God Of War: Gacha System

Walking through the streets, I let Kratos's body take me to wherever it was more familiar to him. Soon enough I encountered them.

My squad.

My team.

Sitting in a garden at the end of an alley, around a stone table, eating, relaxing, chatting, doing the normal things that I can't.

Now, let me give some context to those who didn't pay attention in their history classes.

In spartan society, as a child, you get paired with your equals to live under the headship of one in your team. This one is the smartest, most battle-ready, cunning, etc. He's called ¨Eiren¨. But in English that would be ¨Prefect ¨

The other boys were to act as his servants, collecting firewood and fetching vegetables in whatever manner they could.

At the age of twelve, Spartan boys are taken under the wing of an ¨Erastes¨, once again, let's call him ¨Admirer¨. This Admirer gives you a form of education and mentoring in military formation.

Fun fact about this admirer, in other Grecian cities, this relationship was a sexual one. Thankfully in Sparta, the desire for the body of a boy rather than his soul was considered an act of extreme shame.

It wasn't really a fun fact... Uh, did you know that only people older than fifteen are allowed to have long hair?

By the way, all of this that I just said came from both my memories of history, but mostly from Kratos's memories of, well, living.

So, what does it matter to anyone?

Well, you see, when I said that I knew who I wanted to steal from, I meant the boy who slapped me yesterday when the overseer was talking.

Kratos recognized him as the Prefect of the team, the reason why he hit me? He's mad.

To be more specific, it's because when he was assigned as the Prefect, Kratos, being Kratos, never obeyed him.

Actually, I was surprised by this. Sure, it's Kratos we're talking about, but he took pride in his culture and wouldn't defy authority like this.

And then I dug deeper into his memories. At the moment of deciding who will be the prefect, Kratos naturally started fighting everyone, that's the normal part, that's the way the eiren is decided, by words or by force. He went for the latter.

But the now Prefect (Who Kratos never even bothered to learn his name and I'm forced to refer to as Prefect) drew everyone together and charged at a young Kratos.

Until that point is fine, expected by everyone including Kratos. What Kratos didn't expect was for the prefect to threaten the life of Deimos, his younger still-not-able-to-fight brother.

Yep, that happened.

The prefect threatens Deimos, Kratos calls him out on his honor, ¨There is no honor in battle¨, yadda yadda.

At the end of the day he submits to his leadership, and everyone on the team starts harassing him on the orders from the Prefect. This is bad because this is the team he's assigned to have until he's 18.

Then around a year ago, Deimos got kidnapped by Ares, this caused him to grow more 

rebellious against his leader, but he didn't attack him. Because he had already won and a follower can't attack his Prefect. Yep, he chose that moment to follow tradition.

Anyway, it wasn't until half a year ago, when his mother disappeared and left him, that he took action against him. He didn't kill the Prefect, he just stopped reuniting with him.

Still, he couldn't escape duty and had to follow his team into the battle, his team, knowing that if they don't do anything he will escape once again, pushed him off a cliff, and left him on the battlefield.

And at that point, I took over his body.

That's why they were a bit surprised to see me come alive and act as if nothing happened.

I don't know if I'm in an AU where Kratos didn't survive the fall and I took over his body, or I suppressed/consumed/destroyed Kratos's soul or whatever. But I'm here at the end.

And I'm not Kratos.

Fuck this city and fuck their traditions.

But, well, I can't really just go there and kill them, killing your team is illegal, under these circumstances at least. Yes, there are rules here, I don't even know how. But Licurgo existed and he made his constitution. Where is stated that Spartan can fight with his peers, but not kill them, since even if they were weak they can still be used in battle.

That's true, but nowhere near as historically accurate as it should be. It's complete bullshit.

I can't be bothered by that though, since I'm fighting now.

*FII~*

The air was cut as I dodged the wooden stick that extra NO.1 tried to cut me with.

Showing a decent amount of combat prowess. He didn't let that slow him down and kept on attacking me with the stick. 

He's not used to fighting with such a short weapon, so the attack would be more effective if it was done with his fists, he's not looking for efficiency though. He's looking to hurt me and make it as painful as possible.

*Swish*

The air kept on making acute sounds as we moved across the small garden that we were in. Every time he did a cut, I already had dodged it and positioned myself to dodge the next one.

