Personal Ballerina
(Part 1)
{ Alice in Borderland Master List }
Summary: Niragi’s life was going great. He was the second in command militant and had so much power over everyone around him. He didn’t have to worry about anyone from his past, or anyone finding out about his past. Until, another group formed in Borderland. One person apart of that group, used to be his own personal ballerina.
Warnings: Spoilers for manga & show, Mentions of Bullying, Mentions of Abuse, This story is 18+.
Notes: This story is my own creative adaptation of the show & manga. The only spoilers for the manga are what I found on Fandom, which will just be backstories. The parts I’m taking from the show is honestly the bare minimal and all from Season 1. I have not read the manga and I will not be involving what happens during the Second Stage. This is all pre 10 of Hearts game. Mostly everything in italics is flashback/backstory and dreams. I will also be posting this on AO3 if you want to read it there. Here’s the LINK.
Tags: @starjane312 @dream-escaper
Fem!Reader
AIB ML | Index | Part 2
*·゜ﾟ·*:.。..。.:*·'(*ﾟ▽ﾟ*)'·*:.。. .。.:*·゜ﾟ·*
She glided across the stage like she was floating on water.
She spins in circles like she’s a tornado that never stops.
Leaping across the floor like a bird about to fly.
Niragi wants to reach out to touch her, but she gets further away with each step she takes.
He calls out her name, but she doesn’t hear him.
The darkness surrounds him and he starts to scream for her.
She never looks at him. Just continues to spin in circles in her own little dream.
He wants to get to her - He needs to get to her - but each time he tries she gets further away.
He’s about to jump into the unknown black void for her, but just when he’s about to take that final leap with her,
He wakes up.
He sits up in a cold sweat with his hand over his heart. His heart is beating rapidly and he felt like he was drowning.
“That felt so real,” He whispers to himself. He glances around self consciously like someone could have just heard him. Only to see his room empty as always.
He plops back onto the bed in a huff. He hates those types of dreams. The ones where he feels helpless and powerless to do anything. Recently, he’s hated going to sleep. He rather stay awake where he has the power over himself and others.
He also hates sleeping because he's been dreaming about someone he has prayed to forget about. He wants to forget about a lot of people. His bullies from high school, his parents that did nothing to stop the endless torture, any friends that did nothing for him in the real Tokyo but sit on their asses.
But mostly, he wants to forget about her.
The one person he’s ever cared for. The one person that’s ever cared about him.
His persoanl balleriane.
The person that iced his wounds, and would give him a show of her dancing at the theater to cheer him up. The only person that understood him - he wants to forget about the most.
Not because of a personal vendetta or even a falling out. He wants to forget her because he’s sick of the pinning. He’s sick of the person he used to be that a wanted her so badly, but did nothing to get her. The person he used to be that felt powerless over his own feelings.
Even worse, the feelings he still harbors to this day. That little voice always telling him to do the right thing, that’s your voice. That voice of reason and the face he sees on nights like these. Where he returns to dream land and thinks about the girl that made life worth living.
He would rather forget it all - because he knows he could never have you.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Niragi sits in the meeting room that morning like he didn't just have the worst dream of his life. Like how repetitive these dreams have been don’t bother him.
Everyone in the meeting is talking loudly about something Niragi isn’t paying attention to. It’s not that he doesn’t care. Hell, if someone were to say ‘time to kill everyone at The Beach’ Niragi would actually start to listen, and even start to agree.
But what’s on his mind right now, it’s not letting his ears listen. What’s not letting his mind enjoy the fact that he loves to bully those who are weaker than him, is you. He can just imagine your stupidly beautiful face scowling at him. Telling him to not act out or let those that did nothing to him feel his pain. To stand up for what’s right.
He hates this.
“Niragi, are you listening?”
He looks up from his lap, that he’s been staring at all morning in a daydream, and looks to Hatter. He hates him too.
This guy always wants everyones opinions, but doesn’t care what they are if it doesn't benefit him in some way. Niragi can’t wait for the day Aguni gives the order to finally take over The Beach. Niragi will be the first to volunteer to put a bullet in-between the eyes of this exotic looking man.
