Boomstick: And Ryūko Matoi, the teen fighter in life fibers from Kill la Kill.
Wiz: These two may be tryhard incarnate, but when the chips are down, who is the deadliest edgelord of them all?
The second episode of Death Battle's milestone eighth season pits a pair of warriors whose destinies — and appearances — mirror each other to a tee: born and bred to be the Ultimate Life Form, they have paid their dues in blood, unafraid to cross whatever lines are needed as the brooding yet noble anti-heroes they are. Sega's own Black Blur is no stranger to the show; with two losses to his name in past encounters, his path to attaining victory is now obstructed by Studio Trigger's foul-mouthed teen titan, and it's now time to test their respective arsenals and abilities against each other to see whose has the superior cutting edge in a death battle.
Wiz and Boomstick begin the episode's analysis by shedding light once more on Shadow's dark origins. His creator, Dr. Gerald Robotnik, was on the verge of losing his beloved granddaughter Maria to a neuro-immune disease with no known cure. In a desperate attempt to find one, he accepted an offer from the government to create the supposed "Ultimate Life Form", secretly hoping to use the DNA of his new creation to cure Maria's illnesses. With some help from studies into the all-powerful Chaos Emeralds and alien DNA from the malevolent Black Arms alien race, Gerald ushered in his greatest creation: Shadow the Hedgehog.
Questions aside about why a hedgehog of all beings would be the template for the "Ultimate Life Form", Shadow more than lived up to his moniker. By tapping into the power afforded by the Chaos Emeralds, he is capable of performing feats displaying immense power. His strength is sufficient to restrain the likes of the Final Mova, a massive plant monster nearly the size of a planetoid. His speed meanwhile is comparable to his on-and-off ally and rival, Sonic; besides harnessing similar techniques like Spin Dashes and Homing Attacks, Shadow's own running speeds match those of the Blue Blur, who once outran an expanding black hole. Unlike Sonic, he has no qualms using other tools to gain the edge over his foes, whether it's with swords, firearms, energy shields or even his Air Shoes, which not only help him match Sonic's speed, but even grants him the ability to fly and even move at light speed with certain techniques. Such tools are but accessories to Shadow's true power, that of Chaos itself. Even without an Emerald in his presence, he can tap into it through techniques like the explosive Chaos Blast, the ever-versatile Chaos Spear projectiles, or the space-time warping powers of Chaos Control.
Obviously, a being as powerful as Shadow would have raised some concerns, and the government decided to shut the project down in fear of what they had birthed. He was successfully sealed away in stasis, but in the process, Maria perished in the crossfire. Furious at the loss of his best friend, not helped by a now-insane Gerald's decision to implant fake memories fueling his desire for revenge, Shadow was soon released upon the world by Gerald's own kin, Dr. Eggman, to meet his own ends. Misguided as they may have been, the government may have had the right to worry, as Shadow's immense power matches that of a single Chaos Emerald — at least, when he's not wearing his Inhibitor Rings to limit how much energy he can expend at once without losing consciousness from fatigue. With no limits to his own strength, Shadow can teleport gigantic bodies, like entire space colonies and asteroids. In the event he needs even more power, harnessing the power of all seven Chaos Emeralds causes him to enter his final state: Super Shadow. While it may last for only a full minute without any way to replenish it like power rings, the tradeoffs are noticeable: Super Shadow not only can fly but is fully invulnerable to boot, and the feats show it, like the time he and Super Sonic obliterated Planet Aquarius.
Fortunately for the Sonic universe, Shadow would see the light with some help from his new allies. In doing so, he remembered the final promise he made to Maria: to protect humanity. Even as this standoffish loner continues to be as edgy as it gets, he'll still be remembered as the noble-hearted anti-hero that the world can count on when all hope may seem lost.
