There were only three rules, all of which had to be learned the hard way. Rule #1: Fights do not have time limits. Rounds only end when one or both fighters are no longer able to continue. Rule #2: If both fighters are still breathing by this point, then the round is considered a draw. And, finally, Rule #3: There are no draws.
The links of the chain fence rattled as he slammed into it roughly, a sound like twisting metal rising over the roar of the crowd. The coolness of the steel sharply contrasted with the heat rising from Kirishima's bare back and arms, and under any other circumstances, it might have been relieving. But not now, not scraping against the harsh edges of his hardened skin. Not with the steel sharply grinding into the fresh bruises that hadn't even turned color yet - his ears filled with the sounds of his racing heartbeat, ragged breaths whistling past his pointed teeth, and the ruckus of an angry audience. The atmosphere was electric, fuel for the fire that would burn until a winner rose from the ashes.
He didn't remember how the match came to an end. Sometimes that happened, but mostly that was a rare occurrence. On some even rarer occasions, Kirishima wouldn't regain awareness until he was back in his hold, back with the other "recruits" in their little cell. That wasn't the case this time - and it really was a shame. His opponent, a massive brute of a man, had been a formidable fighter, worthy of being remembered. It wasn't up to Kirishima, though. He couldn't control what his brain chose to keep. But, as always, there were the bits of random details that stuck in his mind, like photographs of a crime scene: wild pale hair, fists wearing fingerless gloves, and a burst of crimson.
With a soft yank and a small shuck sound, his thumb came free from his opponent's eye socket, dripping with blood and plasma. The deafening roar of the crowd was muted by the screech of an air horn, signaling the end of the fight and Kirishima the winner. Out of breath and completely drained of strength, Kirishima sat back and gasped. His hair fell in front of his eyes, the black roots tipped with fiery red the only indicator that time had gone by.
A hand grabbed him roughly by the shoulder, and Kirishima was dragged off of his opponent's body. His handler - a bulky man that everybody called Cozin - dragged him out of the caged arena and back down the dank tunnel of the underground circuit. The man's quirk made him ideal for handling aggressive fighters - submission; with a single touch, he could quell the will and spirit from a person, rendering them into a cooperative zombie-like state. Kirishima had a working theory that the memory blanks were due to being over exposed to this power. It was better than admitting that his mind just couldn't handle the truth. Shoving him roughly, Kirishima stumbled into the holding cell, tripping over the legs of the other recruits. They hissed and spat at him angrily, trained just like him to start fights whenever possible. But he blocked them out, unconcerned with their threats, and cast a look over his shoulder as Cozin shut the heavy iron door.
Creeping up to the small barred window, Kirishima peered up through the ombre strands of his hair and leaned against the cold metal.
"You promised me a better fight," he said lowly, his raspy voice thrumming through the air. "But that wasn't it."
Cozin crossed his arms and sighed. "I don't know what to tell you, kid. Rappa was one of the best electives in the circuit. I thought for sure he would take you down."
Electives: people who voluntarily stepped into the rings to fight. The opposite of recruits.
"A damn elective isn't going to cut it," Kirishima spat. "This is just some game to them. They have no respect."
Cozin cocked an eyebrow at the boy. "For a guy who hates electives so much, you're well on your way to becoming one."
Scoffing, Kirishima turned away and began picking his way through the other recruits to his own corner that he had had to fight to keep. But Cozin's voice rumbled from beyond the steel door after him, his words chilling.
"You know what they're calling you, don't you?" Kirishima could hear the smile in his voice. "The spectators and contributors have a special name for you, boy. They're calling you the Red Death."
Kirishima curled his lips back in a snarl, hands clenching into fists. The hardened tips of his fingers scraped across the jagged surface of his palm. Cozin loved to do this - to remind him that he was nothing more than a novelty to entertain the crowds. To them, the featureless faces beyond the arena, he wasn't a fifteen year old boy with goals and dreams. He wasn't an aspiring hero, a teenager with friends, or his mother's son. Sometimes, when Kirishima was alone with his thoughts, he forgot about those things, too. The pure irony of the name was not lost on the boy. It seemed as if the universe was trying to spit in his eye after beating him bloody.
