A Cup Overflows
Feb. 9th, 2020 06:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madimpossibledreamerHaving too much fun writing Bloody Petals so I'm messing up my schedule.
There's a follow-up to the fight club one, but I'm not posting that one for a bit. This one's probably the equivalent of Yakuza|Yakuza Kiwami because Miyamoto isn't a matriarch of a family yet and is still in possession of both of her eyes. The equivalent of Yakuza 0 is the one where Kimiko dies because there's lots of drama around who's the next Chairwoman, and because thematically betrayal's a huge thing in 1|Kiwami.
As usual with this 'verse, loads of author's notes.
link as previously to the background info
In this universe, Japan is run by the women. Kumai Atae is Jesse McNally. Miyamoto Suna is Xander. Abe is Willy the Snitch. Natsukawa Renyo is Buffy, the Chairwoman of the yakuza/gokudou Clan Amaya-kai, which is similar in strength to the Tojo Clan of the Yakuza games and has influence over roughly the same area (including Tokyo-hence why Miyamoto's accent here stands out). Like Majima, Miyamoto's faking the Kansai-ben (Kansai accent, often translated as a Brooklyn accent a la Joey Wheeler from Yugioh or a Southern accent. It's perceived as kind of lower class compared to a Tokyo accent). The Natsukawa-gumi (-gumi is Family), on the other hand, are run by the matriarch Natsukawa Akeru (Dawn), Renyo's little sister. If Renyo hadn't gotten the Chairwomanship, she would've gotten control of the Natsukawa Family. The Family was previously run by one of Natsukawa Kimiko (Joyce)'s trusted subordinates having ascended to the position after Kimiko got the Chairwomanship....but just a few years ago, once she was of the age where she could lead a Family, it was discovered that the previous Matriarch molested children and she was put away. No one can prove Akeru did it, and most think it was Renyo looking out for her little sis, since she was chosen as the youngest Matriarch following that. Kumai's voicing some nasty stereotypes in this fic, so yeah, she's sexist (men are only there to take orders, listen, and look pretty according to a derogatory stereotype). Miyamoto is genderfluid in this, just as her counterpart Xander is in the other Yakuza crossover one I write, only in this one, the women are in charge. Miyamoto is also faced with a difficult decision of the Japanese system of honor-when your immediate superior betrays your grandboss, what do you do?
As for the irezumi...there will be more to this later on (and some of it's already shown up in Like You've Never Seen), but basically, these traditional Japanese yakuza tattoos than simply ink. It's a magical contract with the youkai, or spirit, depicted. The youkai lends its power to the human who contracts with it, but for a price (largely feeding off the human's spirit, though it's not uncommon to demand offerings or similar. Each offer different powers to the contractee, so the choice is as individual as irezumi in the real world. Passively drawing from an irezumi youkai's abilities, for example, can give you anything from enhanced endurance to enhanced speed. This is heavily frowned upon for lower-level yakuza. (As lieutenant to a Matriarch from a prominent Amaya-kai family, Miyamoto doesn't exactly qualify as 'lower level', but she's not fully conscious of her accomplishments/position.) Meanwhile, officers from higher families or working directly for the Amaya-kai itself can freely draw on their irezumi, and yakuza of any rank are allowed to invoke their irezumi youkai, letting the youkai fully manifest by possessing the contractee. It's definitely dangerous, outs you as a yakuza, and can still earn you punishment if your superiors don't think it was warranted (it's similar to pulling a gun or a sword). Murder is still frowned upon, because it draws curious or inquisitive eyes.
Finally, the title's from Red Cliff (which I'm aware isn't a Japanese work and is based on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms): there's a scene where Xiao Qiao is performing a tea ceremony for Cao Cao and tells him "Your heart is overflowing with ambition. It's too full to let other people in."
Main Points:
Buffy/Yakuza AU (Bloody Petals)
Chapter Summary: The ambition of Kumai (Jesse) leads to dark places, her lieutenant Miyamoto (Xander) is worried, and Chairwoman Natsukawa (Buffy) is in the hospital. PoV is, essentially, Kumai's.
Word Count: 1383
Rating: Teen (yakuza level violence, sexism [coming from a jerk, but still])
Still, her own lieutenant shouldn’t be questioning her.
“Your accent is slipping,” she responds with a sneer. “And I really should be asking you the same thing. Really, you should be elsewhere.”
The matriarch expects her own lieutenant to double down, to enhance the accent and make some joke, but she doesn’t.
