One Month Before Bexter
Morning
A burly, scruffy man walks out of a yawning darkness carved into the ground.
He scratches his stomach as the sun rises in the distance, shielding his eyes with a hand as he glances around.
Endless trees grow tall and wide like natural skyscrapers, surrounding him, as well as the pit to his back.
His breath mists in the air due to the eternal chill of the Northern Reaches, but the man is indifferent to it at this point.
After getting his share of fresh air, he turns to head back inside, then stops when he sees that someone followed him.
“Old man! Aren’t you up early?!”
The man sighs and waves his hand at them.
“Shut yer trap, Ryuuma. The hell are ya doin’ up anyway?”
“What do you mean? I’m here to kick your ass, duh!”
“Oh please. Ya couldn’t even kick rocks if ya tried.”
“Whaddya just say?! That’s it! It’s on, Drax!”
Ryuu, always a mere boy in Drax’s eyes, charges forward with deadly intent.
The man simply grunts and blocks his attacks with little effort, used to this exchange.
“How many times are ya gonna try this, kid? Yer gettin’ a little old to be attackin’ an old man.”
Ryuu doesn’t answer him, instead fighting with everything he has to take the veteran down.
Drax blocks a few more blows before shooting out a hand and closing it around his neck.
“Ack! Grrrr!”
The younger man flails at Drax’s hand and wrist, but nothing he does seems to work.
“Jus’ stop it, boy. Ya have bigger fish to fry.”
He launches Ryuu backward into the snowy ground.
Without waiting for him to get up, Drax moves back toward the pit of darkness carved into the earth.
As he walks down the expansive, unlit path, he feels a presence behind him full of energy.
“Old man, do you really think I can win today?”
Drax chuckles heartily, the sound reverberating all around them.
“Hahahaha! Don’t tell me the great Ryuuma is gettin’ a weak stomach now?”
“That’s not it. I haven’t lost in years, but this time is different. It’s Hyouma we’re talking about here.”
“Hmm.”
Drax runs his fingers absentmindedly through his beard, trying to find the best thing to say to the anxious man.
“Hyouma is fearsome, but there ain’t such a thing as an invincible person. Ya been fightin’ here all yer life, so why would ya lose?”
“Because Hyouma has never lost. Even though we’ve been here all our lives, he doesn’t know what it feels like to lose. How do I beat someone like that?”
Drax stops abruptly in the darkness, his hand finding Ryuu’s back as he gives it a firm slap.
“Ack! What the hell was that for?!”
“Ryuuma, yer more capable than ya give yerself credit for. Even before ya became old enough to fight, ya would watch and listen to all o’ the rich freaks and slave traders that came through here, pickin’ up on the way they talk and teachin’ yerself.”
Ryuu rubs his back where a large hand had connected.
“Yeah, so what? How’s speaking a little better than the rest of you gonna help me in a fight?”
“Ya dumbass, I’m not jus’ talkin’ about that! I’m talkin’ about what ya got in here!”
He jabs a finger against Ryuu’s forehead, continuing his speech.
“Ya learned how to fight by doin’ it. Ya threw yerself to the wolves and came back as one o’ the pack. Hyou is gifted, sure, but yer a genius in yer own way.”
The younger man muses over his guardian’s words as they make their way into the open area of the pit.
“I’m glad you think so highly of me, but I’m not that special. Hyouma started fighting in the Pit a year before I did, and the difference shows. Even in sparring, I can barely draw blood from him before I’m defeated.”
Drax’s eyes glint with a hint of pride.
“But ya can make him bleed. That’s more than most o’ Hyouma’s opponents can say, no matter if they have one more year o’ experience or thirty.”
“If you’d just let me use my power–”
“No!”
Ryuu falters, aware that this was going to be the outcome.
“There’s no way in hell I’m lettin’ ya use it! It’ll draw too much attention to ya, and then the slave traders will take a likin’ to ya! What then?!”
“Then we tell them to fuck off, or we make them! That’s how we do things down here, right?!”
“Ya don’t know what yer talkin’ about, boy! Those slimy bastards won’t stop at nothin’ to take what they like. Even if I turn down a payment, they’ll just send someone to take ya anyway. Someone I can’t protect ya from.”
Ryuu’s body twitches impatiently, as if a million words are swirling through his mind, but none will come out.
Drax sighs before giving him some more words to process.
“Listen, boy, ya have a gift. That power o’ yers is incredible. Ya’d prolly be able to beat me with it. But yer too young to have it. People will ask questions that we don’t have the answers to.”
“I don’t get it. Why do we owe anybody an explanation?”
“Haha. Like I said, yer a genius, Ryuuma. But yer a naive idiot when it comes to things like this.”
They eventually reach the center of the underground area, and Drax gestures widely at everything around them.
The stands carved out of stone, the fences constructed from bones and ropes, and the large dirt circle in the middle of it all.
“This is yer world, Ryuuma. No matter how much ya listen in on outsiders’ conversations or read the fancy books ya come across, ya can’t know what the real world is like until ya see it with yer own two eyes.”
Ryuu wears an unamused expression and replies in kind.
“The real world? Like all the blood and pain around here is fake?”
“Not fake, it’s jus’ not the whole picture. There are plenty o’ things ya can learn from other people, even those that don’t have to fight for their lives everyday.”
He feels a small shift inside of him at those words, begrudgingly seeing the value in what Drax is saying.
He denies it though.
“The day I get along with someone who lived a life free of battle is the day this place clears out. I’ll never leave this Pit, so long as I have someone in front of me to fight.”