Posted by The guard followed as Yuto walked down the hallway towards The Pit taking the same route he took during his last fight in the pit.
Somehow or another despite everything he remembered the steps that led from his cell to The Pit. According to what the guard told him earlier if he manages to survive, this route from The Pit to his cell will be something he will do many times.
As he turned the corner he had a chance to take in the sites that he missed last time. When he headed to The Pit previously he was not cognizant of what was happening around him. Due to that he mostly missed what was happening around him.
This time accepting the fact that he would be fighting in The Pit he was calmer and more rational about everything.
After turning the corner he found himself in a massive open area. There were hundreds of people busily moving around frantic but somehow with a coordinated motion. There were a dozen or so people on shabby metal beds with personnel working on them to stop bleeding and providing first aid.
While Yuto was watching one of the people providing first aid put his hands up and walked away. He was just barely able to make out from them that the person was dead.
Continuing on he noticed a wall of cells several hundred meters in length. The cell had at least a few dozen people in it. There were more than a few of the men in the cell who had tears and snot running down their face as they screamed for the guards to let them out.
For every one that had tears and snot there were ten men staring at them coldly as if though they understood that these men would be the quickest way to survive in the fight to come. Somehow Yuto could understand that these men would become quick and easy prey to the other fighters.
The room was well lit despite the fact that it was not an environment that was exactly cared for. The floor was stained in blood however there were cleaning personnel working to scrub it up. To say that they were working hard or even attempting to do a good job would be an exaggeration. Mostly the cleaning personnel were just moving the heavy red fluid across the floor thinning it out.
Yuto stood there and took the environment in as he watched everything happening around him. As he watched everything happening Yuto was contemplating the fact that this was his new life. The tears, blood, violence, anger and death was his new home.
Lost in thought Yuto barely noticed when the guard called out to him.
“It’s time go and choose your gear”.
Turning to the guard Yuto suddenly felt like thanking this nameless guard. Because of this guard he was able to accept this reality. Even to him it seems crazy that after only one day he was able to come to terms with what was happening to him but upon further thought what choice did he have. Could he not accept that he had to go fight to the death in The Pit? Could he not accept that he would be injured and hurt and that no one would save him? Could he not accept that even if he somehow survived he would be walked back to a small cell and forced to sleep on a hard and cold floor?
His only option was to accept it. Somehow he understood that after hearing the words from that guard.
“Thank you” Yuto looked up at the guard and gave his honest thanks. There was no sarcasm, anger, or blame in his thanks, only a from the heart thank you.
The guards startled face was caught by Yuto but as if though he understood what Yuto was saying and why he responded back with your welcome.
The guard stared down at the boy for a few seconds without blinking.
“Keep moving, don’t stop for any reason. Once the battle starts you stay on your feet and keep moving the entire time. Your going to need a light weapon to allow you to move quickly. Try and have something that can be offensive in both hands. There is no reason for you to have any defensive capabilities due to your size you couldn’t block anything coming at you anyways.”
The guard paused after saying this and Yuto could tell that he was contemplating how or what he was going to say next.
“Earlier you already showed that you understand that when something smaller attacks something bigger you have to take advantage of weak points when you took that guards eye. As your fighting remember no matter what your fighting its weak points will almost always be the eyes, neck, ears, nose, joints and feet. Remember to aim for these points. If you can slow it down or take it to the ground you can kill it. If you can take it’s senses you can kill it. If you can cause it to bleed out you can kill it. Everything in The Pit is fair game. Walk out alive and you win no matter how you do it.”
With that the guard turned around and walked away. Yuto watched his back as he walked away and digested the words the guard told him. This was the first time that someone had ever told him anything about fighting or surviving. His previous fight was him simply trying to survive and finally persevering.
Yuto walked up to the armament section and looked at all of the weapons and defensive equipment laid out. There were things Yuto recognized as well as many things he had never seen nor heard of before. There were shields, swords, axes, helmets, body armor, knives, staffs and sticks as well as lots of other items he had no idea about.
Looking at the armament Yuto thought over the words of the guard and reached out and grabbed two knives. They were about .3 meter in length counting the handle. One of the knives was gently curved starting from the handle and going all the way to the tip. This knife looked extremely lethal and wicked. The other knife was straight with a hook edge at the tip.
The weight of each knife was very similar at roughly 130 grams total. Despite their size they were extremely light.
Yuto looked over the table for any armor he could put on. Despite what the guard told him Yuto felt that having some armor could only be beneficial. He agreed with the assessment that he needed to be able to move so he wanted to focus on armor that would not slow him down.
Looking over the table he saw chest, leg, and arm armor. The problem was that it was all designed for a full grown adult. None of the armor on the table was small enough to fit on him.
After looking it over he realized he would have to give up on all of the armor as there was nothing light enough for him. Even if there was it wouldn’t matter because it was all to big. As he stepped away out of the corner of his eye he saw two sticks sitting together.
Yuto stopped and looked over the sticks as an idea was forming in his mind. Contemplating whether his idea was feasible he looked over the rest of the equipment and found what he was looking for. About 3-4 meters away was some rope.
Yuto walked up to the sticks and ran it along his arms and it was slightly to long.
“Hey…can you make these sticks the length from my wrist to my elbow?”
Yuto called out to the person in charge of the armory. The very bulky large man scowled down until he saw it was a young boy asking the question.
Upon seeing the boy the scowl and tension on his face disappeared quickly and a confused face replaced it.
