I'm updating earlier than expected because I have free time and I like all of your faces
disclaimer: I don't own the copyrighted material within
It begins when Nene is ten years old.
By then her older sister Nana is already a Fujita, and their parents can do nothing but allow Nene to strap on her knee pads, put on cherry chapstick, and follow her neesan to the underbelly of San Fransokyo. Nana's the one who taught her to skate in the first place, Nene laughs when Nana spins her around the rink faster and faster until they collide with their fellow Fujitas.
Nene first shadows her older sister, in a bright yellow wig and geisha makeup and short shorts that their father would hate. It's fitting, for her neesan to actually be her neesan, and she makes friends with Kanon Akiyama who shadows Nana's best squad sister Sera Palakawong. Nana uses an umbrella in their raids but Nene takes to a meteor hammer, swinging her growing body round and round to kneecap and flail chest everyone in their way.
She's put into a squad with Kaori Narita and Beatrice Nguyen, and the Fujitas are a wonderful sisterhood of laughter, roller derby and absolute silence. Rule number one is to never ask questions, Nana teaches Nene at night as they stretch out tired legs and wipe off their makeup and avoid their parents' reproachful eyes. Rule number two is to only speak when spoken to, and if no one asks in the first place, then the secrets stay safe, ne?
They work for Yama—Big Yama, covered neck to toes in yakuza tattoos and war paints. He and his little brother control the bot fighting scene, and when asked by curious high school friends as to why Nene keeps skating around the law in back alleys, Nene lies and says that she's a crappy bot fighter. It's not too far from the truth: she knows the faces of many bot fighters, from Abigail Callaghan to Elio Miura, and only some of them get beaten up or taken down by the Fujitas. Nene herself never kills someone; Beatrice is eager to take the dirty missions to rise in the ranks, and Nana keeps her imouto away from Big Yama's wrath.
And Nene skates for five years, smashing in windows while her sisters cackle at terrified store owners and gangbangers and people caught on the streets. She dances with Nana, with Kanon, with Kaori and Beatrice, and when Big Yama's betrayed by his brother for their family's riches, Nene tries to run away from the fall out.
Not everyone makes it.
Nene goes clean at fifteen, returning home to find her stuff on the street and her sisters refusing to speak to a girl who dropped out before their ten year term of servitude. She cries in the ashes of her life for a good day, then sucks it up, throws away her blonde wig, and never asks for help.
She graduates high school at sixteen, intimidates SFIT to take her in their medical program as a kinesiology major—the art of human movement, Nene is a geisha of pumping thighs and twisting arms and this is her calling—and starts her own dessert bar to bring some sweetness back into her life.
Many of the Fujitas drop out when Mr. Yama lets his brother's legion of roller geishas go to waste, and Kanon and Kaori come back into her life. Kaori sticks to the back alleys while Kanon goes to SFST, and Nene makes friendly acquaintances with hard-knocking Abigail and her multitude of pretty faces.
It's a blasé life, a simple life, so of course when she keeps her silence about the heroes sitting at her counter, her old life comes swinging back to gouge her Fujita codename into her chest. She didn't even see who did it, so blindsided into the rink walls that all she can remember is Kanon gasping for bloodied breath in the gutter and her parents' disapproval.
Her sisters would laugh at all the carnage, but Nene's on her own, and it's been a while since she's asked and answered questions, it should be fun.
"All of these women were Fujitas—old guard, not quite first generation but they were in my neesan's ranks."
Nene, stuck in a wheelchair and eyes dark against the pallor of her skin, links together all the clues in their unofficial headquarters beneath Fred's house. Gogo watches Nene's fingers skate between and around the files, and can imagine how they would look wrapped around a meteor hammer's chains
and isn't it fantastic, knowing that she used to be part of the Fujitas? Gogo's bike messenger friends used to talk about them years ago, a bloodstained legend of the warehouse districts that could outrun even the fastest bikes and destroy lives with a twirl of an umbrella. Gogo imagines what Nene must've done, what Nana must've protected her from, and shifts so that she's in front of Abigail and Honey. She cracks her gum, ignores a malicious daydream of Eun-seo's guts mixing in with Abigail's in the gutter, and asks, "Where is your older sister? Is she protected?"
"They won't come after Nana," Nene shrugs, "she finished her ten year term and isn't a traitor like the rest of us. I talked to her squad mate Sera Palakawong back at the hospital, she aged out too and Sera hasn't seen or heard any danger." Nene makes a face, "At least I really hope not, Sera's pregnant and won't be able to fight back."
