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To Ashes And Blood

Stereotypes often come from facts. It's a fact that vampires own nightclubs. It's also a fact that the Fae like to dance. So really, Shigaraki Tomura, Heir to the Prince of Kanto, should have expected to get at least a few patrons who happen to be allergic to iron at some point, and maybe Ikeda Yayoi should have expected to find the owner of her new favorite dance floor to have fangs and a liquid diet. Then again, both are Western monsters living in the homeland of the Yokai, so their surprise might be forgivable. Either way, things are going to change around here, and maybe not just for their personal day to day lives.

Supernatural AU, no Quirks, Heroes, or Villains. Faerie lore heavily inspired by the October Daye series by Seanan McGuire. MDNI.

CW: My poor understanding of music genres, mostly.

CH1 - Ch2 ->

A Night Out

{DEFEAT}

[Continue]

"Fuck!" Fucking ARAM. Why'd she have to get stuck with Vayne? She hates Vayne, concept and play both.

"Yayoi!"

"What?!"

"Are you coming or not?"

Yayoi hits AltF4 and shoves her chair away from her desk, still grumbling under her breath, then gets up and stretches her spine. Mina is in the bathroom, it sounds like. "Coming where again?"

"The club, of course! We talked about it last night!"

Yayoi mentally revises her estimate of how long before her roommate vacates the bathroom mirror by another fifteen minutes. "Which club this time? I already told you I'm not going back to Club Refract. I'm not sure what was worse, the Europop or the fucking glitter."

"It's not that bad…"

"It was in my drink. It took a month to get it out of the washing machine." And she cheated.

"…Yeah, okay. That was a little much." Mina sticks her head out of the bathroom. She's actually half-done with her makeup already, and it's much higher contrast than her default. "Anyway, no, not Refract. I picked up a flyer for this place called Sixth Circle! I looked it up, should be more up your alley!"

She sighs. She's not in the mood to play more at the moment anyway. "All right, let me clean up, and give me a spectrum to work with."

"Ehhh, black, alt, industrial? I dunno, hang on. I'll send you a few pics while you're in the shower."

The pictures, apparently taken inside the club from cell phones, look reasonably promising. Distinctly more her style than Mina's, honestly, probably a concession after Club Refract. The address for the place is a bit less promising. "Mina, you know what part of town this is, right?"

"I know, but it's only a few blocks from the train."

"All right, fine."

An hour later, they're in line outside a basement club. She's dressed in a wine-purple satin slip, a black lace overdress with bell sleeves and a zig-zag hem, and knee-high leather boots, with polished bronze makeup and hair clips. Mina is more energetically arranged as usual, but her crop top and miniskirt this time are definitely designed for blacklight displays, not mirror balls. It seems more or less on point with the rest of the queue, although she's not impressed by the guy a few places up. Is that a green bomber jacket with a purple fur collar?

Yes, yes it is, she sees as the line moves forward and the guy and his buddies turn to enter the building. The bouncer, a two-meter bleach-blonde that barely fits into his tanktop, scans their IDs and waves them in. She hesitates for a split second on the threshold, then spots an inscription on the top of the doorframe and snorts.

Enter freely and of your own will.

Cute. Well-translated too. She steps inside and lets the aura of alcohol, bodies, and music press into her skin.

It seems a little better-lit in person than it did in the photos, but that might be just crappy cameras. She can see the details clearly. The gleaming black glass tabletops, the dark leather and chrome seats — red stools, plum benches — the logo of six concentric rings done in dark purple lights with the innermost ring in red on every wall, the underlit tiles on the dance floor, the purple lights backing the alcohol shelves at the bar, the balcony on the second floor with the dark red curtains.

She and Mina wind their way around the edge of the dance floor to the bar, passing the stairs to the balcony on the way. It's roped off, a tall redheaded woman with full lips and biceps bigger than Yayoi's neck standing guard under a sign written in Italian of all things.

Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate.

In Japanese below, a decent translation. Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.

Yayoi giggles.

Mina notices and nudges her. "What?"

She points at the sign. "Someone appreciates the classics."

"I don't get it. Is that English?"

"Italian. That's the sign over the gates of Hell in Dante's Inferno." She glances at the club's logo again. Sixth… "Which makes this place Heresy, if I recall correctly."

The gatekeeper smiles at her.

When they reach the bar, the curly brunette bartender targets them immediately. "What can I get for a lady of culture?"

She raises an eyebrow and glances back at the stairs, then scans the shelves. "Death in the Afternoon, add two shots of Midori."

