Her memories played in her mind like a movie and every scene felt different.

She felt warm tears flow down her face when her father got hurt. She felt tired from waking up at five in the morning to practise, but happy to be working hard towards her goals. She felt that exhaustion of winning the Obliteration Cup.

Then, she felt her feet move rapidly from side to side, her legs bending like wet noodles, and the pain of her knees hitting the concrete floor. She heard the voice of that girl, it had a sweet tone tinged with insanity and laced with vitriol, though maybe that was her mind playing tricks on her.

She remembered her face perfectly.

The blonde girl looked like a demon. The way her lips curled up unnaturally on her face, the way her teeth were so perfectly aligned; it looked like she was possessed.

Then, she was gone, she'd thrown herself out of a window, leaving Haruka to drown in a sea of metal and concrete. She felt the weight of the roof collapse atop her and rip the air from her lungs. She felt that weightlessness of falling, thirty floors worth of falling. She lost consciousness at some point from the pain, having woken up in a Beijing hospital some time later to an empty room and classical music.

Over the course of the next two weeks, over a thousand matches would be played in Beijing, the city of wood. Haruka had had barely any time to explore the city, but she used what little she could find to walk around the block where the Sato training complex was located.

A few hundred years before, Beijing was a hunk of rusting metal. There was news of bridge collapses every day, homes chock full of orange holes in their silvery walls.

The Chinese government then made a decision that completely revolutionised their capital city, turning it into one of the most beautiful tourism hotspots in the world, and the world-capital of Demolition.

As she wandered the streets during her short breaks, Haruka took it all in. The beams of wood connected by hemp ropes, the trees that grew so tall they rivalled the skyscrapers that had once littered the streets, the floors made of little pieces of wood cut in different shapes that painted beautiful patterns on the ground. Even with the overflow of tourists clogging the walkways and the suspended bridges that connect the towering buildings, Beijing was something to behold.

Haruka's favourite part was the smell that permeated the city. It smelled like a forest, like a place lived in by nature. Of course it was synthetically generated and dispersed in the air via a robust air-duct system that reached into every corner of the megalopolis, but it had the desired effect.

Other than the public transport system, there was only one other sector allowed to use metal in its construction. The Demolition Arenas. There were thousands in the outskirts of Beijing. Huge circular buildings that could have been small cities in their own right, stacked on top of each other until they pierced the clouds.

Inside her chamber, she felt the sliver of light from the opening door reach her closed eyes. Haruka spoke a name like a curse under her breath.

Zoe Fern.

She wanted revenge. She had underestimated her once; she was just a random wannabe on a lucky run. She won matches by abusing the ignorance of the other players, there was no skill, no decorum in the way she played, she was nothing but a coward.

The collapser had taken Haruka by surprise last time, but she had read up on the blondie, and was determined to not let it happen again. Unfortunately, they would only face off in the second Beijing round. Worst of all, due to Zoe's terrible rank, Haruka wouldn't even get to watch a recording of her performance.

Only the best and most famous players got direct coverage. Zoe was one of the lowest ranked players that managed to make it to the qualifiers, and also one of the least popular. Haruka's research revealed Zoe had a little bit of a fanbase, mainly a bunch of geezers that thought they knew how Demolition ought to be played.

The scheduling was annoying her to no end, but she would bear it. She had no doubts the girl could make it to at least the top fifty in her match, even if by ignoring the fights and hiding away. Haruka was sure Zoe would get what was coming to her.

Haruka's body moved on its own, and she was already standing on her platform waving at the crowd and flashing a fake smile to the fans. She was always the first to come out of the chambers, but a few of her competitors were also making their way out to her right, one by one.

She got stuck with a relatively low ranked match. Out of the over one hundred thousand players in the qualifiers, she was the best, so whatever field she got matched up with was usually a bunch of low ranked players; the average ranking should be the same for every match during the qualifiers.

The first bell sounded. Haruka considered how she would beat the girl in the blue suit.

She always hid in some strategically placed building, trapped it to no end, then took out the rest of the players using long range weapons. Haruka trusted her reflexes and physical abilities, so she wasn't particularly worried about getting sniped or being hit by a drone strike. Also, though it took her a considerable amount of time, she knew it was possible to navigate the minefield Zoe left in her buildings.

