Izayoi is seven and she's suffocating.

Everyone says that she's too violent for a girl, too rough, too outspoken. At least once a month, her teachers send reports to her foster parents, to the orphanage, to whichever she's in at the moment - it doesn't really matter. They say that she's unpredictable, noisy, disruptive, and Izayoi shreds the reports into pieces because no one cares anyway. When she was six she stole a lighter, and since then she's been using it to burn the reports to ash.

This is Japan, and even in the twenty-first century women are supposed to be quiet, demure, seen-and-never-heard. When the class bully picks a fight with her, Izayoi throws an eraser at his stomach hard enough that he doubles over and pukes. She is hauled into the principal's office and given a long list of things that girls should be (all the things that she is not).

They're trying to fit her into boxes, and it would be bad enough if she was a boy, but she's a girl. She's a girl, and there's a box girls are supposed to fit in, sweet soft edges and gentleness, and Izayoi smiles like she wants to tear out throats with her teeth. She could outrun anyone her class, anyone in Japan, and when they play baseball her pitches send the balls halfway across the school. She's too loud and too bright, too strong, and she won't tone it down.

So she breaks every single rule and chops her shoulder-length hair short, steals a boy's uniform and wears it to school every day. She shatters every box they try to put her into, laughing like she rules the world. By the end of the year, she is the queen of her school (the tyrant), a little girl in boy's clothes with the whole school in the palm of her hand.

But they won't stop trying. Boxes and chains and a list of things that she is not allowed to be.

When she's eight, Izayoi drops out of school. She walks out of the campus and never looks back.

-x-

Izayoi's nine when her foster father touches her.

It's her sixteenth foster parent in half as many years. She's meant to be a weapon, has made herself into one, quick fists and quick tongue and lightning mind. She's a tool and a good one, an excellent one, but no one's got the ability to aim her. They can't get a grip on her - she's too fast, too smart, too strong, too restless and she moves too much in their palms. She is more than just their toy.

But her foster father is determined to make her one, so he grabs her breasts and tries to slip his hand beneath her skirt. Izayoi breaks his wrist and punches him in the nose, hard enough that he hits the wall, sending cracks spiderwebbing across the plaster. She stands over him and smiles like a predator, promises that if he does anything like that again she will break his neck.

She calls the police because she is nine and stupid. They believe him above her, of course they do - he is a successful businessman and Izayoi is a little girl with a history of violence.

Izayoi is a very troubled little girl, her asshole of a foster father says. Izayoi snarls and feels rage eat at her stomach, at her lungs. She knows that if she wanted to, she could bring the house and the whole world down.

Instead, she goes back to the orphanage. They want her to go to a counsellor, so Izayoi indulges them just once. She's bored out of her damned mind, and she thinks that this might be a good game. (Can you unravel me before I unravel you?)

"You've been in twelve different foster homes. Was that difficult?"

Izayoi smiles. She crosses her legs, leaning back in her chair. "Nope."

"Oh? Why not?"

"Because I don't care."

-x-

She sneaks back into her foster father's house in the dead of night, gathering evidence of tax fraud. Gives the police an anonymous tip.

Two days later, his arrest is all over the news. Izayoi grins and moves on.

-x-

Her hair grows out again.

Izayoi is walking past the hairdresser's when she sees the man's face twist up in disgust. He's looking at her wild hair and purple eyes, comparing them to the images of the demon girl in his head. Izayoi's got her lighter peeking out from her pocket and bruises on her knuckles; she is everything he expected, but worse.

Izayoi smiles, baring her teeth like she's unsheathing a blade. She steps deliberately into his shop, the twist of her mouth something feral and wild, and settles on one of the seats like a queen.

It's not spite, not really. It's a challenge. He can't hurt her, not with those pathetic scissors and his measly strength, not when she can ball a knife up into nothing but twisted metal without getting cut, but she wants to see if he'll try. Wants to see if he has the guts, if he'll capitalize on the opportunity she's given him.