"Don't worry, boy." He could hear the smile in Cozin's voice. "I've got something special in store for you. You'll get what you want soon enough."
There was a loud clang as the man slammed the hatch on the barred window roughly and cast the recruits into darkness. The resounding echo was just loud enough to let the handler's fading laughter be heard over the din. Kirishima stood hunched in the cell, frustration making his fists tremble. His body, battered and beaten as it was, hardened once again. There were no punching bags in this cell, not like the one made out of leather and sand that he had back home to take his frustrations out on. No safe and acceptable way for him to let out his anger. But they were way past the point of "safe and acceptable", and Kirishima had learned that anything could be a punching bag with the right attitude.
Lashing out with his boot, the poor recruit sitting against the wall didn't have any hope of reacting in time as Kirishima's heel caught him square in the corner of the jaw. The other recruit - a younger boy - hit the cell floor hard, blood spurting out of his mouth as well as the mangled tip of his tongue. Kirishima pounced on him, the stiff strands of his hair clacking against his forehead, the raised scars on his skin grinding audibly. Grabbing the kid by the shoulder, Kirishima shoved him to the side, rolling him onto his back and exposing his face and neck to the air. Blood was dripping heavily from the boy's lips, and though he was too stunned to cry out, his eyes were filled with tears. The kid looked up at Kirishima with a mixture of hate and fear. His eyes were so wide and shiny that Kirishima could see his reflection within them, even with the scarce light.
His raised fist froze in the air. The boy didn't dare move beneath him, though he did cough around the blood welling up in his mouth, splattering it against his own neck and chest. But the boy didn't dare take his eyes off of Kirishima. How he must look to this kid, Kirishima thought, with a mouth full of sharp teeth and eyes full of rage, with dark hair that was tipped with crimson and bruises that were starting to turn purple. He probably looked like a monster. This wasn't fair, what he was doing, and he would get no satisfaction in the end.
Huffing a sigh and deciding that his anger was just going to have to deal with it, Kirishima moved off of the poor boy and reached underneath his tattered skirt into his pocket, allowing his skin to soften once more. The boy remained on his back, paralyzed with pain. He still did not cry out. The boy watched through teary eyes as Kirishima pulled a ratty bit of white cloth out of his pocket. In one quick motion, Kirishima pulled it tight over two of his fingers and jabbed it into the boy's mouth. Eyes going wide, the boy gave a startled grunt and reflexively chomped down on Kirishima's fingers. It didn't hurt.
"Save your teeth for the real fights," Kirishima mumbled, pressing his fingers against the boy's stumped tongue. "Use this to staunch the bleeding."
Yanking his fingers out of the boy's mouth once the rag was crammed in, Kirishima backed away from him, sitting on his heels and wiping his damp fingers on his pants. The kid sat up, eyes squeezed shut as he tried to resist gagging on the rag and blood. Only now did he whimble miserably. This kid must have been fresh, Kirishima realized. Only the newest recruits still had so much defiance. Admittedly, though, he had guts. Wisely, the boy scrambled away from Kirishima as soon as he regained himself, one hand holding the rag against his tongue. Kirishima watched the boy go, a sense of shame lingering. Looking down, Kirishima picked up the gooey blob that used to be the tip of the other recruit's tongue. The kid was never going to be able to talk normally again, all thanks to him.
Guilt allowed him only a moment's pause. Then he opened his mouth and popped the bit of tongue in like candy.
Nothing ever went to waste in the underground circuit - not sweat, not blood, or anything else. The only thing that seemed to run in excess was pain. Kirishima twisted on his butt and leaned back against the wall as he chewed. The quiet of the cell was beginning to return, since Kirishima's little spat had riled some of the other recruits as well. They were all tightly wound coils, ready to spring at the smallest provocation. But they all shared a complicated and sad relationship - despite the insistent need to fight that had been drilled into them, none of them actually wanted to kill each other. Despite the humanity having been beaten out of them, they treated each other with respect… or, at least they tried to. On some days, like today, it was easy to forget that they were all victims of circumstance.
