[Fireminer]

For melancholy's sake:

A God. That was the first word that came to Ichika mind when seeing his twin sister fought in her I.S. After all, was there any better word to call such a perfect almalgamation of man and machine, united under the pretext of destruction?

Byakushiki was the name of her I.S, and it draped over Madoka Orimura’s body like the mantle of a knight. A pair of plate protected her chest and back respectively, but strangely they left the belly exposed. The servos, which hid under the oversized pieces clasping over her limbs, were working hard to adjust to her movement. And the pair of wings, elegants like a swan’s and angular like a jet fighter’s, fired guts of white flame from their nozzle not unlike a volcano churning magma.

And like knight of yore, Madoka fought with the intensity of a man possessed. Not by divine inspiration, however, but by unadultered rage. She swung her enormous katana left, right, up, down, and left again, a river that broke its banks during a flood. The drones which were sent out by her foe buzzing angrily around her, furiously discharge bolt after bolt of pure plasma, yet Madoka soaked the damage like it was nothing.

(Ichika crossed his fingers and prayed that his sister’s energy barrier would not be the first to give up.)

Like any sport stadium, huge screens showed different close-up view of the competitors, and the single things which all the cameras then focused on was Madoka’s face. Her fury was so all-consuming that it might had left her in a state of zen, for her expression was the perfect replication of the red-faced, fang-beared Tengu mask used in Kagura. Some within the audience began to whisper amongst themselves, words like “scary” and “terrified” were to be heard in shaken voice.

And on Madoka’s foe - Cecilia Alcott and her British-made Blue Tear. How unfortunate of her, bearing Madoka’s unrelenting assault without a moment of respite. She should had been able to spread her wings freely on the sky, letting the sunshine sang praises of the sapphire-colored glory. And yet, the bird’s wings were broken, it stood under the shadow of the predator. Cecilia raised her talons – a pair of of azure beam sabers which she held very much like one would with sporting rapiers – before her chest in a defensive stance, but again and again they were swept away by the fllury blows courtesy of Madoka.

Desperated, Cecilia ordered all of her drones to crash into Madoka in a sucide run. The nausea-inducing explosion were felt even by the audience. In an instant she engulfed in a huge fireball. Ichika almost howled until the flames had subsided and he could saw ripples formed over her invisible energy barrier. It seemed to do little to distract her.

If anything suicide attack was just another bucket of oil to her surging rage. A series of backhand strikes by the pommel of Madoka’s blade, until the other I.S and its pilot were flung away, the beam sabers flew out of its hands. Letting the rest of the force tensioned within her every fiber expressed in a downward stroke, Madoka roared in triumph as Blue Tear’s force field whined.

Everything happened afterward was so fast, so bombastic that none could really tell what they had just sence. All was known was that the Japanese girl then stood triumphant over Cecilia, who sparlled over the floor like a bird being shot down. So marred was her I.S that in some place the plates wrapped beyond registering.

In the stadium, over half did not applause, and the few who did bore a strange expression on their faces even when their hands were clasping against each other – a mix of horror and excitement, not unlike what bystanders saw in the aftermath of a traffic accident.