Another Stupid Isekai

A burst of light surrounded Celestine, expanding further away from her body until it disappeared in the air revealing her new form. She had a halo over her head made of tiny daggers intertwined with one another, making the full circle. The pointy tips and the handles were sticking out.

Her wings expanded, just like the sword in her hand. It was now bigger – a double-edged blade, very slim at the end, and broader closer to the elliptic handguard. The metal was almost white, while the guard became golden.

The shield was gone from her hand, instead, she had those white shards surrounding, like from a broken mirror, surrounding her left forearm, and moving alongside.

Martinez, after landing heavily on the sand, turned around just to see the effects of the metamorphosis. He growled.

– Come down here, you coward! – he yelled.

She did just that, diving straight down, like a shooting star, just to land next to him in a cloud of sand.

He screamed, and threw himself at her, swinging the axe in a mindless rage, but each attack was easily blocked by the blade, shattered shield, or the wings, which my wife started using more efficiently.

It looked like a patient master was dealing with a student throwing a tantrum in a dojo.

She waited patiently until he decided to stop his long-ass combo, and then, once again, raised her blade to the sky. A white light appeared around her, forming into human-like shapes holding spears. Several ones. They all charged at Luis who tried to defend himself from the sudden attack. He blocked a couple of them, but some passed through spilling more of his blood through shallow wounds. Then they disappeared.

This created room for Celestine to jump up, quite high thanks to a strong flap of her wings, and fall down, with her blade in the air, to hit him from above.

He almost fucked it up, only in the last moment rising his ace to block the attack with the handle.

A powerful sharp sound could be heard when the weapons mat, and it resonated, spawning a bunch of sharp shards of steel to rain down at Martinez, completely avoiding my wife.

They deepened his shallow wounds and added a few more.

He was thrown off his game, unable to handle himself properly, which only meant more space for Celestine. She did what she should have done, attacked again. This time from below, dragging the blade up.

He somehow managed to knock the sword away before it reached him, but the shards, that spawned once again, when their weapons collided, filling the arena with the same resonating sound, did get him.

Luis responded by swinging his axe widely. The first time horizontally, then from above. Both attacks were missed, as they were terrible in both timing and execution. A truly desperate attempt to get some space between them, and interrupt Celestine.

She avoided it by jumping back, just to jump forward again, striking with her sword. He had to block it, which he did, just to get hit to be the raining shards, that rained at him from the sky.

At that point, Martinez was covered in blood coming from all the small cuts.

Suddenly Will appeared in the arena, a few meters away from the fight. He extended a hand towards the two, and a wall of swords arise from the thin air, blocking my wife’s next attack. It also protected Luis from the shards, which hit the barrier instead of him.

– And we have intervention from the outside. Mister William stepped into the arena – Bruce announced.

– No shit he did! – Tihana yelled at the TV. – He had to protect that asshole from the justice he deserves!

There was a bit of back and forth between my friend and Martinez, who clearly wanted to continue, ignoring the shape he was in. It was a controversial decision even for me, as the guy seemed to be able to continue, despite the wounds. Still, I didn’t think he could win it at the very end. Even if he had a trick in his sleeve, Celestine still had another, more powerful move.

– We have an announcement! – Matthew suddenly said, interrupting his companion’s rant about the possible reasons behind what was transpiring in the arena. – Due to the wounds accumulated by Luis Martinez it has been decided that he is no longer able to safely continue the fight. This means he lost, and the winner of the fight is Celestine.

– Why? – Leonel asked the TV like it was gonna answer him.

– There are people fainting in the arena. The fight became too bloody – John explained. – They couldn’t continue it like this. Remember it’s just for entertainment mostly, and regular humans are watching it on TV.

Meanwhile, Luis threw his aze on the ground, yelling something, then left the arena. Will began escorting Celestine too, so there was room for the staff to clean up after the battle.

Commentators started talking about the duel, but I didn’t really listen to them. I completely directed my attention at the entrance to the room, waiting for my wife to appear. She did, several minutes later.

I immediately moved to her, and we hugged. Behind her back was Will, looking at me with his hands crossed on his chest.

There was a big ‘No’ painted all over his face. Figuratively of course.

He saw the fight, just as I did, and probably had a good idea about what I was planning on doing. He didn’t say it out loud though.

– Should I announce you backing out of the tournament, or do you want to still go? – he asked a couple of seconds later.

– I’m done – John said.

– Me too – Celestine followed right after, taking her hands off me, and turning around towards him.

– I think I’ll pass too – Leonel was the last one to speak. – There has been enough fighting lately.

– Good – Will nodded. – I’ll take care of the rest. Your gear will be brought to your house.

With those words, he left. We followed him shortly after. Heading straight out of the complex, because there was nothing in there for us to do anyway. I had to pretend that it was the same case for me. At least for now.