A Better World (Record of Ragnarok x Reader)

Chapter 27 - The First Gem

One step. Two steps. Every step was a battle cry – a call for a cause greater than what these divine beings could ever understand. [Name] saw it in their distant, bored eyes and the occasional sighs that would escape between their lips. As if already knowing the winner of this petty little game.

And yet, their reactions did not take her by surprise, and their indifference was met by an equally unconcerned one. She would not allow these bastards to have the last laugh, not allow Evangeline's face contract in fear once more and see Pychor attempt to hold back the tears threatening to spill from her eyes. Not entertain the mere thought of her people burning and her kingdom falling. And while various horrors struck her mind – one single notion came to her.

Never again. It beckoned her. To keep her chin high, and her back straight. Alive. It made her feel alive. And she would not allow anyone – god or not – to rip that feeling away from her. This very reason – to protect – was why she was still living, breathing. And if someone was courageous or foolish enough to question that, she would personally engrave that word into their skin.

Alive.

Inching closer to Heimdal, neither of the two women displayed the smallest form of nervousness upon beholding their opponent. Mud-coloured eyes locked with bright turquoise ones, and during this ephemeral moment of nerves and excitement, memories of [Name]'s first tournament flocked through her mind. Memories of suffering. The mental torment of having to bow her head to the man who had ordered her parents' death just for the promise of freedom after years of service. Memories of the lies she had to keep to simply remain with her neck intact.

But in that void of continuous despair, she had found a light. A light that was created and intensified by the unbreakable bonds she had formed with some of the people around her. The ones who had saved her from that void of darkness. Who had made her feel alive for the first time in her leaden life.

[Name] craned her neck, breaking the intense eye contact with the goddess. Athena's eyes shone with triumph. Only if she knew her opponent had not relented in defeat under her intense stare, but simply looked up at what she had lost, who she had lost, from that time that brought up so many contradicting emotions within her.

A faint smile adorned the princess' lips, seemingly aware of what the woman in the arena was thinking of. Nehemia always did that. Smiled to be polite, that is. So, you would never get access to her true emotions – to her true thoughts. Because that is how they had survived for so long.

[Name] did not return her smile.

Instead, her neck rolled back in the direction of her opponent - to the pure embodiment of a warrior, further validated by the woman's tall stature and her quiet, yet deadly aura.

The noise of the public had long vanished, Athena's and Heimdal's micro-movements being the only noise that filled the grand colosseum, barely audible if one's hearing didn't deter from normalcy.

What had made them so... silent? Was it her nerve-racking entrance mere moments ago or the goddess' suffocating presence that made breathing properly seem like nothing but an unachievable feat? Or perhaps the start of something big – something beyond the understanding of their feeble minds? Yet, what their brains failed to comprehend their souls did not. The ominous feeling settled in their bodies. Their only proof – or warning – of the future calamity that would with time strike them.

Heimdal stared up at the two women – so different, yet so alike. And although the human was draped in the deepest of black, he saw her as the light to Athena's dark. The loud to her quiet. And the mad to her calm.

A shift of fabric followed by the slightest of movements, indicating boredom, had made Heimdal faintly aware of the goddess' reluctance to participate in the trial battle. Athena constantly fought for glory. What was honourable about taking down a meek human?