Mai pulled open the main door without a sound, but the screen door creaked softy as she pushed it, a tiny croon that mixed with the crickets outside.
She winced, and waited, tense, knowing no one would hear it in sleep and knowing her life would be over if they did. One, two, three, she counted in her head, grinned when she did it to the beat of that new song. Nothing happened, and her confidence returned. Her eyes flashed with neon in the dead blackness of night, and she stepped outside, closing first the wood door and then, slowly, the screen.
And then she was out.
The rush of sneaking out was just as heady as ever as she made her way down the driveway, pulling her hood up over her head and shifting the bag on her shoulder. Her sneakers crunched quietly against the grit of the concrete, and she started off at a languid pace, slipping a hand in her oversized black hoodie's pocket. No one would recognize her in this dark.
She'd left at thirty after midnight, the second her parents' door had closed that night. Fumiko had still been awake, but Fumiko knew she slipped out every other night and more, just waved in a silent parting as she left. Her parents would wake at five and six, but Mai did not have to be awake until eight, after they had both left for work. Mai locked her doors at night: there'd be no accidental reveals.
Which meant, with the forty minute walk, that she had a little less than six hours to burn.
The streets were ghostly empty as she hurried for the first twenty minutes, until she hit the first outskirts of downtown Suna. Lights pulsed. Drunks already staggered in the streets. Teenage boys huddled together, mocking the thieves and thugs and drug dealers they'd seen around, and outside bars whispered their wares to the streets. Music poured from open storefront doors.
Mai itched.
She didn't mind the teeming nightlife, paid it almost no mind. This wasn't her first rodeo. There were a lot of people who would say they pitied the person who tried to delay her any longer for such trivial matters as mugging or rape or murder. Mai was as much a part of this scene as the prostitutes and lurking creeps, but for a very different reason.
It'd been three days since she'd made it to Breaksters. Mai couldn't get away on any weekends her parents were home, and Monday she simply hadn't gone, hampered by exhaustion and finals week. But she was going today.
Mai had a reputation to uphold, after all.
She was greeted here and there- by the barkeeper, a bellhop, regular drinkers, some boys across the street she flipped off. "Hey there, Tatsu," they called, and she waved a salute in greeting, big hoodie sleeve sliding halfway down her arm each time she did, flashing a smile. Now she dropped her hood.
Finally she reached it, sneakers scratching to a stop in front of the giant doorless arc, lit blue and green and neon and thumping with the promise of music inside. Farther up there was a bouncer, a line, not because this place wasn't for minors but because this place was for legends. This place was for regulars and nameless haunters.
They would get in or not, eventually. And they would watch and they would get a chance- but they would have to wait.
If she wanted she could walk right up past that line and flash the familiar bouncer a grin and he would say Ey, T! and let her in to the chorus of groans at her back. But she still needed to ditch this hoodie, she still needed to burn.
And so she went through the door for the legends and the named, around the building and through the back, went through the open first door and down that fly-lit hallway to the end where someone waited to check her.
"Well, look what the cat dragged in."
"Hey yourself," she retorted, and Otokaze grinned slow. "How's the life?"
She wasn't asking for his story and he knew it: she was asking after the life bouncing and breaking behind the door he leaned against.
Breaksters was a dance club she'd discovered on accident, a speed bump on her mission to run away that she never ran over. A breakdance club just starting to be cool two years ago, trying to coin a new name for breakdancers. It didn't work and no one ever said it outside, but they were breaksters. Inside, it was dark and the lights were blinding, there were people and an empty platform, a floor that would empty when she stepped up to play.
It was a drug. The lights, the bass, the sweat. All she needed was this. All she needed was dancing to just stay alive.
She took hip hop at school, but this was not school.
Tatsumaki Honoo had a name here. This tornado blazed and burned.
"Life is hot," he said. "You got some competition."
She matched his easy Cheshire grin. "Oh, yeah?"
"A lot's happened since you been here last," he mused, but Mai knew it was all an act. Mai was young- just fifteen almost sixteen- but she was good. She was bad. She would cream these punks who thought TH had abandoned.
It'd be nice to have some fresh competition. "Any good? The regulars?"
"Good enough," he conceded. "Most of 'em are here, even 'Renji."