"Cut it short," she says, laughing. His expression is nothing but disdain.

At her request, he shaves the hair at the back of her neck, metal against her pale skin. She sits and smiles and waits.

Take it, she wants to say. Go ahead. Try to cut my neck open, let's see if you can.

She's been through eighteen foster homes, all of them as a tool. The people all want her as a weapon, as a toy; she's familiar with murderers, with the mafia, with men and women who will cheat and kill to get what they want. This isn't petty anger - it's a dare.

He doesn't take it. He cuts her hair like she asks, short like a boy's, all spiky rebellious edges. Izayoi sighs, pays him, and leaves. She does not look back.

-x-

The girls in the orphanage like lipstick.

Eleven years old and fierce like a shark, Izayoi decides that it looks like war paint. She buys a stick from a pharmacy, spreads the crimson over her lips like blood.

-x-

She meets Canaria on a stormy night. Izayoi's short hair is tangled into knots, and her sleeping bag has started to stink. She's tired and bored, sick of this stupid world and everything in it.

If Canaria had been one minute later, she might have levelled the Earth in her rage. It's so simple, it's so damn easy to find her, why the hell is everyone so stupid?

But Canaria is bright-eyed and brilliant, and she proposes a game. When she offers her hand, Izayoi takes it.

Canaria shows her the world, the sharp beautiful corners of it, the stretches of nothing but brilliance and life. She shows Izayoi places and things beyond stupid people and petty squabbles. She shows Izayoi power, raw strength coursing through the planet, and Izayoi-

Izayoi no longer feels bored.

-x-

(Canaria is tying her down.

Every trip, every place, every beautiful thing. Canaria is showing Izayoi that the world is beautiful, that the world is good, that there is so much here that Izayoi is not allowed to destroy.

Izayoi knows; knows, and does not care. Tie her down, use her, shackle her. She does not give a damn. Anything, anything is better than being bored.)

"I could destroy the whole world," Izayoi says. Her hair has finally grown out again; Canaria is brushing it, gentle hands and soothing moves.

Izayoi catches Canaria's smile in the mirror. "I know, Izayoi-chan. But will you?"

This is a test, a checkpoint of sorts. Canaria's green eyes are sharp like knives.

Izayoi laughs, throwing her words down like endgames. "Not yet."

Canaria laughs, too, sharp and sweet. She knows that Izayoi is losing their game.

Strangely enough, Izayoi doesn't mind.

-x-

Izayoi loses the game.

Canaria laughs and hugs her, calls her daughter, and Izayoi does not pull away.

"Let's prepare a place for you to stay," Canaria says.

"There's no need to do that. I lost, after all."

"Izayoi-chan, a mother must prepare a place for her daughter to stay."

So they open the Canaria Family Home, take in special children. (Children with gifts, Canaria says, and Izayoi snorts. Those kids weren't wanted because they were different - it wasn't a gift to them.)

Izayoi tests Homura's earphones and brushes Suzuka's hair, hunts down misbehaving kids and reminds them sweetly that Iza-nee is called a monster for a reason. She runs through the world, burning through life like she's never going to stop, and occasionally touches down at the Canaria Family Home.

She's there for Christmas every year. When she's fourteen, she buys Homura a tool kit and Suzuka a stick of lipstick that's as red as blood.

-x-

Some kids make fun of the children at the Canaria Family Home, and Izayoi throws a rock that blows away the ground beneath their feet.

"I'm the real monster," she says. "Let's have a game."

They trip over their feet in their hurry to run.

-x-

Canaria is dying, and Izayoi would do anything for her. But she can't die in Canaria's place, no matter how much she sometimes wishes she could, so she goes to school for her instead, because Canaria's spent years going on and on about how much she wishes Izayoi would attend school.

Izayoi puts on a girl's uniform and ties her hair back, tosses her lighter into a drawer and does not break the rules. She makes an effort to stay awake in class and submits her homework on time.

"Iza-nee," Suzuka says, "You're working hard. Is it for Golden Canary-sensei?"

