Page 1/4 of a coloured comic. There is no dialogue; instead 6 panels depict a slow zoom in from a dreary looking cityscape, to a street view, following Kazuya as he walks with his hand along the wall. He appears to be following a trail of blood. As he turns a corner, a larger blood spatter causes him to pause. The final panel is a closeup of Kazuya, looking pensive, in dark shadow.
Page 2/4. In panels 1&2, Kaiji lies on a bloody stairwell. He is missing one arm and one leg. Kazuya peers down on him. Kazuya says: "So this is as far as you got, is it?"
Panels 3/4 depict Kaiji up close, first with his head down, and then looking up, frustrated. Kazuya continues to speak: "Were you hoping to go and die somewhere out of sight? Or maybe..."
Panel 5 shows Kaiji's eyes full of fire; panel 6 is Kazuya's face from the nose down, looking ominous. He says: "You actually intend to keep on living? I mean, you..."
The remaining 4 panels depict a flashback in muted colours: Kazuya is sitting on a roof, looking down on a commotion. Kaiji is being dragged into the street. Kazuya's father approaches, and is handed a sword. Kazuya watches silently.
Page 3/4. This page is stylized black&white with the only visible colour being in reds. The top half of the page is divided into 4 panels: The first depicts Kazutaka brandishing his sword toward a restrained Kaiji, the whole panel washed in red. The second and third panels depict a succession of events: The swing of his sword and Kaiji's arm falling into a pool of blood. The fourth panel depicts Kaiji in pain.
The fifth panel returns to Kazuya as he watches: Kaiji, missing one arm and one leg, is dragged through the streets and tossed down a flight of stairs. The final panel depicts Kaiji lying in a growing puddle of his own blood at the bottom of the stairs: this is the bloody trail which Kazuya was following from page 1.
Page 4/4. Kaiji leers up at Kazuya from the stairs with exhausted eyes. Kazuya says: "You can still make a mean face like that, huh...scary..."
POV switch to Kazuya: He looks down on Kaiji with an unreadable expression. "Oh...but I think this might be it...too bad..."
POV returns to Kaiji: He is now leaning against the wall, clutching his bleeding arm, his head resting on one of the steps as he glares. Kazuya says: "All that struggle, and it just ends like this..."
The following 3 panels are from Kaiji's eyes, looking up at Kazuya. They depict the same image, fading out of focus. Through the 3 panels, Kazuya speaks: "I think...I'm going to keep you alive. Yeah...you might just be the one that I..."
Two panels depict Kaiji lying unconscious in his own blood. In the second, Kazuya's shoe comes into frame, but the blood amount has increased. The following panel is a close-up of Kazuya grabbing onto Kaiji's good arm, lifting it from the blood. He speaks: "What's that one saying? 'It'll cost you an arm and a leg'...?"
The final panel is all black, with heavy white impact font: "Well, yeah...they're going to cost you."
#boukai #fkmt [CW: gore/severed limbs]
Extremely niche Texhnolyze AU I've been sloooooowly picking at on and off. I'd have written a fic, but I KNOW me, I'd end up locked into a 150k story that'll take 2 years so...instead I locked myself in to a full colour comic