Swallowing, Kirishima rested back against the wall, letting his eyes droop as his body slowed down the way it always did after a fight. Sleep was not a thing that he participated in anymore. You had to be a complete idiot to nap in the cells. But Kirishima could not completely elude exhaustion, so for about twenty minutes he would drop straight into deep slumber. For twenty minutes, he would be dead to the world. For twenty minutes, he could have a semblance of peace. It was those twenty minutes that frightened Kirishima the most.
Sighing through his nose, the boy crossed his arms over his knees and rested his chin on top. The taste of blood was still fresh on his lips, soreness was starting to settle into his bones. His flesh, like stones in a river, settled into a single layer of protective hardness. Maintaining his quirk while only half awake was a technique Kirishima had perfected through many trial and error, and it had saved his life more than once. But while his body rested, his mind continued to run rampant. He was still angry, Cozin's words replaying in his head like a broken record that Kirishima really wanted to break. The blood on his knuckles and thumb had dried, seeping into the cracks and ridges of his jagged skin. Kirishima's eyes lazily traced the reddish-brown rivulets across his hand as jumbled thoughts drifted unbidingly to the front of his mind. A tired mind is a chaotic mind, he mused, but at least it was better than being asleep.
The worst part about all of this was that Kirishima wasn't even supposed to be here. Not in a cosmic, higher-power sense of the idea. It was a simple matter of bumping into the wrong person, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Blame was not an easy thing to assign in this situation, because both he and the villain that snatched him that day had made bad choices. He should not have tried to show off, and they weren't supposed to take prisoners.
The number of times Kirishima had asked himself 'what if?' was just about as many as there were stars in the sky. What if he hadn't split off from Bakugo on that day? What if he hadn't chased after those villains by himself? What if he hadn't been so cocky, and they hadn't jumped him so easily? Countless different scenarios of that incident played through Kirishima's head like episodes of his favorite anime. Surely, if he had just done one little thing different, he wouldn't be in that cell. He could be home, lying in bed and relishing the smell of the detergent his mother used to wash his sheets. Or, he could be dead, like that man with the hands on his body had wanted when his captors presented him. It had been the figure with black smoke shrouding his face that had spared his life, how it would be a waste of potential resources. That's all Kirishima was - a resource. For what exactly, he still didn't know. But it wasn't long after that that he was introduced to the underground culture, and his molding began.
They started by taking his trust. The trainers would attack him without reason, and wouldn't stop until he fought back. Defending himself wasn't enough - the beatings would continue until Kirishima engaged in the fight. Eventually, he picked up the habit of attacking first. After that, the spars wouldn't stop till Kirishima either passed out or won. Everything quickly escalated from there. The first fight in the ring took his innocence. His opponent was a girl, a recruit, and perhaps only a little older than himself… but Kirishima could tell just by looking at her that she had been touring the circuit for a long time. One of her eyes was a milky white, her jaw was lopsided, and her right foot was missing three toes. Try as Kirishima might, he could never remember her name or her quirk, but he would never forget the way she fought. There was no doubt that she had earned her survival the hard way. But even seasoned recruits have their days.
It didn't become apparent to Kirishima why the arenas were caged, why they locked the doors and bolted the exits until that moment that his first match neared its end. That was when he learned the rules.
She had begged him to do it. Kirishima was the only one who had heard her cries.
Not long after that, something strange began to happen. His matches seemed to happen one after the other, all his opponents lined up in a row just waiting for him to… But each time he came out on top, when he was the only one left standing, the audience would go absolutely nuts - cheering and applauding, hands raised in joy. Even Cozin, from his position outside the cage, would flash him a gold-toothed smile and a thumbs up. Kirishima began to feel better. Somehow, through the self-loathing and the constant low of the underground, he had managed to find something that made him feel good. It was intoxicating, like a drug that he could very easily get addicted to. Which is exactly what happened.
Kirishima hated it, and yet he hungered for that thrill.
That was how his humanity had come to be taken from him. Now it seemed like Kirishima could add his name to that list, too.
There was no way for him to keep track of the days as they flew by. For all he knew, years could be rolling past without so much as a second thought to him. In that void, Kirishima wrestled with himself, confused and angered by his own actions. It was one fight that he couldn't win. His identity fluctuated wildly between who he wanted to be and who he was becoming. At some point, Kirishima would have to decide between the two. Until then, he was dangling by his fingertips.
