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Terror cannot be kept under lock and key forever, it is simply too powerful, too massive a beast. But it's more docile than rage, and it's the latter which Rin really fears when it comes to the association, the scheme she's carrying on with Shido. Unpredictable, at any moment the terrified beast inside her might show its bloody teeth and give her away. But worse than rage is its absence. Only rage can save her should he choose to stop playing the push-pull game of supply and demand and use her for the pleasure she can give.
‘Nox, a group of us are going clubbing. I'll send a car.’
Is the message she receives while she's studying at one of the booths in Leblanc. Hell yes. Hell no. Partying for free at the top spots in Tokyo - big win. Partying with a drunk Shido and his goons - major L. Drunk Shido is infinitely more dangerous, infinitely more terrifying, specifically to Rin, than any other creature on earth, mundane or metaverse. The Ultimate Final Boss. Give her the Mementoes Reaper any day. Give her it while she's still trying to wake up and no one but Morgana is around to help. Give her anything else. Still, drunk Shido is the singularity she is compelled to face, time and and time again.
How do you prepare to face a murderous rapist who haunts your every moment? Put on a shit tonne of eyeliner, listen to gothic metal, and drink enough vodka to blunt the sharp edges of the world. Sadly, Sojiro's already gone home by the time Rin begins her preparations for war, not that he'd do anything to help anyway. Just like her real parents. Provide zero assistance or even a smidgen of compassion, put the compassion in the red actually, and blame her for starving to death right in front of them. However, it seems to be her fate to love those who don't love her.
“Where are you going? You should be sleeping.” the cat attempts, when she's on the last stage - perfecting an outfit to die for. All that loot and money made out of ransacking people's sick souls has gone towards many things, and one of those things is clothing, designer clothing so that Shido doesn't suspect she's not the trust fund baby she lets him believe she is. Men like him can't actually tell what the heck you're wearing, all they can tell is whether or not it's expensive.
“Yeah, but you're not the boss of me. I'm going out, I'll be back later.”
“If the chief could understand me, I’d so tell on you, Rin.”
“No you wouldn't.”
“...Grr.” Argument lost, Morgana turns to cleaning himself as a self soothing device.
To meet the car Shido will send, Rin has to hang around a ‘bohemian’ boarding house she's supposedly renting at. Thank goodness it's near Yongen. Getting into a chauffeured car is another hugely scary thing, but she sits in the back and focuses on deep breathes, rationalizing that everyone has to die someday, and Shido's not the sort to prolong torture, if only because it wastes resources. Also, the driver wouldn't risk something, surely. He'd have to kill her if he did.
‘I really like your coffee, and I really like you, oblivious asshole that you are.’ She texts Sojiro from her burner phone, sending similar messages to all her friends. Most people won't get it, sadly.
The car, not black so it's not obvious, pulls up outside the most expensive hotel in Tokyo, Shido's number one place for meeting up with the people he calls ‘friends’. Most of these people are bodyguards, and the rest are either cronies, or co-conspirators. Aside from maybe once in his distant childhood, that man has never had a friend, but he's very good at appearing as if he likes the people around him, unlike Rin, who needs a gun to be pressed to her head before she can generate the L-word. And even then she can't produce the vocal warmth that Shido can whilst speaking to his most hated enemy. In her case, she knows he does like her at least a little, because she provides nothing to him except arm candy and a way to feel powerful, and he doesn't tolerate people who provide nothing. Then again, those things she mentioned are all that men like him want from women, that and sex.
When Rin comes upon the bald monster, he's hanging out in reception with some of his ‘friends' and their girls, all looking very well put together but no different to usual. Serious Business, is what's she calls their collective aesthetic. Shido stands out through virtue of having a bit of an edgy twist going on with the glasses, beard, and striped shirt. If it weren't completely untrue, she'd say he had hidden depths.
“Ah, Neige-chan, good to see you looking as beautiful as ever,” he almost lisps, affecting a gentlemanly sort of attitude while his eyes dive into her cleavage and break their metaphorical necks on breast tissue. She doesn't even have cleavage going on, but he's got a good imagination and the dress is a high necked Victorian, it accentuates the female form. Plus she's wearing a genuine corset below it, creating a buxom hourglass shape rarely seen in Japan.
“Thank you, my lord.” Rin performs a curtsy. That, the overwrought, servile politeness, and the hint of a French accent stokes the passionate fires in Shido's eyes. Constrained by the presence of normal people in the lobby, he can't give vent to his amour however.