- Shadow the Hedgehog: [upon confirming his objectives from GUN HQ] Understood. Initiating the mission now. [teleports away]
With the Black Blur accounted for, the hosts move on to the origins of his opponent. Ryūko's story begins thousands of years ago with the Life Fibers, alien parasites that descended on Earth and attached themselves to the most intelligent species they could find - humanity. Over time, humans were convinced to fashion the Life Fibers into clothing, and with their aid, humanity's advancement was accelerated. In the modern age, the Life Fibers currently live passively in human clothing, but some people had greater designs - such as Ragyo Kiryuin, the possessor of the original Primordial Life Fiber, who proceeded to use it for experimentation. She and her husband attempted to infuse humans with Life Fibers - specifically their two daughters - but both attempts were seemingly unsuccessful. The younger of the two was cast out by Ragyo, but her father disagreed with the decision, rescuing the infant girl. Under the assumed name of Ishin Matoi, he brought the child away from her mother and raised her as Ryūko Matoi.
Despite his desires to keep Ryūko alive, Ishin's relationship with his daughter was rocky, and he eventually sent Ryūko to boarding school; when she returned home, she found her father dying, with an unfamiliar weapon impaled in his body. Ishin urged Ryūko to find his killer, who carried the weapon's counterpart - the other half of what would become Ryūko's Scissor Blades. The weapons were created by Ishin out of Life Fibers, and are consequently capable of destroying Life Fibers - which all of Ryūko's opponents for the forseeable future would be wielding.
Ryūko sought out her father's murderer, but could not complete the quest alone; in time, she found an ally in the form of a kamui, a living garment woven from 100% Life Fibers, known as Senketsu. Only usable by those capable of forming a bond with him, it was this alliance that proved Ragyo's experiments were not the failure she believed them to be, granting Ryūko and Senketsu power enough to overcome all that stood in their way. Due to his nature, Senketsu can absorb other Life Fibers to enhance himself, granting Ryūko new powers via transformations such as the Senjin, Shippu, Senjin-Shippu, or ultimate Kisaragi forms. Senketsu can transform to serve additional purposes or strengthen Ryūko, but each such transformation comes at risk to Ryūko, as Senketsu grants the empowerment by consuming his wearer's blood. If she fights for too long in an empowered state - particularly in their uncontrolled Berserker form - the blood loss threatens to take her life before her opponents can do so.
Limited bodily fluids aside, however, Ryūko is offered insane durability due to her infused Life Fiber DNA; a natural healing factor will begin to heal her wounds before the wound is fully dealt, except in cases of incredibly fast blows that can cut through her before the regeneration begins. As a result of this, Ryūko has endured impalement and severance of varying degrees, including being cut completely in half, as well as survived the removal of her heart from her chest cavity. Her offensive strength is nothing to scoff at, either, as she once punched a 1514-mile-across hole through a layer of Life Fibers nearly 200 miles thick; with Life Fibers having been stated to be stronger than steel, this gives her a damage output equivalent to 658 exatons of TNT. And her speed has allowed her to cut through 200 tennis balls five times each in less than a second and fly out of the atmosphere in eighteen seconds, giving her an attack speed of nearly 8000 times the speed of sound and a movement speed of Mach 500.
In time, she was able to claim the other Scissor Blade from her father's killer and complete the Rending Scissors, which can easily cut through Japanese skyscrapers and have various enhanced forms of their own; the greatest of these is over 750 meters long and weights over 3 million tons. Despite all of her hardships and her long-lasting quest for revenge, she found herself saving the planet and all of the people on it, showing her to be a hero, however dark.
With the combatants sufficiently analyzed, all that remains is to send them to the battlefield. One advertisement for Bluechew later, it's time for a Death Battle!
We enter into a city at no less radiant a time than golden hour, the buildings lining the street illuminated by the setting sun. Two motorcycles are roaring down this street; Ryūko Matoi, garbed in her kamui, has a clear road ahead of her at first, but soon finds herself overtaken by Shadow the Hedgheog. Her confrontation of the Ultimate Lifeform falls on uninterested ears, as does Senketsu's attempts to calm her down; Ryūko draws her Scissor Blades and propels herself from the seat of her bike, leaping at Shadow from two lanes away.