She drops it entirely and gets serious. “It’s just…it’s Amaya-kai orders. The entire Clan knows. Only Natsukawa-gumi are supposed to be here, protecting the Chairwoman after the attack on her life. If someone was suspicious, they’d think you were here with bad intentions.” The look in her eyes says she’ll drop it, just as long as her own matriarch leaves here and now.
And she’s just stubborn enough for it, too. Which is a shame, because Kumai Atae deserves to be Chairwoman, not some brat who only “earned” it through nepotism (never mind her brat of a sister running her own prominent Amaya-kai family). If some idiots hadn’t been all nostalgic about Natsukawa Kimiko, they wouldn’t be in this mess now. And Miyamoto-chan had been a good lieutenant, too, when she’d been alive. A little weak, maybe, but it didn’t hurt to have a yes-woman around. “Funny,” Kumai-sama muses. “You’d think a yakuza willing to pretend they’re a little boy sometimes would be better about taking orders, but it turns out, you’re pretty lousy at it.”
It’s the second time today that Miyamoto-chan defies expectations. Instead of pulling off her jacket, to show she’s serious about this, she just charges instead, getting in two good hits with furious, silent fists just because she’s so taken off guard.
It occurs to Kumai, trading blows, that her lieutenant’s stamina, once thought an asset, might actually have some negative connotations here. While before she’d barely considered whether or not Miyamoto-chan could survive many situations she’d been ordered into, simply because being thrown through glass fifteen times led to nothing more than an expressive wince as Miyamoto-chan threw herself back into the fight, glass embedded everywhere, now it could drag out a fight to the point someone might notice who she’d rather not get involved. The lieutenant ignores the trickle of blood coming from the side of her mouth, rolling aside just barely in time to avoid Kumai’s stomp in her face, coming to her feet—slower, but with no less determination.
It had, at some point, become normal to hear the clack of teeth as she smacked her palm into the opposing yakuza’s jaw. To feel the spray of saliva as she punched them in the stomach. To hear the crunch as you stomped on their foot. To smell the unique stench of blood and sweat that signified a fight.
Miyamoto-chan’s more determined, better, than the last time she’d seen her lieutenant fight. Sure, she’s not getting in as many hits, but she just. won’t. stop. trying. And she’s gotten in enough that while Kumai’s better than her subordinate and certainly better than some unqualified, spoilt, wounded child, it needs to end.
She really had enjoyed working with an old friend, but when it came to weighing friendship against control of the Amaya-kai, there was no contest. “I really didn’t want to have to mar such a pretty face, but you’re leaving me no choice,” Kumai informs her lieutenant seconds before it’s too late. She pulls a knife from a hidden pants pocket (thanks for the weapons trader tip, Abe), and stabs Miyamoto-chan in her left eye. The scream is so much louder than she would’ve thought for a hardened yakuza, particularly the lieutenant of a decently powerful family, particularly one used to being punched in the spine, only…
Only it switches to a whine, high-pitched and grating, as it goes. Miyamoto-chan’s grip turns to steel, keeping her exactly in place. And then it changes into a disturbing, unstable laugh, and Kumai has two seconds to realize that she’s entirely misunderstood the situation, after all.
Miyamoto-chan’s never invoked her irezumi youkai on her before. Said it would be disrespectful. Of course, she’s asked down the chain. A haiena makes sense for a vicious group ruled by the women, but as they tend to hunt in packs she hadn’t thought that would be a particularly appropriate irezumi for anything more than an errand girl. To her knowledge, Miyamoto-chan’s never fully invoked her spirit before. She’s only drawn on it in situations appropriate for a yakuza of her status to invoke one. As far as she knows, this makes the entire situation utterly new.
With the maddened, gleeful look in Miyamoto-chan’s remaining eye, the bared teeth, and the sudden increase in strength, it’s hard to tell whether she’s dealing with youkai or human anymore. She gasps a little as she hears and feels the crunch of the wrist holding the knife breaking in her inferior’s grip.
A different explanation suddenly occurs to her. Perhaps Miyamoto-chan had been worried about being disrespectful, after all. If she was unable to control herself, control her irezumi youkai to the extent expected of someone of her station…
Kumai invokes her own Onryō irezumi youkai. The ground beneath them shakes a little.
Generally, it allows her to slip out of an opponent’s grip or phase through attacks, but Miyamoto-chan grabs the knife and stabs her in the side. It might be because it’s her weapon, or it’s something Miyamoto-chan’s own irezumi youkai lets her do. She starts choking Miyamoto-chan from within for lack of anything better to do—somehow the grip on her non-broken wrist hasn’t let up, so it’s likely the haiena.