Kirishima's mind faded out of his melancholy as sleep finally pulled him under. Hazy images of all the people he had fought were breaking through the vault of his mind, passing by behind his eyelids like clouds in the sky. And then… older memories came, too, of his brief time at U.A., and the friends that he had made there. Kirishima clung to them, and slipped into sleep with those memories, a broken feeling in his chest, and a cry of longing in his throat.
The boy that Kirishima had attacked returned his rag to him during meal time the following day. His lips were still stained red with blood, and dark circles under his eyes expressed the amount of pain he was still in. But he didn't shed any tears as he stood before Kirishima, glaring at the floor as he held out the rag to him. It took Kirishima a moment to realize what was going on before he reached out to take it back.
The white was completely gone, stained red and brown with blood. Kirishima could always wash it, use the water they were given. When he looked back up to thank the boy, he was already walking away. With a sigh, Kirishima pocketed the rag and finished eating.
All the recruits looked up from their small meals as the metal door screeched open, Cozin's familiar silhouette standing in the light. Without fear, the man stepped into the holding cell. Recruits scattered before him like frightened cats. It didn't escape any of them that they outnumbered the man twenty to one, but that's the strange thing about fear - it can make strength in numbers useless. Cozin's heavy leather boots thudded hollowly against the stone walls, and Kirishima didn't have to look up to know that the handler was coming for him. He was Cozin's prize fighter, after all; the money maker. The boots came to a halt just inside the corner of Kirishima's vision. He kept his head down and didn't move.
"Time to go, Red Death ," the man jeered. "I think I finally found what you've been looking for."
Sighing through his nose, the boy glared up at Cozin through his black and red hair. The man only smirked at him in the way he knew would infuriate Kirishima. In a better world, he would have given anything to wipe that grin off of Cozin's face with his fist. But his world was nothing but anger and pain, and Kirishima was just as scared of Cozin as the other recruits were. Growling deep in his chest, the young man rose to his feet. Cozin clapped a hand on his shoulder. A cooling sensation flooded Kirishima's body, numbing him of thought and emotion. The handler easily lead him out of the cell, the other recruits watching them go. Before the heavy iron door was slammed shut once more, Kirishima barely noticed the concerned eyes of the little boy following after him.
They quickly made their way through the underground circuit, passing other arenas that were bustling with the sounds of harsh cheering and pounding fists. Kirishima liked to believe that he had fought and won in all the arenas in the circuit, but much about the expanse of the underground fighting trade was still unknown to him. He could have been fighting in the same single arena this entire time and simply never realized. As it was, when he and Cozin turned off of the circuit and into the arena's holding area, the surroundings looked exactly the same as they always did. The crowd, however, had never been this large, or this animated. People were shouting, jeering out insults down into the currently empty ring - and Kirishima didn't think they were directed at him.
"What's going on, Cozin?"
Cozin's hand firmly gripped the back of his neck as the two of them slowly walked through the caged tunnel that lead to the ring. "We've got a live one, my boy."
A shoe clanged hard against the chain links above Kirishima's head, and through the numbing haze of Cozin's quirk, he felt a twinge of something from days long passed; concern.
"What are they?" Kirishima spoke quickly. They were coming up on the gate of the ring. "An elective or a recruit?"
"As of this moment, neither."
Cozin's hand on his neck tightened, the man's fingers digging painfully into Kirishima's flesh.
"He doesn't have a handler." Cozin's voice was low, it seemed he was talking mostly to himself. "He's too wild and dangerous. But he definitely isn't stepping into the ring on his own."
Cozin released his grasp on Kirishima, and the boy stumbled as he regained control.
"But you are."
Ice ran over Kirishima's skin, freezing him to the spot right outside the entrance to the ring. Turning his head slowly, the roar of the crowd faded from his ears as the meaning behind Cozin's words sank in. Kirishima understood, but he just couldn't believe it.
"You heard me," Cozin confirmed, snarling at the look on the recruit's face. "No matter which way this match ends, boy, I ain't gonna be your handler no more. It doesn't matter whether you live or die." Cozin jabbed a finger at Kirishima. "But you are going to be the one who puts yourself in the arena tonight. Not me."
