After hundreds of brutal battles, the Okta Gladiator Tournament had finally reached the semifinals. The arena's atmosphere boiled like a giant cauldron—the screams of the audience, the roar of wild bets, and the scents of sweat, blood, and hot sand blended thickly in the air.
Bastien sat in the waiting room, hands resting on his knees, patiently cleaning his new revolver. His face was calm, but his mind was already halfway into the arena, analyzing the upcoming fight.
"Your next opponent... Ravi," said one of the staff members, handing him a small paper with a sketch of a terrifyingly large figure, almost like a cross between a man and a boulder. "Hope your hands are still intact after the next round."
"Your encouragement is... truly inspiring," Bastien muttered dryly, sliding the revolver back into the holster at his waist.
Ravi entered the arena like a titan from ancient legends. He stood nearly three meters tall, with a body as wide as a ship's drum and skin crisscrossed with scars. Rusted iron chains still coiled around his arms, clinking heavily with each step, as if he hadn't completely freed himself from his past.
The most striking feature: a broken shackle still dangled from his wrist.
"I don't fight for money..." his voice rumbled, deep and heavy like a landslide. "I fight... for freedom."
In an instant, the usually raucous arena fell into a stunned silence. Even the popcorn vendors stopped shaking their salt shakers.
Up in the stands, Arthur nudged Nara. "If he smashes the stage, should we just go home?"
"If he smashes the stage," Nara replied, still munching on spicy peanuts, "we'll all go home... through the ground."
The moment the bell rang, Ravi charged like an unstoppable train. Bastien darted to the left, ducked, and leapt backward, narrowly avoiding a watermelon-sized fist that slammed into the floor with a ground-shaking crash.
BRAK! Dust billowed as the crowd erupted in cheers.
"You're fast, but not fast enough!" Ravi roared, swinging his iron chain like a massive whip. Bastien quickly raised his arm, blocking the strike with a lightweight metal guard hidden under his shirt. Even so, the force of the blow still pushed him back several meters.
He's strong. Too strong to take head-on. But he's slow... Bastien thought, eyeing the chain that was beginning to slip loose from Ravi's enormous wrist.
With the calmness of a hunter, Bastien began circling Ravi, baiting over-extended moves and searching for an opening. Ravi's fists slammed into empty air, his chains hissed—but Bastien was always one step ahead—sometimes slipping away smoothly, sometimes provoking laughter from the audience with his playful dodges.
"Come on, didn't you say you wanted freedom?" Bastien taunted as he danced around. "Going to lose to a little kid like me?"
Leaping into the air, Bastien pulled the trigger of his revolver, aiming at Ravi's chain.
TINK! Part of the chain snapped loose, clattering into the air.
Ravi looked at Bastien, a new fire blazing in his eyes.
"Good," he growled. "Now you've made me serious."
"You're... only getting serious now?!" Arthur shrieked from the stands, nearly dropping his juice bottle.
The battle reached its climax. Bastien exploited a small opening in Ravi's defense, darting in to land a quick blow to a vital spot, then fired a shot into the giant's knee. Ravi's massive body finally toppled, crashing into the ground with a thunderous boom, sending sand and stone debris flying.
For a moment, the arena fell silent.
Then—BOOM!—a wave of applause and cheers shook the air.
Bastien stood there, breathing heavily, revolver still in hand. But just as he thought the fight was over, Ravi... started laughing.
A loud, deep laugh from the bottom of his chest.
"Hahahaha... I lost," Ravi said, slowly rising and pounding his scarred chest. "But I have fulfilled the requirement. I'm free."
Bastien raised an eyebrow, a bit confused. Even the tournament officials looked baffled, then quickly clarified, "Ravi had previously defeated more than ten opponents in a row. That fulfills the condition for freedom, regardless of the final match's outcome."
Ravi locked eyes with Bastien, not as an opponent anymore, but as a fellow fighter.
"If you have a ship," he said, his deep voice vibrating through the air, "I'll join you."
Bastien gave a small smile. "We have a ship. It's called La Fortuna. But don't expect your life to be peaceful there."
That night at the docks, Ravi stood like a newly built wall among the crew of La Fortuna. Arthur stared up at him until his neck hurt.
"If he sleeps standing up, we could use him as a mast," Arthur muttered.
Juno nodded, jotting down notes in her book. "We'll need to modify the rooms. Ravi's bed size is about the size of two of Nara's rooms."
Nara hissed, "If he snores like a machine, I'm switching ships."
Bastien laughed, clapping Ravi's steel-hard shoulder.
"Welcome aboard, Ravi. We're not pirates. We're sailors."
Arthur grinned. "Well, sailors who love causing trouble."
"We're not criminals," Bastien added, his eyes gleaming, "we're just... people full of potential problems."
Ravi laughed loudly, his voice slicing through the night.
"As long as I'm not a slave anymore," he said, "I'll follow you to hell... and back again!"
That night, La Fortuna's crew gained a new member—huge, strong, and thunderous in laughter. But not a single one of them complained.
In a world filled with storms and madness, sometimes laughter was the best shield you could have.