Her grin went from lupine to blinding, all sharp points and white. "Shadow's here, huh? Huh!"
"Go ahead through," he said, and moved, pushing open the doors like he was some kind of gentlemen. The music writhed tenfold, and it was like she was drawn, feet slipping across the tile on their own without another word to her former mentor.
It was like she'd been poked with a live wire. Mai rushed into the locker room, hearing the music like taunting just through the next wall. There were others in here, two that she recognized, one just making a name and one she knew pretty well. So she dropped her bag beside his and unzipped it without a word, going to pull off her hoodie.
As she did, she heard, "Well hello, stranger."
"I miss one day," she griped, yanked it off her back and tossed it on the bench net to her bag. Mai huffed a breath and ran quick hands over her loose crop top, brushing the waistband of her pants. "It's exams week, cut me some slack."
Mutt grinned at her, the red tattoos on his face stretching. He'd painted black around his eyes, so the whites glinted. "Better watch yourself, T. One of these days you're gonna go soft."
"Pf! As if. You seen Shadow around here?"
"That idiot? Nah. But I haven't been out yet."
Humming, Mai reached into her bag and brought out her hat, whacking it a few times where it'd been smashed up. It was her crown- a big red thing with 'BURN' written in plain bolded text above the flat bill. She put it on backwards, pulling her wild bangs through the hole in the back, a few of which came to rest in her line of sight.
"Up for a Battle later?"
"Anytime, Mutt." She grinned. "Call me out later. Hey, I'm out at seven thirty, though."
She heard his 'Gotcha' as she rezipped her bag and went to shove it in a locker. She didn't actually lock the thing, because fuck quarters, but the only thing a robber would find in there was an XL black hoodie and a water bottle, so it didn't matter. As soon as she slammed it shut, she left, waving haphazard over her shoulder as she finally made it inside.
It was dark, it always was. The neons and spotlights never seemed to make it any brighter, just made the dancers look like colorful apparitions. There was a bar to her right, lined with blue veins of light, and seats all around, tables and curved booths designed to blend in with the dancers.
Mai grinned, and disappeared into the throng.
...
"T! You're up! Challenger!"
The voice rumbled through the speakers overhead- the DJ. Mai, already sweating and burning and high on adrenaline from her dominated Cypher, grinned and said "Oh, yeah?" so the crowd could hear her as they quieted, expecting to see Mutt as she turned-
But finding a total stranger up on stage with the regular DJ. Well, finding two total strangers, but only the one was challenging her. The other seemed to just be watching. The challenger was hard to make out, but caught in the center of the web of lights, she could make out pink hair and tan clothes, and thought, oh hell no.
She'd never ever see this brat before.
Not in this club.
Not on that stage.
Was he challenging her as his first?
..
"Dude, I'm telling you, this is a bad plan."
"No, it's not."
"A horrible plan."
"Hey, lay off, would you?"
The blond boy in orange just shrugged, flashed some kind of smirk Eishi didn't recognize. "When you were going around asking who the best of the best was, I wasn't expecting you to challenge. But hey, your funeral. Go ask the DJ."
"Tatsumaki, right? What- she a spinner?"
"Are you a spinner?" the boy asked cryptically, then laughed. "Go! Go ahead. Oh God, I wanna see this."
Eishi, unnerved, huffed and turned toward the stage. A few dancers- "breaksters" this place called them- had been called out already, a few face-offs danced. He gestured to Shiragiku, who looked equally apprehensive. "C'mon, Shira. Let's go show 'em what we got."
Shiragiku shook his head as they made their way through the crowd. "I agree with Shadow-san," he warned. "I do not think the best way to become known is to openly challenge-"
"Lighten up, Shira," Eishi said, nudging him with his arm. Shira lapsed off, frowning. "You can dance next, once I've won. You know I'm good against spinners. Hey!" he called out as they mounted the stairs. The DJ, probably more having seen them coming up then having actually heard him over the music and his headphones, looked up.
The older boy dropped them as he approached. Shiragiku stopped behind him halfway, staying offstage.
"What's up, bro? You new here?" the DJ asked, a little too loudly.
"You could say that," Eishi mused. "Hey, so word on the street's that the one to beat is called Tatsumaki Honoo. Am I right?"
He didn't answer, just kind of smiled. "You calling her out?"
