“COMMENCE THE BATTLE!!” rang across the field. Belanova looked around the whole arena, seeing the abundance of people who showed up to watch. “Wow! Who are all of these people? I know all of them can’t be from headquarters…” she said with a surprised expression.

She rubbed the rough cloth containing her Innocence, anxious to begin the fight. Grey surrounded her, and white tiles spread out along the arena beneath her. A long wall ran along the arena, separating it from the stands. The walls were high, and made to withstand constant abuse. She sent Iris out, waiting for the feel of the bindings to tighten, signaling to her that she was ready. Then she looked Pippa straight in the eye, studying her.

A couple sat in the stands, arguing. "What the hell? Where are all the players…?” a man decked out in his team’s favorite colors asked.  He had a “T” painted on his chest, in hopes that he’d be forming the name of the team with the help of his game buddies. “What...What is this?? Where are the guys!? I knew we went to the wrong stadium,” the man shouted, pointing down at the fight, before turning on his wife. “This is your fault, woman. You gave me the wrong directions, damn it!" He stood, towering over his wife.

She looked highly uncomfortable to be there, and slightly aggravated with how he was acting. "Frank! You practically live at the stadium! I didn't think you needed my help with the directions at all!" she huffed back. “I always complain we never do anything and you yelled at me to go with you if I had such a problem with it. So I did and the one time I go, you have to make everything into my fault!” she yelled right back at him, leaving him stunned.

“But… Wha–” He stuttered, being cut off.

“I’m leaving! You find your own way home!” she screeched as she stood and stomped away, leaving her dumbfounded husband to watch the rest of the fight.

Back down at the arena, a momentarily-distracted Belanova could see the people in the stands yelling. It was far too hilarious for her to just ignore. But she had to focus now. “They’ll just distract me before I win this,” she thought, before shaking her head to focus and keep herself from laughing. She looked back at Pippa and studied the girl’s Innocence.

“I need to figure out a way to get her innocence out of her hands and get her closer to me so I can attack,” she planned. Belanova turned and started running to the huge wall surrounding the playing field.

She heard the footfalls before seeing Pippa. Her opponent swung her umbrella, expecting to land a hit. Belanova launched herself from the wall, flipping over the lunging exorcist. She hit the ground rolling, shot up, and broke out into a run. As she ran, she pulled on her left arm's wrappings, making them loosen and fall to the ground.

When her Innocence transformed into one scythe, she shoved it into the ground and spun herself around, turning back in Pippa’s direction. Belanova swung her scythe at the girl’s legs and hit her innocence, The Reservoir Man. “…If it was raining men, she could fend them off with that…” she mused to herself amusedly and tried to keep the smile from her face. She flew back from the hit on the umbrella, and stopped herself with her scythe, making a jagged split in the tiles.

“Hey Pippa. Why are you hiding?” Belanova asked, slowly walking to her left. She tapped the blade of her scythe against her other bindings, not to unwrap them but to signal Isis to attack.

“What would you’ve done if some sharp object was coming at you?” Pippa combated, hefting The Reservoir Man onto her shoulder. She followed Belanova’s pace with her eyes. “You gonna come at me again?”

“Nah. I think I’ll stay back here.” Belanova stopped, and faced her opponent. “I think I’ll let you attack again, if you could call it that.” She grinned at Pippa and changed to a more defensive stance. “I dare you to hit me… If you can.”

Pippa charged at Belanova with The Reservoir Man opened, intending to ram into her. The look on the girl’s face clearly showed she wanted to make her pay for underestimating her, and when she swung the umbrella, Belanova hooked her scythe around it, stopping her instantly.

“Wrong move,” Belanova smirked as she held the umbrella in place, “Isis!”

Pippa could barely look around in time before Isis had flown down in front of her. Isis flapped its wings around, disorienting the girl and distracting her as well. She turned in an attempt to get the golem off of her, pulling the other exorcist with her. Belanova had to let go or she would be flung. She turned and found her bindings, deactivating her innocence. She picked them up and waited, one end in each hand.

Pippa finally swatted Isis away and spun her umbrella around to where Belanova was, smacking her across the head. She watched as her opponent slumped to the ground and walked up to her, smirking victoriously that her hit was enough to deactivate the innocence in her arm. “This ends now Belanova,” she said. “You asked for it and received what you deserve.”

But it was a feint. Belanova slid up and flung her bindings at Pippa’s legs, whipping them behind her ankles in a move that would leave Indiana Jones clapping his hands. Pippa’s eyes widened and her grip tightened on The Reservoir Man. “I think someone got cocky after one hit,” Belanova stated before pulling on the wrappings, making the blonde’s legs come out from under her and send her onto her back. Belanova crawled over to where Pippa lay, still a little dizzy from her hit to the head. It may’ve been a feint, but only mildly. “I…have a hard head,” she said as she rubbed the spot that would surely leave an ugly bruise the next day, but…

Red decorated her bandaged fingers as she pulled her hand away from the wound.

Pippa blinked, clearing her vision only to find that Belanova was above her. Blood ran down the left side of the Egyptian’s face, and her eyes looked wide as she slowly grasped that the hit had been hard enough to break the skin. Pippa took her chance and swung her weapon again, hitting Belanova on the right side of her head this time.

She stumbled to the side as Pippa swallowed the pain in the back of her head and started to stand. Belanova rubbed the fresh wound, finding blood beginning to flow. She clenched her fist, then started to laugh.

“You sure have a good arm on you,” she said as she reached her arm up and bit the bindings, pulling up to send them unraveling onto the ground. In an instant she reactivated her innocence in both arms, just as Pippa jumped at her. With a sickening crunch, she shoved both scythes into Pippa’s shoulders, sending her toppling to the ground, sending The Reservoir Man falling to the tiled floor of the arena as every nerve in her arms went dead. As Pippa hit the floor, Belanova’s scythes dug deeper into the joints and forced a stomach-churning scream of pain from the girl’s lips. Belanova breathed out a response that could not be heard over the cry that was now echoing through the stands and turning the audience green. “But so do I, and I really want to win.”

When the blood began pooling into the grooves in the tiles, Belanova ripped the scythes out with a sick squelching sound, and Pippa passed out from the pain.

There was a murmuring amongst the crowd and the sounds of someone emptying beer nuts all over their T-painted stomach in the silence that followed. Moments passed as the fight’s end was surveyed, and then a deafening voice boomed over the loud-speaker.

“WINNER! BELANOVA AMETHYST!”

“Finally,” Belanova said with a smile before looking back at the man in the stands who didn’t seem to have a clue where he was. Vomit covered his stomach, making the “T” begin to drip down his belly. She tossed head back and laughed into the sky.