As soon as the horn sounded to indicate the start of the battle, Mira boosted forward and took to one of the cliffs, both of her back mounted plasma cannons at the ready. She wasn't packing any of her external weapons this time, but all of them were on standby for rapid deployment, as she had no idea what all she would need in order to ensure that she came out victorious. Still, she couldn't afford to let down her guard, the Muramasa was only armed with two weapons, but Takashi certainly knew how to use them. His main weapon was the blaster cannon that was in it's right hand, a weapon capable of sweeping off an arm and a leg off a MW if it landed in the right position. His other weapon was a vibroblade which stayed attached to Muramasa's hip most of the time, but Mira had seen videos of him doing magical things with that blade from time to time. About five years ago, Mira would have thought she didn't stand a chance in the slightest, and even now, on his decline, she still had her doubts. Still, she refused to let that stop her, she had too much riding on this battle to give in now.<br/><br/>Acting quickly, she fired two mighty bursts from her cannons, each one exploding violently when they collided with the ground beneath Muramasa's feet. However, apparently the attack was rather predictable, as Takashi sent his MW upward with a booster enhanced jump, and he set his blaster's sights down on the Einenlancer, squeezing the trigger and causing a mighty ball of plasma of his own to roar outward and rush towards Mira. The youngest Malrain dodged the blast by jumping off the cliff and landing on the surface beneath it, causing a great deal of strain on Eienlancer's knees. The metal groaned loudly, and the entire cockpit shook as the shocks gave out.<br/>"Tch, the old knee joints would have handled that fall no problem."<br/><br/>Of course, that was what she had to expect, with using outdated tech that wasn't designed to interface with Einenlancer. In all honesty, Einenlancer had taken a lot of jerry rigging in order to get those pieces to work. Mira didn't even want to think about how much time she spent just welding the pieces apart and soldering them back together into something that she could actually use. An accurate description of the Einenlancer right now would be that it was composed of about 45% solder at that point.<br/><br/>Mira was quick to start moving again, though Einenlancer's now damaged knees didn't much appreciate the added strain of moving so rapidly after such a terrible fall. She rose both of her cannons and fired at the airborne Muramasa, which used a pivoting booster system to send itself backwards in mid jump and land safely on the cliff. Mira let out a slight groan of frustration at the raw agility and skill that Takashi displayed, and she had to think quickly in order to adapt to the degrading position that she found herself in. She flicked over to SATCOM, speaking to her crew chief.<br/>"Sir, deploy the missile pods and the Gatling gun, I need more firepower."<br/>"Rodger, weaponry on the way, Mira, just hold on a little bit while we get it out there."<br/>"Okay, thank you."<br/><br/>With that, Mira turned her attention back towards the Muramasa, which was now firing another powerful blast at Einenlancer. This time, she was able to take cover rather easily behind a nearby rock, which exploded violently under the force that the blast was packing, the concussive force of the explosion shoved the Einenlancer forward and sent it crashing against the stomach. Mira had to fight back her will to curse, her leg's stabilizers should have been able to keep Einenlancer standing even under a force like that. Unfortunately, her legs didn't have the same kind of strength to them that they used to.<br/>"I keep overestimating Einenlancer like this, and I'm toast! C'mon Mira... Concentrate!"<br/><br/>Mira got back up to her legs, and she glanced out of her rear camera to see that Muramasa was holding it's blaster straight up into the air, refusing to fire on Einenlancer while it was down.<br/>"Mr. Fujin, your sense of fair play is astounding..."<br/><br/>Mira brought Einenlancer back up to it's feet, and it turned around to look up at the opposing Mech while it lowered it's blaster down towards the lancer again. Takashi's voice rang out over the speakers, yet no shots were fired yet.<br/>"You need to do better then that, Mira. Come on! Show me what you're capable of already!"<br/><br/>Mira clamped down on her lower lip and groaned, grateful that she had remembered to leave the NETCOM switch off while she did so. Instead of saying anything back, she took the opportunity to take a few deep breaths and try to put together a plan. The thing that made Takashi so dangerous was that he knew exactly what his mech was capable of, and what it wasn't. He knew his limitations, and he played to his strengths. The thing that made it so difficult was that he was an amazing counter attacker, instead of a straight up brawler. So far, the fight had developed a system of Mira attacking, Takashi dodging and countering, and Mira taking damage because of her overestimation of Einenlancer's capabilities. It was a cycle that needed to change, without question, but Mira wasn't totally sure how to pull something like that off on such short notice, and with Einenlancer still so inferior to it's regular capabilities.<br/><br/>She only had a few seconds of peace before a shot from his blaster woke Mira up and caused her to evade, this would mark a turning point in the battle, as Mira refused to ever allow herself to overestimate her machine again. Mira glanced over at her battle map, and was delighted to see a yellow blip at one end of the canyon, the weapon drop that she had asked for. Quickly, Mira tossed an EMP grenade in the general direction of the Muramasa to distract it for a few moments as she cranked on her boosters and charged over towards the yellow blip. Acting quickly, she grabbed a few of the missile pods, and was able to attach one to her left thigh and one to her right shoulder, equaling eight missiles, before the opposing Mech showed up and let out a blast from it's primary gun. Mira had to grab the Gatling gun and run, leaving behind her other two missile pods to get completely wiped away by the blast. Fortunately, Mira now had eight missiles, and a big Gatling gun full of lead.<br/><br/>She now had two avenues that she could take. Mira could either follow up a main attack, a feint, with a second attack as the real one. Or, she could make the second attack a fake out while forcing the first one right on through. Whatever she chose to do, she had to make her decisions wisely, she had a limited number of missiles with which to make her first or second attack, and those missiles would be her key to victory in this battle. First, she decided to take the straightforward approach. As Muramasa looped around the corner that Einenlancer had taken as cover, Mira launched out three missiles that rocketed towards the opposing Mech. He fired his blaster at all three of them, causing them to be swallowed by the burst of plasma that came out. However, he quickly became the target of rapid fire lead as the Gatling gun came alive and began firing rapidly at him, bullets smashing and ripping at his exterior hull as Mira tried her best to deal significant damage to him.