#i was so salty at ep 15 that i wrote this whole thing in one sitting lol

[yomo715]

Rated: T (slight violence/violence against children)

Word Count: 1662

Read it on ao3

Synopsis: What are morals to one who’s never known about them?

!!!WARNING, SPOILERS AHEAD FOR EP 15!!!

The instant Hyakkimaru puts weight on the leg, it shatters into a thousand pieces. The wood groans and shrieks. It buckles under the strain, and when he attempts a step, his foot caves in on itself. At first, the wooden marrow stops him short of a fall, but a jolting pain shoots up his thigh and throws him off balance. He lands face first in the dirt.

He groans. He still stinks of ghoul, blood, and sweat. The talon mark from the moth isn’t deep, but it still burns and stings and bleeds. Something else is hurting him, too, he notes by the throb of his right shoulder. He forces himself to his knees and the throb spreads down the back of his neck, causing a loud hiss to escape him.

He feels heat stir in his gut, rage boiling his blood. He wants to scream. The anger makes his teeth hurt, makes fire of his flesh and burns at every real bone in his body.

Damn them. Damn the demons. Damn Sabame. Damn them all, straight to hell.

“Bro!” Dororo shouts. Hyakkimaru hears the call, but doesn’t heed it, too absorbed by the pounding of his heartbeat rushing blood through his ears. It’s a strange sound that almost placates him, if not for the accompanying heat that radiates through him all the way to the core.

“Hey, you’re hurt!” Dororo tries again when Hyakkimaru lifts his good knee. “You need to rest.” The little soul grabs at his shoulder, unaware of the injury, and flinches away as Hyakkimaru jolts and gasps at the pain. “Oh, sorry.” Dororo retreats, quiet and apologetic.  

Hyakkimaru is still for the whole of two breaths before forcing himself to a stand. He shakes the whole way, muscles aching. The wooden remains of his prosthetic leg creak and moan, but, after bearing the weight for a few seconds, seem to be holding up well enough.

The same cannot be said for his body. Hyakkimaru was expecting pain, of course, but he hadn’t taken the loss of his foot into account. The peg alone holds him up, but the two or so inches of height lost from the prosthetic has thrown his alignment wildly off balance. He thinks it might be manageable until he takes his first step and nearly plummets right back to the ground.

Damn them!

He almost screams in frustration. How in the world is he supposed to fight the demons like this?

“Are you even listening to me?”

Hyakkimaru blinks, turning back to Dororo. The white soul twitches with agitation.

“I said to stop, stupid!” Dororo hisses.

Hyakkimaru says nothing, but gives his full attention, unnerved by the hostility in Dororo’s tone.

For the next moment it’s quiet. Well, as quiet as it can be with the fires raging behind them. He can feel the heat of the flames on his back, hear the cries of the villagers behind him. A symphony of agony rings in his ears. For some reason, it’s very satisfying to listen to.  

“Are you going to fight the demon?” Dororo’s small voice cuts through the tense atmosphere.

Hyakkimaru feels the pressure of his unaligned hips send a twinge of pain shooting up his spine. He nods.

“Shouldn’t you wait until you’ve healed a little?”

“I’m going.” Hyakkimaru’s voice sounds strained. His throat is parched and dry.

Dororo’s soul twitches, arms raising as if in anger, but he doesn’t speak just yet. He waits until Hyakkimaru has started hobbling away, to which he mutters, “When are you going to stop?”

***

Dororo feels the anger bubble up into his throat, spilling out into his teeth as he hisses the words.

Hyakkimaru stops. He turns to face Dororo again, face as stupidly placid as it always is. He doesn’t speak, because of course he doesn’t, instead waiting for Dororo to give him an explanation.

“Ever since what happened in Daigo, you’ve been like this,” Dororo snaps, clenching his fists. “Fighting and killing demons nonstop.”

Hyakkimaru waits a beat. “So?”

“So?!” The boy steps forward. He practically growls. “What about all the other stuff?!”

“Other stuff?” Hyakkimaru furrows his brow.

“Open your eyes!” Dororo scowls. “Well, not your actual eyes because you can’t see--whatever!! Can’t you hear that?!” Dororo points in the direction of the fire. “There’s a whole town on fire that we started because you’re here to kill the demons! Do you ever stop to think that you might be hurting other people, too?!”

