Redemption

The roar of the crowd was still ringing in Nico's ears, a cacophony of triumph and shock, as he stood over Sizzle's unconscious form.

'Was this... over? Just like that?'

A faint smear of crimson blood stained the corner of his mouth, and a fresh constellation of bruises blossomed across his cheekbones, but his stance was unwavering. 

Sizzle lay motionless on the cold ground, a testament to the brutal exchange they had just endured. But the moment of victory, of respite, was brutally short. 

An individual detached itself from the tumultuous crowd, moving with a terrifying speed. Before Nico could even fully register the movement, a strike lashed out at him. 

He reacted purely on instinct, a mere twitch of his head, and the blow whistled past his ear, the wind from it chilling his skin. He had barely avoided it.

Nico's guard snapped up, a reflex born of endless suffering. 

His muscles, still singing with the after-ache of Sizzle's pummeling, tensed, his eyes narrowing to slits as he tracked the assailant. 

'Who the hell?' The question burned in his mind. 

The figure landed lightly on the blood-stained ground. A slow, unsettling smirk stretched across his lips, revealing teeth that seemed too white in the dim light. 

"Your next opponent, Wraith," the voice drawled, chilling Nico to the bone. "And the one who'll finally put you down." 

Nico glanced at the faces in the crowd, a silent plea for reason, for a hint of justice in this frozen hell. He saw only hungry eyes, morbid curiosity, and a thirst for more blood. 

They didn't care about fairness. They cared about the show. 

"Fight him, Wraith!" a voice bellowed, quickly joined by a chorus of shouts. 

The arena, moments ago a stage for his triumph, had become a trap.

He stood, a thin smear of Sizzle's blood drying on his lip, his body burning with the accumulated agony of two brutal fights. 

He now stood before him: lean and athletic, he carried himself with an arrogance, a mohawk rising above bushy eyebrows that framed eyes sharp with bloodlust. At 5'11, he was still a tower compared to Nico's 5'4, an undeniable fact underscored by the cold reality that Nico was the shortest man in this entire frozen hell.

"Who the hell are you?" Nico's voice was a rasp.

The man's lips stretched into a predatory smile. 

"Homer," he announced, his voice carrying a confident edge, almost bored. "And your next opponent. The one who finishes what Sloth couldn't." 

Nico's gaze swept over the faces of the crowd, not searching for mercy, but for confirmation of the unspoken rules. They were hungry. They knew. The unwritten law of Fjellheim declared that a fighter, if still standing, was fair game, regardless of the blood on the ground.

A cacophony of shouts rose from the makeshift stands: 

"Fight him, Wraith! Finish it!" 

A long, slow sigh escaped Nico's lips, not of despair, but of disappointment. He had known Fjellheim was a pit. He had seen its hunger, tasted its brutality. Yet, a part of him, a foolish part of him, still held a faint expectation that even here, some lines would remain. 

That allowing such a scummy act – a fresh opponent after a brutal, all-consuming battle – would elicit at least a murmur of protest. But the crowd's roar, their bloodthirsty demand for more, confirmed the truth. 

There were no lines. Only the unending depravity of men. He spared one last, cold glance at Homer, committing every detail of the lean, expectant form to memory. 

The fight was not fair. 

It was a death sentence delivered by apathetic party leaders and ravenous spectators. But it was still a fight. And so, with calmness, Nico acknowledged the reality. 

His bruised muscles tensed, his mind locked onto the single, immediate goal. Both figures in the center of the pit coiled, preparing for the next inevitable strike.

***

The seconds stretched, long and thin, between them. 

Nico, accustomed to immediate aggression, felt a flicker of confusion. Homer hadn't moved. Not a twitch. He stood, still as carved stone, his eyes holding an unsettling, unblinking stillness. 

'A trap?' 

Before Nico could voice the cold question, before the thought could fully form in his weary mind, Homer vanished. The air where he stood shimmered. 

Nico's voice, about to speak, was cut off, a choked gasp caught in his throat as he twisted, his body screaming in protest. The blow, fast as a viper's strike, went past his ear, close enough to ruffle the few stray hairs on his bruised temple. 

Homer reappeared, a few feet from his original spot, his smirk wider now. 

"Shouldn't have let your guard down, Wraith," he drawled.

Nico's response was a frown. 

"Shut... up."

Nico retaliated. His leg snapped out, a powerful kick aimed for the side of Homer's head, a blow meant to stagger. But Homer took it full on. 