FIGHT!
Her teeth pry a needle from her bracelet, and Senketsu transforms into his combat mode before Ryūko makes to bring the Rending Scissors down on Shadow. The hedgehog forms a barrier of Chaos to defend himself, forcing Ryūko away before his Air Shoes propel him into the air; he quickly charges forward in a barrage of Homing Attacks, striking Ryūko twice before she meets the third on her Scissor Blades. A Spin Dash charges at Ryūko, and then narrowly evades a sweep of her weapon; Shadow spins circles around the wielder of Life Fibers until a tornado forms, nearly throwing her into the air. Ryūko manages to stand her ground and swings her Scissor Blades wildly, one blow eventually connecting and knocking Shadow aside; then she separates the Scissor Blades and charges forward.
Shadow intercepts her in mid-flight, unleashing a Chaos Control to freeze time around him; he leaps around the immobilized Ryūko and delivers a kick to the back of her head before time resumes, throwing her back on course. Ryūko briefly eats the pavement, but drives her Scissor Blades into the ground and charges at him again; her frontal assault bears little fruit, as Shadow evades her every blow and connects with his own. Senketsu advises her to take a defensive approach, which serves her much better, deflecting one of Shadow's attacks and then throwing him into the air for a bombardment of Scissor Blade strikes; when Shadow raises another barrier, Ryūko simply throws it - and him - back to the street, the hedgehog slamming into his bike and then the wall.
Ryūko invokes Senketsu's Senjin-Shippu form and charges forward; Shadow brandishes a pistol, only to find it empty, and so he trades it out for a heavy blade of his own. The battle takes to the skies, blades clashing with fiery sparks amidst blurs of black, red, and purple; when the two combatants find distance, both close the distance with buzzsaw blows whose connection forms an outright detonation to force them apart again.
Each of them decides to conclude this with all their might; the Chaos Emeralds surround Shadow as Senketsu draws from as much of Ryūko's blood as he dares. Super Shadow alights in the skies above the city as Ryūko is adorned in Senketsu-Kisaragi, and the hedgehog derides his opponent as a faker before they resume their clash, golden streaks colliding and ascending into the skies above the earth. Shadow puts distance between them and calls upon a rain of Chaos Spears; Ryūko evades the bombardment and invokes her Scissor Blades' Alumni Mode, closing them upon her opponent with parting words that he finds familiar.
Far too familiar for his tastes, at that; the Inhibitor Rings on Shadow's wrists are cast off as he demands his opponent's silence.
Now freed of his limitations, the Ultimate Life Form shatters the Rending Scissors, and Ryūko can only watch in terror as another bombardment of Chaos Spears descends upon her, this one striking true. Ryūko is thrown to earth, and no sooner does she make terra firma than she finds Shadow upon her. Fury burns crimson as he unleashes a Chaos Blast, destroying Ryūko, Senketsu, and the Life Fibers that constitute them both. Shadow's empowerment does not subside until the smoke clears, whereupon he stands alone, certain of his superiority.
KO!
In the battle's aftermath is all laid bare - literally, given the state of the combatants' clothing. In his base form, Shadow was outclassed by Ryūko in strength and durability given that he had not survived anything on the level of Ryūko slicing through the field of Life Fibers surrounding Earth, and the wielder of Life Fibers would have struck him down in one blow... if she could land it to begin with. Such a feat proved to be highly improbable; Shadow's rivalry with Sonic has proven him capable of identical feats of speed on par with his azure-coated nemesis, who can hit speeds exceeding that of sound 260,000 times over, whereas Ryūko has not quite surmounted Mach 8000. That's not even factoring in the teleportation and time-stopping powers of Chaos Control, which could give Shadow all the opportunities necessary to strike and overpower Ryūko before her Life Fiber regeneration could kick in. Any advantages Ryūko had in strength fade away with the power of the Chaos Emeralds, as Super Shadow is afforded full invulnerability, and though the form has its time limit, it is not one that Ryūko has any means of accelerating (conversely, all of Senketsu's trasnformations have time limits which Shadow could shorten simply by hurting Ryūko); furthermore, a single Chaos Emerald has power enough to move a piece of the Earth at a respectable speed, giving it a power output 407 zettatons of TNT, which Shadow could match simply by removing his Inhibitor Rings, to say nothing of the potential 2800+ zettaton output of his Super Form, more than enough raw power to overcome her Life Fiber regeneration to ensure she had nothing to regenerate from. Ultimately, although Ryūko gave Shadow one of the greatest fights of his life, she couldn't overcome him if he gave it his all — en route to the Black Blur's first victory on the show after 10 years...
