, was a pair of twins, one with black hair and another white. They didn't seemed to be from Ionia, thus I assumed they were from Noxus.

They weren't wielding any weapon but they were equipped with heavy armor.

A couple meters afar from them was a group of three females that looked quite miserable, one of them was with a nasty cut on her face from her forehead to near her lips, one eye closed. She was clearly Ionian and was cladded in red robes. She was sitting on a bench while another female that I wasn't able to see her face was tending her.

That female got a large ponytail and wear light clothes and monk pants. She was barefooted and two large tattoos adorned her back.

Right beside the first female was another one with various bruises on her body. She was also wearing Ionian robes, though her were olive color.

Resting on her knees was a naginata like weapon.

After them was the last group of people, four male adults that were sitting on the ground while laughing heartily. I didn't paid too much attention to them as I looked again towards Sett.

They guy was really eye-catching with his vastaya features and the aura he exuded.

Karya seemed also to look at him and I furrowed my brows while asking "What is it?" She raised her eyebrow as she turned around and looked at me with a lost expression on her face.

"Did you noticed something on that guy that you were looking at him like that?" I asked while crossing my arms.

Karya looked at lost for a brief moment until I saw her expression changing to a smile and answering to him "Yeah, he really look nice with his attitude." She pointed her thumb and said "Just look at him, he doesn't seem like someone who doubts thing, don't you think so?" she said to me with a glare and I couldn't help but furrowed my brows.

"Yeah whatever, I was thinking that he may be someone tricky if any of you face him, he's a vastayan after all." I said while closing my eyes. Not letting my focus wander further with useless thoughts.

However I just hear Karya chuckling, but I refused to open my eyes again.

Karya seemed to also keep silent until we heard the big gates opening, looking over I saw a fat guy walking over and screaming "0683, get your ass up and walked over the arena." He pointed towards one of the twins as he headed into the gates.

"0685, you too!" He roared as he turned around. I saw the man that was next to us raising on his feet and walking towards the gate.

The fat guy stopped briefly as he read over something and said "0680 and 0689 get ready for the next one!" With that he disappeared from our views while Karya chuckled and said "Well, it seems that I'm next."

It looked like the fights were just ahead of us.

And I only could only keep wondering if this was really a good idea. Glancing over Sett I thought to myself 'Well, at least I got something really important from this.'

******

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