streetwalkers | (no subject)

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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 shrugs, leaning back.]

This isn't about me. I'm aware you can't just turn things off, but leaving it like this isn't an option either. Normally this would be the kind of thing you take years of therapy to even learn to deal with, but that's really not an option.

Most of the time you're fine, you either fake it well or being Lucky changes you enough, but if you broke this easily on a half-assed comment...

Then I'll just have to work broken. Like I was planning on.

[He can say that calmly enough -- or fake calmness, anyway. Idly, he picks a coaster up off the coffee table and fiddles with it. It gives him something to stare at while he tries to overcome his fear enough to talk. It's increasingly halting and shaky as he goes, but at least he's getting it out, even if it sounds pushed through a filter.]

...Actually, he gave me an advantage he didn't expect, that way. He taught me how to keep doing something, no matter how fucked up my mind or body was. Have you ever tried to remember six coffee orders and make them all while drugged? A-And carry the tray w-with broken fingers... I had to-- t-to not flinch, or f-fuck up, or... or it was someone else who got hurt. So I think... I could shoot him, no matter what. Even if I broke so much I could never come back.

[It makes him sick to hear, but his face is blank.]

I've never been personally hated that much. ....I think it's unreasonable, however, to get so mad at me for not caring about my life and then talk as if you're not planning on valuing your own.

Whether or not you can kill him aside, this is a weakness that could be used long before you even get the chance. So at least tell me everything, because if you can't even tell me, the odds of us getting as far as you shooting him in the face are really low.

There's not much point in "valuing my life" when I'm already dying.

[But there's no bite in that argument. He just shrugs, as if it's matter of fact, and turns the coaster over in his hands.]

Anyway, I don't get the point of telling you, but fine. You might as well hear it from the beginning. Fate, the person, is someone I crossed when I was still a kid. Back when I was just starting out as Lucky, it was his neighborhood. He ran around with a few older guys, being a creep and a bully, and eventually I took them out, obviously. But I guess... even before I even fought them, he was kind of a "fan". Only in a really fucked up way... He'd tell me that he always-- That h-he'd wanted me on my knees since he first saw me.

[He pauses to take a slow, deep breath, and pulls one knee up to rest his forehead on.]

And then I busted his little brother's skull in, when I fought them. They were sick bastards. He deserved it. But they were small fry, so I kinda forgot about them... Until he had ahold of me. He'd been trying to get me all that time, for revenge... But mainly, I think, just because he's obsessed. The revenge was just the excuse, if you ask me. He just wanted to take me apart because it gets his rocks off.

[Mikado links his fingers together and loops them over one of his knees, a little bit of a prim gesture, almost cute. His entire attention is focused completely on Kida, listening and trying not to react. But he hates it, he really does. And it hasn't gotten graphic yet. But he's seen, before, what obsessed sick fuckers can get up to. He employs some of the lesser ones because they're effective and he needs effective people.]

[But the idea of that twisted kind of obsession with Kida is. Unpleasant. Horrible. Sickening. He feels distantly awful about making Kida talk, but neither of them have time for anything more gentle.]

Go on.

So, then... So, pretty much what you imagined. Anything you can think of, he'd do. I'm in one piece because I was supposed to stay sexy for him until I wore out. Making me sick was supposed to be a failsafe. They didn't think I'd be able to get the medicine if I ran.

Only, when it wasn't just that, it was... [It was things that are both humiliating and intensely painful to remember, judging by the way he flushes and curls in on himself.]

I-- He'd have his cronies around, and he'd make me-- dress up and play servant, b-but I'd be all... a-all f-f-fucked up from whatever he'd done before, and I w-wasn't allowed to mess up. I was never allowed to say no or mess up, then or e-ever! If I did, he'd-- Every time, s-someone else, in front of me...

[That's the worst part. What he went through himself was ruinous, of course. But it was having his missteps punished with the lives of people who relied on him that's broken him the most. He's held up til now, but at this point he can't help breaking down into tears that he tries to hide in his hands.]

S-Sometimes... If I g-groveled enough he wouldn't kill them that day. B-But usually-- And they'd have to see me trying-- I-I really was gonna get married, Mikado! But she-- I-I dropped a wineglass--

[Mikado makes a note, that if Kida starts breaking he'll put a bullet between Fate's eyes himself. It's not that he didn't plan to anyway but... When it's time he'll be there, even if he didn't mean to be originally.]

[Otherwise all he can do is listen, listen and hate.]

Masaomi....

[Nothing he can say will make it better.]

It's over now. [It's an awkward attempt at least.]

[He just shakes his head at that, trying to get himself together and stifle his crying before it gets out of hand.]

It's not. If he stalked me for that long and I didn't even know, how am I supposed to think it's over now just because I'm not there? As long as he wants me, it's not over. Not until he's dead. That's why... It doesn't matter if I talk about it or not. I can't stop being afraid of him, while he's still sitting there in my city, with my people, just waiting to get his hands back around my neck...

Ah... You're right. It isn't quite over. But for now, you have to act like it is. Even if you're terrified. If he could endlessly use hostages to lure you out he'd do that already but what he wants is to see you in pain, so there's no point in killing people unless he can see your face, right?

And the next time he sees your face it's going to be the last thing he sees, so even if he's stalking you, even if he's a psychopath who won't stop obsessing over you until his heart stops, then it's not a problem. Because you're going to kill him anyway, so he has nothing left to hold over you.

I already told you I can work through it. I didn't panic when you talked about handing me over in the first place, did I? When you didn't know who I really was.

...No, not really.

[But you were super depressed. He gets up to make some tea, because they could probably both use it. And it gives him something to do other than stare at Kida trying not to cry.]

Do you mind if I increase security around you a bit? Knowing he's so personally obsessed means a little extra caution can't hurt.

That's... fine. Good, actually.

[Returns, sets a mug of tea in front of Kida and goes back to his own seat with his.]

I'll see to it.

Thanks. [carefully takes the tea] Sorry for being such a pain...

It's not a pain, but it is a problem. I guess the sooner we kill him the better, but that was always the case to begin with.

[His smile is "normal", treating the situation and information with the rational calm Kida probably expects of him by now, but even that can't conceal the edge in his mood.]

[Honestly, he's not sure whether Mikado's at him or for his sake. He did punch Mikado, and he is dragging him into a war. It would be reasonable to be angry all around. But he'd like to think it's for his benefit. They're friends, right?]

Mikado... I'll be fine, really. I can deal with it. I just-- I let my guard down. I won't do that anymore.

It's natural, you feel unguarded around me right?

I probably shouldn't. It'll come back to bite me eventually.

Do you think so?

Trusting too easy has always been one of my weak points.

Are you saying you shouldn't trust me?

Can you guarantee I should?

Yes. But it doesn't really matter if you don't.

I'm not sure. Even if you're safe, yourself, you were just arguing with me about how I can't afford weak points. Someone could notice I loosen up around you and take advantage... One of us could get hurt that way.

Ah, are you worried I'm careless enough to be used as a hostage?