Right. This is an AU fic. Like, extremely AU. Contains no trace of tennis to date, so if that's a problem then consider yourselves warned.
What it does contain is Niou with cyberwear, and a certain amount of the rest of Rikkai hanging around.
It's being written for the Livejournal community 10au. It is scheduled to be accompanied by another fic in the same AU centred around Hyoutei (more specifically, Oshitari and Gakuto) once I'm done with Rikkai.
Pairing is Niou x Yagyuu, with bits of others, such as Sanada x Yukimura. Kind of. So yes, slash, though not very strongly so. Again, if that bothers you...

Edited for line-breaks to try and make it easier to read.

- Part One -

Niou Masaharu. Twenty-two, probably. So full of wires that he'd make a metal detector light up like a christmas tree, definitely. Feared (with good reason), certainly. Messy white hair, a wicked smile, heavy boots and torn black clothing, goggles pushed up onto his forehead and linked by a length of cable to the gun held easily in one hand. A bit like a cat -- self-assured, apparently at home anywhere. The trickster. A wild card.

Yagyuu Hiroshi. Refined, reserved. One who aims for perfection in everything he does. One who likes order, which makes his reasons for being in this line of work at all something of a mystery. Eyes hidden behind mirrored glasses, mouth set in a straight line. Immaculately dressed and groomed. The gentleman. Possibly more of an unknown than the trickster, if less violently unpredictable in his actions.

The unlikely pair, as some would have it. Plenty of people had wondered aloud at their ability to work together as a team, in response to which Niou would drape himself over Yagyuu and cast a particularly nasty grin at the speaker, and Yagyuu would politely explain, stiffening a little but making no attempt to untangle himself from Niou, that things were not always as they seemed on the surface. Thank you. And that would be that. Most people would leave such a conversation feeling that they'd got off lightly, but not sure why, or what they had avoided. It was hard to say which of the pair could be more unnerving.

-----

"Oi, Hiroshi," the white-haired man called, "all set?"

"Mm."

The trickster rolled his eyes, letting himself drop backwards into a chair before reaching for a pack of cigarettes. If Yagyuu Hiroshi wasn't even answering in full sentences yet, it'd be a while before they were going anywhere. He must be pretty thoroughly tied up in VR. It seemed like one hell of a nuisance, sometimes, to wait around while his companion trawled through cyberspace, leaving his body almost vacant next to his compact deck like a puppet with the strings cut. Niou wasn't good at waiting, wasn't good at far-reaching plans. He was impatient and spontaneous. He was prepared to admit, though, that they fucked up one hell of a lot less if he just let Yagyuu have his planning time. Once they were in, Niou could take care of the unpredictable elements in his own unique way. He was good at reading situations, reading people.

The two of them were opposites in a great many respects, but they complimented each other in terms of ability far more often than most people realised.

A while later, Yagyuu seemed to snap back to life, his body regaining its typical rather stiff posture. He stood, brushing a hand over his clothing to remove imagined dust.

"Yanagi will get the data to me within the next hour. We can get ready and start moving if you like, but it's not a matter of deepest urgency. We can wait here until we've actually got the information; we're not on a terribly tight time frame for this one."

Niou eyed the neat man, something of a calculating glint in his eyes which he was sure Yagyuu would spot. True, he'd wanted to get started, but if they could spare an hour... well, some interesting possibilities were presenting themselves.

-----

The streets of Tokyo were never dark, really. Although it was night, the glow of neon signs and the sickly yellow of streetlights left everything visible but slightly peculiar, colours distorted or washed out. The Trickster lounged against a wall, waiting (once again) for the Gentleman.

The Gentleman in question was standing very upright, staring straight ahead of him, occasionally tapping a few keys on a pad slung from his belt. Most people would just have thought him strange, but (while he knew the Gentleman was strange) the Trickster was aware that he was reading data off a display on the inside of his perfectly mirrored glasses. Most people wouldn't even have noticed the wire, or the small switch on the right-hand part of the frame, behind the Gentleman's ear. The Trickster had noticed, of course, even before the Gentleman had shown him. Noticing things was just something he did.

Yagyuu liked to think of them in these terms when he was being Niou, and was fairly sure Niou thought in similar terms when he was being Yagyuu. The switching of their personalities, or rather their personas, their public faces, left him slightly confused at times. It was easier to think of himself as being the Trickster than to think of himself as being Niou, because however deep their game went, there were bits of Niou he could never fully get at. He could act like Niou well enough to fool anyone, but couldn't think entirely like him. Yagyuu was Yagyuu and Niou was Niou (however much it felt like the line between them blurred at times), but the Gentleman and the Trickster could change places.