Izayoi smiles. "Who knows?"

"Liar! You're actually really worried about her, right? You wanna do suuuuper well to make her happy so that she'll get better soon!"

She might not get better, Izayoi does not say. She laughs instead; "Of course not. By the way, you haven't been doing your homework, don't think I don't know. Does that mean you're not worried about her, hn?"

"Of course not! It's just that I'm so worried I have no time to do my homework!"

"Liar."

"I'm not lying! Iza-nee is the one who needs to be more honest with herself!"

Izayoi laughs. "I'm not worried," she says, because she's not. Canaria is probably going to die - Izayoi can't be worried when she already knows. She just. She wants to do well for the exams, as a parting gift for the stupid hag. Maybe a message like: Don't worry about us, idiot. We'll be just fine.

Except that, suddenly, Canaria is dead. The principal calls Izayoi into the office, this time not for any stupid offense, and Izayoi can't, she can't, she-

She scowls and looks away. Canaria, who was brilliant, who was kind, who took Izayoi and a whole bunch of oddball kids in - Canaria, who promised Izayoi a place to stay - Canaria, who called Izayoi her sharp-tongued daughter. Who bought them both blood-red lipstick, to smear on their lips like wolves.

"Stupid old hag." The words are bitter on Izayoi's tongue. Her chest is tight, and for the first time since she met Canaria, she can't breathe. The world's boxing her in again, and she wants to shatter it, wants to bring it to its knees. "You promised-"

Someone touches her shoulder and she spins, catching them around the neck and pinning them against the wall. Her teacher is stares at her, wide eyes and panicked breaths, head back, exposing her jugular. Izayoi laughs, the sound short and sharp like shattered glass.

"Don't touch me," she warns. She can't breathe, and if someone makes a wrong move, says the wrong thing, she might give in and tear the world apart. Or not the world - Canaria taught her better than that - but just the country, just this block. It would be so easy, to bring it all to the ground.

She lets her hand drop and backs away, one step, two, three. She raises her hands in a facsimile of surrender.

"Excuse me," she says, as polite as can be when her eyes are knives and her smile is twisted into something ugly with pain.

Then she throws herself out the window, landing on the street and barely feeling the impact, knees bent then springing up and she's running, wind in her face and in her ears and eyes, down past buildings and into the familiar hospital, the familiar corridors and-

-Canaria's room, with the flowers Suzuka brought her the other day, the book she was reading left lying on the bedside table, the window still open. Canaria's room, but her bed is empty, and it's space space space but Izayoi can't see the stupid old hag.

She catches a nurse outside the room, smiles with all her teeth. She feels feral, feels wild, the naked edge of a razor blade.

"Where is she?"

"Who?"

"The old hag who was in that room." The nurse's face falls, eyes something soft and hurt, and Izayoi fists her hands, turns away. Her smile warps into a scowl. "Tch. That shitty old hag."

She spins away before the nurse can give her apologies. She does not need sympathy.

-x-

Izayoi does not cry at the funeral, because she hasn't cried since she was ten. She balls her hands into fists and smiles, sharp and fierce, like she wants to take on the whole world. (And she does, she does, let it come at her and shatter against her fists, Izayoi would be glad.)

She shuts her eyes and tunes out the whispers - monster girl, demon girl, look how she's smiling, she probably killed her foster mother - and breathes.

-x-

Little Garden is full of space, and Izayoi feels like she's out of the stupid boxes at last.

She takes down a god and monsters and laughs her way through the streets. There's room to stretch, here, to flex her powers a little without the fear of breaking the world like an egg.

But there's some other guy from another community and he's boring, made of boxes and hand-me-down superiority, who thinks for even an instant that Izayoi would be his toy, when she's finally found something worth her time. Izayoi distinctly does not like him, so when he touches her breast she sways towards him; looks up, eyes hard like diamond, sharp like knives, and smiles like a wolf.

"Nice, huh?" she says, and then she punches him in the face hard enough that he flies through two walls and hits a tree.

