Note/s - just a quick study.
Waltz
They're both bound by a moment.
Gino knows – he knows that a victory can be claimed in just a single instant, that all it takes is a single falling misstep to be completely destroyed. There are some fools out there who think all it takes to break a Knightmare is technological specification superiority. But that isn't the only variable involved in this sort of unreliable, free-ended equation. After all, a fight between any Knightmares (or a fight between Knights for that matter), Gino's learned over the years, is a fight in an entirely different world.
But he's been pitted against the Guren's pilot before. He now knows of the aggressive switchblade footwork she's befriended and the volatile radiation emitter secreted in her Knightmare's right hand.
He knows of the repercussions of being too close to her.
He knows all this, but Gino decides to stop skirting the line and he closes the distance.
Her response is immediate: offensive, defensive, and carnivore all at once.
Overwhelming.
Lethal.
Beautiful.
There isn't even a single trace of artistry or finesse in her movements (she operates just like a firecracker: trigger one, and it goes off with a bang), but as the sky becomes submerged in a massacre of tangerine, Gino finds himself trapped in a moment – finds himself swept someplace between the poseidon sea below and the nightmare above.
Free fall.
"I've got you!"
Shit, Gino realizes almost too slowly, and guns his Tristan only sheer inches away from the sphere of potential impact. He's still on alert – after all, today, she's not just a girl, but the other player – but he sighs good-naturedly all the same. "One hell of an aggressive girl," he calls out, mouth tipping upwards.
He can almost taste the rawness of her determination from across the sky - something like citric acid and the sweat.
Savors it.
"Shut the hell up! I'm not going to let you go this time!" She returns.
Another nuclear reaction detonates to Gino's left. And then to his right. Soon, the sky is drowned in orange all over again. Soon, Gino thinks, she might actually get him.
All it takes is a single misstep to be completely destroyed.
It takes just one well-executed step to claim victory.
Anything can start and end in the same one second. Nothing is ever predetermined or constant, and everything can change in the course of a single instant. After all, now, they're both bound by a moment, a single frame in time that holds the outcome of this already way-prolonged war. It isn't a matter of skill – hell, Gino's a Rounds and she's their rightfully-named ace – but a matter of how long; how long the two of them can last like this, in this clockwork gunfire staccato of a waltz. And maybe even the time thereafter.
But with Kallen Stadtfeld – no, Kozuki Kallen – Gino feels like he might have actually finally been caught in that proverbial still frame: trapped, suspended, in that space between flying and falling; never actually tipping one way or another, but never ever in balance either. He's never ventured through this kind of fourth dimension continuum before, never swallowed down this kind of thrill.
Completely unpredictable.
Something else entirely.
A single instant has the power to change everything.
Gino thinks he's caught in it.