In all honesty, Yamaguchi would've preferred a normal jail sentence. Surely normal prisoners of war were kept in cells to await interrogation. But no, instead when Yamaguchi woke up, he found himself hanging in a literal cage. It was more than a little disorienting.
The cage swung in the air with every movement, and left Yamaguchi extraordinarily dizzy. His seating space was limited, just barely enough for him to sit cross-legged or on his knees. The standing room was no better; he'd have to stoop heavily if he wanted to stretch his legs. The bottom of the cage was solid stone and horrendously uncomfortable in either position, so Yamaguchi chose to save his back and remain seated.
A glance at his surroundings, poorly lit by a single dying torch, revealed very little. The bars of the pseudo-birdcage were thick and iron, but there didn't seem to be any kind of latch that would allow for his release. The ground, packed dirt and loosely scattered cobblestones, was two, maybe three, metres below him. Should he find a means of escape, Yamaguchi figured, the fall wouldn't be deadly.
Hung on the walls were weapons of every kind. The metal ones glinted in the dim firelight, but some were wooden, and others carved stone. Yamaguchi would have thought they were devices of torture, but as he squinted to make out the details, he saw that they were nothing out of the ordinary. What an odd room, had the snakes decided to contain him in an armoury? There wasn't much time to contemplate the theory as he heard voices approach from behind a closed door.
Yamaguchi wasn't surprised to see Daishou, although why Mika had come with him to the dingy room was a tad puzzling. Regardless, both of their faces split into malicious grins when they saw Yamaguchi sitting in a hanging cage like a bird. Mika near instantly doubled over with raspy cackles, for someone with such a lovely voice, her laugh was truly awful.
Daishou sauntered up to the cage as Mika laughed herself silly and pushed it, causing the whole contraption to swing nauseatingly. "Oh no, poor little birdie, trapped in a cage, what will he do?"
Daishou's false pout and taunting voice tempted Yamaguchi to reach through the bars and smack it right off the prince's face, but he knew better than to do that. Instead, he kept his face neutral and hoped it would suffice. He said nothing.
Daishou huffed, and pushed the cage again, just to watch Yamaguchi lose his balance, "Fine, you don't want to sing, birdie? Then don't, see if I care, I have better entertainment anyway." He very much sounded like he cared.
Mika finally pulled herself together and dusted the dirt off her, admittedly nice, silk dress. She sidled herself up to Daishou's side and traced her finger along his bicep, "Come on now, dear, there will be plenty of time for that later, but right now, I'd very much like to keep birdie's wings clipped."
Yamaguchi was about to comment on how frequently the two snakes called him a bird, and how stupid it made them sound, but he stopped when he saw Mika pull a syringe out of her purse. It was a small thing, both the needle itself and the glass vial, but the sloshing liquid had a yellowish-green tinge to it. Mika tapped the side of the glass vial and grinned cruelly as she approached the cage. There was nowhere for him to go, so as Mika plunged the needle into his leg, Yamaguchi felt the telltale drain of his synergy.
"Well, your first trial is today, little birdie. I hope it's interesting!" Mika chirped as she and Daishou left the room.
As the heavy wooden door slammed shut behind them, Yamaguchi felt his cage shake once again. Metal clanked from above him, and stone ground against stone. Slowly, the cage began to rise, and light filtered in from above as the ceiling split open. Loud cheering filtered in from the opening, and Yamaguchi could hear the muffled voice of an announcer over the din.
"And here, we have our contender, a traitor to the crown!" The announcer paused as the multitude of other voices booed vehemently. "A former advisor to our great king, who abandoned his position to work for the enemy, what a disgrace!"
Yamaguchi blinked rapidly as the bright sunlight assaulted his unadjusted eyes. The ground that had also been the ceiling of the room below had been brought back together, and the cage had been set down upon it. Above him, a mechanical sort of hand-like crane gripped the top of the cage and slowly began to turn it, as if to unscrew it. That must've been why there were no doors on the cage, the top was meant to be separated from the bottom manually.
As iron ground against stone, Yamaguchi took a quick inventory of his surroundings. He was in a large arena, surrounded by carved stone levels, like an amphitheatre. Far away, clear on the other end of the stadium floor, was another cage, much like Yamaguchi's own. He could not make out the figure in it, other than that they were slumped over. Aside from the person in the other cage, the arena was devoid of life, but not devoid of other things.
