Chapter 5
A shattered nation
"You'll find out on your own, for now rest, hard days await…majesty" the voice resounded in Wukong's mind for an unspecified amount of time, and after it disappeared he finally felt his body again.
To say that he was sleeping would be completely wrong. His mind entered in some kind of hibernation state that he couldn't achieve even with all his meditating sessions with Yi.
He started regaining his senses, which didn't help him much in waking up. His head had to be resting in the most expensive pillows of all Demacia.
He inhaled a spasm and his nose caught a scent of cherry.
'They even perfumed them?' with all his strength he moved his hand to one of the pillows and gave it a soft squeeze, earning a soft moan 'wait a moment' he connected the dots.
Heavenly soft, cherry perfume and moan. There was no mistake; his head was currently between Ahri's breasts.
'Heh, if I tell anyone that this isn't the first time it happens no one would believe me' he thought, and remembered it was pointless to fight sleep when you are between the most coveted jewels of all Valoran so he was about to return to his nap when a question hit him.
Just how did he end there?
Then the images flashed on his head.
The rift, fighting Yi, Xerath's corpse acting strange and jumping to shield Ahri from the explosion it caused.
'What the hell happened?' with god like strength, he forced him to awake. Then noticed he somehow had tangled with Ahri's tails.
'She probably wanted to protect me as well, or at least that's what I hope she tried to do' he carefully untangled her tails and her legs from him. When he was done he sat on the bed and took a look to the surroundings.
'This is Ionia's hospital' he thought "how did I end here?"
"You were brought" a voice sounded from behind him, he turned around.
"Master Karma? Wait, what happened? All I remember was having a match and… Yi was there too. Is he ok? And what about the rest?" he stood.
"Calm down" she put her hands on his shoulders making him sit again "everyone is safe, the emergency system activated on time and all the champions entered on stasis and then evacuated"
"I see" he calmed a little "but how many time was I asleep?"
"You'll see, the stasis placed on the champions was still experimental; it should have lasted for an hour of two but we couldn't lift it for three months" Wukong widened his eyes.
"Damn. Sooo anything important happened while we were out?" her gaze turned grim "master Karma?"
"I think it would be better to tell you when everyone is awake" he sighed.
"Ok, ok, you are the boss. You heard her vixen, stop pretending" he twisted her nose painfully with his fingers, making her eyes open instantly.
"Ow, ow, ow! What the hell monkey?!" Ahri said massaging his swore nose.
"As I said before, is not time to play being asleep" he said perfectly straight.
"I meant why you had to pinch my nose like that?" she groaned.
"Because I have already told you to not do 'Ahri stuff' while I'm asleep" she choked on her saliva.
"I-I-I don't know what are you talking about" she blushed and looked away "I was a-asleep as well it m-m-must have been u-unconscious action. Yes that's it"
"None of us could move due to the stasis, and I remember well having your head against my chest when I shield you" Ahri smiled dreamily at this memory.
"And what's more, you had been awake a while before me. You think I don't believe you capable of placing my head between your breasts TWICE?" the vixen decided she had to defend herself somehow.
She pouted angry and said "are you saying that my assets are that unpleasant? That isn't the way to treat a-kya!" she couldn't finish cause Wukong suddenly headlocked her with an arm and rubbed her hair painfully with the other.
"¡Don't play smart with me, I already told you that you look even dumber!"
Meanwhile Karma looked slightly irritated at just one more fight for their record. It looked like Wu would win this one as well leaved the scoreboard in 29/5 in favor of Wukong.
She couldn't say she wasn't getting tired of it, but time had taught her that they wouldn't stop doing it for anything.
She cleared her throat, remembering that she was still there "now if you are both awake and ready, I must lead you to my office, the master Yi awaits you there to see what happened when you were in stasis.
Wu groaned quietly and Ahri chuckled at this; she guessed it was because Yi had awoken before him.
"Well I fear the one who makes the master wait so…" he stood and offered his hand to Ahri. Her cheeks gained a shade of pink at this.
"Just what are your intentions, monkey king?" she raised an eyebrow.
