Kiri la Kill - Chapter 14

Sorry for the no update yesterday lads, I was too busy watching Persona 5… Double Update today to make up for it. Enjoy the turning point of this story, we still have 36 more to go before we can finally conclude!

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Evenly matched indeed.

Of course, such was merely an observation made by someone who, while certainly a once-in-a-lifetime prodigy, simply could not have known the full capabilities of the person who’d chosen to oppose her.

Because when one thinks about it, taking a stance against a tyrannical regime, however small or large, when one is alone in an unfamiliar world without. No allies, no funds or a place to call home, and hell! Barely even a single flash of memory about who they actually were as a person to speak of!

The best one could hope in such a circumstance would be that they could go unnoticed by the powers that be, while trying to find a way to piece their life back together…

And Kirishima Eijirou?

Well, the very first thing he had chosen to do, after finding himself in an alien position, had been to jump off of a mountain to make his trip below shorter. Then choosing to investigate an unfamiliar town while looking like he had, then doing all that he had done to get to Honnouji.

And something had made him take one look at the plight of the people of Honno City, and decide to throw caution to the wind. Committing himself to single handedly taking down a regime he saw as oppressive and villainous.

Something had to have given Kiri the mindset to do this. Something that persisted beyond the loss of self that came with his memory loss. An Unbreakable Will that had been honed the hard way, through trial that would have broken people two times his age.

For now… it looked as though the fight would go on as Satsuki predicted, as Kirishima Eijirou’s metal-breaking clash with Gamagoori Ira proved their strengths even as neither fell. But even then, the cracks were beginning to show.

As seen by how Gamagoori Ira, the Impenetrable Shield of Kiryuin Satsuki, and the so-called immovable object… was made to move.

In a clash of raw power by both sides, whether that be a Hardening Quirk, or a Goku Uniform… Kiri was proven to be slightly superior to Gamagoori, whose feet tore chunks out of the earth as he slid backwards.

And maybe he would have moved further until his back hit the warped gates, had Kiri not been forced to move when he felt the way the wind shifted, to reveal a tendril of deadly ropes approaching him… originating from Gamagoori.

Kiri retreated, putting some distance between himself and Gamagoori while avoiding all tendrils chasing after him with cartwheels that looked quite out of place in his combat style, but seemed to come to him as naturally as he breathed.

He had placed a considerable distance between him and Gamagoori, to take the new developments of the fight into account. It was apparent that his new opponent would not be as easy to take down as his schoolmates.

“NO ONE BUT LADY KIRYUIN WAS ABLE TO MOVE ME WHEN I TAKE MY STANCE,” Gamagoori Ira spoke in his usual booming tone, making the battlefield quake in the shock of his easy admittance. “ADMIRABLE!”

It was an admittance of respect, quickly followed by the boy stomping his foot down onto the ground, the earth shaking with the force of his immense bulk.

“BUT IT WILL NOT SAVE YOU!”

The Three Stars of his beautifully embroidered Goku Uniform shone balefully, before suddenly… he snapped his fingers.

And heralded by a flash of light, his whole body became covered in the same reinforced cloth tendrils he had tried to entrap Kiri with, dark shackles and spikes emerging from their depths to lock the gargantuan boy’s arms at his sides, even going so far as to cover his mouth in a rather distinct looking mask.

“THREE STAR UNIFORM, SHACKLE REGALIA!”

What Kiri beheld was something straight out of a BDSM enthusiast’s wet dreams… and to be honest, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to know just why he had instinctual access to what that word meant.

“...I’m starting to think there’s a reason why people keep stripping me.” Kiri murmured, suddenly feeling like he was setting himself up for a very bad misunderstanding, fighting naked in front of someone like that.

If he had known that, further back, there was a group of girls that were salivating at the mouth while supporting bloody noses, going on and on about how toned his butt was, and what they would like Gamagoori to do to him, he would only be proven correct.

Regardless…

It seemed the time had come to test out how the strongest of these uniforms stacked up against him… not that he was going to be evaluating this like he had done so for the others, he wouldn’t be so foolish as to underestimate this opponent.

Kiri finally called upon his Quirk, his arms rippling erratically as the characteristic jaggedness of his Hardening began to take shape… only this time, he willed his arms to take a distinct shape, willing them to grow sharper, and more pointed.

Blunt force wouldn’t work so well here, that he knew.

“Interesting.” And he had to blink, as suddenly, Gamagoori spoke… in a tone that was much calmer than what he’d shown to Kiri so far. “I hadn’t expected it to be proven true, you possess power without a Uniform, on top of your considerable potential.”

“So you can speak normally.” Kiri responded, somewhat aware that his actions would probably paint him with the same brush he’d painted Gamagoori with, in the eyes of the Honnouji Students. “What do you plan to do with this information?”

“I plan to bring you to Lady Kiryuin, so she can use the full potential of Honnouji to unearth your secrets!“ The boy proclaimed, his breathing picking up as his uniformed body hunched down in preparation of what was to come. “Rejoice, Kirishima… you will not die because of your blasphemous comments.”