"Who else dropped out?" Wasabi steers the conversation back from the unhappy reality of the murders, and Gogo's thankful for that. She's also thankful that Hiro's between Baymax and Abigail because he's pale and no kid should ever have to see this, not even a Big Hero. Nene was ten when she saw things like this though, and Eun-Seo wasn't much older, and Gogo chews harder to swallow down comments she shouldn't say out loud.
"Let's see…other than Kanon and Kaori, there is Elisa Guillaume, Vainavi Ahmed, Rosa Gonzalez, Leika Yoshida, and Betty Ho," Nene trips along their names, "I'm sorry, we had codenames and since I didn't know them other than the fact that they dropped out, it's awkward." She half snorts, "Originally, only Japanese women could be Fujitas, but when Dorys Leroy fought her way into the ranks, every girl who could skate and put on makeup could join. Even Vainavi, she fully transitioned when I was fourteen."
"Dorys?" Hiro jolts a bit, but when asked what's wrong, he shakes his head, "Sorry, I was thinking about something. But we need to protect those ex-Fujitas, and figure out who is doing the killing. You said that Yama—Big Yama, not the Yama who does bot fighting now—was rotting in jail, right? Is he conducting the murders from his cell?"
"I wouldn't put that past him," Nene hisses in a voice lower than the dirt she's unearthing secrets from, and Gogo shivers. Her eyes are too dark against her skin, like kohl-ringed glass set in geisha makeup, and she's broken spines before, she's experienced and bleeding and grieving and oh so very dangerous.
Gogo clasps Nene's shoulder, feeling the delicate bone beneath hidden muscle, and grins, "Let's go pay him a visit then," and when the group makes to leave she hides her jittering fists within Abigail's palms. Abigail squeezes confidence back with her warmth, and Gogo womans up; if Nene's on their side, then the Big Heroes have a very dangerous ally against a very dangerous murderer.
If she's not on their side, then Gogo's ready to show just how protective and fast this messenger can be, even against one of San Fransokyo's precious Fujitas.
Big Yama is in Oakohama's Supermax Penitentiary, locked down deeper than the halls that Abigail has seen exactly once before. And if her palms sweat while they are escorted by armored security down to his cell, then it's because Nene's hiding in a "battery pak" Hiro's strapped to Baymax's back.
No, it's not because her father's in this prison, not at all, Hiro stop looking at her like she's about to faint she's fine.
The others have spread out to try and cover all the ex-Fujitas, and Abigail hopes that it's enough because despite Gogo's distrust and her friends' horror, Abigail knows that none of those women deserve to die for trying to get their lives together. She knows how hard it was to kick the habit, Nene does and Nene's her friend dammit, she doesn't care that she'd kept this secret because obviously nowhere in the city is safe for a roller geisha.
No, what she cares about is stopping the madness, so when they're let into the high security meeting room, Abigail blinks past afterimages of her screaming father and focus on the hulk smirking in his booth.
At Abigail's sharp insistence the guards leave because her steps promise murder and her back up is a gigantic robot; when Nene climbs out of the "battery pak" Big Yama has the gall to laugh and Abigail wants his head on a pike.
Hiro holds onto Abigail's hand, and she keeps her silence. Nene shouldn't be standing but she does, she walks over to the glass cool as a multidimensional storm cloud and asks, "Are you going to give us answers or just play around?"
Big Yama grunts, "Why should I give any more secrets away to a little traitor like you? You couldn't be trusted to keep your silence even after we dug in just how important that silence was," and he laughs at the "Anzu" healing under Nene's sweater and Hiro hisses and Abigail bites her bottom lip. Even Baymax straightens up, his voice clinical and sharp as he demands information. Big Yama spits, "All of you little whores are better off dead for the new Fujitas to rise up and reclaim this city!"
Nene doesn't react, her face is a mask smeared with kohl and blood, and Big Yama grins with rotten teeth, "Ah, your neesan taught you well. Tell me, does it burn that your fear—"
"My fear is going to take you down," Nene checks her nails, voice still flat as it ever is back at her dessert bar, and turns towards Baymax, "Really gross, but scan Big Yama for DNA not belonging to him. You can do that, right? Tadashi mentioned adding that in to you last year."