"Take it and you'll find out" Wukong grinned like only he knew how, oblivious of the effect that smile caused on the fox.
Although, she masked it with her trademark playful smile and took his hand. Then yelped audibly when Wu lifted her bridal style,
"W-wha?" she sputtered with red cheeks.
"Don't you remember? If I died only once I'd carry you like this for a week" he said smiling, following Karma out of the hospital.
"But, you didn't die, the explosion of Xerath's body hardly counts as legal" she scorned herself for pointing that; she had actually dreamed with him carrying her like that it wasn't time for playing honest!
"Well maybe but thanks to that we will never know if I had died for real, so is it's only fair this way don't you think?" she smiled at this; it wasn't her usual flirty smile but an abashed one, the one she rarely made.
And the one that he liked the most.
"Fair huh?" he nodded "then it seems we have to stop by the greengrocery" he looked at her with wide eyes.
"You mean…?"
"Aha, we are having mango pie tonight" she giggled when fake anime tears fell from his eyes.
"HEEEEEEEEELLL YEAH!" he yelled to the skies "have I told you how much I love you?" she blushed crimson at this.
"Um, no" she said 'but say as much as you like… why didn't I say it aloud?' she thought.
As they passed the streets of the village, they noticed something disturbing.
Some of the houses were under repair; all of them looked like a meteor hit them and burned, some of them worse than others.
"What happened here?" Ahri asked "someone attacked?" she sounded worried.
"Have patience, we'll explain everything when we arrived" Karma reassured her.
"Yeah calm down vixen, if you worry too much you'll get wrinkles" he tried to joke but she could feel he was tense.
After a few minutes they spotted the house of the illuminated.
As an elder of one of the 20 provinces of Ionia, Karma had her own small mansion. It was two stories high and was built with something akin to the traditional Japanese architecture; it was painted with different shades of green with golden ornaments, like the Ionian crest that stood proudly on the main doors.
They entered the building and after a climb of stairs and a few turns they were at the doors of Karma's office. All the way till there, Wukong had been carrying Ahri like if she weighted a feather's pillow, and she rested in his arms with the same comfort.
They opened the doors and entered. The office insides were exactly what you would expect from the outside; it had 5 square meters, with a floor made of pale brown wood, wooden walls made of a darker color, a few square lamps to illuminate at night and a big panoramic window for day. It had various bookshelves filled with books and scrolls, two sofas and two chairs aside from the desk one which was designed with the same fashion as the rest of the office.
In short, it looked like an oriental version of the oval office.
On one of the chairs was the master Yi sitting with crossed arms dressed in a dark green kimono with tree patterns and his trademark helmet.
He noticed their arrival "my pupil, I'm glad to see you ok".
"Aww, don't tell me you were worried about me master-chan!" he said teasingly.
"I was. What's your point?" he responded with a painfully blank face. The monkey king was about to retaliate but the words died in his mouth when the hardness on his voice sent a shiver down his spine.
He hung his head in shame "nothing master just playing around" he mumbled earning a snicker from Ahri.
"As I thought, so master Karma you were going to tell us what happened while we were out?" he asked. The illuminated nodded and motioned them to sit. Wukong placed Ahri on the chair on the left while he sat on the one on the center with Yi at his right and Karma on the desk chair.
"Now please look at the screen" an almost flat TV appeared from the roof. Ahri could almost hear Wukong's thoughts whining 'why don't we have one of those?'
"As I already told you, the last match of the institute of war ended abruptly when Xerath's body exploded after starting to act strange. Because of this the summoner's rift has been destroyed and won't be operating for the next year at least." Images of the razed rift appeared on the screen.
"There they go the even matches" the monkey chuckled at the fox's sarcasm.
"The institute itself has suspended all matches though, to give summoner's and champions a few months to recover from what happened next, but they should be resuming in a few days"
"And here I was, hoping I would finally go on vacation" Ahri sighed.
"Nonsense, we had enough rest already. I can't wait to show Yi what I had for him!"
