Foreword

Strings and Threads is a collection of Kill la Kill short stories I've written over the years. The characters, settings, and scenarios vary from piece to piece, though you might find some common threads, if you will.

Concrit—or just crit, such as, "Present tense is terrible!"—is appreciated. I also accept prompts for future stories.

Story List

Characters are listed from most prominent to least prominent, with the first-listed character typically being the POV character. Any title marked with a * has detailed author's notes/commentary.

1: I want to know - The worst part is the sound. (Isshin, 500 words.)

2: Candy Counter Girl - A three-sentence AU with the prompt, "Ryumako in a candy store." (Mako/Ryuko, 300 words.)

3: Always - "It seems you're back to eating dinner alone." Inspired by Ryuko wearing Senketsu's glove to bed in the manga version of episode 7, "A Loser I Can't Hate." (Ryuko, Senketsu, Mako, 1,000 words.)

4: Snow All the Same - He'd never gotten to see the snow. Inspired by Sushio's 2015 Christmas comic. (Ryuko, Senketsu, 900 words.)

5: Anywhere Else - It sucks being in different Houses, and it sucks even more that the one person in all of Hogwarts who should get where she's coming from never seems to. A short fiction AU with the prompt, "Ryuketsu, Harry Potter AU." (Ryuko/Senketsu, 900 words.)

6: Chichibu-Tama-Kai National Park - Even if it's just for a moment, Soichiro Kiryuin wants to believe he can have it all. (Soichiro, Ryuko, 2,900 words.)

7: Latte - She doesn't expect to see him at the café, but she has time to talk. (Ryuko, ?, 600 words.)

8: I Don't Make Messes I Make Art - It's all so very expected, but she can't find it in her to care. A three-sentence AU with the prompt, "Nui/human!Junketsu, college AU." (Nui/Junketsu, 200 words.)

9: Programmed Love - Maybe Ryuko would have been able to prove her father wrong, if a certain someone didn't get in her way. (Ryuko, Senketsu, 7,200 words.)

10: 310 1 12 - "…the one who would be hurt most of all would be you." (So, who's been around long enough to understand this title?) (Mako, Ryuko, Senketsu, Satsuki, 1,500 words.)

11: Something He Could Never Be - A mermaid with legs is still a mermaid. A robot with a soul is still a robot. All this Ryuko knows. And yet… she's never been more certain in her life that nothing will ever be more warm and loving than that stupid, irritating, worthless smile. (Or, basically the most romantic Ryuketsu-y thing I have ever written. "Sci-fi" AU that's really not very scientific at all.) (Ryuko/Senketsu, 3,300 words.)

12: Cup Curry Rice - Ryuko doesn't care for any of that excessive stuff. Just give her something that does the job, and she's happy. Right? A Mother's Day piece. (Ryuko, Sukuyo, Mako, 2,300 words.)

13: Arms - A three-sentence AU with the prompt, "Ryuketsu, feudal Japan." (Senketsu, Ryuko, 200 words.)

14: nonsense* - You can be anything you want, but always, every time, you choose to be mine. (Senketsu/Ryuko, 2,300 words.)

15: breathe in, breathe out - He barely knew any of 'em, after all, and she was no exception. Still, when he sees her again, he sticks around. (?, Satsuki, 2,300 words.)

16: green apples - Mako was part of the Tennis Club, once. Based on pages 31-37 of "Mako's Story" included in Sushio's SUSHIO CLUB LOVE LOVE KLKL. (Mako, Omiko, 600 words.)

17: Latte 0 - She does expect to see him at the café, but she doesn't have time to talk. A companion piece to Chapter 7, "Latte," though this story can be understood on its own. (?, Ryuko, 1,900 words.)

18: heart hand - But Ragyo Kiryuin is not the villain. (Ragyo, 400 words.)

19: He is Not Her Friend - He is not her friend, but when he catches her disappearing into the woods by his old junior high, he raises an eyebrow. (This has so many references to the Elite Four Light Novel.) (Gamagoori, Ryuko, Mako, 3,700 words.)

20: Go Back - Maybe lies are better. Lies don't hurt. (Ryuko, Senketsu, 1,200 words.)

21: fee - Ryuko makes Senketsu some gameni to eat. (Senketsu, Ryuko, 1,300 words.)

22: can't even remember yesterday - A chance encounter might not really be so "chance" after all, but it's not like he would know. (Senketsu, Ryuko, 1,000 words.)