Eishi didn't like the hopeful, almost creepy way he'd asked it, and he didn't like this guy's grin, but he shook it off and nodded. "Yeah," he said. "Guess I am. Does she usually take challengers?"
"Does she take challengers," the DJ muttered, then laughed before pushing a button on his set. "T! You're up! Challenger!" After a second, he took his finger off the button, and looked at him sideways. "Here she comes. Good luck, newbie."
'She' was not quite what Eishi was expecting.
This 'Tornado Blaze' looked younger than him, was shorter than him. Fifteen at the most. This was the best dancer they had? She was wearing a red crop top with dark black beaded flames on the chest flaring from the hem to her collarbone, a top that exposed part of an actual six-pack, and, strangely enough, a few scars that glowed bone-white in the blacklights; and baggy black sweatpants. Tatsumaki also wore a backwards red cap, wild hair poking out the back of it.
He wanted to laugh. This was going to be nothing. Why was this place popular? The cap was what did it. She had to be an actual newbie, not just new to the club. He'd been dancing under tutors for years.
Everything about her was loose: the flowing red shirt, the floppy pants, the way the white shoelaces of her sneakers were too long so the bows and ends flopped to the floor. The pants bunched close to her ankles, tied by drawstrings that also dangled off. Black socks drooped almost out of her shoes. Her hair was wild, springing every which way, as black as the club around them.
Her eyes flashed. She grinned as she crossed her arms so he could see the little blue sweatband on her left wrist, standing a little too close, getting in his face. She had another scar on her lip that curved with her wide smirk.
"Who the hell are you?" she exclaimed gleefully.
"Fresh blood!" someone yowled from the crowd, and it exploded into laughter. Eishi realized it'd quieted. They were mostly watching. The bass still thumped and wailed, Eishi felt his heartbeat lining up with it.
"Eishi Nagasawa," he said with a mock bow. "And you?"
"Least you didn't make up a new name," she said with another loose shrug, leaning closer. He wanted to back up but didn't, knew this was how it went. If he backed down he'd be done for. "And what in the world made you think you could challenge me?"
"I was under the impression that you never turn down a challenge," he taunted, hands in his pockets. He was taller, so as he got in her face, he towered. She seemed more amused than anything else. "I thought I'd get a nice warm-up roasting the top dog."
It was quiet at first, but it built up fast: the oooOOOH of the crowd, the shouts and taunts and laughter.
"You little E-Boy," she said, delighted, backed up by another chorus. Tatsumaki twisted without uncrossing her arms, face going to the crowd. "Hah! Hah! Who wants me to smoke this punk? Eh?"
The crowd roared back.
She turned back towards him, settling on the balls of her feet. "How bout this," she said over the din. "Loser buys the house a round."
The crowd roared even louder. Eishi, trapped in his taunts, forced himself to grin back. This'll be easy, he told himself. She's younger than me and looks so much like a stereotype that she has to be biting. Piece of cake. "You're on."
...
She was underage, and usually they wouldn't serve her anything but water and soda, but she'd just sold out most of their top shelf, so they made an exception. The Chimay burned on it's way down, but it was fruity and expensive and she couldn't usually get this stuff.
Mai almost felt bad for that brat. He had moves, was actually pretty decent, but he'd made a massive mistake assuming she was just some wannabe biter in a wannabe club.
"Hey there T," she heard in a familiar rush. "Thanks for the drink!"
"Thank Nagasawa," she snorted back.
Shadow- Orenji Hokage, Orange Fire Shadow- laughed like a child, and plunked himself down in the barstool beside hers with his Budweiser. "I told him," he exclaimed. Grinned. The scars on his face curled like whiskers. "Said that's a bad idea! But nobody ever listens to me."
"Because you're stupid."
"Hey!"
"The only thing I was worried about was that guy not having the wallet to back up his mouth," she said, shrugging. Took another sip. She'd gotten a whole freaking bottle, even though technically the tab only called for one drink. Maybe she'd just skip tomorrow. But shit. Exams. Oh well. "I sure didn't, I just knew I'd win."
"You looked good up there," he said earnestly, as he said everything. "It's been a while since I got to see you jam, B-girl."
"You been gone for almost a year now," Mai said. "What happened?"