She would need to save up bombs for the forced detonations.

That would become harder and harder as the lower half of each match got eliminated over the course of the qualifiers, but Haruka wasn’t particularly concerned.

The second bell sounded. There was also the issue of the collapser. Even after making it all the way up the building and having enough bombs saved up to throw at Zoe, she would need to find a way to either walk the collapser field, hit Zoe through whatever plans she might have in place, or survive the collapse. All of which sounded like different levels of impossible.

Because the collapser had fallen out of use for a long time now, standing or walking through a room with a collapser was no longer part of standard practice and training. She could probably find some piece of equipment that would help her against the ancient tactics, she thought.

Of course, the best case scenario would be taking Zoe out before she gets the chance to set herself up. That's her weak point, as far as Haruka was concerned. Zoe was slow, and that bag made her even slower. Haruka also considered that her bulky goggles may negatively impact her field of view, especially if she's forced to deploy her drones early by being attacked.

Due to Zoe’s low rank, however, Haruka would never be close enough to her early in the match to have a chance to take her out. Also, her reputation as the number one ranked player and the daughter of the greatest player of all time put a target on her back, meaning she would likely need to deal with the whole field before she even got a glimpse of Zoe's short blonde hair.

Players weren't allowed to discuss strategy before the matches with one another, so asking someone to deal with Zoe in her stead was out of the question. She thought she might be able to convince someone in-game to go take her out; though that was a possibility, it felt far-fetched.

Haruka's brain counted the seconds between each ring instinctively; the result of decades of relentless practice.

Right before the third bell, her right hand moved to her back. She could feel the cold titanium holders, and the ping-pong sized explosives attached to them.

As soon as the higher-pitched sound reached her ears, she grabbed one of the spherical bombs and threw it to her right, her arm snapping like a whip, hitting the second highest-ranked player in the field in his head, taking him out immediately.

She began running down the field, not even pretending to approach the buildings that made up the arena.

Sticky bombs, explode-on-contact dynamite, she had an arsenal of rapid-fire, run-and-gun Demolition style bombs attached to her, all over her back. She skilfully crouched, jumped, slid from side to side like a ballerina all the while forcefully shoving enough fire-power to take down a small nation down the throats of all the poor souls that stood in her way. None of them seemed to be good enough to make her think of strategy in the slightest; she could just play like her father and dominate, if that was the kind of competition provided to her.

Her glasses displayed the names of the remaining players. After twenty minutes of her relentless barrage, only ten people were left standing.

Haruka wasn't worried about the Catastrophe. In practice, she was good enough to survive up to three with ease, though she had never played in a game that had gotten to that point.

By the time the first Catastrophe was triggered, she only had five bombs left, and there were only two other players remaining. Julio Alario, who was a mid-ranked player and evidently good enough to survive until that point, but unlikely to be a real threat come the finals, and Agnes Bech, an irrelevant low-ranked player.

She walked between buildings, all her senses searching for any sign of life, as she contemplated the odd situation the three of them had found themselves in. A high-ranked player, a middle of the pack halfwit, and a nobody.

Then, from the corner of her eye, Haruka spotted a glint on the tenth floor of a nearby building. She thought it was a sniper from the Catastrophe, but it shot a single-target bomb instead of the large explosives the machines are rigged with.

Still, Haruka easily dodged the shot by dashing towards the small space between two close-by buildings and hiding, hugging the wall. She'd found one of the two bugs still crawling around the arena.

Haruka had a sticky bomb in her hand, ready to throw. She remembered where she'd spotted the glint and prepared to dash to the other side of the street and take her opponent out, before she heard the unmistakable sound of the aerogel material of the bomb suits stepping on asphalt.

Her body snapped and turned around in time to spot a flash of a red suit. She managed to throw the bomb. She missed, the bomb sticking to the ground and exploding shortly after, throwing asphalt and concrete into the air in front of her.

The sound made it impossible for her to tell where the red-suited cretin had escaped towards, but she had no time to think, as the noise of a bomb travelling through the air at a high speed swished behind her, only giving her enough time to crouch. She could see the bomb speed from somewhere above her and tag onto a car parked on the street. Judging by the angle of the shot, Haruka deduced the shooter had made their way down a few floors.

