<strong>Sarathiel and Argus</strong><br/><br/>Her peaceful proposal was rejected, and she could not fault him for it - certainly not now that they had been elevated to the scrutinous eye level of their overlords. Her breath hitched in her chest under the fatalistic realisation there would be no reasoning her way free from this predicament, and that the the ground beneath them would be doused in an offering of blood one way or another.<br/><br/>The cries from an adjacent pen lured her startled gaze, and she glimpsed the grizzly sight of the incubus violating his opponent. It was all the opportunity Argus required to baptize the former angel in fire. Her small form was sent hurtling to the far end of their domed circle, where she rolled to ragdoll stop under the weight of her blasted shield. As she lay flat of her back shrouded by a veil of dust, a buried memory crept up from the cracked and drained reservoir of her mind. The fine features of her opponent hung in a deep sleep as the charge he was trusted to protect was stolen away - his brutal end met when his skull was sundered by a stone. It was the singular loss of which he spoke, the failure which had him brought to the arena. He'd been lulled into the fateful sleep by boring tales, but surrounded by the roar of the crowd and engaged in the heat of battle, it was doubtful she could repeat such a feat.<br/><br/>The familiar sound of fire coursing through the air caused her to reflexively roll to the side. She'd lost her cracked and scorched shield in the evasive maneuver, and found her feet armed with her sword alone. There was barely enough time to find her barrings before that blast was followed by another and another, each which left the fringes of her wrappings singed and smoldering.<br/><br/>At first it seemed as the fight would unfurl as she first described, with her acute attentions to his muscular cues allowing her to tire him after hours of uneventful exchanges, but there was a more calculated meathod to her artful dodging. Soon the air was thick with stirred sand and thick smoke to the point where the battle was briefly eclipsed by the cloud. It was under the cover that Sura buried her sword, and guided by the blue light which lined her opponent, leaped onto his shoulders, driving her fist with unnatural strength to the site of where his mortal wound had been made.