In fact, it seems to be getting worse quickly, and if she doesn’t deal with this soon, she’s going to have two broken wrists.
Meanwhile with another demented chuckle sounding even more demonic due to the quickly lessening airflow, Miyamoto-chan, undeterred, yanks the knife out, the spray of blood staining Kumai’s ghostly form and Miyamoto-chan’s entire arm. She starts stabbing wildly, something a little broken and manic in the way the remaining eye stares, wide and suffused with a green glow. Kumai’s able to twist out of the way of most of the attacks, but when her second wrist breaks with a crunch and a sudden look of satisfaction in that staring greenish eye she doesn’t manage to make it out of the path of the last three stabs. With how weak she’s feeling now and the fact that her arms are useless now and that spray of blood, it’s likely that while she managed to utterly destroy Miyamoto-chan’s eye, in return her former lieutenant’s hit a big blood vessel or an organ or something. Not necessarily deadly, not with her irezumi invoked, but it’s time to leave, before Miyamoto-chan’s wild stabbing can land on something truly deadly. At the very least she doesn’t plan on leaving her body here, a failure and example for the Amaya-kai.
Of the disasters her youkai can call up, she tries not to lean too heavily on the earthquake, as it’s as dangerous for her (when she’s in the vicinity) as it is for her opponents. This time, though, she doesn’t have a choice.
She concentrates on it, letting Miyamoto-chan breathe, until there’s a tremor enough to mess with her opponent’s balance. She quickly takes advantage with a leg sweep, screaming a little as Miyamoto-chan’s fall wrenches her broken wrist even as it breaks that merciless grip, and concentrates even harder. She runs. If she survives, there’s time for plotting and licking her wounds later. Revenge can only come if she survives. There’s a wordless, animal scream of rage as she escapes, sobbing a little and forcing herself back to her feet even as a giant chunk of the ceiling comes down on her head as the invocation flickers, to jump through the windows to potential safety down below. The only factors in her favor now are that she’d entirely failed to spot any Natsukawa-gumi posted outside the building, meaning they were probably all stationed inside, and that sound of something being crushed followed by a snarl of rage meant that Miyamoto-chan is, at the very least, delayed in her pursuit.
There's a follow-up to the fight club one, but I'm not posting that one for a bit. This one's probably the equivalent of Yakuza|Yakuza Kiwami because Miyamoto isn't a matriarch of a family yet and is still in possession of both of her eyes. The equivalent of Yakuza 0 is the one where Kimiko dies because there's lots of drama around who's the next Chairwoman, and because thematically betrayal's a huge thing in 1|Kiwami.
As usual with this 'verse, loads of author's notes.
link as previously to the background info
In this universe, Japan is run by the women. Kumai Atae is Jesse McNally. Miyamoto Suna is Xander. Abe is Willy the Snitch. Natsukawa Renyo is Buffy, the Chairwoman of the yakuza/gokudou Clan Amaya-kai, which is similar in strength to the Tojo Clan of the Yakuza games and has influence over roughly the same area (including Tokyo-hence why Miyamoto's accent here stands out). Like Majima, Miyamoto's faking the Kansai-ben (Kansai accent, often translated as a Brooklyn accent a la Joey Wheeler from Yugioh or a Southern accent. It's perceived as kind of lower class compared to a Tokyo accent). The Natsukawa-gumi (-gumi is Family), on the other hand, are run by the matriarch Natsukawa Akeru (Dawn), Renyo's little sister. If Renyo hadn't gotten the Chairwomanship, she would've gotten control of the Natsukawa Family. The Family was previously run by one of Natsukawa Kimiko (Joyce)'s trusted subordinates having ascended to the position after Kimiko got the Chairwomanship....but just a few years ago, once she was of the age where she could lead a Family, it was discovered that the previous Matriarch molested children and she was put away. No one can prove Akeru did it, and most think it was Renyo looking out for her little sis, since she was chosen as the youngest Matriarch following that. Kumai's voicing some nasty stereotypes in this fic, so yeah, she's sexist (men are only there to take orders, listen, and look pretty according to a derogatory stereotype). Miyamoto is genderfluid in this, just as her counterpart Xander is in the other Yakuza crossover one I write, only in this one, the women are in charge. Miyamoto is also faced with a difficult decision of the Japanese system of honor-when your immediate superior betrays your grandboss, what do you do?
