History Main / MutualKill

* The ''ComicBook/{{Northlanders}}'' story "[[DuelToTheDeath The Viking Art of Single Combat]]" is a tale where two feuding clans, fresh from one committing yet an other atrocity against the other in an endless CycleOfRevenge, have decided to hold a CombatByChampion because both sides have lost too many men fighting against each other to be able to field more than a ragged raiding band or two. Neither side expects the fight to settle anything, but both hope that it'll at least satisfy honor for awhile and let them both recoup and lick their metaphorical wounds a bit. As dictated by grim irony, it ends in a mutual kill when when Egil manages to mortally wound his opponent Snorri, but then arrogantly drops his guard, which allows Snorri to kill him before dying immediately afterwards.

* Literature/VanasHeritage: Nirvy fights and kills a Skjall but screws up her guard and gets hit by an afterblow [[note]]In fighting with handweapons a strike by an opponent who was hit earlier (but is not yet incapacitated or dead) is called afterblow. In contrast, a double is both fighters hitting each other at the same time.[[/note]] just before her opponent drops dead. She is not killed though, but severely injured.

* Literature/VanasHeritage: Nirvy fights and kills a Skjall but screws up her guard and gets hit by an afterblow [[note]]In fighting with handweapons a strike by an opponent who was hit earlier (but is not yet incapacitated or dead) is called afterblow. In contrast, a double is both fighters hitting each other at the same time.[[/note]] just before her opponent drops dead. She is not killed though, but severely injured.

!!'''As a DeathTrope, several if not all spoilers will be unmarked ahead. Beware.'''

* Gamma's story in ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure'' involves him performing a HeelFaceTurn and deciding that he has to "save" the rest of the E-100 Series (that is to say, destroy them, saving the little animals inside). When he defeats the last one, his brother Beta, Beta manages to get off [[LastBreathBullet one last shot]] that ultimately destroys Gamma as well.

* This is the theory of MutuallyAssuredDestruction. Second strike capacity is defensive in nature; it ensures that any kill will be a mutual kill and (hopefully) scares the enemy into not attacking. As such, a missile shield of some sort would, in the perverse logic of nuclear arms, actually allow an attack by preventing the kill from being mutual.

[[caption-width-right:250:Franchise/{{Superman}} and his opponent both meet their [[{{Pun}} Doomsday]]... [[DeathIsCheap For a while, anyway.]]]]

* In the penultimate issue of ''ComicBook/ThePunisherMAX'' (2012) #22, both Frank Castle and Wilson Fisk mortally wound each other, though both keep going for a horrifyingly long time[[note]]Fisk making it to his tower before being locked out and finished off, while Castle made it part of the way back to his family's abandoned house/his last hideout before expiring[[/note]].

* Near the end of ''VideoGame/Yakuza4'', Katsuragi shoots [[spoiler:Yasuko]] in the back, resulting in a fatal wound. However, before her death, she manages to retaliate by popping a headshot right back at Katsuragi.

** At the end of ''Ship of the Line'', Hornblower takes his ship of the line ''Sutherland'' into action against four French ships of the line, and cripples three of them, but the '"Sutherland'' is also crippled and captured by the enemy.