"Interesting." He extracts a bottle of champagne from below the bar while he takes Mina's order of a red Russian with strawberry schnapps. Then he's off in a blur of motion. Neither drink is complicated, so he shows off by practically teleporting the liquids into the glasses and the glasses onto the bar instead of doing fancy tricks with a shaker. And he's most definitely a show-off type, no one wears an orange shirt with an emerald bolo tie if they don't want to be watched. "Enjoy. What do you call this, by the way?"

She picks up her drink and takes a sip. "Other than excellently prepared? Sweet Dying Dream, I think. Replace the champagne with Midori entirely and double the absinthe and it'll be a Drowning Tinkerbell."

He steps back from the bar and sweeps a bow. "I shall remember it."

She nods back and sips at her drink while Mina chatters about the visible cuts of meat— Ahem. The hot guys on display, and tries to get a feel for the room before she hits the dance floor. Once her drink is empty, she sets the glass back down on the bar and at the next song change, she steps onto the lit tiles and lets the music carry her away.

Mina's description of alt and industrial wasn't inaccurate. The DJ is currently playing Chiasm, one of the heavier tracks, and when it ends, it goes into Marilyn Manson, then Deftones. It's on a cycle, she realizes as it goes on, progressing in a well-judged demonstration of how music genres evolve over time, but it never leaves the darker side of things, even when it verges into something close to pop. Then a jolt runs down her spine as she hears the opening beat of a very familiar tune.

"You say you're not afraid to die… But take off the armor 'round your chest and what's left inside?"

She glides back out to the edge of the floor, this requires precision.

"Lye-luh-lion lickin' your blade, do you really bleed if it washes away? Take a ride, rough as you can. I'll tell you a secret right as the walls are closin' in…"

She circles the rim, watching the crowd, marking the clusters.

"I like it when the bite marks cut through the skin."

Then the beat picks up and she steps into the flow.

"I like it when the bite markes cut through the skin!"

She spins around the other dancers, left around right and right around left, elbows at her sides and head low, until she reaches the center.

"Tell me the walls are closing in, into the fire and born again. Taste the pain and drink it in, I like it when the bite marks cut through the skin."

Then there's nothing but movement.

-TA&B-

Tomura rolls his eyes at Spinner's pick, but can't really complain. It's better than most of Toga's, at any rate.

"Hey boss, check this out."

"What?" He slides out of his seat and moves to the balcony anyway.

"On the floor, look."

"Lou-louder the bark and the bigger the blade, one seat on the throne and one foot in the grave. Lou-louder the moth and the bigger the flame, do you really bleed if it washes away?"

"Which one?" The dance floor is chaos by default.

"The ginger near the middle."

Tomura spots her almost immediately. Ginger is only a halfway accurate description, the girl in question has blazing Celtic-red hair clipped away from her face with bronze-colored leaf-shaped pins. Her nails have an equally bronze coating, and her lipstick and eyeliner match too, standing out against the light gold tone of her skin. The lace of her dress is more thorn than rose in the pattern, when she slows for the few split seconds that the song does. She keeps absolutely perfect time with it.

"What about her?" he forces himself to ask.

"Don't tell me you bleed if it washes away!"

"She did the whole Katarina thing the second the song started. Remember the season trailer?"

Tomura watches. There's no Elise on the field, but 'Katarina' still moves like she's fighting, like she knows she can win. A challenge. No one else down there looks remotely capable of meeting it.

"Think she's got a knife hidden somewhere?"

"Tell me the walls are closing in, into the fire and born again. Taste the pain and drink it in, I like it when the bite marks…"

She glides to a stop, half-turned and looking up over her shoulder.

"I like it when the bite marks cut through the skin."

Up at the balcony.

Spinner claps him on the shoulder. "I dunno, but would you really bounce her if she drew one?"

No, he doesn't think he would.

-TA&B-

The lighting on the balcony is much darker than the rest of the club, but Yayoi can see a pair of ruby red eyes set under a shag of light hair staring down at her when the song ends and she stops dancing. She doesn't dance to be watched, but it's still kinda gratifying.

Everyone clears out of her way as she returns to the bar, where the bartender has his head tilted slightly as if listening to something, then he smiles broadly at her. "Another Sweet Dying Dream for you, my dear? Your drinks are already paid for tonight."

Her eyebrows shoot up. "Oh? For what cause?"

"For the masterful show, of course." His eyes flick to the side, toward the balcony door.

Huh. That must be the VIP area. She takes the drink and slides onto an empty stool to work on it.

It's about halfway down before someone appears at her shoulder. "Excuse me, miss?"

She automatically shifts her grip on her glass to an overhand one, fingers around the rim. "Hm?"

"May I invite you to my friends' table?"

She glances at him. Wow. What is he even doing here? He looks like an accountant or something. "You may." She shifts her grip on the glass back and takes a sip, but doesn't move.