Here and there, swords and spears stuck out of the ground, half broken and bloodied. Much of the soil was stained dark with blood, especially in the places where the carcasses lay. Scattered across the arena, some on the outskirts and some in the centre, were countless carrion piles. Some looked older than others, but under the ceaseless heat of the southern sun, none of them fared well. Flies swarmed in clouds around each heap, and carrion birds perched atop them and feasted. Some of the carcasses were animals, a bear here, deflated and picked almost clean by vultures, a wolf there, bloated and glassy-eyed. Many, however, were bodies of people. Some had bitemarks and claw wounds on them, clearly mauled to death. Others had open and gaping gashes, missing limbs and even a few decapitated heads. Yamaguchi knew weapon-inflicted wounds when he saw them. The point was obvious; the snakes had built a gladiatorial ring to exterminate their war prisoners.
The tops of the cages finally lifted, and almost instantly the slumped figure rushed Yamaguchi. He was far enough away, of course, that he had plenty of time to escape, but there were only so many places to go in an enclosed arena. Yamaguchi didn't want to fight, though. In all likelihood, he had fought on the same side as this man. He wasn't as clever with his words as Suga, but Yamaguchi hoped he would be able to talk the other into standing down.
That option flew clear out of the window the second the man got close enough for Yamaguchi to truly look at him. The stranger was gaunt and heaving, his eyes were wide and crazed, and in them was a manic shine. The man's hair was matted with sweat and blood, and his nails and fingers were stained a brownish red. His face was flecked with spots of dried blood, and his mouth was lined with foam and spittle, he looked almost rabid. There was no humanity left in those wild eyes, only madness and bloodlust, Yamaguchi would find no reason with him.
Still, he did not want to fight; Yamaguchi was no killer. Instead, he opted to run. He was still in relatively good shape, so all Yamaguchi had to do was outlast his opponent. And thus, the chase began. The announcer rambled on as Yamaguchi skittered around the arena, madman hot on his heels. Yamaguchi had to tune out much of his surroundings to keep himself focused enough to run. Both the announcer and the crowd seemed none too pleased with the lack of bloodshed. They chanted, and stomped their feet angrily, and threw rocks and rotten vegetables in the arena. Yamaguchi tuned them out and sprinted. The stench of the corpses filled his nostrils and made him nauseous, aided by the swarming flies ready for their next meal. Again, Yamaguchi ignored them as he ran. He could afford no distractions, no matter how much of an affront to the senses they were.
Yamaguchi didn't know for how long he ran, only that his legs and lungs burned, and that his skin felt tight from the sun. He only knew his time in the arena was over by the disappointed grumbles of the crowd in the stands. He could no longer hear the second pair of footsteps behind him, so Yamaguchi slowed to a trot and turned around to search for the madman. He found him in a heap on the ground, a spear stuck through his chest. It was one of the weapons that had been semi-embedded in the ground, point up. In front of the spear, upon which the madman's foot was caught, was a rock. He had tripped and impaled himself.
Yamaguchi suppressed the urge to vomit as he stared stunned at the man's lifeless body. Blood ran fresh and bright red, it dripped slowly off the spearhead and down the shaft. On the spearhead that stuck so prominently out of the madman's corpse, there were bits of flesh, bright red and almost gelatinous. The madman's ankle was at an odd angle, certainly broken. Distantly, Yamaguchi heard the announcer order him to return to the cage, and in his shock, he did. The machine screwed the top back on and lowered him through the floor to hang once again. Yamaguchi sat numbly for the entirety of it.
Daishou and Mika had waited in the room for him as he was lowered back down.
The prince, king now, tutted, "What a disappointment, birdie. You didn't even have the decency to give us a good show, honestly, who raised you to be so rude?"
Mika pursed her lips, "At least he's not injured, I don't feel like wasting my precious gift on him after such a lousy performance."
"Right you are, darling, right you are. Perhaps he'll give us something better to watch tomorrow. We'll just have to leave him here to think about what he's done." Daishou huffed as he made for the door.
True to their word, no one visited Yamaguchi until the next day when Mika came to administer the next shot of synergy inhibitor. She had no food or water with her, and despite his parched throat and achy stomach, Yamaguchi was too proud to ask. He was left alone for several more hours before he once again felt the cage lift out of the room and into the colosseum.
Instantly, Yamaguchi's eyes were drawn to the cage on the other side of the arena. Luckily, there wasn't a person in the cage, unluckily, there was a very distressed animal. It was one of the creatures native to the south, and thus one of the animals Yamaguchi couldn't name. It looked almost like a cat, but much larger and with a longer body. Its head and ears were rounded, and its coat had a strange spotted pattern on top of the already yellowish fur. Suga had spoken of them before, he called them jungle cats, and they were incredibly stealthy. Suga had also said that they wouldn't eat carrion, so Yamaguchi could only assume that he was meant to be the cat's prey.
