Disclaimer: Don't own BNHA.
Please enjoy :)
/~/
Kimiko had wished herself here but wasn't going to be able to wish her way out of this one.
It was with a frightening certainty in her heart that she forced her trembling gaze up to meet the villain. More maneuvered themselves to surround her- five, four male, one female.
Her own power had damned her; brought her into the midst of a villain hideout. And if they wanted to keep their location a secret, she wasn't going to get out alive.
Her legs shook to the verge of giving out as she lowered herself into what vaguely resembled a fighting stance. Escape was her overriding thought, a purpose that grounded her and held back the blind panic that buzzed dangerously at the edge of her mind. Escape- but she was surrounded and she was slow, weak and exceptionally easy to kill, and the situation was so hopeless that Kimiko wanted to fall to her knees and cry; the tears were already gathering in the corner of her eyes.
"Aww," The villain directly in front of her cooed, his voice dripping with mockery. "The little girl's about to cry."
It was a mixture of paranoia and sheer luck that had her head rotate just enough to catch the flash of metal in the corner of her vision. The terror within her exploded, sending her launching forwards. She twisted to increase the difficulty of them getting a grip on her, and utilized the surprise her sudden movement created to burst through two of the villains and out of the circle they'd created around her.
The villain with the knife -a beautiful six-inch blade with a slight curve- plowed after her and the neat circle of enemies disintegrated into chaos. The blade sweeping towards her was death gliding on shadowed wings; her legs locked up, her spine stiffening.
There wasn't space in her panic-ridden mindset for a cohesive and strategic wish, it was just an overwhelming desire to live, and the need to be able to do something to defend herself.
The knife in the villain's hand disappeared and was instead grasped in her own small hands. There was something about having a knife in her hands that really changed perspective- it was like cradling the power to bring death between your fingers.
Kimi breathed.
Even in a world full of explosion-creating hands and fists that could shatter brick walls with just a punch, it was the knife -such a raw weapon of murder- that caused her to think danger, to think about life and death and how easy it would be for her to make a human heart stop beating. It was dangerous and horrible and utterly beautiful to Kimi, who wasn't going to die here.
She was not going to die. She refused.
Kimi exhaled.
Flashing forwards, she threw her small body forwards with an unprecedented viciousness. The villain snapped out of his microsecond-long surprise, back arching and shoulders tensing, preparing to meet her head on. Then Kimi swerved with the natural dexterity of a child, feeling nothing but the thundering of her heart in her ears and the blade in her hands.
The villain was turning, just a single beat behind her, but it would be enough- it would have to be enough. She planted her feet and jumped, timing it with the exact moment he'd catch up and face her.
A fist came up to sucker punch her in the gut, but her blade was already moving, slicing through flesh with a feeling of satisfying resistance to her hands; a sort of sick satisfaction that Kimiko wasn't powerless- she had power, and she was going to live.
The knife was in his throat. It was in his throat, there was blood and he was screaming-
It was a single moment of horror clashing with defiance where her whole world focused on the collapsing form of the villain; a man with platinum blond hair framing his face, his carefully sculpted features that gave him a playful look, a look of someone handsome and charming that came right out of a fairy tale.
When Kimiko thought villain, she thought of evil-looking brutes with their faces twisted into something ugly. But the person fallen at her feet was beautiful and she felt like she'd just slain an angel- she'd killed and that was a horrible, horrible fact that she'd have to live with for the rest of her life.
Those realizations and flashes of heart-wrenching emotions had her frozen for just a second, and it was one second too long. Her mind was forcibly snapped back to her situation as a fist slammed into her jaw at an impossible speed.
Something in her jaw gave with a sickening crunch, and that something was small and smooth as it fell onto her tongue- a tooth, she realized, a sob catching in her throat. Oh god, that's my tooth. She spat it out, along with a thick red liquid that expelled itself from her jaw and she realized she'd bitten through the side of her cheek.
It hurt. It really hurt. Her cheek throbbed, silently shrieking in pain and her heart seemed to twist itself into knots, wanting so desperately to wish it stopped hurting, just a quick, easy wish-
No, Kimiko told herself with all the fierceness a ten-year-old could muster. She needed to save her wishes or her reserves would run dry before she was out of this place. Her eyes turned to lock on to the mound of flesh before her, remarkably uncut flesh, unstabbed and not-bleeding flesh.
I can change that.
And then the sob burst from her throat in a long, drawn-out wail as she drove the blade, her lifeline, forwards. She was crying as she flailed the knife about, outright shrieking and screaming her throat hoarse with her unending desperation and blinding terror. Her small frame wasn't built for grappling, but the lethality of it was greatly enhanced by the six-inch knife in her hands, now dripping with blood.
The man who'd punched her- he had small pipes coming from his elbows that emitted bursts of energy that would propel his arm forwards. That meant a strong acceleration, but an inability to adjust the direction mid-punch. A white-hot adrenaline was coursing through her like a continuous lightning bolt, and her reflexes reached inhumane levels when terror mixed in. She barely even registered her own movement as she snapped away from the next punch, side-stepping and bringing the knife down onto his elbow joint.
Die, die, die, was the mantra roaring in her head as she jerked the knife back and adjusted her two-handed grip on the handle. She screamed again, the sound raw as it tore itself from her throat, and she drove the knife forwards- forward, forward, forward towards his heart.
But she was still ten, her body having limits capped by her age regardless of how much adrenaline was pumping through her body, no matter how scared she was, she was still ten.