“I don’t care,” Hyakkimaru mutters. His voice feels cold like ice, sending shivers shooting down Dororo’s back.

“What?” Dororo stammers.

“They’re none of my concern.”

Dororo is shocked silent. “None of your concern?” he echoes, voice small and quiet.

“It’s their fault for it,” he adds as if that was a proper justification for genocide.

The ice in Dororo’s core melts, giving way to a blazing heat. “What the hell kind of logic is that?” His voice is gravelly and low. He feels himself walking forward without realizing it, footsteps hardening into stomps as his tone shifts to one of rage. “They’re still human, Hyakkimaru! Even if they did stupid things and made deals with demons, they don’t all deserve to die! Especially the ones who don’t know about it! Do you even know what you’re saying?! Do you even--”

“What about me?” Hyakkimaru interjects, stopping Dororo in his tracks. When Dororo doesn’t answer, he adds, “Did I deserve this?” He waves a hand at his broken body, at all the bruises and blood.

Dororo can’t see souls, but in this moment, he feels like he can see Hyakkimaru’s. He looks past the body and sees the agony, the anger and the pain. He sees that it’s been eaten away almost to the point of nothingness. It’s scarred. It’s hurting.

Suddenly, he wants to cry.

“That’s different,” Dororo tries to protest.

“How?” Hyakkimaru’s voice thickens with emotion, and Dororo thinks he might see a frown trace against his lips.

Dororo can’t think of a good enough answer for him, so he says nothing.

Hyakkimaru turns away. “I don’t care what happens,” he hisses. “They’re the same. All of them.” Dororo just watches as Hyakkimaru shambles towards a tree, cutting at some of the sturdier branches in order to fashion himself a proper crutch.

When he finally connects the dots, Dororo’s dumbfounded. “Is that what all of this is about?” he finds himself whispering.

Hyakkimaru doesn’t miss a beat, beginning to whittle away at a good branch he’d managed to pick.

“Are you going after the demons to get back at your dad?” Dororo furrows his brow.

Hyakkimaru pauses mid-motion of the next slice. The freeze is very short, almost missable, but that’s all it takes for Dororo to get his answer.

The little boy’s eyes widen, feeling a new emotion begin to flit about his stomach. He steps forward, but flinches away from the crunch of splintering wood. Beneath his foot is the carcass of Hyakkimaru’s prosthetic leg. He frowns. “I mean I get it.” He kneels down to pick up one of the bigger pieces, voice hushed and low. “What they did…It’s cruel and unfair to you, so I get it.”

The sounds of whittling stop.

“But that doesn’t mean that what you’re doing is right, either.” Dororo steels himself, gritting his teeth as he faces Hyakkimaru. “You can’t just go around doing what you want all the time. People are getting hurt because of it, and you should care because if you don’t...”

Dororo sees Hyakkimaru’s brow furrow, but before the teen can speak, Dororo stomps his foot down on another shard of broken prosthetic. It snaps with a loud crack, effectively silencing Hyakkimaru. The young boy grimaces, puffing his chest and imagining himself hardening into stone because he knows that the next thing he’s going to say will hurt.  

“If you don’t care about other people, or what happens to them because of what you do, then you’re really no different from Daigo!”

Dororo hasn’t meant to shout, but the pressured heat building behind his eyes is really starting to sting. It’s silent now, but in his mind he’s started screaming because Hyakkimaru’s eyes are wide, mouth agape in stunned silence. The tree branch slips out of his hand and lands in the dirt with a dull thud.

“I’m,” Hyakkimaru starts, voice strained. “I’m different from him.”

“You’re not!” Dororo chokes out a sob.

“I am,” Hyakkimaru denies, voice louder as he starts to hobble toward Dororo. “I am different!”

“You only think about yourself!” Dororo cries, scowling.

“Take it back!”

“No!”

“Take it back!” Hyakkimaru howls, towering over the younger one.  

“I won’t!” Dororo shouts back.