23: cream and ivory - Satsuki Kiryuin is too late. (Ryuko, ?, 2,000 words.)

24: The Woman with the Rose-Colored Hair - In the grandest city in the world, there lives a girl with rose-colored hair who wishes for nothing more than the heart of the finest lady in the land. (Nonon/Satsuki, 3,000 words.)

25: The Girl Can't Help It - Ryuko already has an older sister. (Satsuki, Ryuko, Mako, 2,500 words.)

26: comfortable* - A trip to the movies becomes something more. (Ryuko, Senketsu, Satsuki, Mako, 11,900 words.)

27: pretend* - But how do you stop pretending? (Satsuki, Ryuko, 1,700 words.)

28: Something He Always Was - Robots aren't really cold at all, are they? A companion piece to chapter 11, "Something He Could Never Be," though this story can be understood on its own. (Ryuko, Senketsu, Satsuki, 2,200 words.)

29: never had - Satsuki and Ryuko talk about grown-up stuff. (Satsuki, Ryuko, 1,700 words.)

30: that's all - There's a girl who wears a yellow chrysanthemum in her hair. (Ryuko, OC, 700 words.)

31: Umi-Kyuuketsuki - Ryuko Matoi hates the sea. A story for Mer-May. (Ryuko, ?, 2,000 words.)

32: leftovers - Ryuko decides to spend the night in her father's old office at Nudist Beach HQ. (Ryuko, Senketsu, Aikuro, 6,000 words.)

33: real life - Ryuko would beat up everyone in Hogwarts if she had to. But it's not really for him. An alternate version of chapter 5, "Anywhere Else." (Ryuko, Senketsu, 1,400 words.)

34: your sound - As though such simple words could convey what the sound means to him. (Senketsu, Ryuko, 1,900 words.)

35: kiss - Ryuko has heard the question before. She's heard it asked many times, across many years, the words spilling from those lips she's come to know well. (Ryuko/Mako, 6,200 words.)

36: four - There have been four years and four cakes but only one wish, and perhaps he has never wished for this wish to come true more than he does now. (Senketsu, Ryuko, 5,800 words.)

37: lots and lots - You are not alone anymore. We all love you, lots and lots. (Ryuko, 500 words.)

I want to know

She's calling for him.

It's an ugly sound. Raw and angry, full of a passion he can't understand and doesn't want to. He would say quite frankly that it's the worst thing he's ever heard, and yet he strains to hear her anyway, blocking out the rapid thumps of his heart beating too loud in his ears and the vicious snarl of the flames as they inch ever closer just so he can make out that damned word she's repeating over and over, the sound pounding into every last fiber of his being.

He gulps in hot air. Well, he imagined he'd go down sooner or later, but never like this. Never so pathetic, unfinished, with a gaping hole in his stomach and his whole life literally collapsing in on him. Right before his eyes—eye—everything's melting and cracking, crumbling to ashes. There goes the wall he had to paint over twenty times back when Ryuko was a toddler, when she always found her way to crayons and pens and anything else that would leave a mark. There goes the kitchen table he spent too much on. There goes the "happy family photo" Kinue urged him to get.

And maybe it's his own selfishness and egotism that leads him to look towards his study, to his desk that's now engulfed in flames, towards his books scattered on the floor, to all the burning bookcases. And maybe it's his own pettiness that in the mess of fire and smoke he can see instead the dusty shelves of his childhood library, can imagine for a moment his tiny hands brushing over the spines of all the books that whisper words of science. Maybe it's his own stupidity that he's still able to think back to then, to sitting in the non-fiction section as sunlight pours over him and he drinks in all that the books say, reading more and more, a whole stack of them beside him as he spends entire afternoons falling into the world of knowledge. The wood creaking, pages crumbling to ash, he's still reaching further and further back, grabbing on to that innocence that was once his, holding on to that youthful curiosity, that childish desire that once sent him wandering the aisles of old, wrinkled novels where he learned that to artists there is a feeling that comes with death, a smell, a taste, a look.

But slumped up against the wall with his life hanging on its last threads, he knows that the worst of it all is the sound. It keeps going, keeps getting worse, breaks out into a mess of sobs and screaming. And as he listens, as he presses a hand to the blood that won't stop flowing, as he turns his failing vision towards their old photograph—to the little girl that won't smile—and as the flames finally reach him, he no longer hears any anger or resentment in that sound, in that name he never deserved, in her desperate cries of Dad.

He hears only sadness.