I'm playing it like this takes place chronologically before Dawnbringers
He smiled as the large metal door was pulled open before him. He pulled the gloves on his hands back, laced his boots tighter and walked through the portal, holding out his arms and basking, relishing, in the delighted roar of the crowd. He let it engulf him, consume him. Let it penetrate into his muscles, tendons, his core. The swordsman held out a hand and watched enraptured as the crowd hushed just a bit, then smirked when he slowly raised his fist and the noise the crowd made grew accordingly. Theatrics. In some ways, Godhand was a noble and virtuous man. Very few ways, granted, but some ways. But in others, he was simply a showman. A performer.
A whore.
He'd gotten a taste for it during his youth spent as a prizefighter. There was nothing like it. You could ride that thrill for days and no matter how many times you experienced it it would never ever lose its edge. You couldn't drink it, couldn't smoke it, couldn't shoot it and couldn't freebase it, but it could still make a junkie out of you faster than cocaine, heroin, nicotine and alcohol combined. The roar of the crowd. The ultimate high.
He took a look around the cell to see who'd he be up against, but to his surprise found no one he knew or heard of with the exception of 'Silence' Sei Orlouge, a man he had been acquainted with only briefly many years ago; he'd done some mercenary work for him and assisted in putting down The Yellow Lily rebellion. Or was it the Yellow Turban rebellion? He'd played commando and had a hand suppressing so many insurrections, rebellions and coups in his younger years that they all seemed to blur together now. Some crackpot territory and tin-pot dictator had sprung up at least once in every single region's history without exception. It was enough to keep a specialist very busy. But Godhand had washed his hands from that kind of work a while ago and never looked back; the travel, living conditions and nature of the work that required you to stay in the area in case there was a resurgence was simply too exhausting both mentally and physically to keep up past your twenties. He'd heard of guys that got off on that sort of thing and made that their bread and butter from being a rookie until the day they died but that wasn't him. He was a creature of habit; he liked to have a homebase. Roots. Liked to know the layout of the town and where the good places to eat where. He was simple in his pleasures.
Nevertheless, he was surprised. Sei Orlouge had disappeared from public view for a while now and Godhand supposed it made sense that he'd want to use a highly visible and notorious event like The Cell to make his triumphant return back to the public eye. But he expected to see others here, more present, famous names. Letho. Bloodrose. Possibly one or two members of the NWO, too. A Pagoda grandmaster? He couldn't rule it out. Champions, in any case. But it was just him and a whole bunch of people he didn't know. There were some in hoods, but they were likely rookies hoping to use anonymity to let the other contestants draw the worst conclusions. He'd been on both sides of that trick. He knew right away that this would play out one of two ways: either they'd stay out of his way and try not to get taken out in the crossfire, or they'd all gang up on him. Well, the second one didn't sound too fun. He decided a show of force was in order, if only to dissuade his opponents from all converging on him at once and ripping him apart like a pack of hyenas.
With that in mind, he calmly drew a Magnum, leveled it at the head of the nearest man (a fellow in a hood), and pulled the trigger.
Out of Character:
Godhand fires a .50 bullet at Numbers Guy's head
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