Hiro takes a moment to get it, and his horrified sputters are drowned beneath Abigail's stifled laughter and Baymax's cool "I have identified DNA belonging to a young female adult." Nene averts her eyes as Big Yama slams against the window and taunts about how her luck will run out and how pretty her screams will be once his new Fujitas do things to her that Abigail blocks Hiro's ears from. Nene is too silent against this, and Big Yama enjoys this too much, and this a monster on a level even above her father and now Abigail has seen it all
she turns towards Baymax and snaps, "Find her, we're done here!" She helps a too pale and too quiet Nene into the pak and they turn to leave. But when Hiro asks very softly about Nana and Nene's chest hitches one two three times with a big bloody katakana spelling despair, Abigail snaps.
"You are a real piece of work," her steps echo staccato death marches, "and an absolute idiot. You really think you're going to raise up a new Fujita core or whatever crap you've got buzzing around in that useless excuse for a skull?" She presses hands flat against the glass and imagines Big Yama being sucked through the portal to die cold and alone with roller geisha ghosts taunting him for five thousand eternities, and that makes her happy, makes her voice etch against Big Yama's faltering smirk.
"Here's what you don't know and what I do: your little brother is a bloated pissbaby idiot who cares more about making money in petty bot battle fights than whatever criminal grandeur you crashed and burned with. You gave him the Fujitas once, you think he's gonna nurture the next?"
"I will lead—"
"You're not gonna lead jack shit to your smelly ass once we're done with you! The last criminal who messed with the Big Heroes of San Fransokyo is on death row, and lemme promise you that we're going to stop your plans, undo all the new hooks you've got in the remaining girls, and personally escort Nene to your execution!"
Abigail lets these words meld ozone vapor in the frozen air and draw blood from every pore in Big Yama's sweaty face. Oh, if she were a Fujita, she'd make him regret ever starting up the squads, and he flinches when she slams her hands down, "You're nothing but a washed up yakuza-wannabe with a face paint fetish and blood all over your fat ugly hands!" She pulls back and shakes her head in disbelief, "What an absolute disgrace, I'd never thought I'd see the day where I'd prefer Mr. Yama and my father's company at once before anyone else's."
She turns to leave, "So sleep tight big boy, in a few days you're gonna get moved to death row and there's not a lawyer this side of the moon that will support your case, trust me on that."
Abigail enters the hall to see the gob smacked guards, a morbidly giddy Hiro and oops, her visor's microphone had synced into the prison's radio frequency, aww pickles. Gogo will never let her live this down, to say less of Hiro hearing we swear. She lets her blush pass, straights her gloves, and walks upbeat jazz away from the supermax. She sees prisoners peering at her through their cell windows, eyes wide and a few whistling like the losers they are and
and her father
and he looks so proud, like Abigail at her graduation day back when nothing hurt and everything was in the palms of her hands
and Abigail walks back to her friends, and doesn't let her tears fall until Fred calls and says, "There was an attack, and we lost another one."
In their defense, Nene says, they saved Rosa Gonzalez from the murderer, and Wasabi's weapons are too deadly to use up close. It was a close fight, and Wasabi got to confirm that there are a group of four new Fujitas in geisha makeup and with reinforced katanas to deal with; the defeat is not total. But Hiro looks down at lab technician Elisa Guillaume, at her blood sticky hair and the "Papaia" slashed through her lab coat and her broken glasses
he sees Marys there instead, and sits down with Nene while the rest of the Big Heroes scan for the mystery woman and coordinate with the police.
He turns to look at Nene, and asks, "How did she die?"
"…that's the reason why I left at fifteen," Nene's voice is soft, sad in the way that Aunt Cass's voice gets when she talks about Hiro's parents, but she doesn't recoil. "During the fallout of Big Yama's arrest, police were raiding all of the dungeons and arresting anyone who brought chaos to the streets., I…I was so scared, I ran away from my squad when we got cornered and into a rival gang, and they thought to throw me under a literal bus for the police to find instead of their scent."
She points down the street, "It was that way, near the sewage treatment plant. I lost my riding kimono, they threw it into the flow and it clogged up a drain so much that water flooded. That made them slip but I can't skate in water, and it was a bad chase until Nana found me, and I was too scared to run away with her fast enough."
Nene shrugs, "It was my fault, all of my sisters agreed at the time and I think Kaori still blames me. I…" she suddenly laughs for the first time in weeks and the sound is broken, "I really, really hate guns. You can survive a meteor hammer strike even if it gets you in the gut, but one little shot to the chest and there's nothing you can do. Not even a Fujita can shake that in just silk and knee pads."