"I got caught up in some things," he said noncommittally, but also not really sounding concerned. Like, oh, well, whoopsie. Mai frowned. Shadow wasn't really the type to get into trouble.
"Bad things?"
"Oh, no!" He laughed. They both drank. "School things, mostly. Been doing some MMA, too. Just haven't had any time. I don't sneak out like you, Maki. I have to get permission."
"Ew," she deadpanned, and he giggled like the child he was, even though he had to be at least three or four years older than her. "If you're such a good Samaritan, what the hell are you doing here on a finals night?"
"Free period tomorrow," he said. "Study hall. No exam."
"Fuck you," she groaned. "I have English."
"You'll also have a hangover."
"Eh," she said. "English isn't so bad. Now, if it was Chemistry, I'd be crashed."
"Hear, hear," he said. Clinked her bottle.
"Hear, hear," Mai laughed.
...
Oh, man. Oh, man, oh, shit, was she hyped.
Competition.
Mai had never competed in a competition before. And it wasn't at Breaksters- but there had been flyers plastered on every table and wall there for the event. No, this was worldwide. Even her school was promoting this thing. The initial prelims had already taken place, she'd won the money to apply with a couple well-insulted Cyphers.
The prelims had all gone through. Best in her district- she'd managed to get to best in state before she realized she'd have to tell her parents to go to the worldwide competition in New York City. Pro Championships. Holy shit.
She was so psyched she didn't even have the heart to feel nervous to ask. Fumiko knew, had known since day one and helped raise money for the clothes, for the lessons when her parents couldn't, for the taxis when she wasn't comfortable walking through the streets to Breaksters. Now she had helped with this competition, and was currently helping convince their parents.
They didn't know about Breaksters or her nightly excursions and didn't have to. Mai wasn't that stupid. She'd competed through her school. It was a little tricky when people wondered how the hell she'd gotten so good, but they could all suck her metaphorical dick and chalk it up to genius.
"New York City?" her mother exclaimed.
"For dancing?"
"I won the state, mom," Mai said. "I'm going to finals- worldwide-"
"Not yet you're not," her father said. But even he didn't mind her dancing. It was about the one thing he didn't mind her doing. Asshole. She was going either way. "How much is all this going to cost? When are you going to study? How-"
"It's paid for," she interrupted. "The competition pays for the competitor's round flights, hotels, even food allowances as long as you do the sponsored flights and hotels. And I applied through the school, dad, I'm literally excused from everything that happens during the competition."
"You won state?" her mother said again. "Mai, that's amazing!"
"She is," Fumiko said excitedly. "Mom, you should see her dance when it's not for school."
(Mai had convinced her on several occasions to dress up and sneak out with her. Unfortunately it'd never seemed to line up with Shadow being there, who Mai knew Fumiko would hit it off with.)
"Honey," their mother said. "We have to let her do this."
"What about us?" he demanded. "We can't afford to-"
"Competition pays for competitors and up to three family members," Mai cut in again. "Oh look- one two three. You also get free admissions to all the battles."
"Battles?"
"Dance-offs," Fumiko explained. "Competitions. Dad, we have to go. This is a huge deal. This is worldwide, Mai'll be famous and get scholarships to anywhere she wants if she can even get in the top ten of this."
"There's literally no reason you can say no," Mai said, thinking but not saying, Except to be an asshole.
"Fukuda."
"Hanako? You're okay with this?"
Their mother nodded. "Our little girl has a big chance to shine," she said, and smiled. "And I want to see how she does it."
...
New York City was massive and confusing and bright and loud. At night, from their hotel rooms, it looked like a dance club.
Fumiko was doing her tourist thing and taking pictures of everything and everyone, reading pamphlets and spouting off information she'd already known and generally being a spaz about everything everywhere. She was also doing her mom thing, making sure to make an itinerary so Mai wouldn't forget her battles or sign-ups or check-ins or addresses, asked occasionally to make sure she had all her gear.
It was insufferable, because her actual mom did that to, but Mai was okay with it. Because Fumiko had always been her biggest fan, always loved to watch her move, patched her up when she fell over or twisted her ankle and didn't want to tell their parents. She helped her choreograph. Helped her pick.