There it was, neatly spelled out for Kirishima, and he still couldn't believe his ears. After all this time, all the fighting and death, Cozin was offering him his freedom - but at a terrible price. Choosing to kill someone of his own volition should have scared Kirishima more than it did, should have been a harder decision to grapple with than it was. But, with the stakes being what they were, they young fighter only hesitated for a few moments before turning back to the ring. He took one step forward, and then another. If Kirishima won, then he would be free to leave. If he lost… then, in a way he would still be free. His opponent's life seemed a small price to bid for that chance. Besides, after the number of lives that Kirishima had taken to last this long, one more didn't seem like too much to ask.
Kirishima was standing in the ring before he had fully made his decision, his feet having carried him there on their own accord. But the gate closed behind him with a loud clang before he could change his mind. There was no turning back now.
From across the arena, a concussive boom made the chain links rattle. There was shouting and yelling, and people in the audience were intently watching something go down that Kirishima couldn't see. Body instinctively moving into a fighting stance, he watched as the eyes of the spectators shifted closer and closer to the ring. More booms shook the air, and now the light of fire accompanied the bursts within the darkness beyond the arena. Familiarity hit Kirishima like a bus, but it wasn't until that voice cracked through the air like an explosion that the terror quickly settled like a knife in his heart.
"Get your hands off me, you bastards!"
The gates in front of Kirishima opened wide like a mouth to hell. On the other side, a gaggle of thugs were struggling and wrestling to control somebody with a hood on their head. They were burnt and smoldering and angry, but not nearly as angry as the person they fought to maintain. For a moment, Kirishima dared to hope that this might just turn out to be the biggest coincidence in the universe. For a moment, Kirishima actually believed that life couldn't possibly drop to that level of cruelty.
In one swift motion, the brutes yanked the hood off of his head and shoved him into the ring. His opponent hit the ground hard, rolling across the dusty ring. The audience cheered as the gates quickly clanged shut, officially closing them in. Only one person was going to leave. Kirishima watched as he scrambled to his feet, too shocked to say anything. His clothes were torn from the struggle, wrists and shoulders red from where he had been manhandled. There was a wound on the side of his head, but the blood had already dried. There was no mistaking the pale hair, the posture of his body, or the redness of his eyes when he spun around and looked into Kirishima's soul.
"Bakugo?"
He blinked, eyebrows scrunched together in confusion. His old friend didn't even recognize him anymore. But Kirishima couldn't really blame him: different hair, and a new body covered in scars and bruises. He was a far cry from the young man that Bakugo last saw. Could it really have been so long? Bakugo looked exactly the same as he had on the day that Kirishima was taken - aggression and muscles all accounted for. For a moment longer, Bakugo stared at Kirishima like he was trying to solve a puzzle. Then his eyes widened as familiarity sparked within him, and the other boy was suddenly moving closer.
"Holy shit," Bakugo breathed as he reached a hand up.
On impulse, Kirishima backed up, matching Bakugo's advance and keeping himself out of attack range. His knuckles hardened into heavy fists before he could help himself, and his body slid into a defensive position as if that were his natural posture. Bakugo stopped, taken aback by the sudden shift in Kirishima. His eyes flickered with apprehension, the same look that one might give to a wild animal. It made Kirishima feel sick to his stomach.
"Look, Kirishima," Bakugo spoke quickly, but kept his distance. "We can sort all of this out later, but right now, we need to get the fuck out of here."
There was no starting bell for when the fighting should begin, no horn or anything that signaled the beginning of the match. Kirishima looked around nervously, to the angry crowd that was jeering them on, wondering why they weren't exchanging blows yet. He didn't want to fight Bakugo, but he feared that something bad might happen to the both of them if they didn't do something. For the first time since his first match, Kirishima had no idea what to do.
"Hey! Are you listening to me?"
Kirishima snapped his head around at Bakugo's voice. The other boy was advancing again. Try as he might to hold his ground, the cool metal of the chain link fence was poking into his back before he knew it. Bakugo continued to press him. Kirishima's instincts were going haywire, screaming at him to make a move, to knock him back. But he couldn't - he wouldn't.