Niagi rolls his eyes at the Hatter.
“What do you want?”
His voice is laced with pure attitude and everyone hears it. No one thinks anything of it though because this is just how Niragi is.
“Have you been listening at all?”
Mira squints at him in annoyance next to him. He scoffs at the her.
He doesn’t even understand how she got to this place or how she became an executive. Mira is a fine piece of ass and all, but besides agreeing with everything Hatter says, and acting like a snarky bitch, he doesn’t understand why she’s here.
“No, I haven’t, princess. Got a lot on my mind and talking about the cards we need on repeat doesn’t need to involve allthe executives all the time.”
He looks to Aguni to make sure he didn’t say anything out of line, but Aguni just looks neutral in this situation. If Niragi were to say anything out of line, he would of cut him off right away.
“Well, Niragi, I'm sorry this meeting is so much of an inconvenience to you, but we arena’t talking about the cards at all.”
He looks back to Hatter in confusion. What else could they be talking about besides the cards? It's their priority legit 99% of the time. That 1% being finding more minions for Hatter to play the games for him and gain these exact cards.
Hatter pinches the bridge of his nose in announce to Niragi’s lack of attention throughout the entire meeting.
“Any-what. Chishiya, would you like to explain now what you saw yesterday?”
Well now Niragi just hates this meeting even more. Chishiya is the last person he wants to be around, it’s bad enough that he has to look at his face during every meeting, but now he has to hear him talk too? In that moment, he hoped a laser would just smite down on him and rid him of the misery.
“I’m not sure exactly what I saw.”
Oh my fucking God.
Niragi hates Chishiya with a burning passion. This guy acts like the most clever person in the room by being the most mysterious and stupid one of them all. Always eyeing them all like idiots and not wanting to spill anything that would undoubtedly put the spotlight on him.
It pisses Niragi off so much, he practically shouts at him, “Just say it already! We don’t got all day to figure out what shits been stirring in that brain of yours.”
Last Boss straightens in his spot next to Chishiya. Readying himself to intimidate the fuck out of him if needed to. One nod from Aguni or Niragi, and Last Boss would slit everyones throats with a smile while doing it.
Chishiya just looks at him like he’s stupid and this makes Niragi’s blood boil. He was about to punch the know-it-all himself, but Chishiya finally spit out what he really saw.
“It looked like another group. Another group trying to get all the cards.”
Everyones focus, even Niragi’s, was directly on Chishiya now. There's never been another group in Borderlands like The Beach before. The Beach was the first of it’s kind. Hatter made sure there was no allowance of another group forming and taking away the cards he wanted to claim.
“A-a what?” Hatter stuttered out in anger. “Another group, you say? Well - this won’t do. Just won’t do at all.”
Hatter was becoming manic now and everyone sat stiff or cowered in their seats. Nervous on what was Hatter’s next orders were going to be. But not Niragi, Aguni, or Last Boss. They were ready to fight, and most likely kill, the assholes that decided forming another group in Borderlands was a good idea.
“Well - I guess it’s time we meet this neighboring group, shall we? Militants-” Niragi sat up in his seat fully ready to go with whatever this order is about to be. “-Time for a road trip.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Niragi had a peep in his step. His dreams of the girl he’s none stopped thought about for months is no longer at the forefront of his mind.
His gun is on his shoulder and he’s practically running down the stairs to get to the parking garage. Any opportunity to shoot a motherfucker is good enough for him to actually listen to Hatter’s orders. If he ordered anything else, he would just scoff and tell Hatter to fuck off.
Aguni is the only boss he has, and the only one he’ll listen too, but there’s no way any of the militants would say no to something that involves their expertise in particular.
Niragi opens the door to the parking garage, and his mood automatically runs sour. His eyes twitch and he slams the door shut behind him.
“What’s this fucker doing here? Your not a militant.”
