On that day, Giovanna was strangely calm. She moved in silence, without so much as greeting her friends when she saw them from afar before she entered the locker room. She gave them a smile and a nod, a generally uncharacteristic movement.

She had only fought her brother once, and she had lost. Granted, she was a young girl and her brother was far older, but it was this day that she was the more experienced. It took her every ounce of will to ensure she wouldn't go in cocky or confident.

Alexander had prepared her physically and mentally for hours each day, for six days on end.

Now, she only twisted from side to side and bent over to touch her toes and stretch. She spat out a heavy, cool breath. And without a minute more, the red siren on the wall behind her lit up.

The time had come.

She made her way through one of the tunnels of the stadium and towards her match arena.

All she could do was stare at the pit of sand. She didn't seek to hospitalize her brother, she reminded herself.

Giovanna only had to win. Proving her worth, proving what she could do for being a 'frail', a 'weak', a 'little' girl would be enough. She was a Virtue, regardless of what would come. She would not betray herself with a loss. She would not let the others down. She would win.

'Win.'

That was the only word she repeated in her head.

Spectators continued to cheer as the two contestants finally entered the ring. The announcers didn't hesitate to begin their screeching.

"I can hardly wait, Mitch! And with the referee's arrival, it seems we won't have to wait long!" one of the men shouted out into the microphone, the sound system reverberating the echoes through the stadium's very walls.

Giovanna stared at her brother and squinted.

Giorno wore a brown suit and a white shirt, something unwise for a duel, and most unbecoming for fighting in a pit of sand, dress shoes without socks. There was no smile on his face, yet no semblance of weariness or anger. Only boredom.

He turned to the referee, an old man dressed in a bright orange shirt for his own safety. "Sir! Can we start this now, please? The food trucks are beginning to set up now, and I don't want a line to form before I get anything."

The referee let out a light chuckle and spoke not just to Giorno, but to Giovanna as well. "Fight cleanly and properly. I'm sure you both know what that means. Don't try to kill each other. If you do, the fight will be ended immediately and the aggressor will be incapacitated. Anything else goes. Make sure to put up a good show, though. I'm not supposed to say that, but..." He shrugged. "You got a whole crowd interested in this."

He took a few steps back and smiled again. "Shake hands, please."

Giovanna extended her hand out, and her brother gripped it and swung it to the side. She grit her teeth, and her brother only smirked.

It may have been the first time they had seen each other in a great many months, but they needed no time for pleasantries or greetings. In unison, they began to step back and away from each other, until they had reached the end of the pit of sand. And with that and nothing else, the referee raised his silver whistle to his lips, and out rang a blaring air.

"Begin!" the commentator cried out in elation.

Giovanna dashed forward and swung her arm downward.

Not from thin air, but from magical energy, ropes of vines burst from the ground and wrapped themselves around Giorno. Two seconds had barely made their way onto the clock, and the man was already immobile.

"You gotta squeeze harder than that if you wanna win! You gotta break something!" he told her before swinging his arms out wide and tearing past the vines. He rushed towards her, clenching his fist and swinging it up into the air.

The sand beneath Giovanna burst up into her eyes, over her body, veiling her from her surroundings. She pinched her eyes shut and raised her arms over her face– but Giorno spun to her side, a thick vine bursting from his palm and lashing out, wrapping around Giovanna's wrist.

He pulled her to him, and at the same time, balled his free hand into a fist. He struck her nose– and a jolt of pain ran through her body, sending her into a daze.

For better or worse, that was exactly what Alexander had warned her against. Fists to the nose, the jaw, the eye, the throat– "Keep your guard up. Always," he told her. Giorno smiled and grabbed Giovanna's hair as it swayed in the air, before pulling, yanking down to send her to the sandy ground.

She fell without a struggle, and Giorno only grinned in self-satisfaction. "You've always been this, Giovanna," he told her as she clawed her hand through the sand to form a fist. She remained on the ground. "You try too hard but it's never enough. And that's okay. That's why mother and father were content with letting you lay around the house all day and become a spouse for someone powerful in the future. But you keep trying."

Giovanna lifted her arm and threw sand into her brother's eyes.

Without so much as flinching, he grabbed Giovanna once again as she stood up and slammed his fist into her stomach. And he repeated his motion, once more to her jaw, twice more to her nose, thrice more into her chest, until even with her clenching her gut to brace for each impact, blood still burst from her lips.

It was a disgusting sight– watching these two fighters. Not because they were siblings, but because of how they fought. The two had the same affinities, plant and earth, and while such magic could be useful in a pit of sand, it didn't mean much when they could counter each other at any given instant.

They both knew this, and so, they both resorted to fighting with their fists and physical magic. Of course, that tends to be a great show for the spectators, but... Now, it seemed less of an entertaining duel, less of a meter of power and prowess, and more of a single-sided beating of a grown man to his younger sister.

"Jesus Christ..." Lumiel said, staring down at the fight from above. "He's..."

"Giovanna'll be fine," Alexander told her. He kept his arms crossed across his chest, gritting his teeth at the sight of her bleeding. "She'll win this."

"Is that what you know or what you're hoping for?" Liam asked him.

Alexander kept himself focused on the fight, intently watching every single move of each of the contestants. "I know she'll win," he responded, alongside a deep inhale. "But regardless... I'll have to talk with Giorno Belmonte."

