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It'd been over a decade since the epidemic that wiped out a third of the earth's population, and the wars and political struggles that had risen in the following, chaotic years had down in for another half of what remained, if not more if one counted the death toll to disease and crime, the lack of modern medicine, the tainted environment and water in most urban areas and the general set back in civilization.

Mikado had been fifteen when it started. He was twenty-seven now. And like any of the survivors of the years between the end of the world and now... He was changed. One of the lucky ones to survive disease and war, right? Lucky... Survival came at a cost, and when the streets of Ikebukuro, once bustling with commerce and tourists, became a dead zone of gang warfare and violence, Mikado had been right in the middle of it. And powerless.

He'd learned just how powerless, painfully, and often. Until his hatred and anger had warped and tempered him into something cold and precise as a scalpel. He wasn't strong in the way the thugs and the fighters were, but amateurish inexperience could only last so long and Mikado was a fast learner. He rose to power on three things; his wits, his force of personality, and ruthlessness. Ambushing his enemies and using clever traps and guises to get him where brute strength couldn't, and using those connections that were drawn to his innate charisma to get him where only brute strength could. Even after disaster and damage, he had a certain ability to charm people with his personality, and those that followed him now were, by and large, either incredibly loyal or too useful to be rid of. In turn his mind and vision was too useful for even the less loyal followers to risk trying to be rid of, and so a balance was struck somewhere along the line. He'd lost the charming uncertainty and idealism but he'd gained a quiet, iron confidence that others were drawn to.

He had a game, a way to control the territory he'd wrested from lawlessness. Preventing fighting on the streets of the ruined city was impossible, but he could enforce it. Give it incentive. Only registered combatants would be suffered to be found fighting, and they could tear at each other as they wished, when they wished, wherever they wished. The incentive; tags given to everyone who registered, that could be ripped from a defeated opponent. They could be traded in for anything based on their number value. Better accommodations, whores, drugs, weapons, though guns were banned from the fights. The most skilled could, in theory, attempt for the specific poker hand of tags that would allow them to challenge the organization's mysterious and shadow'd leader, though none had ever reached that goal. In turn, anyone unregistered caught fighting would be summarily executed by the enforcers--unless the enforcers decided they were good looking enough to serve another purpose.

In that way, Ikebukuro stabilized a little. Non-combatants still feared the streets at night but thugs feared the enforcers more, and some semblance of life continuing grew a little, under the watchful laws of the lawless Dollars.

For Mikado this wasn't his end ambition but it was a start. But he hadn't expected, months ago, that one of the new combatants to register would have been Kida himself. The registration took place in the mansion the main members of Dollars called home, and with all registrations Mikado had been watching the newcomers put on their masks, his own in place before he revealed himself to meet them, explain the rules, and ask if they wanted to participate.

His heart had near stopped when he'd seen Kida. He almost hadn't recognized him, both their faces and voices had changed with age and trauma, and Mikado was sure Kida hadn't even had a remote moment of recognition when Mikado explained the purpose and perks of fighters. Mikado's own role in the world he'd created was the secretary to the shadowy and terrifying Dollar's boss, with none but the highest ranking aware that the quiet and no-nonsense, rather popular secretary-san was the shadowy Boss himself. That he dealt in everything from drugs to slavery and black market items, well, that was just a means of further acquiring power. Distasteful as it was, it was effective, and he left the more sadistic parts to those that most enjoyed it, usually.

But seeing Kida had shaken him, worried him in a way he wasn't aware he could still worry. Fighters died daily, defeat could mean anything from humiliation and rape to outright murder, anything was allowed in the laws of the game, but only within the game. A victor had complete freedom to deal with a loser as they saw fit, and after seeing Kida's face for the first time in years, Mikado had had his first nightmare in years; that same face dead and staring, lifeless and accusatory. For days afterwards he'd been grumpy and out of sorts, a state he couldn't afford to maintain.

Try as he might to put it from mind, he couldn't help but be drawn to Kida's progress in the fights. And Kida's presence brought with it other trouble. Members of a gang from a territory Mikado didn't control (not yet, but that was an eventual goal, they were strong enough to pose a problem for now though) had started showing up in Dollar's territory. They weren't registered fighters and they mostly respected the game's laws (those who didn't met bad ends, even rival gangs feared the consequences of violating Dollar's law) but they were still a concerning presence, trouble tracking Kida.

And Mikado was tracking them. He knew, after a few weeks of his underlings keeping tabs, that the gang was after Kida, and so he kept watch himself or through an underling.

So when Kida found himself being backed into a corner by the thugs of that group Mikado had been watching, Mikado happened to be there. If Mikado were an enforcer he'd have dealt with them ruthlessly, but he was only the Dollar's "secretary" and so he made a note of each face before he darted out of the shadow of one doorway, grabbed Kida's arm with a shouted "This way!" and ran.

No one knew the streets and back alleys like Mikado did, like he'd made a point to, and but still he kept them navigating the maze of abandoned and derelict buildings for twenty minutes to be safe, before coming to a stop in one mostly intact old apartment building, a little winded, letting go of Kida to glance cautiously out a broken window. The streets were empty, there wasn't a sound or feeling of anyone but the two of them.

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[Mikado debates reaching over him for the glasses, but that feels too juvenile. He holds his hand out instead, impatient.]

