Don't own Big Hero 6.

Don't own the Cover Art.

This is an AU where Tadashi doesn't take Hiro to the Nerd Lab.

Legacy

The young man had a feeling that, if his family knew where he was at that moment, they wouldn't believe it at all. He, considered a straight-laced, goody two-shoes was lounging in a bar waiting for someone who had sent him a message. The bartender set down a drink in front of him, bowed a little lower than most considered necessary, and continued working.

He took the small cup and sipped it, letting out a sigh. This place did have some of the better sake in town. And the young man would know; he was invited to places like this more often than he would care to admit to anyone, especially his family.

The man poured more sake into his cup as the thought of a certain trouble-making teen crossed his mind. He honestly had no idea what to do with the boy at this point. All he did was eat, sleep, and bot fight! The teen hadn't nearly been this bad at his age.

…per se.

The bell at the door jingled as someone entered, but the teen didn't react until he felt the man hovering beside him, wanting him to acknowledge his presence. The eldest male in his family looked up at the man in front of him, and let his eyes go half-mast in dispassion. "You look terrible."

The older man sneered back at him and sat down roughly beside him, but didn't dare take his sake and instead ordered his own. "If I do it's your fault. Really, Aniki, you and that Hamada brat are aging us by decades."

"How old do you think I feel?" Aniki asked dryly. "I helped raise Hiro. I'm still centuries older than you in respect to interaction with him, Yama."

"Speaking of the kid," the large bot fighter rumbled, snatching up his cup when it was set before him with a brief bow. He emptied the cup and refilled it. "You've gotta do something about him, Aniki. He's a right monster."

"…He's a talented bot builder and fighter," Aniki allowed, his brow furrowing slightly. "But that shouldn't be a problem. I wasn't much different at that age."

"It's not that," Yama grunted, and waved for another bottle. "He's good, and normally that wouldn't be a problem, but he's like a cat with an injured bird. He plays us, toys with us, and it's beginning to upset the wrong people."

"It's not the Yaks is it?" Aniki asked in concern, leaning a little closer as he took a larger drink of his sake. Leave it to Hiro to anger the Yakuza of all people.

"Not yet," Yama reassured, waving absentmindedly. "Only some of their flunkies have lost to Hiro so far, and they're ignoring all of their complaints. But one of the higher ups will be showing up next weekend, and he won't be ignored if he tells them about your bot fighting brat. He'll be recruited, or…uh…convinced to stay out of their turf."

The room cooled noticeably at that last statement. "Last I checked," the teen mused nonchalantly, the watch on his wrist gaining an ominous gleam. "The bot fighting rings were my turf. Are the Yaks threatening that?"

Yama gulped a little in apprehension. It was sometimes hard to believe that such an innocuous-looking teen could have such a threatening presence. Then again, it was also hard to believe that this same kid was the one to create several bans for the bot fighting scene; he was just a rather odd teen. "Of course not, Aniki," he was quick to assure, sweat breaking out on his forehead. "But you know how they are: if you don't stop the kid's behavior, one of 'em's gonna do it for ya."

The tension in the room eased as the younger man accepted his words with a mild "true". The teen hummed thoughtfully. "Well, we can either place a note on his profile in the database that declares his hustler status," but the teen still had his doubts on that, and wanted to avoid it for the time being. That would put a rather large target on Hiro's head. "Or we can schedule a bot fight in the eastern warehouse. Seiryuu will watch the fights, and teach my brother a lesson if necessary."

Yama looked at him in surprise. "Seiryuu? You don't mean…"

The smile on Aniki's face was not a nice one. "Yep; this will be the first official anything-goes bot fight since they legalized the whole thing." The young man placed the sake cup onto the counter top with a clink, and stood with Yama right behind him. He moved to the door. "I don't want any of the police moles there at all."

"Right." This was the owner of the warehouse, so it was only reasonable to follow his orders on the matter. Yama hid a grin.

Hiro wouldn't know what hit him.

Hiro sighed in complete boredom, throwing a crumpled ball of paper he'd found on his brother's desk up and catching it in his other hand in a continuous rhythm. It was near eight o'clock in the evening and Tadashi had only just come home and was in the shower while Hiro attempted to entertain himself for a few minutes.

After throwing the paper ball a few more times, the thing landed on his head and Hiro let out a grunt of annoyance before ripping it off his face. As he was preparing to continue throwing the ball in the air, a flash of color in the paper caught his eye and he opened the paper with a curious tilt to his head.

THE ULTIMATE BOT FIGHT

At the eastern warehouse, the ultimate bot fight will be taking place. For the first time in years, this bot fight will be anything goes, and any banned technology will be allowed on this one night. Thought bot fighting was too easy? Come out tonight, and we'll prove you wrong!

Hiro stared at the advertisement, and a wicked grin crept up his face. Oh yeah, he was going.

The days leading up to the bot fight went by torturously slow for Hiro, who only saw his brother from time to time during the wait that the younger Hamada had to go through. He only showed up a few times to crash on his bed and shower, which was still not too bad as he was wont to sleep and shower at the lab if he had a breakthrough. Hiro barely noticed, his eyes locked onto the calendar every day.