-x-

She beats Algol, too, long hair whipping across her face, yellow strands like lightning bolts in the night air. For the first time she hits something and feels it push back, and she can taste the thrill on her tongue, electricity and ozone and power, rawsharphungry. She grins like a wild animal and matches the strength of a star, then she takes it down and she's laughing, high on thrill and power, wanting more more more.

-x-

Being a girl doesn't stop Izayoi from helping Shiroyasha dress up Black Rabbit. It helps that their fashion senses are aligned.

-x-

Yo is like a tree, a wall, quietly certain and steady. Asuka is a wildfire, eyes blazing, her dress the red of blood. Blue Rabbit is sweet and stumbling until you push her a little farther, and then she's faster than lightning with a god's weapon in her hand.

They call each other comrades, friends, the words falling off their tongues so easily. Izayoi doesn't know what they are, when they can't match her strength, when they've all been acquainted for only a few weeks. Canaria once said that Izayoi would meet people she could rely on, one day - Izayoi hadn't believed it at the time, but here in Little Garden, it almost seems like she might.

It's just… those people aren't them, not yet.

But Izayoi braids Blue Rabbit's hair and laughingly compliments Asuka's dress. She grins when Yo eyes her breasts, throws out taunts and jabs, smiling all the way. They're united under the same banner, and maybe that's all they need to be comrades, to be close enough to friends.

"Izayoi-chan!" Blue Rabbit bounces up to her. It's seven in the morning and Izayoi is sitting up in bed, her hair tangled and fluffed out all over the place. She wonders if there's a gift game for the Most Legendary Bedhead. "Can I do your hair?"

Izayoi blinks, blinks again. "Sure," she says, and laughs when Blue Rabbit beams.

Sitting in front of the mirror, Blue Rabbit's hands in her long blond hair, Izayoi realises that the first and last person to brush her hair was Canaria.

It leaves a bitter taste in her mouth, so she smiles to get it out. Black Rabbit's braid looks exactly like Canaria's did, right down to that dumb crooked bit that Canaria always left there on purpose. ("It gives it character, Izayoi-chan!" "It makes it stupid, you smelly old hag.")

Izayoi grins. She thanks Blue Rabbit and does her hair in a matching braid, fingers slipping through soft blue strands; then Asuka bursts in and demands to be part of the party while Yo fingers her too-short hair. Blue Rabbit shrieks about the door Izayoi laughs and laughs and laughs.

-x-

"I never thought you'd be the sort to wear makeup."

Izayoi laughs from where she's applying her lipstick, just before a game. She doesn't wear it all the time - can't be bothered, when it's not worth the effort, but this time she's going to war. This time, she's going to step onto a battlefield and crush an antagonistic community with her own two hands, and she can't wait.

Maybe they'll have something like Algol, something that's fun. Izayoi didn't see any signs of it, but she still hopes.

"I do sometimes, ojou-sama."

"Why are you doing it now?"

Izayoi meets Asuka's eyes in the mirror, smiles her shark smile. "The same reason your dress is red," she says.

It's a warning, a stop sign. They're both out for blood.

-x-

A week later they're in a gift game, and Izayoi and Asuka are back to back against an army.

"Oi, ojou-sama," Izayoi says, smiling wide and sharp. "Wanna team up?"

"I don't need to team up to deal with the likes of them," Asuka says, and shatters the ground with a single word.

Izayoi jumps up and up and twists through the air, slamming an enemy into the ground as she lands. "Oi, oi, were you trying to kill me too?"

"You wouldn't die," Asuka says, her dress flaring like blood across stone. "Deen! Crush them!"

Izayoi lunges and takes out fifteen opponents in a breath. Asuka bites out a sharp command, voice twisting like a knife, and a dozen men turn to fight against their comrades.

