A/N: I dug out the Noxian/Ionian match which led to the freedom of the Southern Ionian lands of Galrin, Navori and Shon-Xan and the creation of the Ionian Boots of Lucidity, and wow… that was the most informal formal match I have ever watched. Still, it was interesting, and I liked how the shoutcasting was done as if they were part of the League of Legends world, instead of the way it is done now.

Some people have managed to crack the code on Tumblr, and I'm pretty happy to see that my efforts were not completely in vain. There's a little more there now, but if you're too lazy to check it out, that's fine, I guess? Stuff that's important to the plot will be mentioned here again, just later, so the Tumblr codes are almost like... spoilers?

Haruka

Riven's POV

-2 weeks later-

"Noxus has amassed enough sin to condemn it for eternity," Alexandros snarls in a voice that has not yet broken, a voice that betrays his youth when he died. Barely fourteen years old…

"To bring children into a war… how despicable," Andrew growls from behind him, raising a skeletal hand to rest on the boy's bloody shoulder, "Commander, you have seen the destruction our city-state has wrought on friend and foe alike without hesitation. How can you still love it?"

How could I not? Noxus has been the apple of my eye since the day I could form coherent thought, I have dedicated my life to my homeland. Its spirit has guided me from my first steps, deeply ingrained in my soul; Noxus is more than just a city-state to me. Rotten as it may be, at its core, it is still the Noxus I grew up in, and I will never give up on it…

"Noxus is too far gone," Edmund sighs, shaking his head, which causes the flap of skin lingering over his revealed bones to sway sickeningly, "It is time to burn it down and start over."

The chant begins again, the sentence of damnation for the city-state I love more than anything, anyone, else. There is no hope, they insist, but…

No, no, no…

"Riven, hey, Riven!" a gentle, worried voice pulls me from the depths of my terror, and I crack open heavy eyelids to see the Lady of Luminosity leaning over me, her hands firmly gripping my bony shoulders. Relief floods her features as she pulls me into a hug, "It was just a dream, you're alright now."

I stiffen but do not pull away, allowing her to hold on to me for a moment longer. There is comfort in the warmth of another human being, and I do not want to let it go just yet. I've been letting her touch linger more and more each day, I wonder if I should start getting concerned about it.

The little communication crystal in the corner of the room suddenly blares to life, making us both start, a Summoner's urgent voice filling the room.

"All yordle champions are now officially under strict sanction, they will not be allowed to return home or send any gold out of the Institute's lands. This is in response to the yordle terrorist attacks that have been occurring across Piltover, which have claimed more than three hundred lives. The Institute of War will not negotiate with terrorists, and any suspected of aiding them will be infinitely detained."

Yordle terrorism? Those are two words no one would ever expect to hear side by side, considering the universal cute, fluffy and weak reputation the yordles have. What would cause them to act in such a way, to lash out with extreme violence not associated with their species?

Most importantly, what have they done in the last two weeks? I've been far too out of it to pay any attention to what is happening, and as I haven't been on the Fields of Justice and talk to no one in my rare trips to the cafeteria, I know next to nothing about the whole yordle fiasco.

Concern floods Lux's features as she tunes the frequency of the communication crystal to the international news, an image of smoking homes in Piltover filling the blank wall. The yordles are demanding equality, seething over their small standing in society, furious that they have always been seen as the weaker, lesser race of Runeterra. The Sheriff of Piltover, alongside her Enforcer and a number of other Piltoverian champions, has returned to their homeland in order to combat these terrorists. The Institute of War has firmly stated its position; it will not negotiate with lowlifes who target innocents, and has offered full support to Piltover's police force in order to quell the uprising.

Despite their diminutive size and adorable, high-pitched voices, yordles can do a surprising amount of damage – that much is obvious from the background the news anchor is standing in front of. A number of buildings have collapsed, including a wing of the extremely prominent Piltover Technological University.

Before my eyes, the ruined facades of Piltover's housing estates morph into the outer ring of Noxus, the skull-shaped peak of Noxus High Command appearing, partially obscured, in the smoke-ridden background. Screams begin to pierce the blood-colored sky as sickly green bombs break through the cloud cover, the stench of chemicals clogging my throat as the vials break, sending splashes of acid through the residential areas.

