Takeru's a young poker prodigy, so he definitely shouldn't be results-oriented. But things definitely seem to go his way when Hikari's nearby. And when you're playing for millions, why take the chance? AU, TaKari, poker fic.
OOO
I haven't written Digimon fics in a few years, but I feel like returning for awhile, and I feel like writing a bit of an odd fic. So to lead off, I'll say that this fic is largely about poker, as I have a bit of a passion for the game, and feel like writing some fic about it. There will be other things going on, like some TaKari building and some other assorted drama, but the core of this fic is poker. There are no digimon or references to digimon in this fic.
I'm rating this fic T for some language, some violence, some adult situations, and some sexual content.
Personally, I usually don't care for fics like this, and I don't usually care for AUs, but I'll try to come at things from an original angle and hope it works out. This alternate universe is a mismash of eras with elements plucked from various times, without anything overly tight to define it. There will be some translation conventions to make some things easier to understand (most noticably with currency), but this isn't any particular time period as we know it, with some things borrowed from various times throughout history on Earth.
I have another FFN account I've written fics on for many years, but I wanted to post this one on a secondary account for assorted reasons.
I don't own Digimon.
OOO
Chapter One: Drawing Dead
"I want a thousand ears in each cart," came the booming voice. "That's not a general guideline, that's an exact number. Stack it neat, keep track of it, keep count. Count gets off, things get confusing down the line. And when things get confusing down the line, I'm the one who makes sure you suffer ten times more than the people down the line do."
Hikari stumbled through the dirt, arms wrapped around a small collection of husk-covered corn ears, towards the large wooden cart. Hurrying as she began to lose her grip on the harvested food, she just barely made it to the lip of the cart before haphazardly dumping them on top of a large pile of corn.
"Hey!" Yuto snapped, rounding on her. "What did I just say?!"
Without saying a word, Hikari leaned over the edge of the cart, frantically grabbing the ears she had just dumped and neatly stacking them next to the others, hands moving as quickly as possible, trying to pretend like her pusher wasn't towering over her.
"You don't do much of anything well, do you?" he asked. She remained mute, pushing the corn into the proper position and quickly standing up. She was forced to look at her pusher as he appraised her. "Yeah, I've noticed, I have eyes."
Hikari wanted to scurry off back into the field of cornstalks, but had a bad feeling Yuto wasn't just making a couple casual jeers in an effort to speed her up. So she just stood there. Unconsciously, her head turned to the right and glanced over her shoulder, quickly jerking her head back forward to look at Yuto.
"Seriously?" He gestured over Hikari's shoulder. "What, you looking for your brother? Seriously? I'm standing here, talking to you, and your head's in the god damn clouds?" He shook his head. "This is the crap I have to work with out here?"
"I...I'm sorry, sir," Hikari said quietly, throat tightening with every second that passed by, praying that this might just go away in the next few seconds.
"What do you think your brother would do anyway? You think he can help you?" He scowled at her. "God damn, you're lucky we're up against a deadline here." He looked around, noting that several of the other field workers had stopped to watch the growing scene. "Hey!" he yelled out. "Just because this girl's sandbagging doesn't mean everyone else gets to get away with it! Go on!" He turned to look back at Hikari. "You too, move it!"
Hikari internally sighed in relief, knowing that circumstances had just barely managed to get her out of what would likely have been an hour's worth of sweating followed by a day's worth of punishment. She jogged back into the giant field of cornstalks, relieved to be able to disappear from the sightline of Yuto for a few moments. Knowing he was probably counting the seconds, she began quickly filling her arms with corn ears.
This was ridiculous for multiple reasons, though bringing any of them up would earn her a week's punishment. A small wheeled container or even a simple basket for each slave would drastically increase the efficiency of the harvest. It was as if the field work was designed to be a punishment for the slaves, everything being made as difficult and exhausting as possible, even at the cost of slowed progress. Even something as simple as a pair of shoes would make things move along quicker.
Most absurd was the fact that Hikari was out here at all. Twenty years old, small and slim, it took all of two seconds to determine that she was made for indoor work. To put her out in the field, doing hard manual labor, was like using a violin to dig a hole. It made absolutely no sense.
Her previous masters, unkind and cruel they might have been, at least understood that much. She even found herself looking back on those first nineteen years of her life fondly. It was a paradise compared to this. Preparing and cleaning up after meals, keeping the rooms immaculately clean, setting up house party decorations...at least she could do all that. Sometimes, her task was as easy as sitting in the corner, looking decent, and being ready to jump up whenever someone wanted something.
Hido and the Sasaki family, her new masters, didn't think about such things, and so, the square peg would keep trying to get into the round hole. Day's like today were bad enough, as Hikari clearly lagged behind everyone else during harvesting, but it would sometimes be much worse. Sometimes she would be tasked with plowing the field, dragging a large, heavy tool of wood and metal through the dirt, barely able to make any progress no matter how she pulled. As if amused, Hido would refuse to give the job to someone more capable, just watching as she inched along. As soon as she finished, she knew she'd be punished for taking too long, but the longer she took to finish the worse the punishment would be, trapping her in a no-win scenario. A similar situation would play out when she was ordered to help cut logs into firewood, which often included utilizing the axe. It was a joke, with her often missing, and occasionally managing a meaningless hit that accomplished nothing, but she'd face punishment all the same.
All too soon, Hikari's arms were full and she ran back out into the open area of dirt just outside of the corn field. With the eyes of Yuto on her, she made sure to place the corn into the cart in a more orderly fashion this time. A few other slaves were also filling up the cart. As she dumped her corn, she tried to avoid eye contact. She had no friends here. She was the one who kept angering the slavemasters, day after day, which was inevitably directed back at everyone else. When she wasn't being punished by the slavemasters, she was the target of abuse from the other slaves.
