In the middle of the cold night, the rains came again; rolling over the hills just south of Zaun where Zed sat up with his mask and armor still on, awake in his tent next to Syndra as she slept. The tent was a dark grayish green color that blended well against the darkness of the hills and the whole city of Zaun in general. Zed gazed at his sleeping queen with conflict in his heart. One part of him wanted Shen's death to be the end of their struggle but the other half wanted to know what Shen was doing talking to some man in the middle of the night, thousands of miles from his beloved temple in Ionia. Syndra would not want to know or rather, not care to. As far as she was concerned, the only person with the capability of challenging them was gone. Although there were other leaders around the world like Jarvan IV, prince of Demacia and Swain, grand general of Noxus, neither would take an up and coming ruler seriously until it was too late. Zed and Syndra were confident that together they could defeat any foe. After all, there are not many in the world who are capable of facing off against a master of a forbidden martial art style and the most powerful mage of a generation.

Zed sighed and looked away from Syndra, having made up his mind. As much as he wanted to have it her way and never look back, he couldn't. Zed wanted closure. Careful not to wake Syndra, he stood and made his way to the flap of the tent where he slipped though silently and crept off into the night.

With swift, decisive strides, Zed quickly overcame the distance between his tent and the main road that lead away from Zaun. Once on that road, he would be able to hopefully find the man and his wagon. The road was quite straight and the little rocks that littered the way made soft crunching noises as they were trampled over by Zed's boots. For once, Zed didn't particularly care to be stealthy. Once he got that wagon in sight, there was no way that they would be able to escape him.

After what felt like an hour of running, Zed saw it in the distance. A dark red wagon parked on the side of the road for the night. A surge of energy flooded Zed's heart as he increased his pace towards his goal.

"Ugh, what… what was that?" a scruffy looking man in the wagon muttered to himself, rolling over in his old, torn up blanket. Something was going on outside! Quickly, he reached under his pillow for a dagger and drew it out. The crooked blade glinted in the moonlight pouring in through the open window. The man scanned the area, poking his head out of the wagon to see if anyone was there. Nothing. After a moment he withdrew and decided to just go back to bed. There was no point in being paranoid. He pulled his head back in and closed the curtains, blocking the end of the wagon so that nobody could se in or out. The only light was now coming from the window. However, as he laid down he noticed a distinct lack of moonlight. In fact, there was an eerie darkness inside the small wagon. It wasn't just dark, it was pitch black. "Oh my gods!" the man screamed, sitting up quickly and looking behind him in horror at where he had been laying. Over his pillow crouched a dark figure, a shadow. "Wh-what is this?" he shuddered. The shadow of Zed tilted it's head and pointed back over the man's shoulder. He turned to look and immediately found himself ensnared in the real Zed's grip. He was about so scream when Zed held a finger to his mask over his lips.

This seemed to calm down the bewildered, tired looking man who immediately dropped his dagger in surrender. "Look, mister," he whispered feverishly, "I told your buddy that I don't have it. It's been lost for five years! All I can confirm to you is that it was never looted out of the temple and sold off or destroyed, honest! That's it!"

Zed thought about this for a moment, excited at the possibility of what 'it' might be. "What are you blabbering about?"

"The box!" he hissed back, "The box your other ninja friend came to me about! He thought I had it but I didn't! I swear I don't." With that, he tried to pull himself away from the masked ninja but Zed kept him firmly in his grasp as he considered what to do next.

"The box," Zed said in his normal tone of voice, much louder than his captive was expecting, making him jump, "What kind of box was it?" Zed knew that the answer to this question could be one of many things but he knew what answer he wanted and his heart beat quickly waiting for the answer.

"The box of shadows! That horrible thing filled with darkness for the legends. The one that you people said some evil enemy of the Kinkou would come…"

Zed chuckled softly and pushed the looter, black market dealer, or whatever he was down onto the floor of the wagon and stood. "Guess who?"

Zed stepped back through the curtains and back onto the road, beginning the long walk back to Syndra's side. He made it a few steps before the man's voice rang out from behind him. "You'll never find it! We searched for five years!"

Zed waved his hand dismissively and kept walking off into the night, his mind racing. The box was still out there. The box was still out there.

"Do you ever stop drinking?" Riven asked irritably, looking over her shoulder at Yasuo who was walking an uneven path in her wake about twenty feet behind. The road to Demacia, where Riven and Yasuo planned on snagging a ship to the Shadow Isles was long and arduous and within only a few hours, Yasuo had started drinking and had been at it all day, turning his brisk walk into a drunken stagger. Riven had disliked this from the start but now her frustration had finally snapped.

Finishing a prolonged swig of whisky, the Ionian looked to Riven, "Should I? I mean, why don't you?"

Riven smirked, "Because I have standards for myself."

Yasuo laughed and broke into a jog to catch up. He put a hand on Riven's shoulder and slowed her to his pace, "Standards? You think this piece of trash world around us has standards? Do you think they care if you're sober?"

