Kill la Kill: Again
Chapter Seven
"Let's see if you survive first," Ryuko mused as tendrils of fabric from her gown fanned out.
Sanageyama planted his right foot and shook his head." Try me," he flashed forward, running along the ground yet to draw his blade. His gray eyes were focused but they saw everything. The pigeon that flew outside of the window. The light overhead that flickered as one of the tendrils of fabric blocked it out. The dozens of mannequins that sat to the far side of the room. Ryuko Matoi's face, which looked at him with glee at what was to come. It was all at once and all at once processed.
One long strand of her gown came slashing down, carving against the carpet as he closed the distance. Splinters of fabric flung into the air as it closed the distance. The split-second it was taking him to move forward compromised by the Life Fibers that came his way. At the last second, he seemed to sidestep, his right foot pushing off again and giving him distance as the cloth was to intercept.
The scabbard at his side let loose a light and a slashing sound followed. The cloth was sent screaming from its attachment as he ground to a halt in front of Ryuko. Her blue eyes followed the motion down, her tendrils of fabric tying in among themselves as Sanageyama looked up to her. Their eyes met in a second and his hand moved, twice, one to raise the blade and the other to sheathe it.
A line of green light lashed up from Ryuko's shoes up to her face, the window behind her shattering into minute particles. A blast of air followed throwing papers from her desk and throwing several of the mannequins about the room. Her dark hair whipped around in the same shattering. "Kote!" he spoke with a huff his gray eyes meeting Ryuko's which seemed to be frozen in the moment of the strike.
Then, the frozen gaze loosened, and a crooked smile appeared on her face. "Isn't that cute, holding onto that sword after all of these years. I doubt you knew what was coming, but knowing a loser like you, it was probably for the coolness factor, wasn't it?" Ryuko laughed mockingly, her attire remaining untouched from the attack.
'Of course, a quick attack wouldn't do anything,' he looked up, as Ryuko let loose with her rebuttal, a swift kick directed at his face.
His eyes, which could see everything, gave him the split second he needed. Her heel pushed just over his head as he ducked closer to the ground, the carpet beneath his feet spinning around as he planted a palm to the ground. The kick whipped over his head, and he pushed upward again, right hand bearing a screaming blade that once more pushed toward the CEO.
Ryuko's leg hooked back, and she rolled away from the attack, the blade's edge narrowly missing her hair as she pulled to a stop. Her right knee then came toward Sanageyama's core. In that same second, he rolled out of the way of the attack, his gray eyes tracing the movement only narrowly.
As he replanted his feet, several strands of cloth spun out from Ryuko's attire attacking from all edges like daggers. Off balance as he was, he still managed to spin about and slash with the Tailor's Blade. The strips of cloth split into a rain of crimson fibers as green light ripped them to ribbons. A casting gale of wind throwing them back at Ryuko, who smiled at him yet again with the same morbid curiosity she had since he entered.
"MEN!" he leapt across their gap; blade drawn overhead. It came slashing down, tearing a light free and releasing a rain of sparks as it cut toward her. Ryuko's head weaved back, and her body followed almost unnaturally fast. The edge missing her and meeting the ground at her feet.
"DOU!" Sanageyama pushed off the point of his blade and brought his left leg around for a kick. Ryuko sidestepped it and went for a slash with her open hand, attempting to grab his face. His bladed weapon suddenly flashed up to meet it.
The blade bit into the skin and threw Ryuko's arm skyward, a faint stream of crimson following while he planted his feat. His upper body weaved about, and the blade tightly grasped in his hand came in from the right. The light along it gleamed out while reaching for her side, which seemed vulnerable and open.
"KOTE!" it slashed out and found purchase, against Ryuko's palm. The room swept in the whirling motion sending further files and mannequins flying about in a cyclonic burst of force. Yet Ryuko stood stalwart in the chaos without a hint of concern for the blood pouring from her left wrist.
"MEN!" he pulled the blade around and spun, rotating fully to bring the weapon toward Ryuko's neck. Her head though was no longer there, the weapon passing through was appeared and disappeared as an afterimage.
His feet touched the ground a moment later and a hand came shooting for his face. his gray eyes darted before finding the source, and he parried it using the back end of the blade. Blood ran down Ryuko's right arm as Sanageyama pushed against it, using the movement to create needed space for a moment. He slid down with the blade still in hand and tried to hastily reposition.