When the cage tops were fully removed, the jungle cat did not instantly lunge like the madman had. Instead, it stayed low to the ground and close to the wall. Yamaguchi winced as he silently made his decision; he wouldn't kill other people, but if he wanted to live, he needed to kill the animals he was pitted against. Slowly, just as slowly as the jungle cat, Yamaguchi inched over towards the closest arena weapon. It was a longsword, or it had been; the blade was jagged and broken off at the middle, so all Yamaguchi had was a hilt and half a blade. Where the metal had broken was sharp, however, and while Yamaguchi wasn't all too fond of close combat with a wild animal, it would do the job.
From what little Suga had told him about the southern animals, Yamaguchi knew that jungle cats were ambush predators. It was most certainly smarter than the previous day's madman, at least. In all likelihood, it would wait until his back was turned to pounce, which meant Yamaguchi needed a plan of his own to catch it off guard. No matter the strategy, there was no way for Yamaguchi to win the fight unscathed.
Slowly, as if he was unconcerned with the wild beast at his back, Yamaguchi turned around and walked towards the other end of the arena. When he got a comfortable distance away, he lowered his stance, gripped the broken sword, and waited. The jungle cat was quiet, incredibly so, but the excited noises of the surrounding crowd gave its movement away. When the noise reached its peak, Yamaguchi turned around and thrust his sword upward. His hunch had been right, the jungle cat had lunged for the kill.
The broken sword sunk into the creature's chest with a sickening sort of schlorp until it hit bone and refused to move further. The jungle cat slashed at Yamaguchi with its claws and shredded his arm, but its strength had already begun to fade. Blood poured out of its chest like a river, and its breath was clearly laboured. Yamaguchi brought the sword down once more, and cleanly separated the cat's head from its powerful shoulders. The body slumped to the ground, and the head rolled some distance away, its path marked by a trail of red on the clumped dirt. Yamaguchi was called back to his cage, and dutifully, he returned; if he stayed in the arena, he'd only have to fight more.
This time, only Mika waited for him in the room below, a smug smile on her face. Daishou, she said, had important kingly business to attend to, so she had promised to drop by and see to his favourite prisoner. In her hands was a simple wooden tray with bread, dried meats, and a cup of water.
"A reward for a fight well won." she cooed.
Yamaguchi wasn't so stubborn as to refuse sustenance; he didn't want to starve, so he reached out with his uninjured arm. As he ate, Mika gently grabbed his other arm and tutted over the claw marks, "Awww, we can't have that, can we? How are you supposed to give us a good show like this?"
Yamaguchi was about to offer some kind of protest when she began to hum. Instantly, his arm felt warm and tingly, almost as if it had fallen asleep. The gashes on his arm slowly began to lessen until he could no longer see his exposed bone. When Mika stopped her song, the wounds were still there, but they were significantly less severe. It was nothing that would kill him, nothing that wouldn't scab over and heal in a few days' time. Mika smiled at him, and for a second, she almost looked kind, took his empty cup and tray, and waltzed back out of the room. Mika, it seemed, was a synergist as well; no wonder Daishou seemed so obsessed with her.
The days after that continued in much the same way. In the morning, Mika would come to administer a shot of the inhibitor, she would brag about the successes of the snakes, and then she would leave. Then, Yamaguchi would fight. Sometimes they'd pit him against a person, other times an animal. Yamaguchi always refused to fight the other people, sometimes, he'd just outlast them until they succumbed to previous injuries, and sometimes the people were lucid enough to understand him, and he would convince them not to fight. The animals he had to kill; there was no reason to be found in a wild beast, at least not for Yamaguchi.
Because of his many diplomacy attempts, the announcer gave him a title, mockery that it might have been. They called him the weak champion, or sometimes the leader of cowards. It was a strange dichotomy. He was a favourite of the crowd, but they all thirsted for his blood. Either way, the fight would end, and Yamaguchi would survive. Depending on his success and willingness to fight, Mika would bring him food and heal his injuries, but never fully. It was a miserable existence, but Yamaguchi had figured out an escape.
Each day, Yamaguchi could feel the effects of the inhibitor lessen. Just as Suga had said, he had started to build a resistance to it. It wasn't quite enough yet, though, he needed to bide his time for just a little bit longer. All he needed was to survive a little longer. Yamaguchi hoped the snakes wouldn't grow bored of him before then.