It amused him that Niou had chosen that night to revive their old game. Still, it could work to their advantage. Maybe.

After all, things were not always as they appeared on the surface.

"Five minutes," the Gentleman murmured, so only the Trickster could hear him, "then the shift changes."

His face was blank, emotion muted if not eradicated, and he stood just right. Niou hadn't forgotten how to be the Gentleman.

-----

The main trick to the switch was simple: neither Yagyuu or Niou were naturally very distinctive in appearance. People could spot Niou coming a mile off, but it was because of the trappings. Hair, expression, the way he moved. Maybe, Niou had theorised one day, when they were considerably younger, if the trappings were placed on another person then... he'd trailed off, giving Yagyuu a look which would become entirely too familiar to the other man over the years. The same would work in reverse, surely, Yagyuu had shot back. When people pictured him, they pictured neatness, and his glasses. Niou had only looked more thoughtful at that comment.

They'd tried it out in a burst of curiosity and enthusiasm, both mostly on Niou's part, and it had worked. Yagyuu had been surprised at that, and surprised also to find that it was almost educational. Niou did things he would never have considered as valid options, and expressed himself freely. Not to mention loudly. Yagyuu had not expected Niou to wish for a repeat; after all, the Trickster only liked games with some novelty to them. It was no fun if people knew what was coming. It seemed, though, like Niou had developed a fascination with trying to be Yagyuu.

They switched a lot for a while after that. It was almost perfect by the end, and it transformed what had been almost more of an uneasy truce between them into something resembling a conventional friendship. Insofar as anything involving Niou could be conventional, at any rate. They understood each other, not completely, but extensively: that was the important thing which had changed. Niou, one step away from a street-rat, clinging to civilised life only because he had a certain effortless intelligence which kept him from getting kicked out; Yagyuu, reduced to attending a shitty school because of his father's sudden and unforeseen fall from grace in the eyes of the macrocorp he'd worked for. Definitely the unlikely pair, at that time.

It'd ended as suddenly as it began, with Yagyuu trying to explain, politely, that his father had found another school for him to attend, and Niou shouting about being abandoned. He'd almost punched Yagyuu, had tried, but Yagyuu had good reflexes. He'd wanted to break down and cry, and suspected Niou had too. They'd both dealt with it in their own way. Yagyuu retreated, Niou exploded.

They'd gone years without seeing each other, after that. Their reunion had been a chance one, in a grimy bar inhabited only by people looking for certain kinds of work, and Niou had almost hit him again. Yagyuu still had good reflexes, better reflexes than ever, in fact, but it'd been a close thing. Niou was wired up by then, stronger and faster than he had been. Crude work, but Niou had never had much in the way of money. It served, he'd said, once he'd calmed down and stopped yelling at Yagyuu about not keeping in touch. Yagyuu had smiled politely, apologised, and bought Niou a drink. The evening had ended with Niou, widely feared gunman, draped across the shoulders of Yagyuu, electronics expert, practically being carried out of the bar and back to Yagyuu's modest but comfortable apartment. Neither of them had found work, but somehow, it didn't seem like such a waste of an evening.

Niou had opened his eyes in the morning to find himself sprawled across a strange bed, being offered coffee by Yagyuu, who had either been awake for a while or had some kind of unnatural ability to appear neat even first thing in the morning. They hadn't really bothered parting ways after that. Yagyuu's apartment was big enough for two. The switch, though, hadn't been taken up again. Yagyuu had watched Niou anyway, memorising things about him as though he might have to become him again. Niou had probably been doing the same thing to Yagyuu; it was a habit, even after years apart.

-----

The switch wasn't as flawless as it had been back when they were kids. Niou had so much metal in him, and some of it was visible -- but careful selection of clothing fixed most of that. Yagyuu had nothing so crude as metal, though his body was far from unaltered. Bioware was more his style, most of the time, but it didn't leave any signs on him, so that wasn't a problem in terms of appearance. It was largely that their abilities were more different now than they had been. The Gentleman found himself wondering how it would work out; the Trickster, naturally, knew it didn't really matter. It would be a good trick either way. Then it was time, and they were working, a two-man team with near perfect synchronisation. Niou as the Gentleman was delighted to note that they almost seemed to work better as a pair like this.