"DOU!" he pushed onward using the distance for a swift stroke of the weapon's gleaming edge. Ryuko's left foot spun out and the heel of her shoe kit the blade head on. A green flash running along her leg before dispersing in a burst of wind that just ruffled the gown slightly.
"Same three words, huh? Can't expand your vocabulary in ten years, Sanageyama?" she taunted bringing her left leg down and driving the tip of the blade into the ground.
Uzu felt his body lurch down with the movement and followed it to maintain control of his blade. "No, if something works you keep doing it Matoi!"
His arms pulled up pushing the blade hard against her heel. Ryuko's body was thrown from the ground with that motion being cast into the air with a sudden look of surprise that crossed her face. "And those three words are all it takes to beat you! MEN!" a slash carved across Ryuko's back, sending a spray of blood flying as the upward strike sent her toward the ceiling.
Before she could correct, Sanageyama was there. His gray eyes traced down her entire body and he spun about. A green sheen exploding out from his body as the blade carved down her torso. "DOU!" the desk, the floor, the opposite wall where the door was. They all split sending splinters, pebbles, and all manner of debris into the air in a violent cloud.
Ryuko's torn gown blossomed with her geyser of crimson blood as the wound appeared along her nose and forehead spreading further. Her blue eyes watching as Sanageyama dropped down with an overhead strike. "KOTE!"
The ceiling from the door to the window and from the windows to the center of the room, shone with green light which carved into Ryuko's body in a final strike. Sanageyama landed as the light continued to shine as his foe's body floated in suspended gravity. The blade, the Tailor's Blade, being spun around and sheathed in the same second as the light revealed a deep gash across the entire room. Ryuko's body sending blood shooting about as she crashed into the remnants of her desk with a thud.
As he waited and prepared to turn on his heel, he saw it. Ryuko's body seemingly lift itself up from the destroyed desk, blood running from every wound in a violent geyser as she slouched forward. 'Now,' he thought rushing toward her.
The geysers of blood in the moment of his approach, disappeared her flesh stitching itself together without a seam. Another part of a second passed and her gown too was beginning to piece itself together, restitching unharmed. The flayed skin on her forearm folded back neatly, perfectly. Her bleeding brow closed unnaturally as she raised her head to face him with a manic glare.
His all-seeing gray eyes locked onto her; the blade being brought down overhead. The motion was swift and controlled, he had practiced this strike hundreds of thousands of times. If not anticipating this moment, just anticipating the need of an attack that many would think impossible. The air about his split, a vacuous pull following as if air was being sucked with the downward swing.
It met Ryuko, as she straightened. A carving of light raced down her torso and beyond her, causing her eyes to shake violently in surprise. Then, as the blade was about to hit the ground, Sanageyama stopped it. His hands flipped it expertly, the same instant it had left her flesh before bringing it upward. An attack like that capable of cutting a sparrow in twain in the midst of its flight ripped upward.
"It's over Matoi!" he roared, carving the blade back through where it had left, parting fibers at a slightly different angle as the initial attack.
燕返し TSUBAME GAESHI
As the skyward blade reached the end of its arc, blood flashed from its edge and Ryuko's body was torn seemingly in twain. A swirling of air holding her upright as Sanageyama turned around and brough the blade around to return it to its sheath.
"Like I said, I'll send my condolences to Satsuki," the blade slid into place with the click as the raging winds behind him came to a halt.
"anD WhY woulD YoU do that?" Ryuko's voice echoed behind his distorted partially with a choking sound of blood. Before normalizing toward the end, after a wet splashing sound of blood spilling to meet the ground. "I'm not dead yet, but that wasn't a halt bad attempt," Ryuko chuckled the sound of flesh stitching back together echoing in the air.
Sanageyama could see it, his all-seeing eyes allowing that. The bisected Ryuko's torso, having pulled itself together in monstrous display threads having bound it back as swift as he had cut it. Her bisected face being pulled together and seamlessly merged like Ragyo had done after losing her head. Her blood-stained clothes becoming spotless as the Life Fibers within purified and her wounds disappearing fully as she straightened up.
"This is what it comes to," Sanageyama's hand reached back across his body for the blade. A fan of fabric exploding from her gown to reach out and attack him. "Try to stop this."
