"...!"

There are cybernetics that can come off as easily as taking off a glove. Titanomachia's has no such kindness to it. Everything about this mechanical limb was built to simulate the peak of athletic potential, and among other things that requires a full artificial nervous system. The sensory feedback from reconnecting it is fire and ice, the jagged shapes of a sleeping leg awakening, cramps and bruises, muscles clenching and testing reflexively as they do their best to link to that crackling brain.

Machia is biting her knuckle. She is shivering. Because in addition to the surging sensation of electricity bridging flesh and synthfibre is the feeling of hands. The feeling of breath. The feeling of soft hair, blown out to overwhelming levels by the miracles of technology. Be gentle, she yearns to whisper. Be firmer, demands a voice crackling along the edge of her spine. She feels the shape of a weakness within her, that she wants to feel with stolen strength.

To reach out and take -

"And yet," she said, hand rolling into a fist below her teeth.

She reached down and took Madeleine by the chin, turning her head up to look into her eyes. "I do not accept that there is power you will not master. I will find the path. I will make you capable of walking it. Your path is to the top and you will go through her too."

Sometimes she wondered if when she was talking to Madeleine she was talking about herself. That she'd master this device and achieve that championship herself as she always thought she would. Sometimes in lonely nights she wondered if this was just a way to keep her hand in while she recovered.

But now, with the dark-haired girl sending electricity from her fingertips to her thigh, burning her to her brain, she didn't wonder. She never asked that question when they were together. Something about those golden eyes drove doubt from her mind. [i]This [/i]was her sword.