MANIA - Katsuki Bakugou

falling ━

chapter 55

The Wraith... no... Kimiko Arima extended her arms to her sides and donned a wide, crooked smile. Her black skirt blew against the wind, flicking away from herself to reveal her bare legs and the two dagger holsters attached to either thigh. Her daggers were sheathed, but they were still dangerous even when hidden.

Shimamura staggered back, reaching for the volcano wall beside her to stabilize herself. Her train of thought backflipped a dozen times over. She thought for a second she might faint. The Wraith is Kimiko Arima? Her aunt's daughter? It was impossible... right?

"Y-you can't be real..." Shimamura muttered, mostly to herself. She thought that her lower bipolar level might be tricking her mind into seeing a figment of her imagination. A grown up version of the little girl in her memory, manifested as the Wraith.

A manifestation of the hatred that she and Kimiko shared for Irisa Arima.

Kimiko rolled her golden eyes. It was strange to see her expressions without the mask on for the first time. For once, Shimamura didn't have to guess what Kimiko's face conveyed.

"Be sensible, cousin. After all, you're the one that said my name. You knew who I was the second I took the mask off. You remember this little thing, don't you?"

She gestured to the diagonal scar stretching across her face. She tapped her chin, at the edge of where the scar reached and tapered off at the end of her face. She dragged her red fingernail down her neck, as if to continue the line which the scar made. "Yeah... Irisa was a real bitch," Kimiko murmured.

Shimamura swallowed. "You really are... her."

Kimiko smirked at her and stepped forward, putting her hands behind her back as she sauntered over. Her black and white ponytail flipped across her shoulder to her back. As she walked, the ground dealt another tremor from the volcanic activity above, but Kimiko seemed unaffected by it. She walked as if nothing had even happened. Or she simply predicted it.

"I've waited a very long time to tell you, Tikki," Kimiko said to her.

"W-why did you wait?... After all these years? Even when you kidnapped me—you knew who I was! Why didn't you just...?" Shimamura's state of shock forbade her from completing a thought, let alone a sentence.

Her crystal blue eyes danced back and forth on the ground, refusing to make eye contact with Kimiko. She was only 8 years younger than Kimiko, she could remember that, but Kimiko always seemed so much older than that. She acted so much different than how Shimamura would have ever expected her to act.

Then again... Shimamura never expected her forgotten cousin to become a villain.

When Shimamura was 6, Kimiko Arima simply dropped off the map and that was that. Her aunt said very little to her about Kimiko's whereabouts. Shimamura just assumed that Kimiko went to live with their grandparents or something. She didn't question it. She knew she would never get an answer out of Arima anyway... so what was the point? Arima wanted to forget about her own daughter, and she'd have Shimamura forget about her as well.

"It wasn't the right time," Kimiko shrugged nonchalantly, still with that same cruel smirk on her face. "You were still attached to Irisa, remember?"

That's right...

Shimamura didn't fully understand her aunt's deceit at the time of Shimamura's kidnapping. The poisoning, that is. Shimamura would have never believed the Wraith if she said she was Kimiko back then. She could hardly believe it now—but it was all true.

"What happened to you?" Shimamura asked, breathlessly.

Kimiko's smirk twitched barely into a frown. She sighed and circled Shimamura again, dragging her hand across the back of her shoulders in an almost caring gesture.