"Get ahold of yourself, Kirishima!" Bakugo commanded - pleaded. "I didn't come this far for you to short circuit on me. Now let's go!"
Kirishima peered up into Bakugo's wide eyes as he cowered against the sturdy fence. The roar of the crowd seemed to melt away, time seemed to move a little slower. The world faded away into the background, leaving only Bakugo and Kirishima - one boy who was neither a recruit nor an elective, and the other who was both.
Of all the things that Kirishima wanted to say to Bakugo - all the things he wished he could have said and all the questions that he needed answers for - there was only one that refused to be pushed aside by his shock. "How long, Bakugo?"
Bakugo jerked back at the question, an eyebrow cocked in confusion. Kirishima took a deep breath.
"How long have I been gone?"
His eyebrows knitted together. "That doesn't matter no-"
"How long?!" Kirishima screamed. Bakugo frowned, and he could see the struggle in his eyes as he wrestled with providing an answer or a lie.
"Eight months," he finally said. "You've been… missing for eight months."
For a long while, Bakugo and Kirishima stared at each other, neither of them daring to move or say anything more. Kirishima's face was blank and unreadable, but his eyes betrayed his shock. A shaky breath finally escaped his lungs as his chin dropped and he broke eye contact with Bakugo. The other boy didn't move or say anything, though he did glance nervously out to the audience beyond the cage that was growing more upset by the moment - they hadn't come here to watch two boys talk, after all.
"Is… is that all?" Kirishima's voice was small, barely loud enough for Bakugo to hear.
Bakugo's features pinched with concern, clearly unsettled. Kirishima snapped his head back up, looking up at Bakugo with tears in his eyes as he smiled manically.
"That's all it takes for me to completely lose myself?" He started laughing, small giggles that he couldn't control. "That's all it takes for me to become this monster? Am I really that pathetic?"
Bakugo gritted his teeth. "You're only pathetic for letting yourself get caught, but I didn't-"
"If it was so easy for me to forget everything that I was," Kirishima stood tall, his hesitation and fear dropping from him like a heavy weight that he had bore for far too long. "Then maybe… this is who I'm supposed to be."
"Will you just shut up and listen?!" Bakugo slapped a hand down on Kirishima's shoulder. "We can talk later, but right now we really need to get out of here!"
Bakugo grunted as Kirishima's fist nailed him solidly in the gut. The force of the punch knocked Bakugo back, sending him skidding across the arena until he stopped and crumpled to the floor. Gagging and coughing around the pain that he was completely unprepared for, Bakugo cursed as the crowd cheered in satisfaction.
"These cages have seen a lot worse than your little explosions, Bakugo." Kirishima approached him, a smile plastered on his face despite the tears rolling down his cheeks. "There's only one way out of here, and I think you know what that is."
"What the hell are you doing?" Bakugo's voice was tight with pain, eyes brimming with confusion as he knelt before Kirishima. "It's me, you dumbass!"
"You're my last one," Kirishima whispered as he stared at Bakugo. Somehow, this seemed right. This was the only way his tour in the underground circuit could end. "You're the key."
The crowd was chanting now, shouting his name like a prayer; Red Death! Red Death! Red Death! Bakugo cast an angry, fearful glare out to the audience. Growling, Bakugo slammed his hands into the ground and threw himself up onto his feet once more.
"Oh for god's sa- fine!" Bakugo flashed his palms, sparks falling from his fingertips. The audience gasped in awe. "If you're not gonna help me, then I'm just gonna beat the shit out of you and drag you outta this hell hole. How does that sound, shitty hair?"
Bakugo's words were tough… but he had tears in his eyes, too. Kirishima huffed a laugh, wiped the wetness from his cheeks, and dropped into a defensive stance.
"You don't seem to understand how things work around here, buddy." Kirishima's lips pulled back from his teeth as his skin hardened, widening his manic smile into a feral grin. "So why don't I explain what the rules are."
A/N: This is the piece I wrote for the BnHA Villain AU Zine! It was a lot of fun to write this, even if it did tear me apart on the inside. Check out their tumblr page bnhavillainauzine and purchase a copy(which is on sale!) to read the other great works and see the amazing art, including a companion art piece to this!
As always, read, review, and enjoy!