A/N: Hi! I didn't realize how much I enjoyed writing Kiriha. This is for the non-flash bingo number 597 - item: Blue Xros Loader. Thanks for dropping by soon.
Out of the Muck
When his parents died, Kiriha was sent to live with his grandfather. They had nothing left, barely even the clothes on their backs. How could he welcome children without pride onto his doorstep?
Yet, his grandfather wasn't anything like his own son, and it often made Kiriha wonder where his father had come from with his endless frowns and whiplike words. He, in his grieving confusion, had been the only one of his brothers fool enough to ask.
The man had laughed. "He spent too much time with his books and his fists and not enough being hit over the head. Success tasted too good for him, lad. When you got the fruit, it was bitter with age."
His brothers had all shaken their heads as one at him, at the emotional brother with weak hands. Kiriha practiced his glare on each and every one of them, but it was no use. They were too used to his tears, too fond of kicking him like a deflated soccer ball in their way.
Kiriha spent more time in the library during those three years than he had during the first ten. He drew on his bedroom walls, images of blue fire and soaring dragons.
Every day became a war.
The bullies picked on him again. At first, he had ignored them. Then, because one just wouldn't shut up about his mother, like he was being original or something, he decked them. They hit the desk and started to scream. He probably had a broken nose.
Look Dad, Kiriha thought. Look how strong I am.
He was studying business law when he heard the voice. It was deep, like a man had swallowed gravel or smoked more cigarettes in one day than Kiriha ever planned to in his life. It annoyed him at first, and he paid it no mind.
Then it invited him to take a way out.
His brothers had been fighting for the company, even though it was supposed to be his, even though his father had said he was to claim it. He had no clue how to, of course. Clearly, his father's methods hadn't worked, or this wouldn't be a problem in the first place.
Maybe he just needed experience fighting. Maybe he needed to be stronger.
Well, of course he needed to be stronger.
So he listened to the voice and took the device so close to his fingers. It was warm, warm and an almost comforting shade of blue.
Blue like his old bedroom walls.
It had been so easy at the beginning. It was almost atrociously easy. Minions were stupid enough to fall all over him, and Code Crowns were aplenty.
The Bagra Army was the most interesting part of the set up, but they hid like enemies in a shooter game. Their leader had spoken to him once or twice, then for reasons he didn't know, left him alone.
Hmph. Did he consider him weak?
Impossible.
He wasn't weak anymore. He'd abandoned everything unnecessary. He wasn't weak anymore. He couldn't be.
Kiriha had seen so much red in his life. It had dripped from his nose, from his mother's mouth, from the wreckage of the accident. So much, so much red. It was hard to eat it sometimes.
So of course, in the irony of the universe, the person who he could use the best, who had the most potential, was colored red.
He also apparently defied the natural universe and not only gave him the metaphorical middle finger but survived it.
Damn. Damn Taiki. Damn the color red.
Well. Now he really needed to get stronger.
He was going to dye that boy blue.