And Kimiko faltered. The knife wavered, giving the man time to thrust it away with the palm of his hand. His fingers closed around it, intending to wrench it out of her grip, and there was the sudden realization that she couldn't let him do that or else she was dead, she would be dead, dead, dead-
She threw her body forwards, throwing off his grip on the knife, and used the momentum to knee him somewhere, anywhere. And her short height allowed that place to be the groin.
He might've been howling in pain, but it couldn't trump the ear-splitting screaming that must've been exploding from her mouth, but it was all just a distant sound to her ears.
There was a sudden, crystal-clear moment of hyper-focus when her eyes drifted to the villains in the back who'd been content to let her current opponent toy with her. The three of them were subtly shifting, adjusting their positions to allow them all to come at her at once. A chase, something in her mind registered, sending another rush of adrenaline pumping fierce and strong. Run.
Kimi turned, almost slipping on the pool of blood from the slain villain that had spread to her feet. She was backed against a downwards flight of stairs, and it wasn't rational thought that had her leaping down the whole flight.
Her heart was a monster, trying to claw out of her chest as the wind rushed by her. A ragged yelp burst from her lips and Kimi landed stiffly, both legs twisting at awkward angles. Blinding pain ricocheted through her knees. She wanted to collapse and bury her head in her arms and maybe everything would go away, she wanted her cheek to stop hurting and her tooth to grow back and she wanted to go home.
Her wishing energy, which she realized had been obeying her subconscious want to dull the pain, wasn't strong enough for any of those wishes and grew conflicted at all the orders at once, resulting in it spluttering and coming dangerously close to going out.
Kimiko hadn't realized how much she was actually hurting until the force dulling the pain went out. She'd spent a little bit of wish energy of each of her emotion-induced whims, committing to none and achieving nothing until the energy was practically all gone.
One wish left.
And it wasn't until she saw the woman of the group stalking towards her like a predator, dual pistols in her hands, that she knew what she wanted.
BANG. The air rippled with movement, her eyes barely tracking a bullet shooting past her ear. The blinding need for shelter sent her scrambling forwards, each of her clumsy steps shooting a flash of pain up her legs and into her hip. The narrow walls of the corridor pressed against her mind, suffocating, and she damned it all and ran.
…And almost barreled straight into a wall in her haste. She turned on her heel, heart pounding harder with every microsecond it took for her to swivel and change directions. Left path or the right- it didn't really matter as long as she moved.
Left it was, and it led to what appeared to be a kitchen. She ducked behind the counter, just before the shooting began. Another of the villains, on all fours with long canine fangs bared, prowled towards her, slow enough for the woman to be able to adjust her shooting around him.
She didn't dare risk a glance, but she assumed the final villain was behind the woman shooting from the doorframe. It was all in line, and there was no room for doubt or hesitation. The knife fell from her fingers.
I want a gun.
A small pistol materialized and Kimiko gripped it with the same intensity she was using to cling to life. The dog-villain rounded the corner of the counter and she fired, some miracle from the gods allowing her bullet to fly straight and land. The recoil sent the gun slamming backwards into her nose, blood gushing out in the next moment.
It looks a lot easier in the movies, Kimi thought with a giggle, thoroughly hysterical with fear and adrenaline and hope. The dog-villain was no dedicated killer and was perfectly content to retreat and lick his wounds, probably along with the rocket-arm villain upstairs.
Before the other two could catch on, Kimiko blindly sprung straight into the line of fire, her chin tucked against her collarbone to protect her neck and an arm covering as much of her vital organs as possible.
A string of rapid shots fired and missed, though couldn't track where they'd landed. Then her luck ran out and a bullet lodged itself firmly in her shoulder; white fire lit aflame on her nerves, hot enough for her to choke on her own screaming.
There was a moment of respite where the woman had to reload, and the other villain stepped in front of her, dark tousled hair falling from his eyes as he shoved the woman away from the doorframe and clapped.
The explosion of sound caused her eyes to squeeze shut and her hands to go to her ears on instinct. When she removed them, there was something warm and wet on her hands but it didn't matter as long as she could still hold a gun.
Kimi fired, her hold on the pistol stronger in anticipation of the recoil. It gave a jerk, the bullet missing its target entirely, and her disorientation had her firing thrice more before one of them landed.
Before she could see just what became of the sound-villain, Kimi was charging forward and had a gun pressed to the female-villain's stomach.
"Don't move or I blow your insides out." She snarled, desperation turning her voice feral. Her shoulder was burning, her cheek was screaming, and there was nothing in her world but pain, pain, and more brilliantly agonizing pain.
The woman said something pleading, but Kimi's ears were still ringing from the blast of sound. And it didn't matter what was said, because she'd always planned to pull the trigger anyways. Villains were liars, they were liars, and they were going to kill her no matter what.
And Kimi wasn't going to die, so she would.
Blood and guts exploded everywhere, a piece of flesh landing smack-dab into her face with a sickening squelch. Red sprayed everywhere, staining her world a brilliant vermillion. Kimi screamed, her stomach heaving, but the fear coursing through her kept her running and running until she was out of this god-forsaken place.
She breathed in the air of the outside world like she was drowning; she gulped it down, drinking it in as if she would never get to again. Then she kept running, throwing her small body forwards until she found something, somewhere, and her heart was wishing, wishing hard for someone, anyone except those thrice-damned villains.
But there was no one.
Just Kimi.
She didn't get far before finally passing out.