There was going to be a bit of stickiness in here somewhere, because while Mutt, Shadow, Eishi, Shira and a few of her other club friends had not made it through state finals, they were coming anyway- to support her, in the words of Shiragiku and Shadow, and to watch the tournament, in the words of Eishi and Mutt. Mai was still coming up with an explanation for knowing them.
Mai, very carefully, did not practice that much. She'd trained and danced and twirled herself into the ground in the weeks before the trip, taking the songs the contest's website had provided that might be used as reference. Of course she still danced and jigged around off and on, did random freestyles when she came across fellow competitors. But she didn't hardcore practice.
If she practiced too hard, the moves would be sterile. They would be perfect. Perfect wasn't the point of b-boying. It was all about the hype, the freshness, the style. Yes, flexibility, muscle and experience, but it was more about the person than the moves, the energy.
So she spent most of the time touristing around with her family and Gaara, Fumiko's best friend that she honestly probably knew as well as her sister- he was like an older brother to her- and his two siblings, Kankuro and Temari, both of whom had competed in the state competitions.
There would be competitors from all around the world. Dancers who spoke different languages, had different cultures, different dance styles. The top ten were legends in the dance community- she had watched this tournie on TV every year. Mai didn't know if she could win this thing but she would damn well try: if she won, this would be her life.
No more sneaking out to Breaksters. She'd be able to endorse that place. No more sitting in boring classrooms, doing useless work; she would have tutors in between videos and competitions and shows.
God, she wanted this.
...
Gaara had only seen Mai dance in school events and her cramped living room floorspace. He'd never really seen her compete, never seen her improvise, never seen her freestyle. He'd never gone to that club she always was telling him about.
Fumiko had told him it was an experience, unlike anything else. Gaara had believed her, but at the same time he had grown up in a family of dancers- every kind of dance: ballet, tap, tango, waltz, merengue, hip-hop and breakdance, more. He didn't know what Mai could do that he hadn't already seen.
But this was so alive it was almost sinful.
His little sister moved like she had no bones, twisted like she had no skin, spun like the blood couldn't get to her head. She flared in ways Gaara didn't know you could flare, leaping and spinning in air flares and chair flares and elbow flares that spun into one and two handed elbow tracks and gravity-defying gremlin spins, 2000's and 1990's, deadman's floats and windmills and headspins.
Head slides that froze had the crowd all freezing with her, flawless stacking without so much as a tremble, a toprock style that was all muscle and jointless elbows. She dropped in ways that looked painful in all but her grinning expression, spinning on her hands and twisting up to lock and grab and bend in ways that were all her own, going from her elbow to her feet by yanking it to the floor.
The music was secondary. Beside him he could hear Fumiko cheering and screaming along with half the auditorium, and although he knew some were for the other boy- who was extremely good of course, amazing, would have won against anyone else- he marveled as to why.
And now his brother's constant muttering made sense, having lost to this girl in the state finals. How? How had this happened? He'd helped her learn- she'd taken classes at school- she'd practiced and competed and perfected at her club Breaksters- but that shouldn't have been enough.
It was.
But it shouldn't have been.
"Do you see what I was talking about?!" both Fumiko on his left and Kankuro on his right cried, one happily and one huffily, and he nodded to both, listened to Fumiko as she kept talking.
Looking farther to the left, Gaara could see Mr. and Mrs. Mitsuwa with looks of panic and disgust and fear, Mrs. Mitsuwa with her hands covering her mouth. Of course they both looked awed, but Gaara didn't blame them for being afraid. Mai was pulling expert level moves and if she crashed partway through one, she could break multiple bones at once.
And this was just the first bracket.
..
It wasn't until she was waiting for the results of her latest battle, panting, feeling a weakness in her left shoulder and both her knees, that she saw her friends.
If she won this one- and she didn't know if she had, she'd only been sort of watching the other guy, and she'd choked a little during a freeze and took too long to unlock, but it wasn't really a crash- could she still get points off?- and she'd had to go off the fly for the last three minutes because she'd done something to her shoulder and couldn't spin on it or use that hand for support moves- then she'd be in the final ten.
She was exhausted, both from the recent dance and the flurry of activity in the past several weeks. But hot damn, was she enjoying herself.
