CHAPTER 4: THE TALK

As Kassadin was summoned into the Rift, Yasuo stood in the hallway quietly thinking about how to proceed with the situation. I have to talk to her sooner or later. he thought. May as well just get it over with. Yasuo walked quietly down the hallway, only hearing the dull thuds of his footsteps on the floor.

"Yasuo! There you are," yelped a familiar female voice, "why did you just run off?"

May coincidence have it that I just so happen to bump into her.

"Riven," he started, "You're Noxian, right?"

She looked confused for a brief moment, but quickly covered it with a grin.

"Yes I am. Why do you ask?"

"What do you think of Ionians?" Yasuo continued, bluntly ignoring her question.

"Ionians are nice people. Take for example, Irelia. Or Yi. They're genuinely nice. Seriously though, why are you asking me all this?"

Yasuo realized he couldn't just tell her straight up, but he couldn't really imply it either. What a lose-lose situation. He opened his mouth and said, "nothing, Riven. Just curious." He turned his back and began walking away.

"Draaaven knows the answer, Riven," cooed an all too well known Noxian, "ya wanna know why he's asking you all this?"

Yasuo stopped, his back still turned to Riven. Draven was standing a couple meters behind Riven, taunting her.

"Draven," Yasuo began, "don't even dare telling her anything. Or I will kill you."

"D'awww, Sassy Yassy wanna protect his li'l girlfriend, huh?"

Yasuo turned around and locked eyes with Draven. "Draven, I'm warning you."

Riven looked between the two seething men, unsure what to do.

"My man, my man, you gotta learn to chill. Riven, lemme tell ya why Yasuo ran off all that fast last game."

Yasuo felt his blood boil.

"He can't tell ya, ya know why? You know, it's just probably cuz he's just a wimpy. Whiny. Little. Bit-"

Before Draven could finish his insult, Yasuo struck out at Draven, his sword drawn from its sheath cutting down in a perfect arc at Draven's neck. Only that it didn't hit. The sword merely rebounded with a loud clang against a barrier that appeared around Draven.

"Yassy, you do know that no champions can be hurt within the Institute, right?" Draven challenged, "But they can be hurt outside of the Institute in a duel. They can even be, oh, I don't know, killed." Draven shrugged. "But you're just skin 'n bones. Can't challenge me in the least little bit."

Riven still stood there silently, looking at the two men staring each other down.

"I can take you on easily. Don't get too cocky, executioner."

Draven faked surprise.

"You got that in ya, huh? Meet me outside in an hour. One of us is going home tonight. The other is going to die."

Draven spat on the floor and walked off.

Riven finally spoke up to Yasuo.

"What was he going to tell me?"

Yasuo shook with anger, sheathed his sword, and walked off, ignoring her.

An hour later, Yasuo met Draven outside the back of the Institute.

"You actually showed up, eh?" Draven taunted, this time again surrounded by a group of scantily clad ladies.

Yasuo silently drew his sword and ignored Draven. Being bound by the Ionian Code of Honor, he bowed before his opponent before getting into a fighting stance. Draven took a long hard look at the ladies and said, "this one's for you bee-yoo-tee-full ladies." The ladies giggled and Draven took out his spinning axes and walked to Yasuo.

"On the count of three?" Draven said.

"How can I believe you won't start at two?"

"Really, I don't need to cheat for a second to win this little duel, Yasuo." Draven's usual carefree and annoying personality seemed to have shifted into something much more malevolent. Was this the executioner's true self..?

"1."

"2."

"3!"

Draven threw a spinning axe at Yasuo, but was quickly blocked off by his sword. Using the axe that was stuck in the ground as a launchpad, Yasuo flew in at Draven, his sword swinging in an arc at Draven's right shoulder. Right before impact, Draven stepped back on his right leg and shifted back away from the sword. Just as quickly, he threw a fist at Yasuo's unguarded abdomen. Just when he had thought he had gotten Yasuo, he saw Yasuo flicker past him through on the right side, landing behind him. A fine line of blood emanated from Draven's chest. The ladies squealed. Draven leapt backwards to his other axe, picked them both up, and threw both of them at blinding speed at Yasuo. Yasuo turned around just to be smacked lightly by the hilt of an axe, pushing him sideways before the spinning axes hit the ground and rebounded back to Draven.

"You're not so bad, Draven." Yasuo said between heavy breaths.

"But you are." Draven sneered, as he drove both axes, still spinning, into the ground.

The axes sped steadily and quickly towards Yasuo. He merely smirked as he summoned a wind wall towards the incoming axes. The axes slammed hard on the wind wall and scraped hard on the wind wall, sending out smoke and dust in every direction, before the axes spun out of the ground and landed lamely with a sharp clank at Draven's feet. Suddenly, out of the thick smoke, a whirlwind appeared and came towards him and his axes, which were still on the ground. He grabbed an axe and threw it blindly into the smoke before the whirlwind caught him. He was pushed high into the air, waiting for Yasuo to strike and kill him. But he never came. As the smoke dissipated and Draven fell hard back onto the ground, he looked to where Yasuo was. Draven's axe was lodged firmly in Yasuo's shoulder armor. Even though he was wearing shoulder armor, blood was oozing out from where the axe was. Yasuo grunted as he analyzed his wound, and grabbed the axe and pulled it out of his shoulder armor. He grabbed his sword and struggled to stand up. He fell back down. Seeing his advantage, Draven grabbed his other axe, started spinning it, and started walking towards the injured Yasuo. As he walked, he sneered.

"I told you," he aimed at Yasuo's neck and got ready to throw the axe, "Nobody messes with Draven and gets away with it!" With that last word, he chucked the axe at Yasuo.

The axe clashed hard against a black blade with bright glowing green words. Yasuo looked up and saw Riven, her sword reformed and posed like a shield in front of him.

"Almost got yourself killed." she stated bluntly.

Draven's ladies behind her groaned, but quickly shut up when Riven shot them a look that could kill.

"Well isn't that just sweet? Little rat coming to defend the big rat." Draven said, as he wiped some blood off his chest. "I'll let you live this time, Yasuo, and that's only because I'll get to see you suffer some more."

Draven picked up the axe near Yasuo and left with the ladies following him.

Yasuo felt his strength bleed into the ground, and weakly pulled on Riven's skirt, telling her he needed a paramedic group. She nodded and ran off to get help.

Then everything went black.

For the next three days, Yasuo spent his days in the Institute General Hospital recovering from his wounds and waiting for his armor to be fixed. Three days only. It's good champions get healing benefits while in the Institute.

But the more he thought about the battle with Draven, the more morose he got. All he had managed to do the entire fight was to dodge or block the axes and the only damage he had managed to get onto Draven was that one slice and the whirlwind. Was that the power of a Noxian? Yasuo admitted that Noxians were trained in the art of warfare much more than Ionians. Heck, even more than Demacians. Draven had done so much more than him in that duel. Draven forced him to play defensive the entire time and, if Riven did not appear at the last second to save him from death, would have finished the job.

The thought hit him like a truck.

I lost… to a Noxian.