I'll Keep Waiting (Shiro x Reader)

1. The Opening Act

The cheers filled your ears.

The lights blinded your eyes.

Fear overwhelmed your senses.

Adrenaline pumped in your veins.

The crowd was roaring with ecstasy as you enter the arena, taking weary steps towards the beast in front of you. With each step the chants grew wilder as the creature began a gallop in your direction, then a sprint. You steady the galran sword in your hand and you take a defensive pose, taking full advantage of these few seconds to analyze your opponent. The beast was twice your size and a deep shade of blue, with darker and shapeless blotches coating its completely hairless body. No armored parts. Easy to pierce. The forelegs were noticeably stronger and longer than the back legs. It possessed no eyes, therefore in must rely on its other senses. The thing had a mouth with fangs that looked as if they had been made to gnaw on solid steel alone. Stay away from them. And it's tail, eerily long and slowly snaking behind it, had a sharp end that was without a doubt poisonous. Get rid of it.

The alien creature lounged at you as you quickly slide on the soil under it, ending up behind the monster. With a slash of your sword, the tail is easily sliced off clean. The creature bellows enraged, turning to face the culprit for his missing tail, which now lay in the ground twitching and hissing as poison dripped from it. The public is overcome with boo's and cheers crashing down on you. Your breathing becomes unsteady as your heart beats faster. The beast lifts its head, sniffs the air before turning to you and jumps at you once more. This time you dodge to the side, bringing down your sword to leave a large gash on its front leg. It roars in pain. The creature doesn't miss a beat this time and bites into whatever is in front of it. Unlucky for you, that would be your arm. You let out an agonized shriek as the beast refuses to let go and thrashes with your arm before throwing you over its head, landing almost on the opposite end of the ring, and dropping your sword on the way.

You grunt as you hit the ground and the air is knocked right out of you. Gasping and coughing, you attempt to stand while holding your injured arm, surely broken. As soon as the adrenaline wore down, it would hurt like hell. As your vision clears, you scan the arena for your only means of defense. Your sword was nailed in the middle of the battleground, inclined and with its handle pointing upwards. The creature had started running at you once again, and if you wanted any chance of getting your sword back and living another day, you had to run for it. Now.

With a mad sprint and a battered arm, you pulled your sword out of the ground just as the beast plunged over you. In the blink of an eye, pure instinct took over you and you stab the beast in its stomach as it flew over you, bleeding an unsettling green onto the ground and onto your body. The beast howled deafeningly as it failed it's landing and tumbled a few feet away from you, whimpering and cowering like a sick animal. As the monster flailed it's limbs trying to get rid of your blade, you walk as steadily as you could manage towards him, still holding your arm. When it smells you, it snapped its jaw at the air in front of you as a last resort before letting his head hit the floor again, too weak to fight any further. You grab your sword with your good arm, and take one last look at the creature you had been forced to kill today. It was no different from you. Lost. Tortured. Broken. Defeated.

No matter how many times you won in this arena, no matter how many monsters and gladiators you managed to beat, you were still, at the end of every day, defeated. Because no one truly won as long as they belonged to the Galra Empire. No one could truly live for as long as they were under Zarkon's rule. The only way to genuinely live here, was to die. For a split second, you felt jealous of the animal sprawled in front of you, clinging onto its life for as long as it could.

"You fool," you say sorrowfully so that only you can hear, your voice drowned out by the screams of the multitude. "Can't you see how lucky you are? You'll be free now." With silent tears rolling down your cheeks, you grip the sword tightly as you push it deeper into the creature, provoking another pained whimper to erupt from it. With the last of your strengths, you slice its belly open as you bring out the blade, spilling its guts and dripping a green goo from its tip. The creature didn't make another sound afterwards.

The crowd went wild once more, yelling and screaming with satisfaction. All your energy and strength seemed to have been zapped right out of you as you breathe heavily, your eyes glancing into the surrounding expectators. Your eyes fell onto your arm, twisted, bleeding, and now definitely hurting like hell, before you dropped to your knees, numb and exhausted. You could smell the flesh and blood of the creature on your face, making you feel sick to your stomach. Your sight grew dim and everything around you suddenly seemed to be spinning. Your head throbbed painfully against your forehead and your heart felt as if it would give out any second now. The last thing you heard before passing out and having the sentries drag you out of the arena was the booming voice of a galra personnel announcing the actual fight that followed your act, the words thundering over madness.

"And now for some real bloodshed, give it up for the arena's favorite gladiator! The undefeated... Myzax! And on the other side of this fight, a new prisoner of the Galra Empire!"

Even with your consciousness slowly slipping away from you, you already felt sorry for whoever happened to be the newcomer to this nightmare many had the misfortune of calling their life, you included.

"Now... Let the battle begin!"

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Hello! Valkyrie here. I hope you liked the prologue for this story so far. I know it's not much, but hopefully you'll stick around to see where this story goes. If you're willing to, I'd appreciate some feedback. Thanks!