“Boy you shouldn’t be down here. There’s stuff happening here that someone like you shouldn’t see. Get on out of here quickly before I beat you out of here.”
The man clearly did not want this child to be in a place like this. There was blood, guts, and death everywhere you looked.
The man must have noticed Yuto’s confused face as he pushed on Yuto further.
“I said get out of here, what part of that don’t ya understand? Do I need to beat some common sense into ya?”
The man was visibly upset that Yuto hadn’t moved along. The confusion on Yuto’s face must have made it seem like Yuto was purposely trying to defy him.
For Yuto’s part the confusion on his face was probably unwarranted. In reality the response of this man was absolutely what you would expect seeing a child in this place. Because of everything happening to Yuto he had pretty much forgotten that he was just a small child.
A smile once again appeared on Yuto’s face and child’s laugh suddenly filled the air of this pit of despair.
“Hahahaha….I suppose that is the proper response. That is what is supposed to happen. Thank you for showing me that this new world of mine is not just death, despair and pain. I would like nothing more than to leave this place, could you somehow talk to those guards over there and tell them I shouldn’t be here?”
Towards the end of his comment Yuto decided to joke with the fact that he couldn’t leave.
Not understanding what Yuto meant the man’s face twitched as he thought about the fact that this young boy was talking back to him. His face suddenly turned red as anger was starting to over take him. Truthfully he was known to be hot tempered and people would go out of their way to make sure they did not upset him.
Despite the fact that no one would risk upsetting him this little boy threw caution to the wind and blatantly talked back to him. How dare he tell him…..
As the anger had consumed him and he was processing what the boy had told him he suddenly realized that the boy told him he wanted to leave but the guards wouldn’t let him. Doesn’t that mean that he is a fighter?
No.No.No.No.No its not possible for this little boy to be here to fight in The Pits. How could that be possible, the boy is clearly screwing with him.
The man glared down at the boy when he suddenly caught a shine coming from his hands. Looking closer he noticed a knife in each hand. Suddenly really examining the boy closely he noticed that the boys clothes were tattered and torn, he was caked in blood and had cuts and bruises everywhere he could see.
“What the Hell!”
The massive mountain known as a man yelled out loud enough for the guards in the area to hear.
“How the Hell can we be sending this little boy to fight. Someone come over and explain to me what the Hell is going on!”
A few of the guards came running over at the outburst of the armorer.
“Mavis calm down, this comes all the way from the top. You weren’t here yesterday so you don’t know that the boy fought in The Pits yesterday and killed a Kulga. When they introduced the boy yesterday they gave him the name nameless as he had committed crimes against us that deserved death without a name.”
“How the Hell can a little boy commit any crime against us to the point that not only does he deserve to be tossed into The Pit at this age but to die nameless as well? This can’t be real. None of us are good people, not a single one of us pretends to be a good person. But I can’t think any of us are butchers of children”.
The guard only shook his head and repeated what he told Mavis before. This boy is heading into The Pit to fight and it was coming all the way from the top.
Mavis turned and looked at the boy, took the stick and held it perpendicular with his arm. He turned grabbed an ax and sliced through the stick making it roughly the same length as Yuto requested. He did the same with the other stick and then tossed them to Yuto.
“Anything else ya need?”
Mavis called out to the boy almost emotionless as he asked the question.
Yuto nodded his head up and down pointing his finger toward the rope.
“If you could cut off enough of that rope to tie these sticks to my arms. Since I can’t tie them myself if you could tie them on as well that would be a great help.”
Mavis walked over and grabbed the rope, did a quick eyeball measurement of it and then started cutting. Soon the rope was cut up into multiple pieces. He then walked over to Yuto placed the sticks on the back of his forearm and started tying the stick to his arm using the rope.
When he finished most of Yuto’s arm was covered in rope providing a minimal level of protection. Moving his arm and wrist around to verify that his movement was not hindered. After confirming that his movement was not hindered he nodded gratefully at the armory and turned to walk toward the giant doors that lead to The Pit.
Mavis slowly shook his head as he watched the boy walk away not sure if he understood what he was thinking and trying to get a handle on his emotions. He was going to watch the fight and no matter what if that boy survived he would create new armor just for him.
As he was thinking this the doors opened and Yuto started walking forward. All Mavis could hear was the booing and death threats from the crowd as Yuto walked into despair, death and hate.
In all the years Mavis had been working here with the countless number of fighters who walked through those doors he had never heard of anyone being more hated with the killing intent so thick. All of that hate and killing intent was thrown onto the tiny shoulders of a small child.
As he was thinking this he heard over the loud speaker as the announcer spoke.
“Yesterday this vile child survived through luck. This nameless child stole your money and caused for some of you to lose your entire life’s savings. The sin of this wicked thing is something that many of you know and understand first hand. It is with the greatest pleasure that we send this child back into The Pit so that you may recover what this child stole. So that you may spit on him as he takes his last breadth”.
With this the announcer paused as cheers rained down from the crowd. Mixed within the cheers were curses of kill the boy, make him bleed, and tear him limb from limb.
“Yesterday the boy barely survived fighting a Kulga completely healthy. We spent the entire night wondering to ourselves if he could just barely survive fighting one Kulga…..what would happen if he had to fight two Kulga at the same time….hahahahahahahahaha…..I can’t wait to find out”.
With that Mavis watched as the doors closed behind that young child.