Chishiya is smirking at Niragi because he knows how much Niragi hates him. A mutual hatred to be exact. Niragi isn’t sure how or when exactly this happened. He just knows Chishiya pisses him off since the very start and it didn’t help how his eyes would always look at him. Like Niragi was somehow beneath him even though he was the one carrying a gun on his shoulder.
“We have no time for your tantrums Niragi Just get in the car and try to keep quiet.”
Aguni orders Niragi.
Niragi just scoffs and goes around the car to sit shot gun. Aguni is driving the cars he's in with Last Boss in the back.
The other car has another militant driving with another unnamed militant in the passenger seat. Niragi never cared to learn the names of the militants in lower ranks. They were beneath Niragi too and only weak people with guns to his eyes.
Hatter and Chishiya were in that car too, in the back seats. Niragi figured out pretty quickly Chishiya was only coming because he was the only one that knew where this ‘other group’ was. It was most likely an order from Hatter too.
God, he hated both of them so much.
As Aguni was driving behind the car with Chishiya and Hatter in it, Niragi’s mind started to wonder to her again. He played with his tongue piercing in his mouth and looked down at his lap. He knows she’ll never escape his mind no matter how hard he tries, but it doesn’t help that even in silent moments like these that his mind wonders to her.
Niragi sits in the front row of the theater. He holds an ice pack to his lip that his bullies just busted an hour before hand with a baseball. Baseball practice they said. Needed a tall enough target they said.
But he wasn’t thinking about the guys that tortured his life on repeat. He was only thinking about the girl leaping across the stage in front of him.
Y/n Y/l, her name is - and she’s the most beautiful girl Niragi has ever seen.
He meet her one day after he was beaten real bad next to the theater she dances at. She was the first one to ever help him and take care of his wounded body. She wanted to cheer him up especially since he couldn't stop crying at the time from the assault that just happened.
You figured, maybe watching you dance would help. Dancing has always helped you cope with the bad things at home. You have your own scars, that you would never show a soul, of when your father would beat on you after drinking to much. So maybe - just maybe - dancing to cheer someone else up would do the trick.
And it did.
After that first day of you two meeting, this became a part of your routine. Niragi would get beaten or bullied in some harsh ways then come straight here to the theater. He would also come here on days that he avoided the bullies after class.
You never showed him your bruises, but you did show him how you coped with your own lost battles.
Today, you're showing him the routine you have to preform in a week in front of a live audience.
Niragi’s eyes never leave you as you dance across the stage. Each step you take his eyes travel with you. Every time you bend in some way that most people would never be able to do, his heart picks up and his face feels hot. Each time you ready yourself to jump, he leans forward in his seat to ready himself to watch you float in the air.
Even as the music dies down, and you get off the stage because your performance for him has ended, Niragi’s eyes never leave you.
It isn’t until you plop in the seat next him that a he shakes his head, and stops his obvious longing for you.
“So, did you like it?”
Niragi’s smile stretches even further for the fact that you care about his opinion on your dancing.
“Your beautiful - I mean - your dancing... your dancing was beautiful Y/n.”
Niragi mentally smacks himself in the face for his slip up. You on the other hand, giggle at him fumbling over his words and think Niragi looks so cute when you see he’s blushing over it.
“Thanks Suguru. I don’t know if I would have the courage to dance on stage if it wasn’t for you.”
Niragi raises his eyebrow at you in question. He can’t believe how someone like you - someone beautiful, talented, and has him head over heels in love with you - could ever be nervous for something.
“What do you mean? You would dance just as beautifully if I wasn’t here.”
You don’t say anything back to him, but Niragi never questions why you don't continue the conversation. He knows there’s more to you then what your letting him see. He doesn’t pester you to talk about things you don’t want to talk about because you do the same for him when he walks into the theater all bloody like he is now.
You glance at his lip and you become sad at the sight.
Niragi realizes you looking at his busted lip and shakes his head at you to show you don’t need to worry about it.
“Don’t worry about it Y/n. I graduate next year and I'll never have to see those losers again.”
You half-smile at Niragi’s cheerful attitude, but feel saddened that Niragi has gone through so many hardships because of these guys.