"What do you mean?" Yi looked at him with suspicion
"Did I say something?" he looked at him with ignorant expression.
He sighed "so what was that that happened next?" Karma's face became grim which made the rest worry.
"…This is Ionia" the screen changed again and everyone gasped.
The city was currently being bombarded with what seemed to be Xerath's ultimate. Blue lightning bolts appeared from portals in the skies and fell towards the cities.
"This is Piltover" the lightnings were chaining with the various machines of the city and the city and the electric wires, reaching all the machines inside the houses.
"Bilgewater" most of the ships, docks and even some people were in fire; they ran towards the sea to turn it off.
"And Bandle" all the yordles were panicking for the initial destruction the lightnings caused. But fortunately, they managed to use some lightning rods to minimize the damage. Courtesy of Heimerdinger they suppose.
When the video stopped everyone was sharing Karma's grim face.
"I… have no words" Yi hung his head.
"That's horrible" Ahri moved a hand to her mouth "how… how many died?"
"Those you saw on the screen are a few hundreds in total but…" suddenly something clicked on Wukong's head.
"Wait, what happened to Demacia? A-a-and Noxus?" he asked.
"And who cares about Noxus?" Ahri snorted, earning a scowl from the rest plus making her cringe.
Wukong sighed "well then, what happened to them?" he asked and judging by the frustrated expression Karma made, that was the million dollar question.
"… No one knows why, but Demacia and Noxus took the worst of this phenomenon" she played another video.
This one showed the main streets of the center of the city-state being assaulted by constant bursts of lightnings, each one seeming to be even more powerful than the ones of the previous cities; they left large craters wherever they fell and the remaining energy chained to people that couldn't escape on time.
But the humbling part came when the screen showed the castle of the Lightshield family, home of the king and the prince Jarvan IV.
Nearly thousands of lightnings were falling from the sky hitting the castle in every centimeter by all possible angles. It was one of Valoran biggest buildings and it was reduced to crumble in matter of minutes.
Everyone fell in a tense silence after sawing this.
"…and Noxus?" Yi asked. Karma played one final video.
Basically it was a copy of Demacia, with the exception that the pestilential potion that circumnavigated the city was flooding the suburban area trapping many people in its thickness and conducting the energy of the lightnings giving them quick deaths.
Then the video moved to high part of the city inside the mountain, were more portals dropped more lightnings inside of it towards the people that thought they were safe inside, paying dearly for their arrogance.
Needless to say that being underground the lightnings were conducted even better than with the potion, destroying like this most of the inner structure of the caves, making them collapse over themselves.
Karma stopped the video "while most of Valoran suffered minor losses, Demacia and Noxus lost nearly half of their population. With Noxus being now uninhabitable they moved to one of their biggest military bases; for being working for just three months, they turned it into a city quite fast".
"This is going to cause serious trouble" Yi said shaking his head "if the tension between the cities wasn't bad before now they'll surely destroy what was left of themselves"
"What? Noxus I get it but Demacia? The last thing they would do after something like this would be starting another war!" Ahri exclaimed with worry.
"No matter how noble it might seem at first sight Demacia is a nation ruled by men, humans, and humans tend to do foolish things when they are scared"
"Well believe it or not, they are now the least likely ones who you should expect trouble" the illuminated called their attention "before the event, all indicated that Jericho Swain would take the charge of grand general, but after it the council opted for the more conservative ways of Keiran Darkwill to restore the city. While he is not entirely a good person at least has the common sense that most Noxus lacks. So they won't be a problem for a while"
"Well, at least is something" Yi sighed in slight relief, and then noticed Wukong's troubled expression "something's wrong my apprentice?"
"There is one thing that bothers me"
'Only one?' the fox sweatdropped.
"Just how did you get those videos? Cause I doubt the news reporters would remain quiet while recording that"
"That's a good question, but I'm afraid I don't have the answer either" she gave them nothing but more shock.
"How is that?"
"A few days after the disaster, the videos came to the rulers of the cities by mail" she furrowed her eyebrows "there was no remittent, no note, just an envelope with a compact" tense silence fell on them.