“So, we off?” barks one of his quote unquote friends, who has hanging on him a woman nowhere near as classy as Rin. She may be just as young if not younger, but it's difficult to tell due to all the makeup and plastic surgery.
“Yes.” Shido takes hold of his date by the back of her neck, thumb and forefinger placed on either side.
🌻💛🌻
Clubbing with Shido involves a lot of drinking, drugs, and dangerous dancing, although most of the latter is done by the female element of the group, the men lounging about getting wasted while their dates act like portable strippers, without the stripping. Thankfully Rin's outfit and persona precludes such behaviour, and instead she gets to sit and stare at nothing while Shido's arm sits on her shoulders like the blade of a guillotine. He talks (shouts, more like) politics and business with his buddies, interspersing such unbelievable boringness with lascivious verbal whips to get the other women to up the tempo on their gyrating. Sensing wealth and power, more sexy ladies arrive, which causes trouble when their boyfriends follow. But that's what bodyguards are for. Eventually Rin needs to go to the loo, which she both loathes and loves since it takes her out of the criminal's presence.
“I'll be back in a couple minutes.” she says, steeling herself for the inevitable.
Shido looks round, his eyelids half lidded from drink and lust. “Hmm? Alright. Don't get lost.” he kisses her, lifting his arm off her back.
The walk through the heaving, raucous mass of poorly lit bodies busy pursuing some sort of analgesic is stressful for Rin, as crowds always are. But the thing about being near Shido is although you fear, you also feel safe, at least for the second by second basis where he seems to be into you. Next to a shark the barracuda don't look as tough.
For a moment or two, Rin gets herself together in the loo, looking into the mirror, where her own scared face stares back at her. There's make up on it and she met Shido the dark, but still, it hurts to be forgotten so easily. Hurts, but is also the only thing keeping her alive. Her phone buzzes.
‘Who is this?’ - a message repeated several times over.
‘No one you know.’ she texts back.
Feeling like she's going to suffocate, throw up and die, she dodges out a fire door into an alley, hoping the cool night air will mix with the other anesthetics she's applied to calm her down. There is no goal, she's waiting to get access to some magic switch that only Shido possesses, so that she can go back in time.
In the corner of her eye the heavy door moves, a man in a suit stepping out. Not a bald man.
“There you are,” The man, one of Shido's faceless cronies, kicks away the brick Rin used to keep the door open. “That's a very nice dress.”
The future extends backwards like a building plan, displaying to Rin where all the various structures will go. The ugly building right in front of her is labelled ‘rape’.
“Shido really knows how to pick them. He ought to have passed you on by now though. You have some secret sex trick, girly? Why don't you show me...” The man reaches for her neck, his other hand rising to grab at her wrist.
“Get off!” Unlike in her metaversal battles, Rin freaks out, flinging her arms out and kicking frantically, but without the usual stylish coordination. Shocked, the man staggers for an instant, then lashes out, slapping her across the face. The blow knocks her aside, but not for long and not far. The man comes at her again, but he has no access to mental architectural drawings, and it's his turn to suffer fear and pain when Rin stabs him in the stomach with the knife she had attached to her leg. His scream triggers another stab in the shoulder, and then again in the back when he goes down to the dirty ground.
A bloody hand rises, a bloody knife gripped in its fist, but before it can plunge again, a large hand wraps around the wrist.
“Ah, ah, ah. I think Onizuka has had enough, Noxie.” Shido chuckles, keeping hold of Rin's wrist while gesturing to his goons with the other hand. “Take him away. And dispose of this.” he tosses the knife at an obedient lackey.
The goons vanish with the mewling man, and Shido turns to his companion after leading her into his car, handing her a cigarette, a cigarette she makes sure to keep the stubs of. “I've been meaning to get rid of that bastard for a while, but messing with my property provides a nice cherry on top.”
A couple tears roll down Rin's face, her eyes fixed on her still bloody hand. Gore. It's not aesthetic in real life like it is in Tumblr moodboards. “I didn't mean to do it.” she whispers.
Shido taps on the glass separating him from his driver. The car begins moving, smooth and almost silent. “We never know what we have lurking in the centre of our souls, do we? Sometimes it's better not to know.”
“...” Rin’s gaze is unable to move from her hand. That is, until Shido takes it, fairly roughly as is his wont, and wipes the worst of the blood off with a silk handkerchief. Job done, he grasps her chin, turning her face towards his, on which an excited smile lurks.
“I like you better broken.” he whispers, before kissing her.