"C-Commander… help… me…"

To my horror, the streets of Noxus gives way to Coeur Valley in Shon-Xan, the agonized faces of my Company members filling the screen; Zephyr's terrified eyes, Peter and Reece's joined hands, charred into a singular entity, Edmund's desperate gaze…

"D-don't want… to die…"

Alexandros' final words pierce me deeply, bringing tears to my eyes. He was too young to fight in a war, too young to die. He had forged his papers to enlist, adding four whole years to his age, only to die helplessly like this, too young, too young, like all the children that we murdered in Noxus' name.

The most despicable thing one could ever do is drag children onto the battlefield…

The scene shifts rapidly, the charred earth of the valley morphing into the smoking huts of an Ionian village, the very first one my Company had ever burned. Bodies are splayed all over the scarlet ground, some painfully small, the desperate villagers rushing at us with hoes and shovels as we mindlessly continued our rampage of destruction. Futilely, they came at us again and again, their legs trembling on the bloodstained soil of the battlefield, as we mechanically ended their lives.

Emptying a village by your own hand is always more sickening than seeing the charred remains of the Zaunite Melters' work, it stays with you for much longer.

Please, stop! we had considered pleading back then, begging them to roll over and die, to minimize their suffering, because what could farm tools do against blades and runic weaponry? All they could do was cause more pain as they struggled uselessly onward with missing limbs, blood and tears cascading down their distorted faces.

Bile wells, sour and sticky, in the back of my throat, easily spilling out onto crisp, white sheets as my body begins to convulse; the color of their blood seeps into my eyes, dyeing everything crimson. That Ionian village had been completely unarmed, unlike the Wuju village that we annihilated later in the war; they were not of the slightest threat to us. They could not have hoped to battle us, but they did so anyway; despite their pacifism, they were strongly loyal to Ionia and refused to surrender. They had pride in their land, they loved their home, and refused to open their doors to what they perceived was an invasion.

Unfortunately for them, the Institute decided to see them as a selfish city-state refusing to lend aid to another in need, due to the fact that the Void War had caused thousands, millions of Noxians to become homeless. We had been refugees, unsettled by the destruction of the previous war, and ended up walking onto the site of a brand new war.

Without any help, their resistance was painfully pointless – only the strongest swordsmen, warriors and mages could hope to combat the Noxian Army. All the foolish, peaceful villagers could do was turn the earth to mud with their blood.

"Riven…"

Indeed, I am riven, riven with guilt and pain and regret, torn apart violently by the bloodshed I have caused, the wounds that I have left behind that will never fade away. That is why I chose that name for myself, casting aside the name Noxus knew me by and taking on a symbol, a symbol of my broken state…

I am too weak to even turn away from myself as the bile forces its way out once more, spilling into my lap. Twitching feebly like a body about to die, I stare glassily ahead at the torturous images from my unforgivable past. More villages, some stronger than others, fill my vision, forcing me to remember the lives that I have taken, the stories that I have ended, and others that I warped and distorted down the path of darkness.

One in particular forces its way to the front of my mind: the story of one of my greatest victories, and one of my greatest regrets.

Yasuo, the Unforgiven, who was forced to slay his own brother because my blade's style was similar to his. Yasuo, the Unforgiven, whom Ionia blames for sins I committed, who suffered and continues to suffer because of my actions. Yasuo, the Unforgiven, who was punished for his desire to defend his country by my actions.

Which weighs more, Riven? Your blade, or your past?

He is bitter, and he has all the right to be, he thinks that Yone's blood stains my hands as well as his own, but those words still cut deep, deeper than any blade ever could. My past, the answer is undoubtedly my past; nothing on Runeterra can weigh any more than it does.

I wish I could apologize to you, to every single Ionian I have wronged, but I know that it is a pathetic attempt to placate my guilt-ridden soul. No, an apology, however sincere, can never make up for the things that I have done, I do not deserve to be freed so easily from my burden. It has been so many years since the war ended, since the day I stepped onto the battlefield on Shon-Xan at barely fifteen years old, so many years since I fled the graveyard in the Coeur Valley at eighteen, so many years since the Great Stand of the Placidium signaled the beginning of the end of that senseless culling, yet I am still weighted.