Asuka's attacks devastate the earth, turning the world itself into a weapon. She never looks back to see if Izayoi can handle it, and Izayoi laughs, dancing over ravaged stone to knock out opponents of her own. This isn't a battle, not against Izayoi and Asuka, not against starlight and the earth - this is a game, a dance, and Izayoi flips through the air to knock out three men, vaulting over a pillar that Asuka brought down with a word.

And later, later, standing on devastated earth with smoke and groaning men around them, Izayoi laughs like she rules the world and leans in towards Asuka, real close, grinning her predator smile. Asuka leans back, annoyed and flustered but not afraid, not even when Izayoi could snap her neck, and demands, "What?!"

Izayoi barks a laugh. "You left your side exposed, ojou-sama."

"I knew that you'd protect it." Asuka's eyes are fire. Izayoi smiles with all her teeth and jumps back, flipping midair and landing on her feet. Asuka just rolls her eyes at the dramatic display.

"You should be more careful," Izayoi calls. Asuka levels a look at her, the heiress of a huge company, a queen in her own right.

Absolutely fearless.

"I was," she says, and Izayoi laughs.

-x-

Asuka is hungry, too. Izayoi can see it.

Izayoi's hungry for games, for a challenge, for something that's finally, finally more than boring, something that's not mind-numbingly easy. She wants something that she can hit, that won't shatter beneath her fists, because she's tired of pulling punches and holding back strength; of always, always being gentle, going easy. She wants to hit something and feel it hit back, wants to rage and not be afraid to break things. (She wants to taste it again, ozone and electricity and raw power in her blood, iron between her teeth, hair and wind in her eyes, something pushing, fighting against her palms.)

Asuka's different. Asuka wears a blood-red dress and wields her words like weapons, and she's hungry to get better, to be stronger, to burn the world with a muttered word. She wants to be useful, and Izayoi remembers being six, remembers turning herself into a tool with sharp eyes and fast fists.

She spars with them, sometimes, just for the hell of it. Yo and Asuka team up against her if she's annoying enough - Yo dances through the air and Asuka commands Deen to beat Izayoi down.

Izayoi launches herself off the walls, the ceiling, the floor, ducks beneath Yo's blows and throws her into a wall; she dances up Deen's arms, lands right in front of Asuka, and blows her back.

Asuka glares at her, eyes burning, and launches a surprise attack from behind. Izayoi dodges Deen's arm by a hair's breadth, laughing, and bends in near.

"Too slow, ojou-sama."

Asuka narrows her eyes and gets to her feet, lifting her chin. That's what Izayoi likes about her - she's always defiant, never afraid. She swipes the hair from her eyes and throws out a hand; "Deen! Now!"

Izayoi turns to catch Dean's fist, smiling, and dodges Yo's attack from behind.

And the game begins again.

-x-

"Oi, oi," Izayoi says, elbowing Asuka in the ribs. "You guys. Hurry and catch up."

Asuka tosses her hair back. "I know that!"

Yo nods, silent and fierce, and Izayoi grins. She doesn't think they'll catch up, isn't sure if they can, but at the very least they're going to try.

-x-

(And maybe one day Yo will match her in a fight, blow for blow, turning the ground to rubble beneath their feet, dancing through dust and destruction for four days and four nights, laughter ringing out to mingle in the hot air. Maybe one day Izayoi will be blown back by a demon lord and Black Rabbit will drop in front of her, spear in hand, to say leave it to me. And Izayoi will trust her enough to listen and obey.

Maybe one day Izayoi and Asuka will face off against an army again, and Asuka will shatter mountains with a command while Izayoi laughs like the ruler of the world. Maybe they'll turn the world to rubble-dust and ash together, fearless, and when Asuka turns around Izayoi will grin and say,

"You're catching up, ojou-sama.")

A/N: written for Shiranai Atsune, who requested mondaiji tachi genderbend and badass Asuka. Now that I think about it, I should probably have just genderbended Asuka instead. Huh. Sorry Shiranai! I just realised it now! I hope this is still okay!

I (sort of?) accept fic requests, but the time it takes to respond is kinda wonky. I'm itching to write stuff now, though, so. It's a better time.