The impact vibrated up Nico's leg, a dull thud against the resistance. Homer merely grimaced, a small, startled pain in his eyes quickly replaced by a savage grin.

Nico felt a cold jolt of surprise – startled, a dangerous sensation in this pit. Before he could process anything, Homer's fist was already there.

It connected with the bridge of Nico's nose, a sickening crack that sent fire through his skull. 

The blow was brutal, precise. 

Nico stumbled back, a full foot of distance separating him from Homer, the taste of coppery blood blooming in his mouth.

Homer launched a wide, arcing roundhouse kick that whistled past Nico's head. The force of it was enough to stir the frigid air. 

But before the kick could fully recede, Homer snapped it back, a vicious reverse roundhouse aimed for Nico's body. 

Nico ducked low, the lethal arc passing inches above his skull. His fist shot out, a short strike that connected with the underside of Homer's jaw, a retort that vibrated through the larger man's skull. 

Before Homer could even register the blow, Nico was already moving, his body coiling and launching into the air. He rotated, his leg snapping out in a 540-degree kick. 

It landed, a blinding impact against the side of Homer's head, rattling his skull and temporarily scrambling his vision.

Homer clawed at the air, his limbs flailing, a desperate, futile attempt to regain his stance. The world spun around him, his vision still a kaleidoscope of light from the impact of Nico's kick. 

But there was no respite. 

Nico approached him. 

Not with rage, but with the intent to kill. To end the threat. It was the instinct of Fjellheim, honed by desperation and the bitter taste of survival.

Before Nico could deliver the final, necessary blow, a hand, firm, gripped his shoulder. 

Jambiya. 

His eyes, calm amidst the chaos, met Nico's. He moved between the two fighters, his voice cutting through the blood-crazed din of the crowd. 

"The fight's over!" he roared. "He won! Look at him! Homer's done. You let this continue, he dies for real!" 

The crowd, however, was far from pleased. Their roar swelled, louder now, a wave of frustrated hunger. They had seen blood. They wanted more. The rules of the pit were clear: until one stood truly victorious, or one was truly dead, the show must go on.

"Piss off," Nico growled. 

His hand, quick as a striking viper, lashed out, pushing Jambiya's arm away with surprising force. The intervention was an unwelcome distraction from the singular, burning purpose that consumed him. 

In the same breath, before Jambiya could even re-center himself, Nico moved. A lightning-fast strike aimed with surgical precision at Homer's already battered nose. 

The impact was sickeningly clear, a sharp crack that echoed in the brief, stunned silence of the pit. Homer's eyes, already glazed with pain, rolled back entirely. His limbs, which had been attempting to twitch back into a stance, simply went limp, his body slumping to the ground in a bizarre state of fatigue, as though every ounce of life had been siphoned from him. 

The fight was brutally, undeniably over.

Nico didn't care.

The state of bizarre fatigue, the glazed eyes, none of it registered. His leg snapped up, a high-roundhouse kick that connected with Homer's head. The force of it drove the man fully into the cold, blood-stained ground. 

Nico was on him in an instant. His fists began to fall, a relentless, sickening rhythm of impacts. 

Homer was out cold, beyond pain, beyond consciousness. 

But Nico wanted him dead. He wanted the life extinguished, the threat eliminated.

Jambiya, risking a second intervention, moved forward. His hand reached out, a desperate attempt to grasp Nico's arm. 

The reaction was blinding. 

Before Jambiya's fingers could even brush his skin, Nico was on his feet, a coiled spring unleashed. His leg shot out, a high kick that connected with Jambiya's chest with savage force, sending the larger man stumbling, then flying, a few meters away. 

It happened in the same second. 

Nico didn't even glance at him. His eyes, now truly the empty, cold eyes of the Wraith, were already back on Homer, his fists resuming their brutal, final descent.

He stopped. 

The final, sickening wet thud of his fist striking dead flesh resonated in the sudden quiet. 

Nico slowly rose from Homer's crumpled form, his chest heaving with shallow, ragged breaths. His gaze, still hard and distant, swept over the throng of faces surrounding the pit. 

The usual jeers, the disgusted murmurs, the fearful whispers – they were gone. Replaced instead by a wave of admiration. Cheers erupted, a roar of approval that reverberated through the steel and ice of the outpost. 

A part of Nico's mind questioned it:

'This? This is Fjellheim?'

He had just murdered a man in cold blood, after the fight was already decided, and they cheered. 

The logic of this place twisted and deformed everything. There was, however, one undeniable fact on the blood-soaked ground: 

Homer was dead.