Trapped in a dark world of my own doing, I tremble in pain and guilt as my stomach rebels deep within me, the calls of the outside world fading into the background of agonized screams and declarations of never-ending hate.

I have not forgotten, Ionia, and I have not forgiven.

Lux's POV

Soraka makes the final decision to discharge Riven after her third breakdown of the day, acknowledging that the stressful, Ionian environment is not the best place for her to recover. It is a bitter pill for Soraka to swallow, after all, there hasn't been anyone she hasn't been able to heal before, and I kind of understand why she's so reluctant to let Riven leave.

Riven is in her room now, asleep, still hooked up to a drip for her own good. Meanwhile, I have been called by Varus to speak with him in the archery fields, as he has something to tell me about "the Exile's time in Ionia". Whatever it is, I am positive it will not be any good; after all, his sole purpose of living is to ensure that the Noxian invaders of his homeland get their reckoning.

As I enter the archery field, Varus is practicing, firing those dark, semi-liquid arrows he pulls out of thin air, filling the newly replaced sandbags with dozens of holes. Without turning, he speaks, "You are aware of my story?"

"A Pit of Pallas." Everyone knows that, the Pit is a legendary source of great malice and evil, and most humans would not be foolish enough to ever near one. There was, is, one in Ionia, and instead of avoiding it like many old civilizations did, the Ionians assigned someone to guard it.

Unfortunately for Varus, he ended up the Pit's guardian during Noxus' invasion of Ionia.

"Honor-bound to my duty, I chose to abandon my village," Varus says softly, the next arrow he fires sinking with a sickening thud into the concrete wall behind the sandbags, "I sundered the foolish Noxians who tried to take the temple, but at the cost of my family, my friends, my entire home."

He turns now, regret pooling in his dark eyes, "I have never stopped regretting my decision, Lady of Luminosity. It is a painful thing, regret, one that you would wish only upon your worst enemies."

Taking a deep breath, Varus rests the bow, looking up at the sky, "My son, Theshan, when I came upon his body, it was clear he had been murdered by a warrior of the wind. You know what this means, do you not?"

"Riven," the realization makes my blood run cold; is she aware of this fact? If she is not, how badly would it kill her to find out, to look at the broken, corrupted father of a boy she had murdered?

"Indeed, it is very likely that my son's blood stains the Exile's hands, and I will never forgive her for it," his voice is cold, hard, full of the bitterness that most Ionians fought hard to get rid of. "I am a fallen Ionian, a traitor to the spirit and morals of my faction. Retribution is but a pretty word for vengeance, Lady of Luminosity, do not be fooled by the sense of righteousness it has."

There is so much to the Ionian War, and Riven's part in it, that I do not know, so many stories I have yet to discover. Yasuo's brother, Varus' son, who else in the League has she wronged with her sword?

"However," he sighs, the angered tension in his body seeping away, "I see the regret that burns within her, that haunts her every living moment. It will not make me forgive her, nothing will, but the light that shines upon her is different from that which darkens the shadows upon other Noxians."

"As an Ionian, I am telling you this in hopes that you will be able to help her live, truly live, again. It has been three years since the war, three years since our freedom; it is time for her to move forward."

Oh, Riven, if only you could hear this yourself, if only you could see… Ionia might not be able to forgive you completely, but it does not wish death upon you. It will remember your sins, but it will also remember any good that you do, because you have shown them that within you beats a heart of gold.

"Thank you, Varus." He merely waves me off, picks up his bow and returns to his shooting, the dark evidence of his corruption swirling about him.

The Ionian War… there is so much about it that we never bothered to learn about. Demacia hung back looking morally superior as the Ionians suffered, and Ionia was only truly freed when Lee Sin set himself alight in protest for the city-state that had adopted him and welcomed him despite his sin. We never stopped to look at individual stories, to study the destruction of the Wuju, of the Hiten, of the temples and the peaceful villages full of spiritualists, we merely lumped them as "Ionians who suffered", making them more of a statistic than a tragedy.

