The air was tense.
It felt a lot like finding out your favorite anime would never get a second season... because it only sold twelve Blu-rays.
A drop of sweat ran down Akira's forehead.
Emilia, on the other hand, looked completely relaxed.
"Well... I have no idea what that whole show a moment ago was about, but..." Mark Bufalo said, raising the microphone.
He took a deep breath.
"Three...!"
"Two...!"
"One...!"
"!!!MUSCLE ARM WRESTLING!!!"
At that instant, Akira put all the strength he had into it.
The muscles in his massive arm bulged to their limit.
His veins looked like they were about to burst.
But Emilia's arm...
...didn't move even a single inch.
It was like trying to bend a mountain.
The dwarf even took the chance to yawn.
"After all that show... I thought this would be more exciting," she said calmly.
Akira gritted his teeth.
"I-I don't get it..."
"In the anime, the protagonist lifted an entire ship with just one arm!"
Emilia let out a sigh.
"Please..."
"Just because an arm is bigger doesn't mean it's stronger."
She smiled confidently.
"Even a little kid knows that."
Little by little...
Akira's arm started to move back.
Inch...
...by inch.
Then, a red panel appeared in front of him.
SPN: DANGER!
SPN: Strength insufficient.
SPN: Values have fallen below the critical point.
"Oh, really!? Don't tell me! I hadn't noticed, you useless piece of panel!" Akira growled, sweating.
Emilia smiled.
"What happened, kid?"
"Did you already run out of smart remarks?"
The crowd roared from the stands.
Thousands of dwarves gave a thumbs-down as if they were deciding the fate of a gladiator.
"!!!BREAKER!!!"
"!!!BREAKER!!!"
"!!!BREAKER!!!"
Emilia smiled as she heard her people.
"Did you hear that?"
"Looks like they want me to finish this already."
She pushed a little harder.
Akira's arm went down another couple of inches.
"In the end... you weren't even a good warm-up."
"I can't lose..."
Akira desperately looked back at the panel.
"Come on! Do something useful for once!"
The SPN lit up again.
This time, an even deeper red.
SPN: OPTION AVAILABLE.
SPN: One-time-use skill detected.
SPN: Name: Power of the Script.
SPN: Description: Allows the outcome of the story to be changed.
SPN: Warning: Once used, this skill will disappear forever.
SPN: It cannot be recovered under any circumstances.
SPN: Do you wish to use it?
Two huge buttons appeared in front of Akira.
[ YES ]
[ NO ]
Emilia's arm kept pushing.
Only a few more inches until defeat.
Akira didn't have time to think.
"YES!!!"
He slammed the button just before his hand touched the table.
The panel responded immediately.
SPN: Confirmed.
SPN: Power of the Script - "Plot Twist"
SPN: Activating...
At that moment, Emilia seemed distracted for a split second.
Her arm stopped moving.
"Now!"
Akira gritted his teeth.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!"
Both of their muscles tensed.
For a moment...
Neither of them seemed to move.
And then...
CLACK!
Emilia's hand hit the table first.
Silence.
Emilia stayed frozen, staring at her own hand.
"Huh...?" she muttered.
The referee froze as well.
"Huh...?"
The announcer slowly lowered the microphone.
"Huh...?"
The thousands of dwarves in the stands all opened their eyes at the same time.
"!!!!W-WHAT!?!?!!!!"
No one understood what had just happened.
Mark Bufalo looked back and forth between the referee, the table, and finally Emilia's arm several times.
Then he raised the microphone.
"The... winner is..."
He paused for a long moment.
Then he pointed at Akira.
"...this young man."
The stands fell completely silent.
Momo watched the scene with her eyes wide open.
"Lady... Emilia lost...?"
Cecilia smiled in relief.
"You did it, Master."
Akira blinked several times.
"I... did it?"
Aoi clicked her tongue.
"That idiot... he actually did it."
Minu started jumping up and down.
"I knew you could do it, Akira!!"
A deathly silence covered the entire coliseum.
One second passed.
Then another.
Until a single dwarf started clapping.
Clap.
Another one joined in.
Clap. Clap.
Little by little, the entire coliseum erupted into applause.
Emilia kept staring at her hand.
She opened it.
Closed it.
Then looked at it again.
"How...?"
Her voice trembled.
"How could I lose...?"
Akira's transformation slowly faded away.
His school uniform changed back into his usual clothes.
Meanwhile, he kept staring at his own hand in disbelief.
As if even he couldn't understand what had just happened.
********************
Meanwhile... in Japan...
********************
Nothing interesting was happening. It was just a distraction.
Now then.
**********************************************
Meanwhile... inside the dream world of our femboy god.
"Your Majesty..." Marcus said with concern.
Uzaki was nailing a wooden board onto a wall that had just fallen apart.
"The humidity again..." she muttered while staring at the entire wall covered in duct tape.
"Umm... Goddess Uzaki."
"What do you want, Marcus? Can't you see I'm fighting against the humidity? These walls just can't survive cosmic rain..."
Marcus looked at the leak and the several buckets scattered across the floor.
"Yeah... anyway. Have you checked the broadcast from your kingdom? Something very important is happening."
"Huh? Can't you see I'm busy?"
"It's just..." her butler insisted.
"Besides, this needs my full attention, and..."
At that moment, a huge hole opened in the ceiling. Several wooden boards, newspaper sheets, and a full-on waterfall came crashing down on Uzaki, soaking him completely.
Marcus kept his professional expression and made a superhuman effort not to laugh at his goddess's misfortune.
Uzaki stayed on the floor for a few seconds, completely drenched. He fixed his hair and pushed aside a wooden board that had landed on his lap.
"I've become the laughingstock of the gods..."
He sighed.
"This couldn't possibly get any worse."
The moment Marcus heard those words, he started whistling as he slowly backed away.
She looked at him with complete seriousness.
"Marcus..."
The man's skin crawled. He slowly turned around like a robot that needed oil.
"Yes, My Lady?"
"Is there something you'd like to tell me?"
Marcus looked her up and down.
"Yes. You should change your clothes before you catch a cold. We don't have the money for medicine."
"Marcus... I didn't know you were so naughty. You shouldn't desire your goddess like that." Uzaki struck an overly adorable pose, worthy of a shōjo manga.
Marcus stood perfectly still like a statue.
"Don't worry... you're not my type," he replied with complete seriousness.
Still completely soaked, Uzaki walked over to Marcus and started poking his cheek with her index finger, acting all playful.
"Don't play hard to get, Marcus..."
Ignoring her completely, the butler turned on the old television.
"You should see this..."
The screen showed a nature documentary with animals doing... you know, nature things.
"Huh?" Uzaki looked at it, completely confused.
"My apologies, wrong channel," Marcus said with his usual serious expression as he changed the channel.
Now the TV showed Akira holding up a championship belt while Emilia watched him in outrage.
Uzaki raised an eyebrow.
"Who would've thought that loser would actually win something..."
Marcus leaned down until he was at eye level with his goddess.
"That's not what I wanted to show you either."
The image began to rewind before Uzaki's curious eyes.
"There..."
The recording started playing again. Little by little, Uzaki moved closer to the television.
Her doubts turned into feelings that this poor narrator is completely incapable of describing.
With her face practically pressed against the screen, she grabbed the TV with both hands.
"Huh?"
She squeezed the television so hard that it started shooting sparks, while Uzaki stared at the frozen frame of Akira... and the SPN.
"!!!WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!!!"
The television exploded!
"AKIRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"
Uzaki's scream echoed across every dimension.