It really isn't a fair battle, but he can't complain if I hit him.

Testament to his inexperience, he spun his whole body before trying to cut (I'm sure he thought that would make it stronger), I say ¨Trying¨ because I grabbed his raised arm with my right one, put my feet behind his and threw him off balance with a push to the side barely strong enough to move a box.

And with that, he was down.

Not wasting any time, I got up in his torso and began punching him in the face. He tried to defend himself by putting his hands up, but that proved futile soon enough.

One knockout, I wouldn't mind if it wasn't the only one.

Staring at my fight, were the other five team members around the table

It was a bit amazing how different this place was, all the plants were overgrown and the only look of civilization was the stone table and chairs in the middle.

On the table was my price and what I came for. Food.

I'm not even that hungry, I'm mostly bothered because of my world-traveling dilemmas and I thought that it would be beneficial to get acquainted with my team.

"Hey! What are you doing here?" The Prefect, who was laughing as NO.1 attacked me, now had a bothered expression, while the Admirer just looked at the situation without saying anything. My thoughts weren't with any of them, though.

'Should I even travel? Like, I know that spider-sense and all are warning me to get prepared... but worst case scenario I just teleport out...'

"Are you listening to me?!" Enraged, he began to stand up, followed by the other four around him.

'Which worlds are technological and low-level?'

'Oh, a punch is coming to my face'

Perhaps I should dodge it, or just be hit by it and not react in the slightest.

Hmm, it could be good to test-

*POW*

A loud sound rang out as the fist connected to my fist.

Outwardly, I didn't look any different, if anything I looked more menacing as I slowly turned my head to look at extra NO.2 and stared at him with my best ¨Is that all you got?¨ eyes.

Inwardly...

'What the fuck? That's way stronger than it should be' I wasn't hurt, it caused me some pain but nothing commendable, but my worry lay in the force of the punch.

'There was also something else in that punch...' My assimilations have enough experience being punched for me to discern something weird there. 'Magic? If I could easily use it, then who's to say that they can't...'

'Oh, there's something that comes to mind-' No there isn't, as my thoughts were interrupted by a swift kick that came for my rear legs.

Immersed in my thoughts, I didn't notice that I was now surrounded on all cardinal sides by my teammates, while the Eiran sat down in the closest stone chair there was, looking amused.

That kick could be a problem, so I dodged it with a small enough jump.

After that, uh..., the one in the west direction sent a precise punch to my liver, which could be bad to get hit by, so I dodged by moving my body a bit to the side of the east guy, he didn't waste time trying to punch me, but once again I dodged it.

My movements can't be described too much because they were too simple. Small jumps, small steps to the right, left, back, and when two punches left no room to dodge, I slightly hit the arm of the attacker, and that usually made enough space for me to slip out.

Props to them, their coordination got increasingly better as the fight-skirmish went on and they were complementing each other properly.

Still, none of them were taught to fight in any other way than experience, so that would prove to be a problem in their odyssey to defeat me.

East guy tended to do one-two hit attacks, north tended to place the left foot back when he hits with the right fist, west telegraphed his attacks too much, and south left too many spots defenseless in his attacks.

Those thoughts came to my mind naturally when I saw their attacks.

It was rather uncomfortable. I don't know why but I didn't like to see the weaknesses in their moves.

"This got bothersome" I spoke and crouched slightly, my muscles were ready at every moment for a fight, so it was completely to warn them.

Their tired bodies couldn't react as I ran to them, faster than any right I had to after dodging four fighters for 3 minutes.

Force = Mass x Acceleration.

Following that simple principle, I just had to hit them fast in a weak place for them to go down. As I said earlier, this isn't a fight where I need to chip them off until they display a weak point. This isn't fair for them

I uppercut-ed North's jaw, throwing him into the ground with his back first, West panicked and tried to punch me in the back of the neck, but he was to my left and the angle wasn't right, I dodged by lowering down and sent a punch straight to his stomach, he arched and I took advantage of his position and mine to knee him to the jaw.

I'm doing many hits to the jaw, maybe it's a favorite. No, not a predisposition or tendency, a favorite. It's different.