He hasn’t expected Hyakkimaru to go so far as to actually hit him, so he can’t help but cry out in surprise when the teen’s wooden open palm connects with his shoulder. The impact is so strong that it sends the young boy flying. It knocks him into a nearby tree, and a shockwave of pain rips through his torso, stealing his breath away with a loud wheeze.

He can’t stop the onslaught of tears that follow.

Hyakkimaru looks down at him, eyes wide and teeth snarling in raw, beastial rage. Dororo’s only witnessed this expression on him twice before, and knowing that look is now directed at him fills him with ice cold dread.

Dororo can’t look at him anymore. All he can do is hide behind his hands and turn away.

“Brother,” he whimpers. “Brother, please.”

To his relief, it doesn’t escalate beyond that. Dororo hears the clumsy clanking of Hyakkimaru’s prosthetic peg hobbling away, the air thick with tension and hot with emotion. He doesn’t allow himself to catch his breath until he hearts Hyakkimaru start whittling away at the tree branch again.

It falls quiet after that. Hyakkimaru’s gaze is fixed on the branch, pointedly ignoring Dororo.

The younger thinks he should feel offended, but, oddly enough, he just feels numb.

[marshmallowgoop]

What’s your favorite and least favorite episode of kill la kill and why I don’t have a favorite as there’s too many but episode 23 is probably one of my least favorites just too much fighting and not enough substance aside from like one moment that episode and the ova

My favorite episode is hands down episode 5.

Particularly, that scene in the bathroom is legitimately, seriously the reason I gave Kill la Kill a chance at all.

To quote myself:

I hated Kill la Kill before I saw this. The show was little more than absurd, tasteless comedy to me. It was something with absolutely minimal substance, good for a laugh or two, maybe, but not much else.

And my opinion wasn’t totally baseless, either. I’d seen nearly two hours’ worth of the thing when I had this mindset, having sat through the entirety of episodes 1, 2, 4, and 10.

But then I was persuaded to watch episode 5. And then I saw this scene. And I saw this girl protecting someone who loves her so dearly and yet is viewed as utterly invisible—or worse, as a heartless monster. And I was completely, totally taken in, as I saw her hold him so close and swear her life to protect him.

Just like [Guillermo] del Toro and Creature from the Black Lagoon, I found the scene absolutely poetic, heartfelt, and beautiful.

But, really. I love the whole episode. 

It’s stunning from a visual standpoint:

And though I’ve never managed to finish my cinematography essay focused on this ep…

…I did briefly touch on the visual storytelling here in my write-up on DARLING in the FRANXX’s episode 5, which I compared fairly heavily to Kill la Kill’s. And I once wrote a bit about the lighting in the bathroom scene, too.

But mostly, I just have to point to Jex’s excellent forum post on the matter because gosh dang. They put it all much better than I could. Episode 5 of Kill la Kill has some fantastic animation and shot compositions. It’s so good.

And on the narrative level? I just can’t stop gushing about this ep. There isn’t a single other Kill la Kill episode that I yap about as much as this one:

Episode 5 (Eng Dub): “Oh my God, would you quit analyzing me?”

Episode 5: Why Can Tsumugu Hear Senketsu?

Episode 5: “I’m here.”

Episode 5: “But only if we’re together.”

Episode 5 (Eng Dub): Ryuko Calls Senketsu Her Friend

Senketsu: A Sweet Character 

And that’s not even mentioning how much I blab about the manga’s adaptation of this storyline in my manga essays….

Kill la Kill Manga Volume 3, Chapters 8-17: Thoughts and Impressions

Kill la Kill Manga Volume 3: Translation Notes, Anime Differences

But, like, tl;dr, I love sweet monster/human relationships, so. Of course I love this episode. No matter what anyone says, Ryuko decides she wants to be with Senketsu because she loves him and knows he loves her. 

I mean. It’s sweeter than cotton candy drizzled with chocolate syrup, folks. I love it so much.

As for least favorite, well. If we don’t count the OVA (which I’m endlessly salty about), there’s no episode that I super strongly dislike nowadays, but I’ve noted in the past that I’ve probably watched episodes 14, 15, and 23 the least. Kinda for similar reasons that you noted about episode 23; there’s just too much fighting/comedy and not enough drama for my tastes in those eps, so they rank low for me.