"I'm a little afraid of pointing the obvious but, what happened to Xerath?" Ahri asked.
"Well it's impossible to die at the rift by any means so we doubt he is dead, he probably is in wherever he is when he isn't in the league, maybe recovering for what happened, as the rest of the unaffiliated champions"
"So we have no doubt this phenomenon was his doing?" the wuju master inquired.
"Not exactly; we have no doubts his magic was what destroyed the cities but we aren't sure it was his own will or even how it did that"
"Damn, so I guess we have a lot work ahead" Ahri groaned making Wu roll his eyes.
"Actually if that's all the info we had, there's little we can do about this aside from helping in the reconstruction of our city and our brothers" Yi said and karma nodded.
"Indeed, so take a week to recover from your slumber and then you can start helping"
"I see… well then it's settled, we are heading home" he lifted from his chair and in a quick motion lifted Ahri bridal style earning a yelp from her
"Y-y-you were really serious about this?" she spluttered with a slight blush.
"Of course, did you seriously think I was joking?" he led the way out of the office.
"Is that a tricky question?" he laughed at this and then exit, leaving the wuju master and the illuminated alone.
"So what do you think?" she asked.
"It seems that my student's denseness remains unbreakable" he shook his head.
"By the way I've been meaning to ask, how is it like? The master-student relationship?" he thought for moments, his expression becoming a bit distant.
"It's hard to put into words; you'll have to get your own relationship to be sure"
"I can't think of anyone with enough talent… or even want to be my student" she added slightly sad.
"You know that's untrue; I've heard the children playing to be the new Ionian war council, meaning not only me but you too and one other, who had already taken a disciple, so you are the only one remaining" Karma smiled at this.
"Yeah, I still can't picture why he took Ahri of all people"
"Because he saw something in her, something no one, maybe only Wukong, had seen… and since that day he started smiling again" he put a hand on her shoulder "you just need to find the right person that's all" she pondered his words for a moment.
"I'll try… later, now go home you should rest as well"
"You can say that, but I bet certain monkey will be at my door demanding training before the sun sets" she sweatdropped.
"Yeah, you might be right" after this Yi left her and head to his house as well.
The monkey king walked through the city carrying the nine tailed fox bridal style like she said he would, earning odd stares of most people they crossed, but Wukong couldn't care less and as for Ahri, well, she was squealing in delight inside her head while snuggling in his partner chest.
Before heading home, they went to the greengrocery to buy what they will need for the rest of the week, namely mangos (because seriously, the monkey had a weak spot to every meal that included mangos… or maybe is just the way Ahri prepared them, who knows).
When they reached the store they picked 25k of the beloved fruit and a few other things. So Wukong wasn't surprised when he saw the large amount of money all would cost but he still wasn't worried.
He had the nine tailed fox with him.
Just a bit of caressing and a few whispers and the shopkeeper (read: female and purely heterosexual up to that day) made them an 80 percent discount.
"You know I could have reduced the price to 0 right?" Ahri asked.
"Yes, but if don't restrain you a little all business Valoran would reach bankruptcy" he eyed her.
"Well if you say so"
"Now that I think of it, don't you have to make the girl a favor?" he asked curious.
"Why? She has two perfectly functional hands and a healthy uterus" the monkey laughed.
"She's just not your type" he teased.
"You got me there. Although I feel kinda sorry for her; even if she tries to vent off she wont be able to get over me in a week at best" she added pitiful voice with her characteristic sexy edge. The monkey sweatdropped.
"You are terrible" he lifted her bridal style again making her yelp once more "looks like you'll have a hard time getting used to it" he said.
"It's not like that, you just… keep taking me by surprise, that's all" the fox said with a small blush.
"Then it looks like I'll have to keep doing it; your expression is priceless"
Ahri grumbled at this 'I'm starting to think he's gaining more of the bet than I do' she snuggled closer to him 'but I won't complain'.
Since they asked for the groceries to be delivered at their house, they only had to walk there (well, Wukong walked while carrying Ahri but it's the same).