What I need is my glasses back.

Don't be such a grump! You'll get a wrinkled forehead and no one will take you seriously.

Seriously you're leaving shoeprints on the papers. My desk is not a couch. Some of us don't have all day to flirt and goof off.

[Grumpy. Definitely grumpy and tired.]

I'm making connections. The social game is part of the job too, y'know.

[buuuut he gives the glasses back and sits up, at least]

I didn't become a famous hero by paper pushing, y'know! Things were more fun in Shibuya.

[He takes his glasses back, cleans them, puts them on.]

I socialize. [He does, he plays his part as the innocuous secretary. It's exhausting.]

If you're that bored here, I should have given you back when they asked.

[It might be startling, how quickly and harshly he reacts to that. It's a joke. He's not stupid enough to think it's not. But he can't help the gut reaction of terror at the thought, or the anger that wells up in self-defense.

He stiffens, going white for just a moment before he covers it with a dagger-sharp glare.]

Make a crack like that again and I'll knock you into next week.

[Mikado goes still, looking at Kida with a suddenly blank expression instead of the mild irritated annoyance. That was. Sudden. The reaction's all wrong even for a bad joke.]

[The glare and the threat combined, normally it wouldn't bother him, from anyone else he'd not feel anything. But from Kida, about something so inane... He had to have hit a nerve, but it pisses him off.]

Are you threatening me? [Over something so trivial. Though it can't be trivial, not when it gets that immediate and drastic a reaction.]

Do you really need help clarifying that?

[He thinks it was an obvious enough threat. Straight forward. Hard to misinterpret. He gets up off the desk, brushing past Mikado with clear intent to head for the door.]

It wasn't funny. Don't say it again.

[It's not like Mikado needs the clarification he;s just really incredulous. He takes off his glasses, folds them and puts them to the side, turning his chair and facing Masaomi.]

I really should have handed you over.

[It's neutral, not a joke, but not exactly heated or serious either. Something else.]

[He doesn't even stop to think he could be being prodded at on purpose. He hardly thinks at all. He just reacts, turning mid-stride to try to deck Mikado in the face. His expression is mostly blank, but it's the sort of blank that's just an obvious thin cover for something much more intense.]

[Mikado's a better combatant than he was but not really a fighter--he uses weapons and tools and strategy. Dodging is not his strong suit, dodging while sitting even less so. So he takes the hit full to the face, the detached part of him noticing the intensity behind Kida's blank expression even as the blow rocks him back into his chair.]

What nerve did I just hit there?

I told you.

[He did, just now. And he did, weeks ago, sick and frightened and insisting that he'd die before he'd go back. And every time they've spoken from then til now, in the way he's avoided saying anything to do with what's between him and Fate on a personal level. There's a hole a mile wide there -- things he hasn't touched, that scare him so badly that even a joke leaves him trembling as if cornered.]

Don't play games about this.

[There's a difference between knowing something is a sensitive subject and seeing Kida flip out over it.]

This isn't a game. I've left it alone but this... This isn't acceptable. You need to tell me what I'm dealing with that's got you so terrified, because I'm missing some obviously important information here.

I--

[He looks like he doesn't know whether to lash out or run away. He keeps eyeing the door, acting like he's feeling threatened and trapped. All the cheery bravado he usually shows is completely gone when faced with this one issue.]

...No. I can't.

It makes you lose complete control Masaomi, I need to know. Do you think you can afford a weakness like this in a full out territory war? Do you think I can afford to risk it?

Drop that name already. And I'll be fine. It's not like I wouldn't be able to fight him.

You can barely stand here and think about him. Masaomi.

[UGH He really does not appreciate his real name being used as a dig!]

I can kill him. I just won't be captured by him again.

What did he do?

[Not that he needs more ammo to want to kill this guy but whatever it was it makes him angry just seeing Kida's reaction.]

What would you do, if you were weak, and then you were strong, and you captured someone you'd hated for a long time?

We're not talking about me. Or what I'd do. We're talking about what was done.

I'm telling you to imagine it yourself, because I'm not going into it.

He wanted you to die slowly. He obviously enjoyed the idea of torturing you, seeing you in pain. Was it a control issue? You were reported dead but kept alive for his own pleasure, so at the minimum beatings, likely rape, electric shocks at varying voltages. Some degree of mutilation from your scars. Starving and sleep denial, any degree of psychological torment or humiliation while hurting you.

Am I close?

[Though his expression is almost a smile there's something empty and maybe cruel to it. But his gaze isn't really for Masaomi.]

Edited 2013-12-23 18:40 (UTC)

[As Mikado goes through his own assumptions, he shrinks in on himself, edging away. It's easy to watch every guess hit a mark, or at least close to one -- he flinches with each one. By the time he's done, Kida's got his arms wrapped tight around himself, and he doesn't answer at all, at first. Instead he just stands there, shaking and looking sick.

But finally he speaks, in a voice hardly above a whisper that sounds that it's been dragged out of him.]

...For someone like me, there's no end of hostages.

[But that's all he can manage. At this point it's clearly less stubbornness and more pure inability to cope that's blocking him from communicating. He's had enough, and unless Mikado stops him he's going to turn and run away. Screw the risk of being seen upset.]

[Mikado gets up and grabs him by the arm.]

You can't go out there like this.