"Come on, you damned Yōkai! The audience is already waiting!"
The invitation was anything but friendly and yet an older man stepped out of the shadows. His path led him through a dark, short tunnel, which ended in front of a large gate, through whose slight opening a few rays of light shone. Each of his heavy footsteps echoed through the empty, dark corridor, the other end of which could not even be guessed at. Step by step he approached the exit, at the end of which a younger person was waiting for him, and more and more the sun's rays gave the Yōkai a little more visibility.
On his hands he wore handcuffs that rubbed against his skin, which was covered with light hair. On the whole, still in the dark, he resembled the person who called him to the gate, but with each step towards the light, it revealed that he could not be more different in detail. The backs of his hands down to his fingertips were covered with a light white fur, which receded along his arms. His skin colour was lighter than that of any other human being and could almost compete with the white skin of the nobles, which they obtained by bloodletting. The most striking thing, however, was his face. Ice blue eyes that pierced rather than just glared and on top of that, his teeth that could rather be described as small fangs. Together with his silver hair, which reached down to his hips, he looked more like an animal than a human being.
Unlike the younger gatekeeper in front of him, who was clearly a human, this old man was a Yōkai, an animal spirit. Besides humans, the Yōkai were the only other race with intelligence and an awareness of their self. Among the Yōkai, however, there were those who were self-aware as well as those who followed the will of nature. Roxa belonged to the former and was, as far as he knew, the only one of his kind with consciousness in this human city. Moreover, he was probably the only one who did not care that he served to amuse the masses of people.
"Vile monster," the man whispered, averting his gaze.
Even though the gatekeeper only whispered the words, Roxa could perceive them without any problems. There were many kinds of Yōkai, but most had more developed senses than those of humans. Very likely, the man did not even care if Roxa heard him. In the eyes of the humans, he was merely a slave - a being of no value. His opinion meant nothing and no one cared whether he suffered or not. Worse still. In the past, humans and Yōkai had clashed many times and engaged in many fights. Because of the brutal fights and the Yōkai's powers, he was just that in the eyes of many people - a monster. A monster that was now nothing more than a toy of a single human.
"Hmpf!"
Instead of paying further attention to Roxa, he pulled on one half of the large double gate, revealing a vast area. In contrast to the tunnel of stone that Roxa had traversed up to here, the ground in front of him was sandy. A large expanse of sand surrounded by a stone ring in which bleachers and seats had been carved. With the next step he took, he was back in the Colosseum of Floris and squinted his eyes under the incidence of the bright rays of the sun. His hands were still cuffed, so he had to raise both arms in front of his face to block out the sun.
Shouts went up all around. There was not a single empty seat left in the entire spectator ring and they all erupted in anticipation as Roxa entered the arena while he was still trying to get used to the midday sun. To people, he looked like a middle-aged man, possibly in his 40s or 50s. But the Yokai had been living for more than 500 years and had spent two centuries as a slave to the humans, locked up in a dark dungeon. Only when he fought did they let him see the light of day. So everytime it was a blinding sight to him, which he had to get used to.
After a few seconds of adjustment, Roxa cautiously opened his eyes and looked around the arena. There were people in every niche, and wild shouting and cheering sounded from every corner. When the Colosseum was build, it was said that around 30 thousand people could be in it and today was one of those days where it was almost filled. Besides his fight, there were many others, but his had always been the main attraction of it all. After all, a captured Yokai fighting in the arena without fighting back against the humans who spectated the entire fight was not something you saw every day.
After more than 200 years of fighting in this arena, he got used to the excitement of the people, even if he could never understand their joy. Basically, they delighted in the suffering of Roxa's victims, most of whom he killed in battle. They literally went into ecstasy at each dead opponent and lusted for blood.
'A whole race that takes such pleasure in the suffering of others.... Nature has a strange will.'
One last time he turned to the gatekeeper and looked at him. In many of his fights from this point on, his handcuffs were released, but the gatekeeper merely gave him a contemptuous snort before averting his gaze and closing the gate again.
'It seems I am to enter shackled....'
This also explained the excitement of the spectators. Roxa's fights were always announced in a big way, together with the type of opponents and the conditions under which he had to fight. He himself was the last to know what exactly awaited him. Not that it bothered him. On the contrary, it made no difference whether he fought with handcuffs or without. The challenge for him was rather to make it look like an exhausting fight and not to accidentally destroy the handcuffs with his sheer strength.
"Then let's see what awaits me this time...." Whispered Roxa.
To thunderous cheers, he now fully entered the arena and presented himself in the middle. He let his gaze wander in the direction of the royal tribune. In this special area of the spectator ring were members of the royal family, two dozen guards and Timanror, the current owner of the Floris Colosseum and also his owner. But Roxa did not even dignify any of them with a closer look, merely registering who was there.
'It seems that the king and his wife are not present at this fight, but their children are…'
"My honoured guests!" Timanror shouted from the tribune.
The custom of the Colosseum was that the owner announced the main fights personally. Timanror also took every opportunity to present himself. Even though he had no noble background this man belonged to the highest classes of the kingdom despite his business, no rather because of it, and moreover he was one of the richest inhabitants of the capital Floris. Slavery was a hot topic in the kingdom, but Timanror had developed a brilliant system. He forced enemies and other disrespected people into poverty until they had nothing left but to voluntarily sell themselves to Timanror, accepting all conditions. This also enabled him to sell the slaves to nobles who could not resist this offer. But among all the slaves, Roxa was an exception, for he was owned by Timanror's family before the man was even born.