Gabriel turned to Alexander and stared at him. Hidden under his arms, Alexander's fists were clenched tight within his rage as he forced himself to stay focused on that sight, blood pooling underneath Giovanna. He smirked at Alexander's reaction and turned back to the clash.

Thus far, Giovanna had hardly used magic, and with good reason. She didn't want to make this fight a simple duel of who can hit fastest– she wanted to take her time. The beating she was taking was the product of her giving Giorno a chance at all.

All she needed was a single second to actually fight back, to take the next turn for herself.

Giorno took a second to watch the effect of what he had just done. His sister, keeling over on the dirt and sand, her arms sprawled over her stomach as blood leaked from her teeth. He couldn't but smile, taking heart, finding pride in the idea that he had done some good– teaching the brat her place in the world and in the family, making sure she wouldn't object to order again.

But within the shadow of her crouching body, Giovanna had her palm pressed against the ground. From sand, stone, and from stone, magic.

The sand itself molded into a block, a cube that shot up and struck Giorno's chin. The sudden strike sent him back, and now, it was he who fell and crashed into the ground.

Giovanna remained on her knees, her breaths heavy as she didn't even stare at the attack she spurred. The block of sandstone repeatedly crashed into Giorno's body– his face, his forehead, his neck, his chest, beating down on him without much of Giovanna's will.

Her eyes were fixed on her hands, fixed on her pants as blood dripped down on them. The sight before her pained her eyes, but she couldn't look away. Even then, she was calm, collected, and patient. The crowd around them continued to collectively chatter, harnessing an incessant buzzing, a shouting that rang in her skull and her stomach after all those impacts.

To her side, above the stands of the spectators, a large black screen stood, counting the seconds and the minutes as they passed. It had barely been a mere two minutes from the start of the battle.

Part of her wished the battle hadn't so quickly reached the point of Giorno slamming his fist into her– for the sake of the spectators, of course. But another part of her wished she had ended this fight already.

She knew the fight wouldn't be easy, and she was grateful for that. Saying a silent prayer of thanks to God for the pain she felt in that moment, she raised one of her legs and pressed it against the ground, forcing herself to stand.

And one last time, the stone block crashed into Giorno's face, before Giovanna released her magic, and the stone dissipated into dust and sand.

She pressed her other foot up and slowly forced herself to stand up straight. "Get up, Giorno."

That was all she said, as he shot up and stared down at himself. His crushed, bleeding nose dripped down onto his white shirt. Now stained with crimson, his jaw dropped as he furrowed his eyebrows.

"You fucking bitch!" he cried with a wry shout, stepping towards her. "You got blood on my shirt!" His palm struck Giovanna's cheek, smacking with an echoing clap.

She remained still, even through the impact.

"This is silk! From Earth!" he continued. "Have you no respect?!"

Giovanna locked eyes with him, as the chattering of the crowd grew louder at what they had just seen. "You're so annoying, brother."

Giorno fumed and clenched his jaw, without a single care for the pain in his bones. He took a step back and turned. "If you're gonna use magic to attack, I'll show you how it's done, you little–"

"She's becoming a bit too much like you, Alexander," Gabriel said, his icy eyes onlooking the bout.

Alexander chuckled. "Don't curse her like that."

"She's enjoying herself. Rejoicing in her suffering, because that's the only thing she can do. She knows she'll win, so even with the beating she's taking, she can't help but focus on her reason why. That's just like you."

Another light laugh from the Demon-Born. "No, no, no. She's stronger than me in that sense. Just... Just keep watching. I don't expect her to lose."

Particles of sand began to float, twisting in the air and striking Giovanna with light, yet tough impacts. "Asshole!" she cried with each ounce of stringing pain of the whirling sand.

The sand grew further into the air, flying higher and becoming a blinding flurry of sand, each loose particle slamming into Giovanna's bronze skin.

Giovanna grit her teeth. She clenched her fist with as much force as she could muster, digging her nails into her palms and piercing her skin. Blood began to drip down in the next second, but that, amidst the smoke, didn't faze her at all.

Giorno continued his whirling attack. The young Virtue judged she would only have one chance to land an attack. Anything with magic would be sensed and dodged, and without a weapon, the only thing she could rely on was her fist.

Even between the sandy wind, she kept her eyes wide open. That was the only way she could know she would hit her target. And for just a moment, she met Giorno's eyes from within the magic.

And Giovanna thrust her fist out.

Her fist brushed against Giorno's skin, and in the same second, she realized how beloved she was by that energy. White light burst.

Magic, applied within 1/1000ths of a second, flashes a beautiful, brilliant white.

There was only a single sound to be heard– that of a dull pop.

And from that sound, from that impact, jagged streams of white burst throughout the arena and into the stands. Even as the light was blinding, even as it exploded toward spectators, not a single scream was heard. The energy flowed into, through, past their bodies without so much as a warm sensation.

It was only a fraction of a second in which pale lightning burst.

From the instant her fist struck her brother, she had created that distortion of space through magic alone, multiplying the force over itself. In that same instant, Giorno's body had burst to the side.

The White Light forced every ounce of smoke and dust away, leaving the entire arena open under the sun. There could be no doubt of who had won the clash. Giovanna's arm was still outstretched before she noticed what had happened herself.

Giorno's limp body had been thrown into the stands, far beyond the confines of the arena. Even as the crowd began to scream in elation and thrill, even as the Virtues' eyes widened at the sight of what their friend had just done...

Giovanna remained silent, and only pumped her fist into the air.