She couldn't help but feel she was in a dire situation. Haruka was surrounded on all sides and Catastrophes were still roaming the streets and monitoring buildings, so she bolted into a run. She hid behind cars and buildings, occasionally making her way inside to avoid snipers. Ten minutes went by this way, and the true weight of her situation started to sink in.

She was being tracked by both the players simultaneously.

By itself, that wasn't a strange thing. She's the top ranked player in the match, so she's a prime target. However, what was bugging her since a while ago was the silence.

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As she holed up in a small office space, catching her breath, Haruka didn't hear a single explosion going off. Players that manage to survive that late in the game had to be good at avoiding Catastrophes, so those bombs not going off wasn't the issue; the problem was that the two of them had to be aware of each other's positions. Haruka knew where both of them were throwing and shooting at her from, so they must know as well. Yet, no explosions went off that weren't near her.

They had teamed up to take her down.

One of them was carrying some sort of long range weapon, sniping at her from inside buildings. The other was chasing her more closely and throwing the typical bombs. They were both aiming at her, and only at her, never at each other. Her heart was beating out of her chest, but she smiled. Finally, a true challenge.

Demolition is an individual sport. It was always meant to be an individual sport. It's a metaphor for life, a game where one only has whatever they bring, be it small light-weight bombs or an oversized bag filled with traps and building-collapsing contraptions.

Though it is an individual sport and only one player can be left standing, some still choose to ally with others. That's life, after all.

It's a relatively rare occurrence, especially at the highest levels. When players are in middle-school or even high-school, they often compete in small, local tournaments. In those, they might play against their friends. Most prefer to target their friends first, in the spirit of competition, but others ally with them and try to take the field on as a team.

The higher the level, the less likely it is for players to know each other personally, which also results in less teams being formed. Also, the strongest players never form teams, as the consensus is that weaker players will simply slow them down and make them an easier target.

They were in the first stage of the qualifiers for the Obliteration Cup, but somehow these two Davids had united against a single Goliath. Haruka sighed in gulps as her laughter took hold of her body. Did they know who they were dealing with? She only had four bombs left, two explode-on-contact and two stickys. This is enough, she mumbled to herself, and stood up.

First, she would take out the sniper. Snipers always had more ammo than the rest of the field. They had to bring a bag regardless, to carry the weapon, so they always took the opportunity and carried extra bombs as well.

Because of that, as well as the long range, they were a terrible foe. They had a glaring weakness, however. Sniping was hard, very, very hard. Even the automatic targeting systems only go so far, as the International Demolition Federation didn't allow for complete automatic aiming in sanctioned competition.

As a result, in order to be an effective sniper, players needed to spend countless hours practising that specific skill, which didn't translate well at all to close-quarters combat. One way to go around that is for the sniper to surround themselves with some sort of protective minefield, but of course there was only one player in the whole world stupid enough to encumber themselves with all that junk. Also, it was clear that the sniper was moving with Haruka, so they couldn't be carrying a lot of weight.

Haruka went outside, every muscle in her body ready to snap at the first sign of trouble, which came sooner rather than later. She heard a noise, coming from her left, like a bee rushing to her location, and she ran in that direction, fast as the wind.

The bomb almost brushed her cheek, exploding violently behind her and propelling her slightly forwards. She saw that metallic glint on the fifth floor of the building she was furiously rushing too.

Snipers often took some considerable time to reload, and that one seemed to be no exception, so for the time being her primary concern was the other player. She wasn't sure which of the two was hunting her on the floor, but she suspected the higher ranked of the two, on account of the incredible precision of the throws, and the rather calm approach to the hunt they were conducting.

As a matter of fact, it was shocking to Haruka that a player so careful and capable was ranked only in the middle of the pack, and it was nearly inconceivable to her that someone with that much skill would be near the bottom of the food chain.

However, no other bombs went off until she reached the building. It looked like a standard Arena ten-story building, no reinforcement in the walls, concrete on concrete, with a single elevator.