His body swirled, the edge of the sword cutting the nearest cloth in halt. He then leaned left and carved right, slashing two more into ribbons before pivoting and drawing an upward swing into the next piece. He charged in as more filled the space, carving through them to close the mere ten-foot gap between himself and the monster once more. Each swing precise and focused on bifurcating the Life Fibers with great efficacy.
What he was not expecting was Ryuko slugging him in the face with a right hand. It crashed into his core and sent him shooting backward, a pain rushing through his entire nervous system. As he went to plant his feet she was there again, his eyes only catching the faintest glimpse of an afterimage fading before she appeared to punch him into the floor with a blow to the head.
His forehead smashed against it and tiles across the entire upper floor shook, a crack spreading out as he rebounded up. Ryuko's left foot swung around next to meet his cheek, riding it up and throwing him into an adjoining wall. His shoulder struck it and caved it in, the rebound sending him sliding back into the middle of the room where Ryuko slapped him across the face with her backhand, standing him up.
"I see all of you moves," Ryuko commented as he stumbled backward, nearly to the door he had crashed through.
Sanageyama planted his feet and shook his head, the trickle of blood running down his nose dropping to the floor. 'I need to pick up the pace, this rooms to limiting for anything too big, but if I go full speed ahead, I can try to get her again,' he huffed before grabbing the blade and charging forward, almost blurring away as he hugged the ground.
"Like that'll work," Ryuko said from atop him, even though he surely vanished from sight. Her left hand hammering down on his head for a thunderous punch.
His knees buckled and he fell to a kneel, a gasp freezing in his throat as his eyes watered. "No matter how fast you go, you're still just a human."
"Tell me how you really feel Matoi!" he pressed up aiming the blade for her chin.
It missed as she sidestepped, her elbow hammering into his nose and throwing his head back. Blood followed in streams as he was sent hurtling backward in a tumble that once more left him prone on the ground.
"You're better than Gamagori was, but that doesn't surprise me. You were always the best fighter out of the bunch," Ryuko walked forward. A red line of thread left her pinkie finger coiling outward and gunning for her downed prey.
The Tailor's Blade cleaved it in half as he wobbled forward, blood running from his face. "I can see that from a mile away. You're going to have to kill, I'm not going to be a puppet!" Sanageyama fell forward, the blade acting as a crutch.
"Yeah, that's what I was thinkin'. You're a good sword, but like, if I just get rid of you, you can't even think of stopping what I'm doing," Ryuko gestured, her more natural tone sneaking through the sadistic façade, her index finger scratching her cheek.
"Not that you could stop me, hell you couldn't beat me when you had a Goku Uniform," she continued to think.
'She's really toying with me,' he grimaced picking himself up and spinning the blade around to hold it forward. His knees buckled and he stumbled forward ever so slightly.
"But at the same time, no reason to be surprised. I had-" she paused her eyes growing large for a second. A wave of pain? remembrance? remorse? pushing over her senses. "Senketsu," she finished, her shoulders slumping forward and gasps for air escaping.
Uzu acknowledging the opening pressed forward, blade in hand. 'An opening!' the blade came swinging inches from her face.
Ryuko weaved back from the attack though and planted her foot. "Sanageyama?! Wait, I'm back here?" she looked around only briefly as he came to a stop.
"Die!" he spun back around with the edge of his weapon.
Her eyes focused back to the former Athletic Committee Chair, and she grabbed the tip of the blade between her fingers, as if holding a piece of paper. "Would you go back to sleep? I'm busy getting on with our purpose!" she shouted with a menacing grin crossing her face.
"Must be tiring, eh Sanageyama!" Ryuko pulled her hand back to headbutt her opposition in the face.
Uzu's head snapped backward, and he stumbled, the blade he had held being flung across the room. As his back met the ground the blade cut through one of the mannequins that remained from their clash. He ground his teeth together at the sight while trying to focus his vision once more as a fresh stream of crimson began to flow down from his brow ridge over his eyes.
"Getting rid of you, though, what a waste. You have such a high Life Fiber affinity," Ryuko's hand reached back, and another part of her gown spiraled out into a razor sharp edge.
It plunged down and Sanageyama attempted to react to it. His body moving ever so slightly to the side before it cut into his right side and pinned him to the ground. Blood spinning from the wound and puddling out into the floor in a deep crimson. "Gah!" he wheezed, tears leaving his eyes as pain coursed over his entire body. His muscles shooting with great pain.
"So, how about I just feed you to them, as a battery," a second tendril of fabric unwound from his dress. Its edge sharpening as the last one had. It reared back like a snake readying to strike its prey while she looked down at him bleeding out.
