"Get up dumbass" Link said from the end of the bed that Midas was laying on, the same girl from the night before was still laying on top of him. There was a grumble as Midas slowly sat up, wiping his eyes, letting the woman slide off his chest and onto the bed.
"Link? What time is it?" Midas asked in a raspy voice. Link looked at the clock on the wall behind him.
"There's approximately three hours until the tournament starts" Link replied in an exasperated tone as he turned back around. Midas seemed to snap to attention as he jumped out of bed and landed on his top, falling over in the process. His clothes seemed to have been dumped by the side of the bed from last night and had gotten it's revenge by tripping him up in his frantic state.
"Look, I have to go and get ready, I'll have our carriage rider wait outside so you can still get to the colosseum. I'll get there another way." replied Link as he shook his head. Link got dressed back into his bone armour and left the room, heading for the reception. As he approached, the woman who was standing behind the counter seemed to snap to attention.
"Can you give me a map of the city? I need to plan out the fastest route to get to the colosseum on foot" Link asked quickly, it was the thing he could think off. The woman seemed taken aback by the question, but before she could even give an answer she was cut off by a voice that came from behind Link.
"Lord Ganondorf thought you might need another way to get there since your friend was most likely going to be hung over, so he left me here, I'll take you there" Link turned and saw the woman he had been speaking to the night before approaching him as she grinned. She had switched outfits and was now wearing the traditional Gerudo soldier armour.
"I didn't expect this, but sure. Lead the way, oh and also either I was more drunk than I thought and have forgotten it already or you didn't give me your name" Link replied calmly with a raised eyebrow at the sudden change from barista to soldier.
"I didn't give you my name, it's Tokan although you were still very drunk, which begs the question, how are you not hungover?" Tokan asked in disbelief, as she began leading the way outside causing Link to chuckle from behind her.
"You'll never know," Link replied, grinning towards the woman as they left the building. Just as Link was about to ask what the woman was planning to do, she suddenly whistled and within a couple of seconds two camels appeared from around the corner of the street. Tokan patted them both on the neck before jumping up onto the closest camel, she looked to Link and she nodded to the other camel, signalling for him to get on. Link hesitantly approached the animal before heaving himself up, trying his best to ignore the putrid smell.
"So what's with the whole soldier by day, bartender by night thing?" Link asked from behind as Tokan led his camel by a lead, heading in the direction of the colosseum. She let out a laugh before replying.
"I don't usually work there, Lord Ganondorf just wanted me to be there undercover should anything happen to you" Link nodded in understanding as he looked at the many passing sights. The rest of the journey was pretty much in silence besides from the occasional comment here and there. It took around an hour to get there, but that was only because of the many people that were bustling around the city due to the excitement with the tournament. Tokan took Link through the entrance used by the fighters and explained to him how it worked.
"There are eight contestants including you, you each have an area where you can rest in between rounds, they lead directly onto the arena. You'll find numerous weapons in your resting area for you to use as well and of course you can use any weapons you bought. You'll be called out each time you are going to be fighting. Finally when you enter the arena you must first bow to Ganondorf. After that you can fight, here we are, good luck Link" with that Tokan left Link in his area to go do whatever soldiers do. Link looked around the room, eyeing up all the different swords, axes, spears and maces. He could hear Ganondorf beginning to make his speech outside from his podium high up above the arena.
"People from all over the continent and beyond, I welcome you to Gerudo city and the Colosseum. Today we shall have eleven bouts with eight combatants. The rules are simple: fight until the other gives up or can no longer fight, anything goes. Now let us meet our contestants!" Ganondorf roared, the crowd following suit cheering so loud it would have been possible to hear it from the city's gates.
"First we have the legendary Highnave from the rito tribe!" A tall figure appeared on the stage in a gust of wind the second Ganondorf finished, it was so fast that Link first thought the man had used chakra to teleport, but quickly realised he was wrong and Highnave was just that fast. The rito was around Link's height, his feathers a midnight blue. He had a large silver and gold bow, the bow was crafted to look as though it also had feathers, almost as if it was an attachment to the rito's body.
"Secondly, we have the anonymous and secretive sheikah warrior!" Ganondorf added a story telling esque tone to his voice. The man that walked out received a loud cheer from the massive crowd too, although not as good of a cheer as the one the rito received. This man made no boast as he entered, showing off nothing. The man would be a couple of inches shorter than Link and was dressed in the skintight blue and grey armour, with what looked to be bandages covering his head and mouth, leaving his eyes and bits of his blonde hair to be on show.
"Thirdly, we have the great and mighty Riknumo of the goron race!" The grin on Ganondorf's face was practically splitting his face open at this point. A large figure stomped into the arena, he easily dwarfed everyone there with his boulder-like physique. He had a sledgehammer the size of Link hefted over his shoulder that he jabbed into the air causing the crowd to reach new heights of volume.
"Next comes the wandering warrior from distant lands!" Ganondorf seemed to not be able to think of anything else to say for announcing the man causing Link to smirk. The man that walked out into the arena was almost as tall as the goron, only somehow more muscular. He wielded a massive katana-like sword on his back that had a serrated edge. To Link he reeked of death and judging by the other contestants' reaction they shared the same thought. There was a cheer for him, but nowhere near as loud as the previous.