True to the Spartan's reputation, South and East didn't back down and doubled down in their efforts to defeat me, instead of fighting with brains and muscles, they left it all to their muscles and rushed in savagely.

They didn't stop to breathe or recover, they went all in, hands extended to me. By that, I knew that I was trying to be grappled and thrown into the ground, where one would get in my torso and the other would hold down my legs.

Unfortunately, rushing in blindly has never worked well for anyone but the opponent, and that proved right as their movements got increasingly slower, this wasn't a 2D game where once you ran out of stamina you stopped moving and got a status effect, so they continued with their attacks.

But they were incredibly slower, and not only that, they lost strength.

I stopped moving around.

East and South got close to me and finally caught up, South, who had a bigger frame than East, tried to throw me to the ground by pushing me, while East went behind me and hit my knees with a kick.

None of the attacks they made had an effect as they were too tired to even put enough force 

Soon enough both fell to the ground, not caring about my presence the same way I didn't care about them as I got closer to the Prefect.

He sat down at the table, facing me, thinking that I didn't notice he had a hand behind him.

"Would you look at that? You managed to do something" He said sarcastically like a third-rate villain, he's nervous and he didn't do a good work of hiding it.

"But do you seriously think that I will fall as easily as they did? I'm the one in power here, remember that" He bluffed and pretended to stretch.

As I got closer, his nervousness began to lower and he displayed a large smile.

When I got in his range, he lunged at me.

*FII~*

The same sound as before, but several times sharper.

What he had behind his back was a small knife that looked to be made for butchering and nothing else.

Wow, who would have expected it?

I grabbed the arm that had the knife held in a reverse grip, its sharp-less tip pointed at me.

"Wh...!?" He didn't finish the sentence.

Not because of me, I didn't punch him or anything.

I was preoccupied with examining him.

'Now that I focus on him...'

Weak grip, small arm, low stature... How is this guy a Prefect? Even the extra guy who tried to hurt me with the stick was stronger than him.

I understand that he's the guy who took command and united them after a common enemy(Me), but after that disputes were sure to be brought up.

You can't tell me this guy won them all.

"How are you even a Prefect?" I asked with pure bafflement in my voice, not even meaning to make this sound as an insult.

"You piece of-!" I cut him off with a punch to the face. A strong punch.

Strong because I don't like him, neither Kratos nor I did. I don't because of the way he portrays himself, you just know he's an asshole.

In the end, he doesn't matter though, just another Spartan who would die when Zeus wipes them all, or when Kratos kills the gods and rashes the whole world to the ground...

Meaningless.

Actually, who says he got to that point? He might as well died in two days and was buried in Kratos's mind. Not even knowing his name...

"Haah..." Damn, this is depressing. Normally I'd feel some sort of empathy for punching him, you know, the same way someone winces when they hit another, or in a more extreme example, the same way everyone feels uncomfortable when a guy gets hit in the balls.

I don't feel that, none of that empathy, or sourness you would get. I just feel... well, nothing, a bother in the pit of my stomach.

This doesn't make me bad, I know, I'm not so fragile of mind. It just makes my thoughts go to weird places...

"Whatever, I'm too hungry for this" I dismiss my thoughts with a dumb excuse that has nothing to do with what I'm thinking, but it makes the right portrayal to my observer.

The mentor, the Erastes, the admirer.

Kratos didn't even bother to learn his name either, that means he was a completely self-made Spartan, a Spartan who became a great general, if not the greatest general of Greece, sheesh.

"..." He just stares at me as I eat anything in that I find in the table, fruits, vegetables, meat. A lot of meat. 

Everything tastes bad, but that's because my taste buds aren't accustomed to this dry of a meal. Dry and tasteless meat with barely washed vegetables, the only decent things are the fruits, and that's just because they don't need anything to work with.

They are just that good.

Why am I side-tracking so much with my thoughts? Is it because I know that my thoughts are going to get depressing once I lose anything to think? Yep, that must be it.

"You are Arian, I suppose" He speaks to me.

Thank god, a distraction.

"Yeah, nom nom"

Yes, I audibly made the eating sound, don't bother me, I'm not in the mood.

"Why did you fight your team?" He questions me, appearing rightly, though the lack of care for the battle itself makes me know that he won't care 

"Fight? This wasn't a fight" It was a fight, I'm just saying whatever is coolest.