"We come to the battle you have all been waiting for!" he announced further.
The already loud shouts turned into a never-ending din and it took several minutes for the crowd to calm down under Timanror's soothing hand gestures.
"The Yokai are considered to be strong, fierce warriors with incredible abilities," he shouted across the arena. "Today you once again will witness one of their kind, captured and broken by humans, stand bound against a fire bull! During the fight, he is not allowed to remove his shackles! Fighting is to the death!"
'So that's why the shackles,' Roxa thought, 'they want to make it exciting. Not that it will make any difference, but no ordinary spectator will notice anyway.'
So this time his opponent was to be a fire bull. Like Roxa, the fire bulls belonged to the Yokai race, but they had no form of consciousness. They followed only the will of nature, which was inherent in them - survival and reproduction. But these lowly Yokai were by no means harmless. Among humans, they were known for their dangerous speed and the scorched path their feet left behind. A whole herd of fire bulls had the power to devastate entire plains. Here on the sandy floor of the arena, however, this did not matter.
'Yet.... They must have lost quite a few men trying to capture a fire bull...'
So Timanror must have invested a lot of money in this fight, but with the crowd he could easily recoup the cost. All it took was one shackled yokai to face the fire bull....
Roxa did not share the excitement of the humans. For fragile creatures like them, a fire bull had to be a dangerous opponent, but even tied up, Roxa saw no problems for himself. Almost bored, he turned his gaze to the second, large double gate set into the walls of the Colosseum. From there, his opponents entered the sandy arena. As his opponent this time was a dangerous beast, the gatekeepers opened the double gate from the outside and revealed two piercing red eyes that glowed in the darkness and quickly focused on Roxa.
From head to hoof, Roxa took a long look at the bull that would face him today. But something was wrong. He had seen strong, healthy fire bulls before and even if that was more than 200 years ago, their physical attributes could not have changed that much.
'This Yokai is anything but healthy! They starved him and probably for several days!'
The double gate was wide open by now and after a final scuffle with its hooves, the fire bull charged towards Roxa with a loud roar. Under the loud roar, the whole arena fell silent and they all watched the beginning fight between the two Yokai in suspense. Not a single one was interested in the bull's condition and the only thing they wanted to see was blood.
'Whether Yōkai or human.....all beings with consciousness are nothing but monsters...'
Monsters. That was the only impression Roxa got about humans during the fights. It was bad enough that they tortured their own kind and pitted them against Roxa to the death, but to torture innocent animals who were only following their natures like this was incomprehensible to him. How was it possible for intelligent beings to be so dumb? Whether it were humans or Yokai, all of them seemed to be too full of themselves, when it came to intelligence. Yet the best that both races could bring forth was battles and death, not for surviving but for greed, power and lust.
Roxa suspected that they were deliberately starving the bull so that it would fight Roxa all the more ferociously, for fire bulls ate plants as well as meat. Their low intelligence did not allow them to distinguish between Yokai and humans, so in order to fill its empty stomach, it would fight Roxa to the very end. Everything else would be a death sentence.
Before the monster reached him, he crouched and waited until the very last moment. Only shortly before the bull reached him did he leap high into the air, making the monster miss its target. Roxa, on the other hand, landed firmly on the ground behind the bull.
"I'm afraid the only way I can help you is with a quick death..." he sighed.
Again the bull scuffed its hooves across the ground and raced towards Roxa. With each step, the monster's snort grew louder and Roxa concentrated on every little movement. To put the lowly Yokai out of its misery, he had to attack its weak spot. The thick fur left only one possible spot for Roxa to ram his claws into - the neck. Besides the neck it was almost impossible to hurt a fire bull with mere weapons.
As before, Roxa leapt into the air, but just enough to land on the bull's back. Excited, it shook its whole body, trying to shake off its unwanted rider, but Roxa secured his seat with his legs as he leaned forward. For several minutes the bull fought to shake of his rider, but it was no use. Roxa didn't let go of the bull and waited for it to be a bit more exhausted.
"May you find peace...."
His fingers changed shape in an instant, morphing into sharp claws that he wrapped around the fire bull's neck. The next instant he pressed with full force, pressing them deep into his opponent's flesh. Blood gushed out, but froze before it fall into the sand. In a moment, the entire wound was covered with ice and with a loud scream the bull collapsed in mid-stride. The lifeless body slid a few more metres across the sandy floor of the arena while Roxa clung to the back of the dead animal.
There was absolute silence in the whole arena. They all seemed spellbound by what was happening in their midst. But Roxa did not care. After the corpse had come to a standstill, he slowly straightened up and went to the gate through which he had entered the arena.
Silence reigned in the entire arena and apart from the sand beneath his feet, Roxa did not hear a single sound. It was not the first time that he had brought a fight, in which tension was advertised without end, to an end in a few moments. While they still needed time to process what had happened, he had long known what would follow. For the moment, however, he cared nothing about it.
The large double gate opened in front of him and he disappeared into the darkness.