"Ah… This way then?"

"Mm, no."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Beg away." She glances at him again and sees his face twitching slightly. "You asked if you could invite me. I said you could. I didn't say that I would actually accept your invitation."

His face twitches harder. "I don't think you understand. The invitation is from Chisaki Kai."

The bartender's eyes narrow slightly.

She gives a slow blink. "And I don't know Chisaki Kai from Meiji-heika. I'm just here to dance."

"Chisaki-sama is—"

"I'd like to finish my drink," she interrupts. "It's a very good drink. Very well-made. But if you don't leave me alone, you're going to be wearing it while you go tell this Chisaki person that I'm not interested."

"The lady has made herself clear, my good sir," the bartender says as the accountant guy starts to open his mouth again. "But I shall make an addendum. If you end up wearing her drink, it will not be back to your table. It will be out the door."

The accountant's face twitches for a few more seconds, then he spins on his heel and stalks off toward… Oh, that's the guy in the purple fur collar. Now she's double-sure she's not interested.

She turns back to the bartender and raises her glass in toast, then tosses the rest of it back. "You are a shining example of a good bartender, sir."

He does his sweeping bow again. "You flatter me."

She sets the glass down and slips off her chair, then heads back onto the floor. She crashes into Mina on the way, and her roommate has clearly already had more than two drinks, but is still steady enough to dance.

The next song makes her glance back at the bar, and she laughs as the bartender holds up a glass in her direction while Marilyn Manson's cover of Sweet Dreams plays.

It's nearly three in the morning by the time she and Mina get home. It's a week later when they go back.

-TA&B-

"Hey boss, guess what?"

Tomura takes his headset off one side and glances at the door, where Spinner is standing. "What, I've got a match coming up."

"Maybe you wanna play later then, the absinthe ginger is back."

"The who?"

Spinner facepalms. "Right, Atsu's nickname. The Katarina dancer."

Tomura leaves the queue, but doesn't close the game yet. "And?"

Spinner gives him a look. "You have about five minutes before she finishes her first drink and hits the floor, if she does the same as last time."

"And?" he repeats.

"And that Yakuza douchebag is also back with his entourage. You may remember he was interested last time." Spinner raises an eyebrow. Then he jumps back as the door slams in his face. "I'll just go queue up some Pentakill shall I?" he calls through the wood.

Tomura closes the game and shoves his chair back from his desk, then rifles through his closet. He does not want to deal with Toga finding out he went into the club area in his sweats again. Whether or not anyone spots him is irrelevant to her.

…She's actually dressed like Katarina from the season trailer this time. Or close to it, anyway. A black high-collared top with one sleeve and no back, a red skirt split to the hip on both sides, hair tied over her right shoulder…

"Did you actually queue up Pentakill?" he asks Spinner.

"It's coming up in a few songs."

"Put Bite Marks in after."

"That'll fuck up the rhythm, I already had to speedrun the Prog phase."

"Like Toga and Jin don't do worse with their picks. Just do it." He leans against the wall next to the railing. "I wanna see what happens."

It takes half a dozen songs to get to Spinner's selections. Good choices. Grasp of the Undying, mostly. He catches a wild, blinding grin on her face as the music segues from Tool into Karthus and Kayle, then she starts moving like the music is following her instead of the other way around.

Fuck, why is this so fascinating to watch? Should he check with Atsuhiro to see if she's using charms or something?

…Dammit, now he's wondering how she'd look in red and white.

When the opening notes of Bite Marks start playing, he watches with interest as she grabs her pink-haired friend and says something to her. Then she slips off to the edge of the dance floor and flows into a perfect mimicry of Katarina's hunt. She twirls in a spiral around the other dancers, not even brushing them except with the flair of her skirt in the narrowest gaps.

Oh. Now he sees what the deal with the pink friend is. She got an Elise stand-in. Did they practice this? …No, this isn't choreographed. He was right. The 'Elise' is good enough, he guesses, but she's not capable of challenging the Katarina. Katarina is winning, as she should.

She's really agile too, the rest of the dancers have cleared a space for the duel so she has room to pull off some actual jumps and flips. Holy shit does he want to see her with a blade in each hand. And she knows how to do it without giving anyone an upskirt shot too.

Then the song ends and the Elise bows out, and Katarina rests in the same pose as last time, looking over her shoulder at the balcony. Up toward him.

"So is she drinking free again tonight?" Spinner asks.

It takes him a minute to realize his best friend has said anything. "…Yeah. The other one too, I guess."

He watches as the next song starts and she goes back to dancing. She's got stamina, she's not even breathing very hard after all that.

"So are you just going to stare at her all night, or…?"

"What do you mean, or? What do you expect me to do?"