She scoffed as she noticed the elevator was still functional. Snipers lost their advantage as the distance between them and their target went down, but there was something else to the cowardly strategy. They had the high ground.

Though Haruka believed she could throw a bomb before the sniper pressed the trigger in a normal situation, inside the building it was a different story. If the sniper found a good place to hide out and wait for her approach, they could easily take her out. Haruka needed to be smart. She pressed the elevator and the door opened immediately.

Then, she pressed the button for the fifth floor, and rushed up the stairs, careful to make as little noise as possible, avoiding stepping on any debris lying around on the floor.

Like taking candy from a baby. As she approached the hole that used to hold a door that connected the stairs to the fifth floor of the building, Haruka heard a ding coming from somewhere to her left, followed by a rustling sound and a quiet gasp that sounded feminine from a room to her right.

Then, the metallic scratch of the elevator door opening sounded, before an explosion collapsed the metallic box. Without even having to look, Haruka threw a sticky bomb towards the half open door of the other room that stuck to it and blew it open. Whimpers could be heard from inside, somewhere beneath the rubble and dust.

Haruka kicked around the pieces of concrete and plaster before finding the frail body of Agnes, collapsed on the floor holding a long metallic weapon, clumsily trying to shove a small ping-pong sized explosive in the barrel and furiously blowing on the red-hot heat sink so she could fire again. Haruka felt nothing for the weakling, simply dropping her last sticky bomb on her chest before running out of the room. The power of the explosion sent her long black hair flying in every direction.

Then, two thoughts floated up to the surface of her mind.

The first was that she took another step towards total victory in the match and in the tournament.

The second was that that was what long-range players were supposed to be like. Slow, weak, clumsy. Easily tricked and easily outplayed.

That's the fundamental principle of Haruka's style of play. All her movements and all her decisions in every match rely on one simple axiom: she's better than everybody else.

On the other hand, the axiom that the players that show up with large bags stuck to the titanium holders on their backs seemed to be that they couldn't compete with anyone else on equal footing; they had to rely on traps, lies, deception, secrecy, in order to win.

Even then, when someone like her would come along and simply walk up to them, blow through everything they protected themselves with, they collapsed. They couldn't even trust their hands, much less their weapons, to work properly.

An image of those bulky goggles and that short blonde hair flashed in her mind and she remembered that shaking in her knees, the uncertainty of a single step. All caused by getting close to Zoe Fern.

There was only one person left in the match other than the reigning Obliteration Cup champion. Julio Alario.

Haruka had two bombs left, and despite Julio's careful use of his own explosives, she was confident he didn't have much more than her left in the tank either. She walked out of the building.

Her glasses indicated there were only ten minutes left until the second Catastrophe, and two bombs were unlikely to be good enough to deal with that can of worms. She believed Julio's situation would also make him rather keen on finishing the match sooner rather than later.

The last thing she was sure of was that he wasn't too far from where she was. She could only hope he could make out her words.

“Hey, Julio!” Her voice sounded powerful and confident. It was deep and rumbling, echoing amongst the buildings and crawling up the skyscrapers. “Where are you buddy?! I've been wanting to see you! I know you don't have much left on you, so let's just finish this! Meet me at the centre in three minutes and we'll end this, huh?!”

Haruka thought it was a difficult offer to ignore. For one, even if he didn't intend to face her head-on, she had just given out her location to the enemy, so in the worst case scenario for him she had just granted him a huge advantage. More than that, they both knew the situation they were in, beyond the match.

Haruka was the media's darling. Every step she took, her every movement was scrutinised, filmed, broadcasted, recorded, and analysed to no end.

For someone like Julio, with little to no presence as far as media goes, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to get the spotlight on him, to make a name for himself in the world of Demolition beyond someone that's made it to the first round of the qualifiers.

Haruka had offered him his fifteen minutes of fame, and that was more valuable than actually placing first in the match. Though of course, they were both athletes, fierce competitors. It wasn't just about the spotlight; it was about what he would do with it, what he would show.

Though the cameras were worth more than the win, beating the number one player in the world in a head-to-head match after being challenged would revolutionise his career. Surely, he would thank Haruka for the opportunity by revealing himself, she thought, as she bolted to the centre of the arena.