When the weekend came by, Hiro could barely wait for evening to come. Six finally rolled around and the teen shouted a quick farewell to his aunt before hightailing out of the house, Megabot in hand. He arrived fifteen minutes later, and just took in the atmosphere.

There was a competitive tension in the air that wasn't there before. People were eyeing one another warily, and spontaneous fights would break out as one bot pounced on another. Hiro whistled appreciatively at the weapons he saw, razor blades and swords and a few even hovered a little off the ground.

The teen quickly got into the swing of things, tricking first one, then two people into betting and losing more as they bet against him. And the large amount of people ensured that he would be successful for some time yet in this little scheme.

Fifteen minutes passed before a new presence came into the warehouse, and Hiro only noticed because the people around him muted, lowering to hushed whispers.

"Is that?"

"It is."

"Oh my god…"

"Aniki!" the woman who refereed many of the games, Yoriko, pounced on the man and drew him into a tight hug. "It's so good to see you again! Gosh, it's been years."

"Yoriko." The man said, muffled behind a mask. "Age has only made you more beautiful." The woman giggled and swatted at him, but pulled him along to the main arena, letting Hiro get a good look at him. The man was fairly tall and well-built, and was wearing dark cargo pants and a long-sleeved shirt. A mask covered in swirls and geometric patterns covered his face.

As the man settled by the arena, a bot dropped from the ceiling and coiled around his shoulders. Hiro stared in surprise. It was clearly an eastern dragon, with blue grey paint covering it, but the youngest Hamada hadn't seen the bot at all before now. The man began whispering to it, but Hiro was too far away to hear what was being said.

Abruptly the man looked up and locked onto Hiro from across the arena. His voice rose. "Who's the kid?" The question echoed in Hiro's ears and something about that voice, familiar and taunting, caused the younger teen to scowl darkly for a moment before he hid the expression away.

He made his eyes widen innocently. "I'm new to the bot fighting scene, sir. My name's Hiro Hamada."

The man cocked his head to the side and considered him silently for a moment. "Nice to meet ya, kid. I just go by Aniki around here." He stared at silently for another moment. "Do you wanna bot fight?"

Hiro had to duck his head to hide the grin that tried to form. Sucker. "Uh, sure."

They set up quickly at the arena, many of the people there watching with an anticipation that Hiro hadn't seen from them before. The battle was short, as all of Megabot's first battles are, and Hiro fought to keep his expression innocuous. "One more fight, please," he pleaded, revealing more of the money that he had on hand.

The dragon he was fighting against looked at him itself then nodded, followed shortly by the robot's master. "Very well," he agreed. "One more fight is acceptable."

Hiro placed the money in Yoriko's money trey, the woman actually giving him a look of pity, then settled down for the real fight. "Alright Megabot," he extended his controller to the real setting and grinned as he heard Megabot's face change. "Let's do this."

"Fight!" the umbrella disappeared.

And the arena filled with smoke.

Hiro coughed as the smoke crept closer to his spot and waved it away before looking up. His eyes widened; he couldn't see anything; the smoke was obscuring the arena completely. He had Megabot retreat immediately, and grimaced as it appeared with one of its servos unresponsive. The dragon followed it out, and coiled around his near perfect battle bot. It bit onto Megabot's head, and there was a flash of electrical discharge, and then the dragon hovered – hovered, it had magnetic repulsors on its underbelly – back to its half of the arena as the smoke finally dissipated.

Hiro tried to get Megabot to reassemble, but the three parts wouldn't come back together. The pieces were constantly repelling each other. He changed the polarity, the youngest Hamada realized with a dropped jaw. He changed the pieces to a single polarity, ruining Megabot. Hiro jumped to his feet with a snarl as the man collected his money. "You cheated!" he accused, and the man made an amused sound while his dragon hovered onto his broad shoulders.

"Don't you remember, kid? It's anything goes and Seiryuu here is the reason for some of those bans in the first place." He stretched out languidly and moved away from the arena, and all Hiro could do was glower at the man's back. He'd just had his ass handed to him, and he knew it.

"I'll stick to sweeping single battles for a while," he muttered to himself, unaware of the smile creeping up the man's face from beneath his mask.

"That was a lot of fun," the college student admitted, leafing through the money he'd raked in during the bot fight.

Seiryuu let out a satisfied hum in agreement. "I hope we can fight together again, Tadashi. I missed you."

Tadashi Hamada smiled gently down at one of his first creations, and stroked it on the head. "Maybe when I don't need to worry about Hiro anymore; how does that sound?"

Seiryuu snorted and nuzzled his hand. "There are nicer ways of saying 'never', Tadashi." The teen laughed at his robot's sass and looked out the window at the stars dotting the sky. He smiled quietly to himself.

It was good to be back, even if it only was for a night.

So yeah. Saw this movie, fell in love with it. Got a character crush on Tadashi. So I have many plot bunnies centered around him.

This also introduces a headcanon of mine, that Tadashi was actually a bot fighter for a while, getting money to help support his aunt and brother. He was also the one to get bot fighting legalized in the first place, with the stipulation that betting at bot fights would be illegal instead. So he's like a minor celebrity in bot fighting circles. Hope you guys liked it!

Please review.

Ja ne!