"And of course we have Gerudo's very own beautiful and deadly, Tokan!" Link's eyes widened as the familiar woman ran out into the arena wielding a large golden scimitar, she gave it twirl and a spin, showing off some moves. The crowd cheered and whistled as she walked out. The gerudo people were clearly proud to see their sister.
"Up sixth, we have the razor sharp shark of the zora tribe, Zeka!" A tall and burly Zora man came running onto the arena spinning around his silver trident at such speeds that it caused the sand on the floor to pick up and flow with the trident, almost as if it was being controlled. He grinned, a mouth full of teeth that could have doubled as daggers, causing the crowd to scream out for him in excitement. His skin was red with a white underbelly, all across his arms and chest were numerous scars. He wore nothing but shorts that looked like they had been ripped off of someone else.
"And seventh we have an ex Hylian royal knight said to have slayed many foes on the field of war!" A man slowly walked out and sure enough, he was clad in the royal knight black steel armour, he had a claymore that was made of similar material as his armour and was also as black. Link wondered morbidly if the man had fought in the war against his tribe.
"And finally, we have a man from a dead race, he has come here today to show their strength to the world once again, let us welcome Link The Ghost of Ruiken!" A spiral of flames appeared in the middle of the arena, flowing upwards burning into the sky. As it began to die down the crowd and other contestants could just barely make out a figure walking through the flames, for a second the entire colosseum was frozen as they watched Link emerge, his face as stoic as ever, the skull and bones he wore as armour now had scorch marks here and there only making him look scarier. The crowd roared after breaking out of it's stupor, if you looked closely you could see Ganondorf was barely containing himself from joining the crowd in cheering. Out of the corner of his eye Link could see the sheikah warrior's eyes widen as they swore to themselves, most likely recognising the use of chakra. Most of the other fighters gave off similar replies except for two, the man from outside of the continent was now practically salivating as he grinned widely and the ex royal soldier, no one else could tell, but he was shaking, from excitement or fear, Link wasn't sure.
"And with that ladies and gentlemen let us begin the tournament!" Ganondorf shouted out after regaining his composure, causing the crowd to erupt once more. After a couple of seconds he spoke again. "Now, for the first bout we have the rito archer, Highnave and Akaza!" With that said all of the other contestants made their way back to their area on the sideline. After a minute or two Ganondorf shouted out again. "3…2….1 FIGHT!".
Instantly an arrow was fired at Akaza which he parried effortlessly with his katana. Had Akaza been a normal person that arrow would have ripped through him with little effort. Akaza slowly began walking towards Highnave who had already shot off another three arrows that he either stepped out of the way of or blocked with his sword. Akaza moved out of the way of the last arrow when all of a sudden Highnave blitzed in front of him, just like how he did when he first walked out. He then swung his bow instantly at Akaza's head connecting, snapping the man's face to the left, Akaza was then knocked onto his backside as Highnave had jumped up to heights that not a lot of other people could match sending a gust of wind to Akaza. Highnave seemed to freeze mid-air as he took out his bow and knocked three arrows, although these ones were glowing and sizzling, bomb arrows. They flew towards their target in a matter of seconds, exploding into a cloud of smoke and fire. Highnave landed softly on the ground staring directly at the cloud of smoke that was slowly clearing, when all of a sudden the smoke seemed to be sliced in half as Akaza zoomed towards Highnave matching the speed he showed just moments ago like it was nothing.
Akaza swung his blade in a diagonal slash that Highnave blocked using his bow that strained under the blade. They began trading attacks at speeds barely anyone could see, Highnaves bow doubling as a blade for now, the two were pretty matched for a while until all of sudden Akaza slashed out, nicking Highnave in the face causing a slight cut to appear on his cheek. Akaza slowly began picking up speed in his attacks as Highnave gained more and more cuts along his body, eventually Akaza pulled back and went for a heavy overhead slash, Highnave went to block, but his bow finally gave out and was sliced in half. Highnave was stunned for a second with his guard down, which was all the time Akaza needed to slash him across the chest, blood spurting out through the man's feathers. This was followed up with a kick to his chest sending him flying to the floor. Highnave moved to try and get up, but was kicked back down, before Akaza finally put his foot on his chest, keeping him there.
"You were pretty fast, but squandered that speed by becoming an archer, had you been versed in the way of a blade and you would have probably put up a fight. Oh, and you should know, I could have ended this fight at anytime I wanted" Akaza's voice resounded around the arena, it was a deep and grating voice with a sinister twist to it. Highnave glared for a second before he sighed and began to say "I forfeit" when Akaza's blade plunged down through his throat, cutting off his life. Blood sprayed everywhere as his eyes rolled into the back of his head. Link's eyes widened at the quick willingness to take a life and was slightly shocked when the crowd cheered, although he guessed that at the end of the day they had come for entertainment. He locked eyes with Akaza as the man walked off the stage, the man was grinning at him as his victims blood dripped off his face. Link maintained eye contact as he silently spoke to himself, this is going to be interesting.
A:N: A couple of things, first of all, yes I took inspiration of Akaza from demon slayer although he won't be anything like the character besides from his name. I apologise if there is any spelling mistakes or the likes. I hope you are all at least somewhat enjoying the story so far, anyway thank you again for reading :)