Sanageyama's right hand reached around into his jacket pocket, pulling out something to hide within his palm. "Do your worst to me Matoi," he spat, literally and figuratively, as fresh crimson continued to streak out of him.
"Glad to see you've learned your place," she snickered sending the tendril driving downward.
Uzu's right hand raised, a connected bandolier of five confetti poppers resting along it. Each one was adorned with a member of Jakuzure's band Twelfth Overture, and the sizzle of gunpowder with in each suddenly snapped to life followed by the sound of popper. A barrage of cloth and string being sent into the air with a distracting pop and burst of noise.
The tendril struck beside him in the aftermath, and he cracked a smile. "Gotcha!" his legs swept out taking Ryuko's vertical base.
She tumbled through the air, surprising and covered in confetti. Quickly that shook and she planted her hand to land with grace and poise, only to find Sanageyama back to his feet as well. "Didn't think a trick like that would work on you," he mused, through bloodied teeth, his right side being positioned away from her, while continuing its river of crimson.
"But it put us back on even footing, whatever that's worth," he admitted while raising his left arm defensively. 'The sword's all the way over there...I can't get it before she gets me. I put myself into a corner here,' he grimaced as Ryuko brushed the confetti from herself.
Ryuko rolled her neck and started forward, hand balling tightly. "I'm just going to put you down now. No more tricks or any of that."
"You've ruined my office, destroyed three new designs, and really got me good once."
She continued to close the distance and Sanageyama lowered his head accepting his fate, his eyes closing. 'Damn, I had her right where I wanted her, and I still couldn't do it. She was playing with me the whole time. This sucks. I waltzed in with the same issue I had when she first beat me, I trusted in my own abilities too much while understating hers,' he grimaced.
'Under the same circumstances, this would be my loss,' he huffed, lowering his shoulders.
Then, the sound of helicopter began to echo from the open gap at the window. 'There is a difference though, I have help,' he smiled as it caught Ryuko's attention.
He then dashed, with whatever energy he had yet beside her, noticing her undivided attention was on the helicopter. "Where are you running?" she turned throwing her leg around in an attempt to meet his face.
"Sorry, Matoi, there'll be a round two!" Sanageyama ducked it and slid on his knees to avoid it, before bucking up to his feet.
"Less banter, monkey!" Nonon shouted, throwing her hand out from the side of the helicopter to meet his.
"I didn't even expect you," Ryuko ran to follow.
"No one ever does!" she winked, as Sanageyama grabbed hold, the helicopter pulling away.
She pulled him into the helicopter and the door was shut automatically, the Hand of Evolution that was Ryuko looking out as it flew from the side of her building.
"Persistent, aren't they? It doesn't matter, I can have them dispatched later," Ryuko looked around the room with a sigh.
Almost instantly, Amu appeared, her silver haired side ponytail dangling as she cocked her head. "Lady Ryuko, should we call the authorities?" she asked as the helicopter left.
"No, that's pointless," Ryuko turned from the window looking back at her destroyed office.
"Really?" the young woman questioned tilting her head to the side
"Yes, I assume you finished our new security guard's uniform?" Ryuko replied with a raised brow and devilish smile.
"Yep," Amu nodded assuredly.
Ryuko smiled. "As expected of the Grand Couturier. We will not have to deal with them anymore."
"And Lady Satsuki? They might tell her."
"Satsuki, we will deal with if she comes."
Inside the helicopter...
"How'd the concert go?" Sanageyama asked, his blood-soaked coat being cut off by an attendant onboard.
"You big idiot, I almost didn't make it in time," Jakuzure huffed, looking aside with a scowl.
"But you did, thanks Jakuzure," he wheezed, feeling his shirt being cut off.
"So, what's the next move? You couldn't beat her," the pink haired woman commented, the doctor beginning to treat the wound.
Sanageyama's grey eyes locked onto hers and he cracked a smile. "You call Satsuki. I think I found a weakness."
"And Satsuki can exploit that?"
Sanageyama just gave a smile in response before falling unconscious, head reeling back.
Counterattack or scouting mission? It appears to be both in regard to Uzu Sanageyama, but without the Tailor's sword what could possibly be done to defeat Ryuko Matoi in her current state?
Thanks for reading and tuning in, I hope you guys stay safe and healthy out there, until next time,
~Dan