Waiting for the judges to decide, she looked out over the crowd to find her family and Gaara's family, and instead caught this insane glint of pink that she recognized right away. Eishi and Shira sat a few rows up to the right with who she assumed to be their parents, and when she blinked at them, shocked, they waved. A few minutes later, and then she saw them: Mutt and Shadow, with others she didn't recognize sitting beside them.
The lights were blinding her, way too hot but just as bright as she liked it.
"And the semifinalist moving on to the last spot remaining in the Top Ten..." some man said who was standing under the lights with them, with perfectly unmussed, gelled hair and low-hanging pants, a perfect breakster, an oxymoron. "Mitsuwa Mai, the Tatsumaki!"
...
It'd been a minute since she'd done this, and in a totally unfamiliar home to boot.
Still, she dragged herself out of bed despite her sore muscles and wrapped shoulder- thank God she had another two weeks before her next battle, it'd be fine by then- and dragged Fumiko and Gaara out of bed too, and snuck out of the hotel, donning her familiar XL hoodie. She was wearing PJ's underneath and not her breakster clothes, but those were nasty sweaty and washing.
They crept back to the auditorium, Fumiko chatting the whole way, and when they got there, it was exactly what Mai expected: her four buddies and their friends. Shadow saw her first, and waved spastically, but then he stopped as she raised her salute, slack-jawed.
"Naruto?" Fumiko cried, and Gaara said, "What?"
"Fumiko! Whaddaya doing here?"
"Hinata! Lee! Shino! Kiba! Heeeyy!"
"What?" Mai echoed as her sister darted forward to meet them, exchanging a startled look with Gaara, who looked just as perplexed. How did Fumiko know her friends?
Introductions all around. Apparently, Shadow's name was actually Naruto and he was really good friends with Gaara through MMA, and by default Fumiko, and they hung out often with his girlfriend Hinata. Fumiko knew Mutt because apparently he was a boy named Kiba who worked at the same animal shelter her sister volunteered at sometimes, and he'd dragged along his friends Shino and Lee, both of whom Fumiko also knew.
Surprise all around, because apparently none of them knew that sweet Fumiko's 'kid sister that danced for school' was actually T/TH/Maki/Tatsumaki Honoo, haunting queen of Breaksters.
...
Mai had pushed and pushed and pushed, first breezing and then seriously struggling, but either way counting down: top ten, default winnings. Top five. Top four after one of the five broke their ankle during a crash and were disqualified and sent to the hospital.
Top two.
Anxiety tried to bite and eat at her plans, her practices, her test runs- her performance. But she tried to ignore it, despite the fact that her heart had been beating like bass since top five: because she had a chance. She had a chance. She could actually win this.
So she danced like she'd die either way, like she'd rather die crashing than being careful, froze like she'd stiffed all her joints, wrapped and held and bent like she invented breakdance. She was known now for her flares, and so flare she did, she made up her own damn flares, her own spins, her own toprock and downrock. She six-stepped and kip-upped and suicided, she bruised her palms and strained her wrist and rolled her ankle and none of it looked like she'd hurt herself because she didn't let herself crash, didn't let herself fail or flinch or care.
She threw herself into the music, she barreled down into the beat, she ripped it apart and covered herself and let herself go to the flow. Mai let it make her feel high, and let the colored lights blind her eyes, and let the audience be part of the song, and danced. This was Breaksters, she convinced herself.
Just Breaksters.
And when she finished she pulled herself off the floor, out of her freeze, and stood next to the boy whose words she couldn't even understand because this fucker was from fucking Greece of all places, and she waited.
"The winner of B-Boy World is..."
There was a breath like the universe couldn't catch a breath.
And the audience screamed out her name.
...
My second AU fic in as many days: BREAKDANCE!AU! Lol
COMMON GIVE ME ONE GOOD REASON THIS WOULDN'T HAPPEN
I'm Headcanoning that she'd be in movies like Step Up and Footloose and the things like that, music videos and live performances and internet sensations. I don't think I actually said whether or not she even won, but you can think whatever
GOD all the TERMS I had to look up for this, FORGIVE ME if I sound stupid.
'Breakster' is a term I came up with by accident. Looking it up, I find it doesn't actually exist, but I thought it sounded pretty neat, and so here we go. Of course this was legit inspired by Starrycove's freaking Miraculous Moves AU URGH
Anyway. Review! (And I promise I'll work on the main story now)