As for the irezumi...there will be more to this later on (and some of it's already shown up in Like You've Never Seen), but basically, these traditional Japanese yakuza tattoos than simply ink. It's a magical contract with the youkai, or spirit, depicted. The youkai lends its power to the human who contracts with it, but for a price (largely feeding off the human's spirit, though it's not uncommon to demand offerings or similar. Each offer different powers to the contractee, so the choice is as individual as irezumi in the real world. Passively drawing from an irezumi youkai's abilities, for example, can give you anything from enhanced endurance to enhanced speed. This is heavily frowned upon for lower-level yakuza. (As lieutenant to a Matriarch from a prominent Amaya-kai family, Miyamoto doesn't exactly qualify as 'lower level', but she's not fully conscious of her accomplishments/position.) Meanwhile, officers from higher families or working directly for the Amaya-kai itself can freely draw on their irezumi, and yakuza of any rank are allowed to invoke their irezumi youkai, letting the youkai fully manifest by possessing the contractee. It's definitely dangerous, outs you as a yakuza, and can still earn you punishment if your superiors don't think it was warranted (it's similar to pulling a gun or a sword). Murder is still frowned upon, because it draws curious or inquisitive eyes.
Finally, the title's from Red Cliff (which I'm aware isn't a Japanese work and is based on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms): there's a scene where Xiao Qiao is performing a tea ceremony for Cao Cao and tells him "Your heart is overflowing with ambition. It's too full to let other people in."
Main Points:
Buffy/Yakuza AU (Bloody Petals)
Chapter Summary: The ambition of Kumai (Jesse) leads to dark places, her lieutenant Miyamoto (Xander) is worried, and Chairwoman Natsukawa (Buffy) is in the hospital. PoV is, essentially, Kumai's.
Word Count: 1383
Rating: Teen (yakuza level violence, sexism [coming from a jerk, but still])
“Ya sure y’ ain’t got someplace else t’ be?” Kumai startles a little. Of course, she’d dealt with this so much as a kid. Miyamoto-chan liked sneaking around and scaring people.
Still, her own lieutenant shouldn’t be questioning her.
“Your accent is slipping,” she responds with a sneer. “And I really should be asking you the same thing. Really, you should be elsewhere.”
The matriarch expects her own lieutenant to double down, to enhance the accent and make some joke, but she doesn’t.
She drops it entirely and gets serious. “It’s just…it’s Amaya-kai orders. The entire Clan knows. Only Natsukawa-gumi are supposed to be here, protecting the Chairwoman after the attack on her life. If someone was suspicious, they’d think you were here with bad intentions.” The look in her eyes says she’ll drop it, just as long as her own matriarch leaves here and now.
And she’s just stubborn enough for it, too. Which is a shame, because Kumai Atae deserves to be Chairwoman, not some brat who only “earned” it through nepotism (never mind her brat of a sister running her own prominent Amaya-kai family). If some idiots hadn’t been all nostalgic about Natsukawa Kimiko, they wouldn’t be in this mess now. And Miyamoto-chan had been a good lieutenant, too, when she’d been alive. A little weak, maybe, but it didn’t hurt to have a yes-woman around. “Funny,” Kumai-sama muses. “You’d think a yakuza willing to pretend they’re a little boy sometimes would be better about taking orders, but it turns out, you’re pretty lousy at it.”
It’s the second time today that Miyamoto-chan defies expectations. Instead of pulling off her jacket, to show she’s serious about this, she just charges instead, getting in two good hits with furious, silent fists just because she’s so taken off guard.
It occurs to Kumai, trading blows, that her lieutenant’s stamina, once thought an asset, might actually have some negative connotations here. While before she’d barely considered whether or not Miyamoto-chan could survive many situations she’d been ordered into, simply because being thrown through glass fifteen times led to nothing more than an expressive wince as Miyamoto-chan threw herself back into the fight, glass embedded everywhere, now it could drag out a fight to the point someone might notice who she’d rather not get involved. The lieutenant ignores the trickle of blood coming from the side of her mouth, rolling aside just barely in time to avoid Kumai’s stomp in her face, coming to her feet—slower, but with no less determination.
It had, at some point, become normal to hear the clack of teeth as she smacked her palm into the opposing yakuza’s jaw. To feel the spray of saliva as she punched them in the stomach. To hear the crunch as you stomped on their foot. To smell the unique stench of blood and sweat that signified a fight.
Miyamoto-chan’s more determined, better, than the last time she’d seen her lieutenant fight. Sure, she’s not getting in as many hits, but she just. won’t. stop. trying. And she’s gotten in enough that while Kumai’s better than her subordinate and certainly better than some unqualified, spoilt, wounded child, it needs to end.