Just as I am about to return to Riven's room, head spinning with the history and agony of the Ionian people, a Breaking News announcement catches my attention, causing me to stop. The yordle terrorists have seen the sanction of their 'heroic champions' as discrimination and have declared all-out war, resolving to turn Piltover and Demacia into seas of fire.

This is stupid - have they not learned from the invasion of Ionia? Do they wish such pain upon themselves as well as their enemies? Do they wish to destroy a generation, more than a generation, of living beings just for the sake of pride?

According to the report, the Institute has officially allowed Prince Jarvan IV, Xin Zhao and my elder brother to return to Demacia to defend it, and says that it will consider allowing any worried Demacian or Piltoverian champion to return to their homeland if they approach them with the desire to.

"Just as Noxus has learned, Bandle City will learn, we will not give in to mindless violence."

Disbelief and anger wells inside me at the statement - what is there to learn from the Institute's slow response to Ionia's suffering? It took seven years before they moved, and in those seven years, a child like Riven was shipped to Ionia to begin a rampage of bloodshed, ending pitifully in the Coeur Valley at Shon-Xan, three years later, leaving her scars that will never fade away. Will yordle, Demacian and Piltoverian children be forced to grow up the same way, haunted by the atrocities they have committed? Will they, too, end up without roots, drifting in self-imposed exile in a hostile world they assume wishes retribution upon them?

I thought the Institute of War was created to settle conflicts peacefully, so that innocent blood will never be wasted again. Why are they not doing their job, covering the conflict within the Rift? Why can't they just give those yordles equal rights and get it over with? How about another match like the one between Noxus and Ionia, this time to determine if the yordles gain their rights in other city-states?

I loathe politics; it is why I have never really used my Crownguard title for anything. I want to distance myself from the upper echelons of Demacia, from the pointless conflicts that politics are perfect at starting. It is because of political decisions that soldiers like Riven suffer today, haunted and stained and broken, and I want no part of such a cruel system.

The world does not move forward because of politicians, but in spite of them.

Riven's POV

Once again, the Lady of Luminosity peppers me with almost inhuman kindness, watching over me as if I were a sick child instead of a hollow murderer. Trying to draw my thoughts from Noxus, she attempts to ask my opinion on the yordle terrorists and the war they have openly declared, but I honestly do not care. I must… I must find a way to restore Noxus to its former glory; I must find a way to sway my city-state back to the spirit it was founded upon: the survival of the strongest.

Noxus had abandoned too much the day it resolved that victory mattered more than the spirit it had been founded upon. It became a power-hungry, prideful coward, it broke. That day in Shon-Xan, I had decided three things: my sword was broken, I was broken and Noxus was broken.

Someday, I hoped to reforge them all.

That was my goal, to somehow influence Noxus back to its old path, but I am too far away from High Command to ever achieve such a thing, and Noxus' current General, Swain, is a power-hungry man whose soul will never be sated no matter how much he achieves. He is an ambitious thief, delighting in the treasures of other city-states which he forcefully stole, seeking domination of Runeterra. As long as he sits at the helm, Noxus will never be redeemed.

However, I have no hope of overthrowing Swain, of doing anything that would register in the eyes of Noxus. I have been labeled a traitor, a deserter, a weakling who could not stand up in trying times; my city-state is too far beyond my reach now. The dreams I have harbored for the past three years have faded, and if I cannot redeem myself, there is no other choice but death.

Frustrated with the Lady of Luminosity's constant attempts to engage me in conversation, I escape to the Grand Library of the Institute, ignoring the concerned gaze of the ever-watchful Curator of the Sands as I make my way to the most ignored part of the library, the section about Noxian history. No one, not even Noxians themselves, is bothered with the bloodshed that made the city-state what it is today. All we use are the stories of frightening, powerful soldiers, Generals who conquered everything in sight, to scare or inspire the next generation.

At the corners of my vision, my dead men stand, watching, as Alexandros approaches a leather bound book marked with The Ionian War, acid-stripped fingers passing through the tome. "I wonder, do they honor us as heroes, we who were marked collateral damage?"