They walked a few minutes in the city to reach the forest and a few more to reach the house and then they arrived.
"I still can't believe master Karma gave us this" Ahri commented.
"I still can't believe how bad I tortured her for her to give us this" the monkey retorted.
"And I still can't believe how much she lasted against the irritating king" she laughed at him.
"You are gonna regret that" he sent her a dangerous gaze.
'I'm counting on that' her mind started fantasying.
Their house had around 200m2 and it was built in the same oriental architecture of the rest of Ionia. It had two floors with white walls and dark blue roof as well as rectangular walls painted on the same way around it, separating it from the rest of the forest.
As the walked past through the walls they were greeted by Ahri's garden, filled with all kinds flowers that the Ionian ground could cultivate. Aside from a hobby and decoration it was like a personal collection for the nine tailed fox and Wukong thought it was cool but he confessed her that so many colors in such a small space made him dizzy more than once.
But if you passed to the back garden you'll meet a peculiar sight: a professional level tree-house at the top of a tree of 15 meters. You can guess who it belonged to.
Since the monkey didn't felt entirely comfortable sleeping on the regular house, he asked for a builder friend for tips to how to build a house on the top of the back tree. And after two months of struggling with the materials he made a piece of art by himself (a/n: yes, I said by himself). Yi once told him that if the wuju didn't work out he could always opt for being a contractor.
Wukong have never laughed that hard.
The duo arrived the main crossed the main door and were greeted by the living room, that consisted on a sofa, a medium sized TV and a billiard table.
"Home sweet home" he let go Ahri.
"It's getting late. I should go and prepare dinner while you play dumb" she said.
"Can we have the mango pie first?" he gave her the best puppy eyes he had.
"I wouldn't let you have dessert first even if you kissed every centimeter of my body" she poked his nose.
"Yeeeah, sure you wouldn't" he added sarcastically earning a soft slap.
After that Ahri moved to the kitchen and Wukong decided to go to his tree house/room.
The tree had spiral stairs for the guests but since he was blessed with thumbs in his feet he just climbed the old way.
When he reached the top he opened the door and entered a 20m2 living room with a small TV in a corner, a couple of reclining armchair, a few stairs leading to the second floor, three banks and a table. That only occupied a third part of the floor.
The other part was a small gym with weights and a big pad. He just used it for maintenance; he didn't even think in doing serious training there and less sparring for the simple reason that he would demolish the house.
He climbed the stairs and reached the second floor which consisted only in a bedroom; just that it didn't had a bed but a hammock on a corner, a small fridge next to it (which created a lot of polemic for the fact that he had a TV on the dinning room and the fridge on his bedroom) and surprisingly a desk.
Master Yi was very insistent if not bothersome when he told Wukong that if he wanted to pull out the full potential of his body he had to train his mind just as well. At first he had no idea of how that worked but his master was very clear with his finality.
The monkey had no choice but to agree. The idea was that he had to write at least an hour a day but he still had the problem of having no idea of what to write.
'I had the same problem at first, until one day I just sat on my desk and just wrote about what happened in the day. Soon I started writing about my training each time I had any problems with it' Wukong got close to the desk, opened the drawer and pulled out a diary written up to nearly the half of it.
"As the words left the pencil the thoughts and ideas in my head flew like a river, making all look clearer like never before, and then all the problems solved themselves like nothing" he sat on the desk (ignoring the chair) pulled out a pen from between the pages of the diary.
"You are showier than most people get to know" he played with the pen in his hands.
"One of these days you'll have to tell me why I'm not like most people" he started writing.
24th of the rain month, year 709 of the rat.
It was a while since my last update; it seems like me, the vixen and Yi had been in coma for nearly three months. I still don't know how the league keeps pulling stuff like this but I guess I should thank them for this one.
So I was all cheerful because all the champions went out unharmed but then master Karma dropped a bomb on us.
They have no idea how, but whatever made Xerath's body to explode like that also affected most of the city states, killing hundred's in the process.