Spinner snorts. "Expect? You? Not much at this point. What do I think you should do? I dunno, talk to her maybe?"

Tomura tears his eyes away to glare. "The fuck am I supposed to do that?"

"You bowed out of a League match to come watch her dance, and gave her a free drink pass. Again. Atsu's gonna talk. So will Toga. That means Nee-san will join in."

"So?"

"So if they're talking, then Dabi's gonna talk shit. And if you don't make a move, he might do it instead."

His blood heats up at that, and his jaw aches. "I'll punt his head into the fucking harbor if he does."

"You know that won't stop him."

"Without the rest of him?" Spinner gives him a flat look, and he growls back. "What the fuck do you want from me, Shuichi? You know I don't do people. People, in general. Girls? Forget it."

"Oh-ho-ho no. Girls? That's not a girl, boss. That's a woman."

"Whatever, how the fuck do I even talk to one of those?"

Spinner eyes him for a minute. "Have you considered that maybe you don't?"

"What."

"Don't try to talk to a woman. Talk to a gamer. Ask her if she plays."

"What, just like—" He stops, head snapping around to look at the dance floor. Something's wrong.

She's not there. At the bar either. She's…

He sees red.

-TA&B-

Yayoi is… annoyed, let's go with that. The blonde guy Mina picked up seemed fairly innocuous. Then he requested to swing by his table and let his buddies know he'd be gone for a while. She felt like going to the toilets anyway, so she walked with them.

Then 'his table' turned out to have the accountant and the purple-furred collar sitting there, along with some silver-haired douchebag and a bald giant. The latter of whom is currently blocking her.

"So glad you finally managed to join us," the purple fur collar says. Wow. He sounds… vaguely like FIddlesticks, somehow. "Please, have a seat." He gestures to the empty stool, the one the bald guy vacated.

She crosses her arms. "No."

He doesn't blink. The silver-haired one does, and looks offended. "You rude little—!"

"I wasn't talking to you." She doesn't bother looking straight at him. "I told your accountant last week I'm not interested."

"You haven't even heard what I have to offer," the obvious boss points out.

"Do you have a hea—"

"Hojo."

The bald one, the enforcer, clamps a hand down on her shoulder and squeezes slightly.

"I want to offer you a job," the boss continues, like nothing happened.

"I don't need one."

"You told my friend — who is a lawyer, by the way, not an accountant — that you're only here to dance."

"I am."

"That's good. That's what I want to hire you for."

She stares at him. "Are you hard of hearing? Are you not fluent in Japanese? Or am I somehow speaking Welsh? I said no. I don't give a fuck if whatever stripper pole you have set up in your house is solid gold, I am here, in this club, to dance, for my own entertainment. I am not for loan, rent, or sale. Especially not for you."

He stares back for several long seconds. "…I see. A pity. Kurono, tell Setsuno to bring the other one back."

Mina. Her eyes widen and she tries to to take a step, but Hojo's hand tightens around her shoulder, enough to make her collarbone creak slightly. "Let go of me, right fucking now."

The boss shakes his head. The silver one smirks as he types something on his phone, while the lawyer gives her a sanctimonious look. Her eyes flick over the three at the table, then she raises a foot and slams it back into Hojo's shin just above the ankle, hand darting down to the top of her boot.

Before she can bring the knife up to Hojo's hand, however, his grip disappears and he lets out a whine of pain, the other three jolting in surprise.

"So you do have a knife…" The voice is raspy, light, the auditory equivalent of a cat's tongue licking down her spine.

Hojo struggles, but doesn't get anywhere. "Who the hell are you?" he wheezes. Then he whimpers at the wet crack of bone. The music doesn't quite cover the scream or clatter as his broken arm is twisted around behind his back, used to drag him away from Yayoi, then shoved at Kurono hard enough knock the silver-haired man out of his seat and the seat to the floor.

"Get out of my club, Chisaki, and take your dogs with you. All of them. You have five minutes to settle your tab. Any member of the Shie Hassaikai that sets foot on the property after that is getting fed to my bouncer."

His club?

"You're making a mistake," Chisaki says lowly.

"Three minutes."

Chisaki takes his wallet out and drops a few crisp yen bills onto the table. "It's unfortunate we couldn't come to an understanding. I won't be able to help you with any upcoming supply issues after this."

The VIP bouncer woman comes up leading the blonde. Yayoi sees Mina being guided toward the bar by the bartender, a little unsteady on her feet. "Hey boss. Front or back?"

"Front. Make sure Imasuji's got them memorized."

"You got it, sugar. Let's go, boys."

As the table is vacated, Yayoi catches sight of a blonde flash snatching up the money on the table and skipping off toward the bar. Then she turns to look at the club owner.

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