"What good would it do if they did?" Andrew growls, turning to pin me with a hollow, piercing glare, "Mere words and images in a history book will never be worth the future they stripped from hundreds, thousands of children with their war."

Unable to answer, I can only stare wordlessly at him, aware that his hatred is justified, no matter how much I wish it were not. Noxus did destroy the lives of children, even their own – toward the later half of the war, they had lowered the conscription age from sixteen to thirteen.

"I was so impressed when you first stepped off the boat," Edmund says, leaning against a bookshelf casually, "You were barely fifteen years old, yet your sword was just about as tall as you were and you could hold it with a single hand. We couldn't keep our jaws off the ground, Commander."

"Tch. While the boys gasped in wonder, all I could do was shake my head at the sight of yet another child on the battlefield," Andrew mumbles sullenly, obviously displeased. As a father, the painful sight of children fighting a war cut him deep, and he had never forgiven Noxus for it. "Did you forget that she was only shipped as a replacement Commander because our first was brutally gutted?"

"Devastation and fire in the gaze of a child, that is the worst kind of war."

Peter and Reece, their hands still a mass of melted flesh fused together, approach Andrew and attempt to soothe him, the way they used to when they were alive. Meanwhile, Kendall and Maes, two of Edmund's closest friends, and mine as well, approach me and drag me closer to Edmund.

"Do you remember the day he confessed to you, Commander?" Maes asks cheerfully as he shoves me, a teasing note in his voice, "I can still recall the look on his face when you told him you were gay."

Edmund attempts to frown with what remains of his face, the lone cheek he has left coloring. Laughing, Maes throws one partially melted arm, bloodied muscles exposed, over his friend's shoulder, accepting the gentle knuckle to the back of the head.

"Maes, we aren't here to play," Kendall rebukes, dragging his friend by the torn, bleeding ear, "We're here to remind Commander why Noxus has a price to pay."

"Oh, yeah!" Maes can never be negative, no matter what, he was the only one still capable of smiling after months of killing civilians, watching mothers cry and children stumble before our blades silenced them forever. It was what made him the Fury Company's most valuable member – the never-ending light in his heart. "You do know that everyone has a reckoning, don't you? We had ours melting in Shon-Xan, you have yours living in a world of endless battle, and Noxus will have its own when it finally burns to the ground."

"There are some sins that we just can't forgive," Edmund adds, the embarrassment in his eyes completely consumed by blind hatred. It pains me to see him that way, to connect this bitter ghoul with the loyal, awkward and straightforward Ed I had known.

Shin, who has been lingering quietly at the farthest end of the Noxian history row, suddenly points to a book and says, "There is…"

All of a sudden, his voice changes from the familiar baritone of a young man to a high, clear girl's voice, one that has just barely lost the youthful edge of a child. "There is a way to be good again, Exile. Within the book is the way to free Noxus."

Nasus' ears flick, to my surprise, and he requests in his deep voice that we keep our discussion to a minimum within his library.

Was I not speaking to specters that exist only in my mind? How can he hear them? Am I talking aloud to myself? Am I really that far gone?

"He knows," somehow, I know the He is not Nasus, but someone else, something else, "I have not the strength to stay. Keep safe."

With that, the young girl's voice fades back into Shin's, and I brush past him to pick up the book. Dusty, old, bound in cracked leather, the book is unmarked save for a singular number "2".

In my head, the childish female voice echoes, "There is a way to be good again, Exile. There is a way to be good again."

"To free Noxus."

"To be good again."

I would do anything for that, absolutely anything. I might be going insane, but if this book can make things right again, I will gladly embrace insanity. It is a small price to pay, after all, for atonement.

"If you can, Commander, then we shall forgive you," Edmund's voice rasps softly, barely audible, yet heavy enough to take my breath away. "You might even be able to forgive yourself."

Forgiveness… if I can attain it, I might be able to live with myself…

A/N: Thank you so much for reading, please leave a review if you wish! They really keep me going! Also, be on the lookout for more coded extras for the story (and other things)!

Please leave a review behind if you enjoyed the story. It really motivates me to write!

Haruka