...which isn't to say Shadow would be particularly excited about the fight itself, given his favorite anime and who he had to kill to notch this win.
Shadow: I like the one with the edgy girl and the scissor blade.
Wiz: It's canon. N-No, really.
Boomstick: In clothing, the edge-hog couldn't be over-Shadowed, and Ryūko's Life Fiber... was snipped.
Wiz: The winner is Shadow the Hedgehog.
Shadow vs. Ryūko contains examples of:
- Astral Finale: The final stretch of the fight takes the two to outer space- at least until Shadow sends Ryuko crashing back down to Earth.
- Badass Biker: Both are shown driving their bikes in the introduction, although it's downplayed in that they don't play much of a role in the fight itself.
- Broken Win/Loss Streak:
- Not only does Shadow's victory mark the first for a Sonic character since Amy's battle with Ramona Flowers, but after being defeated by Vegeta and Mewtwo, this marks his first personal win in the series, even defying Ryūko's Pre-Mortem One-Liner that his prior opponents used as well.
- This is also the first time a Sonic character's Super Form effects the outcome of the battle and the character finishes using it. Previously the form was countered or timed out and the fight ended without it.
- Call-Back:
- When Ryūko charges towards Shadow, he uses Chaos Control to perform the same time stop kick he did against Silver in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006).
- Ryūko donning Senketsu and her later Kisaragi transformation are displayed in the same manner as in Kill La Kill, complete with the accompanying Japanese characters.
- As mentioned above, Ryūko attempted to finish Shadow off with the same Pre-Mortem One-Liner Vegeta and Mewtwo used against him ("Sayonara, dipshit!"). Understandably, Shadow's Big "SHUT UP!" was in response to hearing the same line again, which triggers the subsequent No-Holds-Barred Beatdown he gives to finish her off.
- Shadow notably never got to use Chaos Blast in his past two battles; his Super form ran out of time before he could do it to Vegeta, and Mewtwo's mind-wiping stalled him long enough to stop him from doing the same thing. Here, he finally gets to use it to finish Ryūko off.
- In the climax, Ryūko and Senketsu fall from orbit after being launched downwards by one of Shadow's Chaos Spears, bringing to mind similar feats from their respective series: Ryūko at the end of Kill La Kill, and Shadow from the end of Sonic Adventure 2.
- When Super Shadow notices Ryūko don Senketsu-Kisaragi, he refers to her as a "faker". This serves as a nice role reversal from Shadow's match against Vegeta, who called Super Shadow a "rip-off". It's also a call back to when Sonic called Shadow a "faker" back in Sonic Adventure 2, where Shadow debuted.
- Super Shadow being confronted by a giant weapon in the shape of a normal household utensil set to kill him isn't new to him, except Mega Mewtwo Y's giant spoon succeeded where Ryūko's Scissor Blades failed.