Hiro bites his bottom lip, because gun shots aren't fair, and neither are katakana carvings and burning building support beams. Nene wipes at her eyes and apologizes for causing a scene, and he grips onto her sweater sleeve, "You're right, there's nothing you could've done." Nene opens her mouth and he cuts her off, "It took me forever to get over my guilt for Tadashi—I'm still getting over it, and Abigail's worse for some reason. But I'm telling you that the only person to blame for Nana are those gang people, and Big Yama for getting you guys into the business in the first place."
Hiro means it; no more tears over losses out of their control, or the whole city will drown in their grief. Baymax waddles over to give Nene a hug, and she whispers, "Arigatou gozaimasu."
"Douitashimashite," and she smiles at his American accent while he teases, "You sound Chinese."
"My mother is," Nene hides in Baymax's arms, "Is it that obvious?"
Hiro shrugs, "Tadashi taught me Japanese, and when he did he also talked about Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese since they all use kanji, and since a lot of our neighbors speak them. It's interesting, I guess…"
Nene nods and is pulled into Baymax's grief talk and Hiro and looks back at Elisa. Someone's put a blanket over her face but the katakana are still in the open, and he flinches…before something about the carvings catch his eye. Baymax steadies Hiro as he creeps towards the death scene, and Gogo raises her voice, "What are you doing, Hiro?"
He tilts his head, and the katakana is so gory, so horrific that they're going to have to cremate her like Eun-seo and Mari and Sachika and Nana and Tadashi, so much ash. But it's there, and even though he wants to faint back, he gets a good look at the katakana…and widens his eyes, "The Fujita doing the carving is Vietnamese."
"What?!" Nene pushes her way forward out of Baymax's arms, falling into Fred's arms. "Are you sure?!"
"Like I said, Tadashi taught me about a lot of languages," Hiro wants to touch the katakana lines to make sure but doesn't, "and people used to writing in certain scripts have certain handwriting. Gogo, you can write in Korean, right? You know what I'm talking about?"
Gogo blows a bubble, before slowly nodding, "I usually write in cursive because when I was in elementary school, my normal script was too close to hangul." She looks closer at Elisa's body and her eyes widen, "Oh crap, you're right!"
"See?" They all tilt their head with Hiro, "This person is used to writing in the Latin alphabet with those special markings, see how it's curving when it shouldn't?"
"There's only one Vietnamese Fujita not on the hit list," Nene clenches her fists, "and I know for a fact that she likes knives."
Marys is at home, a world away from this bloody drama
except that she isn't
and she whispers to the tittering Fujita from the staircase, "I told you you'll have your rockets by the end of the week, p-please leave."
"Oh no," Beatrice Nguyen skates forward and knocks over a picture of Marys with her parents, "The Big Heroes are on our trails, and we need them now."
Marys cowers as the rest of the Fujitas roll in, making cat calls at Marys's terrified father and crooning that Marys looks just like her mother, won't she skate with them and be a good little imouto?
She hides her screams into the hoodie she stole from Hiro, and Beatrice smirks, "Good girl, you're learning already."
And as they drag her down to her lab to rush order their new tech, Marys swallows down a lot of questions. She doesn't ask her father why he married a criminal only for Dorys to run out of them and leave behind her dirty legacy, she doesn't ask herself why she's allowing her technology to be used to kill all those women in the newspapers and even Nene and Kanon who never did anything to deserve it, and she doesn't ask the Big Heroes to come save her
because if she does then they'll hurt Hiro, and Marys Iosama might be a weakling with a too big brain, but she'll never let the Fujitas touch so much as a hair on Hiro Hamada's head, even if it gets them all killed.
The plot thickens! With a lot of info dumping and OOCness and illogical conclusions and I'm making myself sad, I'm gonna stop that
But yes, here's a gigantic mass of me shoehorning in the Fujitas, Yama's original design/role and Marys Iosama into the plot!
If you wanna see the Fujitas I've given names too, go to here:
littlemissjediprincess dot tumblr dot com/ post/ 106652509762/ here-are-the-fujitas-with-the-names-ive-put-to
In the image captions, I've put the names, and you all can finally put a face to these nebulous women lol
And poor Marys, getting caught up in this. What kind of rockets is she building? Will she have to go up against the Big Heroes to save Hiro? Will Nene get back in the rink to avenge her fallen sisters and appease her own guilt? Is Kanon gonna die? And who else will get hurt in this madness?
Idk to be honest, we'll find out together lmao All I know is that NEXT CHAPTER, there's FINALLY gonna be the big conflict between the Big Heroes and the Fujitas. Let's see who comes out on top!