There was really nothing special about the location she picked for the confrontation, other than the lower density of Catastrophes. There would probably be some nearby, but the spawn locations of the machines were closer to the outskirts, for the first one anyway.

The centre of the arena was an empty plaza with the statue of a woman carrying a large bag in the middle, holding up a baseball sized bomb. It held the likeness of Joanne Piedmont, the first winner of the Obliteration Cup. Haruka couldn't help but think of another encumbered woman that had been plaguing her conscious thoughts.

On the other end of the plaza, she saw him. Julio was a tall man and rather skinny, with a big nose and a very short haircut. His hair was a dark brown, matching his eyes, and his skin was slightly tan, his face littered with freckles. He wore a red skin-tight suit, but other than that his getup was the same as Haruka's.

He was out of breath and shaking slightly, but Haruka couldn't tell if it was from running or from the pressure of the situation. He held two bombs, one in each hand. At a distance, it was difficult for the girl to tell, but she thought one was sticking slightly to his hands.

“I'm here, Haruka Sato!” His voice sounded strained, almost like he was screaming, though the volume was only barely above conversational. “Glad to see you stuck to your word.”

Haruka couldn't help but grin at the situation.

“Ah, Julio! Long time no see! Two bombs, good, I suppose we're on equal footing then.” Haruka didn't really know if he only had two or not and she would not be conducting herself under that kind of rash assumption, but it wouldn't hurt to make Julio think she was being stupid.

She reached behind to her lower back for the two remaining bombs and showed them to Julio.

“We can wait for the Catastrophe, then we start. That's our starting bell.”

Julio nodded with surprising strength, his head bobbing up and down like a bobble-head. Judging by his expression, Haruka thought he was barely holding it together. He was biting his lip repeatedly and wiping his sweat non-stop with the back of his hands, always while his eyes were staring at Haruka's hands. Still, she couldn't shake that feeling that something wasn't right.

It was his feet. Haruka had experience, she had been practising to match her dad's greatness since she was five years old. Her body was a machine moulded by Demolition.

In that empty plaza, she found a kindred soul. His upper body was a lie, his movements were doing the very same thing she had done with her words. He was trying to tell Haruka, to confess to her that he was weak, unprepared, and easy pickings.

His roots couldn't lie, though. His feet were firmly planted on the ground and his hips were slightly lowered, loose, ready to jump at any moment. His muscles were relaxed. He was calm. His body had the composure of an experienced fighter, he was like her.

She did her best to keep the fact she'd picked on it to herself, though she couldn't be sure Julio hadn't figured her out already. She held her breath as a mental pain passed through her, the possibility that she might have been outplayed twice in so little time stabbed at her ego.

Then, like a flash, that familiar sound of teleportation filled the plaza as Terminators suddenly appeared all around them.

She didn't waste any time. The Catastrophes were dangerous, and they got more dangerous as more appeared, but they also provided valuable cover. She dashed around carefully but without sacrificing her speed.

Her body knew what to do, the years of being stuck in the augmented reality training room practising that very thing.

Julio's face had collapsed completely, revealing his true nature. Though he wasn't as skilled at taking advantage of the environment as Haruka, he had no problem dodging the Terminators' attacks or the sniper bombs being shot at them from a distance.

That being said, it became immediately clear the girl in orange had the upper hand, as Haruka threw a bomb right as a Tank rushed from a nearby street. The bomb reached Julio, striking him on the leg and sending him flying. He managed to throw a bomb in retaliation, but it stuck to the Tank, detonating its navigation system and disabling the machine in a flash of red and yellow.

Haruka didn't let up on her carefully engineered onslaught. She moved like a serpent, slithering between the metal of the environment, holding a single deadly bomb in her hand. Julio hadn't been knocked out just yet, but before he could even stand up, his left leg in incredible pain, he felt a small object hit him on his forehead, before his vision was consumed by an explosion and his world turned black.

The recovery drone came for Julio, and Haruka found herself standing alone in the wrecked plaza, empty-handed, looking at the claw-like holders on the back of her last opponent, noticing three spheres still stuck in their respective spots. She smiled.

This was how it was supposed to be. It was only a matter of time before the girl in blue knew that too.