“I just don’t understand why you don’t stand up to them. Take charge and tell them to leave you alone.”
Niragi wants to do just that. He really does, but he knows just telling them to go away isn’t enough. He wishes he had the power to make you proud, and come into that theater one day and tell you he did stand up for himself.
But, he can't.
He feels powerless against them.
And that’s why, he never had the power to tell you he loves you.
Niragi's daydream disappears when he feels the car go over a pot hole. He grabs onto the door like he feared for his life for a second.
Aguni glances over at Niragi when he realizes his second in command was probably daydreaming again. So much so, he didn’t even realize he was in a moving car.
“Quit daydreaming Niragi. Whatever we're about to face is more important then whatever’s been occupying your brain lately.”
Niragi sends a death glare over at Aguni for his attitude, then relaxes in his seat. When Niragi looks out the window, he sees undoubtedly where this new group of people are staying.
There driving right towards a baseball arena that’s big enough to house four-thousand people in it. He's always wondered why this stadium was never used as a game arena before. I guess he got the answer to that now.
When the car finally parks, about a mile down the road from the entrance, Aguni grunts out, “Were here.”
Everyone gets out of the cars in unison.
Niragi has his gun on his shoulder, and tilts his head back to look at the stadium.
Tokyo stadium is the only baseball arena in all of Tokyo. He's never been inside before, never cared about sports that much. He cared more about not getting beaten up, studying for his future job as a game engineer, and well - you.
Sports, especially baseball, was Niragi’s least favorite thing before Borderlands. This also includes being in Borderlands now. He spit on the ground and looks at the stadium with disgust.
Their group of people were about to get closer to each other to come up with a game plan of what they were going to do, but then one of the lower-level militants said, “Do you guys hear that?”
Niragi looked at the guy in confusion, then concentrated on listening for whatever this guy could have heard.
It's then he hears... cheering?
Everyone must have heard it too because everyone looks at each other in confusion now. Just when Niragi was about to voice his own confusion, a car came zooming past them.
People were hollering and cheering at something no one in their group knew about. But they all knew, they were driving straight to the stadium.
When everyone, including Niragi, got to the front doors of the stadium the cheering was much louder. It was clearly coming from inside, but no one knew why there was cheering exactly.
Everyone was on guard as Hatter opened the doors to the front of the stadium. The cheering and screaming was much louder now that he opened up the doors to reveal the inside.
There were hundreds of people in the stadium seats, but no one was sitting down. As they all walked more inside, Niragi picked up a few people cheering, “Top tiers! Top tiers!” Over, and over again.
“What the fuck is a top tier?”
Niragi voices his confusion out loud to Aguni next to him, but he didn’t hear him. Aguni, along with everyone else, was too focused looking around in both amazement and confusion.
It wasn't until a bullhorn went off that everyone started to get quiet.
“Welcome fellow players!”
Niragi and the rest of The Beach group were now in a spot that they could see a man right in the middle of the field.
Except, it no longer looked like a baseball field. More like a field of what the greeks would use for fighting during the times when watching people kill each other was for enjoyment.
The game masters would have thrived during those times, Niragi thought to himself after making this connection.
The man in the middle of the field looked like a copycat to Hatter. He wasn’t wearing beach clothing and a robe, but he had the same hair length and aura of crazy to him.
He stretched his arms out wide to the crowd. The cheering got louder until he tapped on the mic in front of him and shushed into the mic. The crowd died down once again.
It’s then Niragi realizes this stadium has power just like The Beach does. The only different is that you can’t see the lights from outside the stadium unlike at the resort.
“Tonight - is going to be one Hell of a night! We have all our top tiers with us! The ones that have beaten game after game in their speciality! Who have claimed their titles of being our top tiers, and will one day come home with all the number cards!”
I see in the corner of my eye Hatter lean forward and concentrate more on the man in front of us.
“They are here to fight anyone who stands in their way of that goal! But! My question for all of you is - who wants to test there strengths and become the next top tiers?!”