“I should have known better.” Kiri said, sighing in disappointment as he reinforced his fighting stance. “All you people care about is your own gain.”

“I am loyal to Lady Kiryuin, and will gladly aid in her efforts to guide the students of this school to a brighter future under her supervision.” The overgrown boy said, scoffing  “BUT YOU ARE NOT A STUDENT OF THIS SCHOOL!”

And in an instant, the clash began again.

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To bring the topic back to the talk of potential, and (somewhat) alien mindsets.

What Kirishima and Gamagoori had managed to accomplish with only their raw power the first time around, was far outstripped by the way their second clash had gone. Yet if an inexperienced person were to look at it with the naked eye, they would see no sign of it.

For their next clash certainly didn’t include bent and cracked metal, distorted landscapes and all out blows that were thrown in accompaniment of ground shaking roars.

What had been a raw expression of pure power from two combatants, whose power had previously been enough to crush all opposition in a single below before, had now turned into a much more thoughtful clash between two experienced people engaging in a life or death fight.

Kirishima Eijirou, the unstoppable force, who had proven himself capable holding onto that moniker by his relentless charge forward that continued even now… once again proved to be the aggressor, as he charged forward with his Hardened Arms, cutting down any tendrils that came rushing toward his direction and raining down blow after blow on Gamagoori.

Gamagoori Ira, though he had been unable to hold onto his own moniker of ‘immovable object’, still intended to hold onto his title of ‘Impenetrable Shield’, his tendrils smacking against his body to punish himself as he shouted his desire for more pain for the whole world to (awkwardly) hear, as he sought to trap Kiri in his clutches numerous times.

The Hard Boy avoided it easily of course, but in coming closer, he time and again proved himself liable to Gamagoori’s Shackle Regalia… which suddenly puffed up, much like a blowfish. Damage accumulated by Gamagoori, whether that be by the force of Kiri’s blows, or his own self-flagellation, would usher in a tornado of thorny tendrils.

“SCOURGE REGALIA!” Gamagoori would reveal in an instant, as the ropes covering his body gave way to reveal the true form of the uniform beneath. A body of dark armor with orange spikes, a much more overt display of Gamagoori’s proclivities.

So many and so fast that it would be impossible for Kiri to cut and evade them all, striking against his body with the force of a jet. It was a slashing pain that he felt even through his Quirk’s abilities, the jagged rocks that had held out so well against blunt blows proven unable to withstand thorny slashes when delivered with such power.

Thankfully, the whips were too weak to inflict crippling wounds, but it did not take long for Kiri to realize that there was no way to sustain a fight… the concept of death by a thousand cuts existed for a reason after all, and even he was not immune to it.

Unfortunately for Gamagoori, just a thousand would be nowhere near enough to bring down Kiri.

As evidenced by how he charged forward, the moment that the tornado of whips sought to return, to hide away the Scourge Regalia, Kiri jumped forward in a move that seemed foolish to anyone with an experienced eye.

Gamagoori made a miscalculation, and tangled his tendrils around Kiri, pulling the boy toward him… and realizing only when Kiri’s ‘imprisonment’ was certain, that the Hard Boy’s momentum was too much for him to spot.

In the end, the prison of tendrils did wrap around Kirishima, and hide him from view.

CLANG!

But not before letting the whole world hear a deafening clang, and the scream of tortured metal.

There was a brief moment of silence, as Honnouji stood at a standstill.

Kiryuin Satsuki closed her eyes, and let out a breath.

And then… the tendrils around Kiri fell to the ground, revealing a faltering Gamagoori who was staring down at an undaunted Kirishima Eijirou.

Kiri’s fist had gone through the core of his reinforced armor, shattering the metal of the reinforced armor… and not only that, it had gone into Gamagoori’s chest, such that… were Kiri the cruel type, a moment of rooting around would have allowed him to grasp the boy’s heart.

The impenetrable shield had lost that moniker as well.

Kiri looked shaken for a moment, as he beheld the wound that he had inflicted upon his enemy… As for a moment, it looked as though he would fall to his knees, his teeth gritted so hard that they might have shattered and his eyes nearly bulging out of his skull.

Gamagoori Ira, felt all too keenly, a certain pair of eyes at the back of his head.

He remembered, like it was yesterday, a promise he’d made two years ago.

He looked down at the knees that trembled once more, before turning his gaze at the second person ever to bring him this low.

He searched for a light, anything that would make him feel the same way he did back during that day, the same conviction that had made forever changed the course of his life, and dedicate his life and being to a single person.

Considering that the boy was an enemy he didn’t know, having come here not with the intention of reform, in a spontaneous decision that might as well be a whim… It was obvious that he would find nothing of the sort.

Which made Gamagoori angrier than he’d ever been in his life.

Through sheer force of will, her forced himself to his feet, ignoring his still bleeding wound, ignoring his battered armor, ignoring his own exhaustion, and the fact that his enemy was still a formidable force that should not be underestimated, or be approached in berserk rage.

“I WILL NEVER KNEEL BEFORE YOU!” Gamagoori roared.

And the fight resumed.