<br/><br/>The damage clearly wasn't significant enough, as Muramasa was able to fire from it's buster again, and force Mira to retreat away from the radius. This time she didn't try to take cover behind the exploding rock, as she had learned the hard way that such wasn't a very good idea. It was a bit of a morale boost that Mira was able to land in a few hits, but she wondered if such a hit was really worth the sacrifice of three of her missiles, leaving her with five left. Muramasa was quick on the counter as it fired burst after burst from it's incredible buster, trying to hit Einenlancer where it would go after dodging the previous one. It was clear to Mira that Takashi was now taking this battle seriously, since Mira had been able to land a Gatling gun burst on him. However, she also knew that he was running the risk of overheating his weapon if he kept that up for much longer. Then, he would have to resort to his sword for a while until it cooled down. That would be Mira's opportunity to strike, assuming that it ever came. She supposed that she could wait until the fusion battery for his blaster ran out, but he carried so many spares on him that to try and wait him out would result in Einenlancer breaking down from the strain of keeping away from him for so long.<br/><br/>When she put enough distance between the two of them, Takashi followed her and continued to fire. However, he began to slow down his pace a bit when it seemed to be getting close to overheating, at least, that was all that Mira could think of to explain why his firing had calmed itself a little bit. Mira finally saw her opportunity to strike back, so she used the opportunity to fire two missiles out of her fresh pod towards him, hoping that he wouldn't be able to let off a shot in time to destroy them, like he did last time. This left Mira with two missiles in one pod, and one in the other. Fortunately for Mira, this observation proved itself to be true, as Muramasa had to retreat behind some rocks in order to avoid eating the missiles. Mira pounced on the opportunity and gave chase, pulling out her vibroblade as she quickly ascended the cliff and jumped over the rocks to slash down at him. This forced her to drop the Gatling gun, but that wasn't going to help her very much against such an agile opponent anyway.<br/><br/>She was greeted by a blade clash as the Muramasa had decided to drop it's blaster and pull out it's blade as Takashi heard Einenlancer make it's way up the side of the cliff. Normally, he would use his left hand for his sword, but he had sabotaged it before the match, so he had no choice but to forgo his primary weapon in order to use it. The two blades collided with one another for a few moments, the vibrating hum of the weapons causing a rattling effect for a few seconds before Muramasa split away and dove forward, attempting to sever Einenlancer's arm. Mira showed that her Mech was still capable of performing a few impressive maneuvers, as she was able to roll the blade off the side of her shoulder and swing her own blade at his leg. But, because of the low sweeping attack, Takashi simply jumped over it, and transitioned into a spinning kick to Einenlancer's head that sent the opposing mech tumbling back down the hill, crashing down at the bottom with a violent crash.<br/><br/>Mira had hit her head on the side of the cockpit during the fall, and even though Einenlancer was still functioning after the fall, it didn't budge because of the pain to Mira's head. When the blurriness finally went away, she came to realize that the tip of Muramasa's vibroblade was pressing up against Einenlancer's neck. Takashi's voice rang through the speakers once again.<br/>"I'm sorry, Mira, you put up a pretty good fight. But... it looks like it's over now... Forgive me"<br/><br/>Muramasa gripped the blade in both hands, and began to sink it down deeper. However, Mira realized that Takashi had made one critical mistake. When Einenlancer went down, he assumed that it was the mech that was immobile, not the pilot. Acting quickly, she swung Einenlancer's leg around in an attempt to sweep the other mech's feet out from under him. However, this had taken a bit of shifting around on her part, and Takashi was able to catch on to what she was trying to do. He retreated backwards, boosting himself up and retreating back to the cliff. Mira quickly got up, firing all three of her remaining missiles. She had them launch at separate intervals, the loner from the canister on her shoulder launched first, and gave Takashi enough time to dodge the attack, before the other two on thigh launched three seconds later, flying through the air on his newfound position. It was clear that he wasn't expecting her to have any more firepower left, as he was able to ungracefully avoid the missiles, which still followed him back down the cliff. He landed on stable ground about a half a second before both of the missiles crashed into the cliff as well, causing a massive rockslide to erupt from the cliff, taking Muramasa down along with it.<br/><br/>Takashi tumbled down the cliff before he was able to stabilize himself and land on his feet. However, he was so focused on dodging the larger rocks that came down the hill, he failed to notice the charging Einenlancer, blade in hand, until it was too late for him to dodge. He turned just in time to see Mira carve off his right arm, followed by the same leg as the rockslide came to an end. Muramasa fell to the ground with both limbs liberated, and there was only silence for the next several seconds in the battlefield.<br/><br/>Mira was breathing as heavy as she ever had before in her life, her heart hammering up and down in her chest. She wasn't sure how she had done it, but she had somehow managed to pull out a victory against Takashi Fujin and his famed Muramasa. Her arms were shaking, and a bit of sweat had begun to accumulate on her forehead. She'd also need an icepack for the side of her head where she it the cockpit, but that would come after the adrenaline died down. She just stared down at the destroyed mech before her, gasping for air while Einenlancer remained completely stiff, as though it's batteries had run out right then and there.<br/><br/>The banner over head began to read out words after a pause of nothing but dead silence for a total of about ten seconds.<br/><br/><em>Mira Malrain wins</em>