Riven shrugged Yasuo's hand off and glared at him again, "I think that people need saviors who can take care of themselves. If you can't even do that, why should anyone think you can protect them?"

Again, Yasuo laughed, "Why do you think I'm out here, darling? For them? To save a bunch of people I have never met?" He gave Riven a second to respond but when she did not he continued, "No, I'm here for me. I did things that I'll admit that I'm not proud of and I am protecting people now but not for their sake, for mine. This is my redemption, not their… salvation or whatever you want to call it. I'm no white knight."

Riven took a couple of steps away from Yasuo and kept walking. She had never really gotten to know the man who had hunted her five years ago but this was certainly not what she expected. From the brief conversation they had while in the Shadow Isles together, she learned that he was brash, courageous, unyielding, and snarky. She had never considered that the man before her now was so stubborn and careless. She still regretted ruining his life by getting him framed for the death of his elder in Ionia but if she was being totally honest with herself, at this point she was glad it was him and not someone more virtuous. "You're trying to protect yourself from damnation by being fighting for others but you miss the point! The point of fighting for others is to actually fight for them! I'm trying to save all of Noxus!"

Yasuo took another swig, "And how's that working out for you?"

Riven fell silent. "I haven't made much progress recently but… but I will! If I could just gain the support of Darius and Draven, I might stand a chance." Yasuo remembered the Noxian golden boys. The Blood Brothers, they were nicknamed. They gained a reputation together for being brutal warriors, beloved by the Noxian populous for their strength and charisma. Draven was the fan favorite, loved for is pompous attitude and his crowd-pleasing presence while Darius was the iconic soldier of Noxus. If you ever saw Noxian propaganda, Darius was likely on the poster. That concept made Riven a little uncomfortable as she was previously the poster child of Noxus. Their leader, Swain had always wanted her to replace him one day as the Grand General and help lead their people to the destruction of Demacia, their rival city state. However, as everyone knew now, Riven had disobeyed orders, fled and was not officially exiled by the state. Nevertheless, Riven knew that if the Blood Brother's took her side, the rest of Noxus would sway with them.

"So you're out here, trying to track down a ninja killing assassin so that you can unify Noxus?" Yasuo poked.

"I'm here so that I can learn and help people and become the leader that Noxus needs me to be."

"Ah!" Yasuo exclaimed, "You're out here so that you can be worthy of a throne. You're here for your own motives as well."

"But my motives will save people, thousands of them!"

"But they end with you wearing a crown," Yasuo pointed out, "At least mine end more subtly."

Riven smirked, "And how do yours end. Drowning in vodka?"

The Ionian laughed yet again and held up a hand to silence her, "First of all, I drink whisky, not vodka. And second, you might be surprised at how I want my journey to end."
"How do you want it to end?"
"Well," Yasuo paused. He had never told anyone this before but he supposed there was no point in acting like it was a secret or even a big deal. "I want to get old."

"You want to get old?" Riven asked skeptically, "What?"

"I want to survive all of this shit that I go through. I want to finally gain forgiveness not just from the Ionians but from myself and then yes, I want to grow old. One day every soldier has to stop fighting and one day, yes, I will stop wandering."

"Huh," Riven nodded. That answer surprised her. She expected that he would want riches or glory or something for his heroic actions but maybe not. Considering his Ionian background, where the elders of the village were treated and respected highly, that did make more sense. Surviving that long and being able to live in peace or even pass on his knowledge did seem to be the perfect ending for Yasuo's tale.

Author's Notes: Hope you liked the chapter! This was a much shorter chapter than I generally write and I was wondering if you liked that! Shorter chapters means that less will happen in each but there will be more of them and they can be released more often! in general, I think this story will take on a slightly slower pace than The Unforgiven did but that's just because I'd like to think that my writing is evolving. If you read the final few chapters of Unforgiven, you may have noticed that they got really really long. In fact, the climax chapter called, The Reckoning, took me 7.7 thousand words, nearly DOUBLE any other chapter in the story. Clearly detail is becoming more important to me and I'm using a more artistic voice rather than a utilitarian approach as I previously had. Hopefully, the change is good.

Anyway, please let me know if you find the shorter chapters acceptable because while I may swap back and forth between long and short ones from time to time, these will definitely make things easier in terms of keeping a good release time (3-5 days per chapter).

And now I have to address the shippers in the audience. Yeah, I know a lot of you are gonna go crazy for Yasuo x Riven and I promise to address the ship when the time comes. However, if you're here just for that, you may be disappointed because that is not going to take the front seat. Most important to Diovolo and I is the plot itself and so while romance will occur at multiple points, especially from our two villains, it simply cannot be the main focus if we want to deliver the thought out and complex plot we have planned for Legacy of the Shadows.

Thanks for reading once again, and leave those comments/reviews! Not only do I love to read them, but I want your input!