She really had enjoyed working with an old friend, but when it came to weighing friendship against control of the Amaya-kai, there was no contest. “I really didn’t want to have to mar such a pretty face, but you’re leaving me no choice,” Kumai informs her lieutenant seconds before it’s too late. She pulls a knife from a hidden pants pocket (thanks for the weapons trader tip, Abe), and stabs Miyamoto-chan in her left eye. The scream is so much louder than she would’ve thought for a hardened yakuza, particularly the lieutenant of a decently powerful family, particularly one used to being punched in the spine, only…
Only it switches to a whine, high-pitched and grating, as it goes. Miyamoto-chan’s grip turns to steel, keeping her exactly in place. And then it changes into a disturbing, unstable laugh, and Kumai has two seconds to realize that she’s entirely misunderstood the situation, after all.
Miyamoto-chan’s never invoked her irezumi youkai on her before. Said it would be disrespectful. Of course, she’s asked down the chain. A haiena makes sense for a vicious group ruled by the women, but as they tend to hunt in packs she hadn’t thought that would be a particularly appropriate irezumi for anything more than an errand girl. To her knowledge, Miyamoto-chan’s never fully invoked her spirit before. She’s only drawn on it in situations appropriate for a yakuza of her status to invoke one. As far as she knows, this makes the entire situation utterly new.
With the maddened, gleeful look in Miyamoto-chan’s remaining eye, the bared teeth, and the sudden increase in strength, it’s hard to tell whether she’s dealing with youkai or human anymore. She gasps a little as she hears and feels the crunch of the wrist holding the knife breaking in her inferior’s grip.
A different explanation suddenly occurs to her. Perhaps Miyamoto-chan had been worried about being disrespectful, after all. If she was unable to control herself, control her irezumi youkai to the extent expected of someone of her station…
Kumai invokes her own Onryō irezumi youkai. The ground beneath them shakes a little.
Generally, it allows her to slip out of an opponent’s grip or phase through attacks, but Miyamoto-chan grabs the knife and stabs her in the side. It might be because it’s her weapon, or it’s something Miyamoto-chan’s own irezumi youkai lets her do. She starts choking Miyamoto-chan from within for lack of anything better to do—somehow the grip on her non-broken wrist hasn’t let up, so it’s likely the haiena.
In fact, it seems to be getting worse quickly, and if she doesn’t deal with this soon, she’s going to have two broken wrists.
Meanwhile with another demented chuckle sounding even more demonic due to the quickly lessening airflow, Miyamoto-chan, undeterred, yanks the knife out, the spray of blood staining Kumai’s ghostly form and Miyamoto-chan’s entire arm. She starts stabbing wildly, something a little broken and manic in the way the remaining eye stares, wide and suffused with a green glow. Kumai’s able to twist out of the way of most of the attacks, but when her second wrist breaks with a crunch and a sudden look of satisfaction in that staring greenish eye she doesn’t manage to make it out of the path of the last three stabs. With how weak she’s feeling now and the fact that her arms are useless now and that spray of blood, it’s likely that while she managed to utterly destroy Miyamoto-chan’s eye, in return her former lieutenant’s hit a big blood vessel or an organ or something. Not necessarily deadly, not with her irezumi invoked, but it’s time to leave, before Miyamoto-chan’s wild stabbing can land on something truly deadly. At the very least she doesn’t plan on leaving her body here, a failure and example for the Amaya-kai.
Of the disasters her youkai can call up, she tries not to lean too heavily on the earthquake, as it’s as dangerous for her (when she’s in the vicinity) as it is for her opponents. This time, though, she doesn’t have a choice.
She concentrates on it, letting Miyamoto-chan breathe, until there’s a tremor enough to mess with her opponent’s balance. She quickly takes advantage with a leg sweep, screaming a little as Miyamoto-chan’s fall wrenches her broken wrist even as it breaks that merciless grip, and concentrates even harder. She runs. If she survives, there’s time for plotting and licking her wounds later. Revenge can only come if she survives. There’s a wordless, animal scream of rage as she escapes, sobbing a little and forcing herself back to her feet even as a giant chunk of the ceiling comes down on her head as the invocation flickers, to jump through the windows to potential safety down below. The only factors in her favor now are that she’d entirely failed to spot any Natsukawa-gumi posted outside the building, meaning they were probably all stationed inside, and that sound of something being crushed followed by a snarl of rage meant that Miyamoto-chan is, at the very least, delayed in her pursuit.