- Canon Discontinuity: KILL la KILL - IF was not factored into Ryūko's analysis, due to it being a What If? storyline that occurred in a dream. However, it was noted that even if Ryūko did get credited with defeating the Primordial Life Fiber, which was capable of warping time and space, Shadow has a victory against Solaris, who can accomplish the same feats on an even greater scale.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: From being on the receiving end of two to dishing out one of his own, Shadow outclassed Ryūko in every way that mattered, even having enough in the tank to prevent her Healing Factor from kicking in and putting her down for good. The only tangible advantage she had — being able to one-shot Shadow while he was in base form — meant little considering that Shadow was still far faster than her, making it nigh-impossible for her to actually land a fatal blow to begin with. Super Shadow in and of itself was absolute overkill, as even one single Chaos Emerald would've already put Shadow directly on par with Ryūko's best — something he can accomplish easily via removing his inhibitor rings. The animation even lampshades just how powerful Shadow is with the rings off, as the fight ends within seconds after Shadow removes them as he proceeds to decimate and off Ryūko within that timeframe.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: In several scenes (specifically sprites), Senketsu's eye can be seen moving and keeping track of Shadow.
- Golden Super Mode: Both combatants enter their respective final forms during the climax: Shadow calling upon the Chaos Emeralds to become Super Shadow, while Ryūko calls upon more Life Fibers to don Senketsu-Kisaragi.
- Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: In their base forms, Ryūko was much physically stronger and tougher than Shadow, enough to potentially kill him in one hit. However, Shadow being much faster than Ryūko along with being able to teleport as well as slow down and stop time with Chaos Control made landing that hit unlikely. Additionally, Shadow possessed far more destructive power with his Chaos abilities through removing his Inhibitor Rings which, combined with the aforementioned speed and Chaos Control, meant that he could reliably damage Ryūko faster than her Life Fibers could heal her. What's more is that Super Shadow was vastly faster and more powerful than Ryūko while in Senketsu-Kisaragi and has the benefit of Nigh-Invulnerability.
- No Body Left Behind: Ryūko and Senketsu meet their collective end this way, courtesy of Shadow's Chaos Blast completely and utterly vaporizing them both.
- Precision F-Strike: Perhaps fitting of an episode featuring Sonic's Darker and Edgier counterpart and his opponent being Lady Swears A Lot, the song itself, "Chaos Unraveled", drops one of these (the second time in Death Battle's history after "Alive" for Goku Vs Superman 2, though the section containing said f-strike wasn't in the fight itself), along the lines of "But I'll fight like the fucking devil wishes he could."
- Pyrrhic Victory: While it doesn't show in the animation, Shadow's victory is Played for Laughs in that Boomstick and Wiz realize he killed the main protagonist of his favorite anime.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: The battle starts with a clear presentation of this dynamic; Ryūko being the red oni whose hot-blooded nature and constant trash talk contrasts with Shadow's reserved Tranquil Fury and merciless fighting style making up for his relatively silent nature as the blue oni.
- Rocket-Tag Gameplay: How this battle ultimately reached its conclusion; with the strength to put base form Shadow down with likely a single hit and Shadow being fast enough to slice through Ryuko's Life Fibers faster than they could heal, it was Shadow who ultimately had the speed advantage to do both the latter to Ryuko and enter his far more powerful Super form before his opponent could strike him down.
- Running Gagged: In Shadow's previous fights, he attempted to beat his opponent with Chaos Blast but failed and they said "Sayonara" before finishing him off. Here, Ryuko tries to do the same thing, but Shadow tanks her attack and successfully uses Chaos Blast to completely vaporise her.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: How trying to kill Ryūko for good has to work. Given that she has survived losing limbs and even having her heart ripped out from her body, the only way to permanently put her down would be to slice through her Life Fibers fast enough where the strands would not have enough time to patch her up. As Shadow had speed and power in spades, he was capable of launching fast enough attacks that could accomplish this readily.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: After a streak of two humiliating defeats that lasted for so many years, Shadow finally gets a win, and a dominant win against a very game opponent to boot.
- A Tragedy of Impulsiveness: The fight begins when Shadow cuts Ryūko off on an open road while on their bikes. Despite Senketsu's warnings, Ryūko becomes so pissed off at Shadow's dismissive attitude that she immediately transforms to attack him.
- Wrecked Weapon: The fight quickly ends shortly after Shadow wrecks the Scissor Blades.
