There had been only one event like this in the last thousand years.
That had been the first Sentinel Pelistryd, when his original seven had fought their way to their current positions. Then, he had recruited the most Powerful of the Nyr throughout the world.
They had come together to establish who was the strongest amongst them, and they had fought for the chance to rule by his side.
He had been working toward this point since Hanta and Tenya had left their positions last summer.
This time the worldwide recruiting and screening effort had been conducted electronically. Notices had gone out, job application forms had been posted, and an entire team of recruiters and HR personnel had spent the last several months screening and checking references for all the applicants.
They had arrived at a short list of 448 contestants, and most of those were predator Nyr. There were any number of lions, of course, and several gargoyles.
Katsuki liked the gargoyles. They were community minded, and when they changed into their Nyr form, their stone-like surface was almost impossible to penetrate in hand-to-hand combat.
There was one of the two other known thunderbirds in existence aside from Hanta, a clash of harpies, and a very interesting individual who was mixed race but whose Nyr side was strong enough that he could shapeshift.
Most interesting of all to Katsuki, there was a pegasus. While Powerful, immortals as herbivores pegasi were peaceful creatures, and it was unusual for one to seek out such a public, potentially violent position.
All-predator sentinels made for a hawkish group, a fact that was brought home to him when Izuku, with his more peaceful outlook, began to sit in on conferences and voice his opinions.
It might not be a bad thing to have a pegasus as a sentinel- as long as he could establish his prowess in physical combat. If he couldn't fight worth shit, there was no point. The pegasus could go push some pencils in a bureaucratic position somewhere.
Right here?
It was call of the wild.
The shortlist of contestants also included all five of his current sentinels, who had to participate in the Pelistryd to prove they were still the strongest and the best, because while the Nyr domain adopted modern technology, legal concepts and principles'- at its heart, it was still a feudal system.
It had to be.
His sentinels needed to be the strongest and most capable of taking down any other Nyr who might go rogue, and they also had to be capable of leading a world-class defense against any potential attackers.
Might did not always equate with right, but it did provide damn strong security in an uncertain, often brutal world.
Still, the participation of the five sentinels was probably just a formality. Probably.
The only stipulation Katsuki had made was that they fight other contestants, because the point of their inclusion wasn't to find out which of them was the strongest against each other.
The real question was, were they stronger than anybody else?
Everyone was on edge, and more tempers than just his had flared frequently over the last few weeks.
Crews had been laboring overnight to put the last touches on the combat arena. It was a simple area, a huge cordoned-off space with a sand-covered floor. The sand could be raked in between bouts to get rid of the blood.
Because there would be blood.
With all the paperwork and formalities out of the way, the Sentinel Pelistryd had just one objective: beat your opponent by any means possible.
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Crossing Fates : Book 3 - Detain (BakuDeku)
Fanfiction- This is the THIRD book in Crossing Fates Series... kindly read in order : Book 1 - Escape Book 2 - Capture Book 3 - Detain* ***** Half-human, Half-nyr, Izuku was now pregnant and mated. He had been alone and on the run his whole life and now that...