And if it wasn't suspicious enough, Demacia and Noxus (the two favorite cities of all Valoran) had it the worst; half of their populations lost, Noxus becoming a wasteland making its ruler suddenly change.
Just another walk in the park.
But what really bothers me isn't any of that, but the fact that they both suffered almost the same. I have to admit that most people had enough reasons to hate Noxus but Demacia as well? I mean if only one of them had been attacked, all would have thought it was a war declaration but making all Valoran and mostly them suffer this fear, this impotency.
If it was any other way, I would have thought that this is some sort of vengeance, the tension between rival cities finally erupting. But this… now something tells me that it wasn't only Valoran who was hit by this, and I have the feeling that there is something way too big behind all of this.
He took a small pause, looked at his palm and then resumed writing.
And for the first time that idea doesn't excite me at all. Instead I'm worried, for Ahri, Yi, Karma; I'm worried for all of them.
And that only bothers me more.
He was about to write more but then something caught his senses.
The monkey put the diary in the drawer and headed to the main house.
He found Ahri on the kitchen wearing an apron and humming while cooking.
'She looks sexy like that' he wisely didn't say that aloud
"Hey"
"I know" she stopped her cooking "it looks like we have guests" they both went to the main door.
"Probably one of your "contacts"" Wukong teased.
"I hope Diana wants to vent herself again, she moans so cute"
"Yeah, I still can't get over her expression in the mornings" he recalled the pale Targonian almost bleeding from embarrassment, yelling at Ahri to not to touch her and that it was the last time she would come 'and yet she keeps returning always crying' now he wondered what her problem was.
They opened the door but saw no one, and were about to close it when the heard a small yelp from below.
"KAWAI!" Ahri squealed at the sight of a scarf weasel.
It was a small creature with a long body of about fifty centimeters as well as its flurry tail, giving it a length of a meter in total. It was cram colored, had small ears, red eyes and a pale pink nose. They were called like that because they like to sleep on people's necks like scarves. This made them pretty popular pets among rich people
"…Ahri"
"Yeah, I can smell it too" since they were both practically animals they had enhanced senses but mostly the smell, so they could detect the emotions of the creatures by it.
And this creature in particular smelled like fear.
"What's the problem little one?"
"Are you hungry? You can stay with us if you want" Ahri was about to reach it but it suddenly ran away and stopped ten meters away, jumping and yelping with desperation.
"It wants us to follow" the monkey said and then both chased the small animal.
"It's heading to the river!" they had been following the little thing for a few minutes, Wukong jumping over the trees and Ahri running on all fours, they could have been way faster but they were tailing the weasel.
After another two minutes they saw the river on the horizon, and with a few meters more Wukong catch something.
"There's someone on the river!" he yelled and dashed there leaving the weasel and the fox behind. He hurried so much because the person wasn't only on the river.
It was face down in the water and wasn't moving.
He arrived before his companions and pulled the man out of the water.
"Hey come one buddy hang in there" he didn't answer "sorry, this is going to hurt" he lifted his fist in the air, which acquired the cracks and the thickness of a rock and the hit the man in the stomach.
He woke up with a gasp and spit out a considerably amount of water, and then started breathing heavily.
"Phew! You startled me for a while" the monkey king said in relief.
The mysterious man took a sight of his savior before falling asleep.
"How is he?" Ahri asked when she arrived, followed by the weasel who jump on the chest of his friend.
"He'd just fell asleep but he is fine I hope"
"That's good" she took a closer look at the man "hey, if he needs a place to stay the night I can gladly share my bed with him" as you can guess, the man was quite handsome, even with the mask that covered his lower face.
"The only thing you are going to do is getting Soraka, he may need medical attention" he retorted peeking behind hi mask.
"Come on, he looks just fine" Wukong then pulled off his mask, earning a shock from Ahri and a grim face by him.
The man's right cheek looked like it was melted away; his molars were visible and had third-degree burns on his cheekbone and his muscles were visible.
"Why… who could do that to him?" she said covering her mouth with her hand.
Wukong inspected him a bit more and found the answer.
There was a crest burned in his right pectoral just above his heart.
The Demacian crest.