"Don't you think you should be more ashamed of what you've done? You fought your leader and possibly crippled him, with the battle against the Barbarians in three days, he won't survive in the battle" The barbarians? As in, the people who had for a king the guy who made Kratos call Ares?

I didn't know the war went on for so long. Whoa, character depth.

"Nah, He was weak, even if I killed a hundred of them, just one of me would be worth it" My thoughts aren't that, but we're in Sparta, where they believe in power above all. Maybe? God, I don't like saying this.

"Do you really think you can play with lives like that?" He asks.

"In this world, it's kill or be killed" God, that didn't sound as cool as I thought, maybe I shouldn't make too many references... "He tried to kill me, he should be ready to die. If he wasn't... then it's all on him" I say with a little laugh.

Am I going too far into the Murderous and uncaring persona?

Maybe.

But I'm not worried.

Actually, I'm not feeling anything.

...What's going on?

"Do you truly think so?" He asks with a little smirk he was trying to hide.

"Yes, let me put it in another way" I'm not talking, my mouth is moving on its own "Strength is justice, the power that makes mountains move and people follow you, conversely, Weakness is a sin, what makes people walk all over. They were weak, I defeated them. I did the right thing" What am I even saying? These aren't my thoughts. Ugh, I feel horrible.

"I see...You impress me, Arian" Woo, I got the acknowledgment of a random guy, so cool.

"Good" Stop fucking talking.

I feel a small drop of sweat go down from my hair to my jaw, my heart starts to go ever so slightly faster in my chest and my feet are slightly curling.

"Expect news from me, once the battle is over"

And with that, he left.

I just fell to the chair and began to think, not even think I just spaced out.

"What the fuck is wrong with me?" That was real. Too real.

I just started saying that because... Shit, I don't even know... And then he reacted positively and then I just doubled down thinking ¨Yeah, this can work¨. And well, it worked.

But why do I feel so... shit. Like my whole body is tired, it shouldn't get tired. 

"Agh?" Something just entered my mou- How? It should be closed.

I'm... Hyperventilating?

"No, no, I'm fine." A loud gulp is heard.

"I just need to breathe for a moment" I breathe and I breathe, trying to ignore the sweat, the heart that is pounding wildly, the hotness of my face...

"I just feel... a little tired... Am I sick?" Yeah, that must be it.

"Home... I need to lay down"

I stood up, using all my force of will, and traveled fast to my home, still careful not to go too fast or too noticeable.

I opened my door and threw myself in the bed. Placing my hand up on my forehead and closing my eyes.

"God, my stomach feels like shit..." Do I want to throw up...? No, ugh, maybe? I feel horrible.

I'll just sleep.

"Yeah, sleep"

I'll think about this in the morning, either that or it will be gone.

And I'll continue living.

Just as always.

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A/N: Hey

Whoa a bit of character development.

By the way this chapter is named like this because he didn't do anything, he just lost time fighting against people that aren't worth his time.

Because he's not a machine that can just go to one and then the next, not yet atleast, remember he just got thrown into a medieval world and could've died in the battle. After that he goes home to find it empty, obviously he had to distract himself with the cool ¨Oh I got powers¨ thoughts, then they ended and he had to face reality.

Unknown dimension, unknown places, grim looking future, no proper civilisation, he's hated by six people... And many more, like the fact that he's going to war past tomorrow. It's rough for buddy.

Obviously I didn't say all of this in the chapter because that would be too much exposition, you gotta think about it or else it would be less impactful. 

Like, y'know. I remember seeing Hell's paradise and they tell you about Gabimaru the Hollow, who kills without a thought, doesn't care about anything, not even his life, has no feelings, has no feelings, and... has no feelings, and you think ¨Huh, perhaps he's hollow¨.

That's too much exposition. I don't like that kind of story with a court of people that react behind and tell you everything you need to know about the guy.

So I want you guys to make conclusions about the character, some moments will be of direct exposition and that's fine, but I want to limit those moments to a few, place it where it really hits you. Of course, this A/N is an exception, I just wanted to explain this because I don't think anyone is used to stories like this, maybe.

Anyway, that's just the way I want to write this. All said and done, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and bye bye.