The cheering began again and Niragi just became more confused.
Some girl bumped into his shoulder and he growled at her, but she didn’t even glance at him back. She started hollering and cheering up a storm for whoever these top tiers were.
Niragi feels Last Boss nudge him. He looks over at the other militant and he’s making gestures with his eyes. Like he wants Niragj to say something to the girl.
“What the fuck do you want me to do?”
Niragi shouts to Last Boss over the crowds cheering. The girl turns around at their group and eyes then all curiously.
“You guys are new here, ain’t you?”
Everyone now looked at the girl either surprised that she was talking to them, or suspicious of why she was talking to them. Aguni and Hatter were the ones looking suspicious.
Niragi then realized this would be a good time to ask what the top tires even mean.
“Yeah, you can say that. You mind telling us what top tier means sweetheart?”
Niragi gets flirty at the end because now that he’s looking at the girl, she would be a perfect candidate for getting his mind off of everything.
But that’s not right.
Everything is just fine.
Except for the girl he can’t seem to get off his mind unless he’s buried in another.
The girl scoffs at Niragi’s flirtation, but answers him anyway.
“The top tiers are the best in their specialties. You know - Spades, Diamonds, and Hearts. Put all these people together they make a great Clubs trio too.”
Niragi nods his head at this new found information. Everyone always bragged about their specialities to each other, but he didn’t realize there were actual people in Borderland that used them like this.
“So-“ Great now the blonde fuck face decides to talk. “-what is so special to being a top tier?”
The girl looks at Chishiya like he just asked the most weirdest question she’s ever heard.
“You don’t know?”
Everyone shakes there head simultaneously.
“Damn, you guys really are new. When you become top tier your first in line to leave all the games together.” What? “The first to grab all the numbered cards leaves, so with that the top tiers leave first. These guys are at the top of their shit. I mean, basically doing all the suits by themselves! On top of the fact that most people are to chicken to try to take their spots as top tiers anyway.”
Not only is this new information getting everyone on edge, but Hatter in particular is fuming. This man has been telling everyone he’s to leave first, and now these ‘top tiers’ are taking it a pone themselves to do exactly what he’s doing.
And there’s only three of them?!
Commence Hatter freak out in 3… 2… 1…
“What?!”
The girl jumps back from Hatter’s outburst.
“Your telling me - these three people have basically collected all these cards by themselves!”
The girl just nods her head and slowly attracts herself away from our group. Hell, if Niragi was her he would too. It’s not even the words Hatter uses that makes him so crazy, it’s how he throws his arms around, and shakes like a cold kitten in winter, that makes him seem so crazy.
Everyone’s attention goes back to the field when welcoming music starts playing.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are pleases to present the top tiers themselves!”
Niragi leans forward, and squints his eyes, to try and get a better look at them. But, by how high up this stadium is he can barely see them.
The dude that reminds Niragi so much of Hatter then starts to talk again.
“To my left is the beautiful Leo herself! But don’t let her looks fool you, she’ll eat your heart out. The Hearts top tier!”
What Niragi can see from the girl, is she reminds him a lot of Mira. Craziest smile you’ll ever see, but instead of straightened hair it’s in two braided pink tails.
“To my right is the cleverest of them all! The one who will stay in the shadows, but will secretly have the whole game down packet before you even pick up a phone. Minato our Diamonds boy!”
Niragi has to lean in extra close to even see the guy. He’s either really young, or just super short. He has black hair that’s slicked back and looks like he could be easily considered the smartest person in the room by how he carries himself.
“Then last but oh - definitely not least.”
Niragi tries to focus on the last person behind the copycat Hatter. She has a black hoodie up so he can’t make out their face. He notices the crowd gets rowdier just by this one person.
“She will slit your throat so fast you won’t even realize your dying until you hit the floor!”
She finally puts her hood down and now Niragi gets a better look at her.
She looks like - wait a minute. Niragi gasps. “It can’t be…”
“Y/n our Spades Queen!”
Niragi now knows how it feels to have a heart attack.
-
(Part 2)