The Gentleman was efficient, as expected. The lock opened easily, the door swung outwards. The Trickster slipped through first, ready for trouble, though they weren't expecting it at this stage, not really. Sure enough, the Gentleman was quickly beckoned inside, and found himself standing next to the Trickster in an empty, dirty passage. They moved through the complex quietly and carefully. The Trickster would look to the Gentleman for directions, and the Gentleman would pause, read something off a screen only he could see, and indicate the best route to take. The Trickster made mental notes as they went, analysed their surroundings, picked out the places trouble was most likely to come from.

It was, the Gentleman thought, going to be a slightly trying night. Things were going smoothly but they hadn't reached the area where there was a real possibility of everything going to hell yet. They would, soon enough. Part of the problem was that so many people were involved. Yanagi was the link between all involved parties, and was taking care of such problems as security cameras and motion sensors from wherever he was hanging out these days, and then apparently Kirihara of all people had been hired to create a... diversion. The Gentleman wondered how Kirihara continued to get work, sometimes, but it seemed there was a special market for people with less in the way of morals than the Trickster and no sense of when to stop. He also wondered just what Kirihara would consider to be a valid diversion, and if it would involve explosives. Whatever he did it would, the Gentleman supposed, probably be effective, if crude. In any case, The Gentleman and the Trickster were the main show. Part of the trick was to make sure no-one actually realised that until the curtains closed.

Yagyuu as the Trickster slipped the goggles down to cover his eyes, though he didn't kick the link to the gun into life, instead using some handy extra functions which Niou had added to check the immediate area over for stuff he hadn't managed to pick out with normal vision. It would be a shame to miss anything stupid, at this stage. Everything seemed ok.

"This seems like a good place to pause," the Gentleman remarked in a low voice, "Yanagi will tell me when Kirihara has got to work."
"Been set loose, you mean," the Trickster grinned nastily and folded himself down until he was crouching, leaning back against the wall, elbows resting on his legs, head tilted forwards. "Weird little bastard sometimes, isn't he?"

"He's not the most well balanced individual I've ever met. Some people seem to have faith in him, though." The Gentleman didn't bother comment that people had compared the Trickster with Kirihara, from time to time. The Trickster lacked the rather obviously unbalanced aspect of Kirihara's personality which defined him in many people's minds, but both were known for a not inconsiderable cruel streak.

"Huh."

The Gentleman crouched across from the Trickster, though he did not lean against the wall. Niou as the Gentleman had a sudden sense of looking in the mirror, a disorientating moment where he forgot that they were switched, and a little later realised he was searching in the face of Yagyuu as the Trickster for something that was just Yagyuu. He thought there was a subtle difference in the shape of their faces, maybe in the shape of their eyes if he could see Yagyuu's behind the goggles, but that was about it. He hadn't thought this much about the switch since the first time, but that'd been so long ago. It all felt sort of new again, except that their bodies remembered how the game went.

A lot had changed since that first time. It almost hurt (but not quite, because Niou had become quite adept at ignoring things which hurt) to think about how much each of them had lost, though of course they'd gained things too. He wasn't entirely certain it had been worth it.

"Are you feeling unwell, Yagyuu?" the Trickster enquired, a taunting edge to his voice. He must have noticed Niou letting the charade slip, though he was pretty sure he'd barely dropped the outer appearance, even when his mind had wandered.

"Certainly not. I was-- ah, wait. Yanagi's on."


Status? he sent across the link.

Looking good, the response came back, Kirihara seems to be enjoying himself. You'll probably be able to hear that much when you're in. Good luck.

Relating this to the Trickster, it struck him that Kirihara 'enjoying himself' sounded slightly ominous.

One more thing, Yanagi sent, just as he was about to kill the link, you might want to watch out for Akutsu Jin. Word just in has it he's been hired by the corp, and no-one knows what for, so it wouldn't hurt to watch your step. He might not even be around that facility, but... But. They knew, and Yanagi definitely knew, that ignoring the possibility of someone like Akutsu showing up would be beyond foolish.

We'll bear that in mind, he sent, and closed the link.

"You remember Akutsu, I'm sure," he told the Trickster, his face still carefully blank. "Stay alert."

"He's an idiot," the Trickster replied flatly, "not even that interesting, as idiots go. I pity the corp that hires him. But whatever. I'll keep an eye open."

"Don't underestimate him. It's been a while."

"Whatever," the Trickster repeated, shrugged, "can we get a fucking move on already?"

Niou laughed to himself, though he managed to remain entirely straight faced on the outside. The Trickster might sound irritable, but he was sure Yagyuu was loving every minute of this, in his own weird way. It was good to see that they could still play this game.

"So impatient, Niou," he retorted, inclining his head slightly. "But certainly."

He stood and held out a hand, helping the Trickster to his feet.

"It's time. Let's go."