She ducked back into the cornfield before anyone could say anything to her, considering every trip to the cart without verbal abuse being thrown her way a victory. It was still early in the day. There was a chance that Yuto would forget the minor slipup and let her off the hook tonight if she managed to avoid another one.
She had been reprimanded by her previous owners many times, of course. Getting smacked across the knuckles with a stick, having to eat a hot pepper, sleep deprivation, the usual. Unpleasant, but tolerable. Under her new masters, the gloves were off. She'd spend an entire day in a hotbox, sweating buckets and puking. She'd be hung by her wrists from the ceiling, screaming as her arms strained to keep from popping out of their sockets. Intense and prolonged spanking that made it impossible for her to sit down for a week. It didn't matter that she was a girl, small, or delicate. She was just another slave not getting the job done. And nobody seemed to care that she was simply not capable of getting this particular job done.
She'd probably be dead by now if not for one thing. One thing keeping her going in life. And now that had been taken away from her for the past week.
"If you find a dwarf ear or a deformed ear, put it to the side. Don't throw it away, we can use it." Yuto yelled out as he continued to walk around in the field. Hikari gave a sigh of relief, thinking maybe it was a sign he was moving past her transgression. It was the little things in life. It was all she had right now.
OOOO
Hikari munched on the dark-purple brick of gel in her right hand, forcing herself to swallow the dull-tasting food. She had eaten nothing else for the last eight months, ever since she had been sold to the Sasaki family. Protein blocks, they were called. Yuto claimed that they contained all the nutrition and sustenance a person needed to survive. In fairness, she was still alive, so the claim seemed to be technically true. But it was miserable, having absolutely no variety to her diet. At least her previous masters gave her actual food, bread and cheese, occasionally a fruit. She didn't know where the protein blocks came from, or what they were made of, but she could only assume that they were the cheapest possible option to feed the slaves.
The barracks were bustling with activity, as they were every night once it got too dark to see outside. It was the only moment of the day when the slaves had the opportunity to consciously relax. After this, she'd collapse on the floor and quickly fall asleep, until a nerve-fraying buzzer sounded, serving as an order to get out into the field for work for the next sixteen hours. Every day functionally the same, mind-numbing, miserable. This was the best her life had. This twenty minutes or so when she shoveled purple gel into her mouth, no matter how sick she was of it, just so she wouldn't die.
"Hey, you!"
Hikari nearly choked on the gel, the voice coming from right behind her. Immediately, her head snapped up to look behind her. To her dismay, Yuto was standing right above her, looking down at her sitting cross-legged on the ground.
"Up, now. Outside," he said curtly. She quickly unfolded her legs and stood up, wordlessly marching past her fellow slaves towards the door across the room. So much for getting off with a verbal warning. She wasn't surprised, just disappointed.
As Yuto followed hot on her heels towards the door, she wondered what it would be this time. It was such a minor thing, but it seemed like every slip she made just angered her masters more, leading to worse punishments for even the smallest offenses. She had a bad feeling that things were just stacking and stacking, and before long she'd end up having her entire torso get covered in brands for even the smallest slip.
She reached forward, opening the wooden door, trying to not think about the seemingly inevitable punishment she was about to be put through. It was close to being business as usual at this point.
Opening the door to the outside revealed Hido Sasaki, shocking her out of her numbness. She jumped a bit, eyes going wide. Technically, she was the property of the Sasaki family, which meant her actual master was Hido's father. But she had only seen the man a couple times. Hido tended to be a lot more hands-on when it came to the actual work of the field slaves, and Hikari couldn't help but view him as more of her master than anyone else.
But he'd never take time out of his schedule for a minor punishment. Her heart sank, as she figured that the only reason why Hido would be here would be to oversee an especially harsh punishment. The worst yet, in all likelyhood.
He just stood there, outside the threshold of the door, looking at her. He was probably just a year or two older than her, with dark black hair and a harsh face, a fairly small and compact body.
After a couple beats, Hikari dropped to the ground, going down on one knee, right at the end of the wooden planks that made up the floor inside the slave barracks. She ducked her head down, looking down at the floor, figuring she may as well at least not make it worse for herself.
"Well, at least you're good at a couple things," he said snidely. "In fact, I'm almost tempted to give you a little credit for the last week."
She barely resisted the urge to look up at him. His words were surprising to her, but she was sure the other shoe was about to drop.
He stepped up so he was standing right in front of her. "Don't get me wrong, you've been about as useful as tits on a boar ever since you got here, but at least you know enough to keep your mouth shut. That's more than I can say for some of the other slaves I've seen come through here. Must be killing you, not seeing your brother for a week, but you knew enough to not ask about it."
Hido was certainly right. Her entire life leading up to this point had been one of endless misery, with one silver lining. Taichi, her older brother, had been there with her every step of the way. He looked out for her and did his best to protect her, which she needed now more than ever when given such unreasonable duties. He was built for outdoor work, blessed with strength and endurance, and could cover up her shortcomings in many instances.
And then, without preamble, one morning last week he simply wasn't present during morning roundup. Not all that surprising, except for when he didn't show up for the rest of the day either, or the next day, or the day after...but she knew better than to ask.
"Alright. I suppose that's enough suspense. And this does involve you. Get up and come with me." He turned around and began walking, headed up a small hill, down a line of similar slave barracks. Hikari got to her feet, timidly following Hido up the hill, afraid she knew exactly where they were going.
OOOO
The Sasaki estate was a massive plot of land, absolutely necessary for an empire of farming to thrive, and they needed a massive army of slaves to maintain it. Nine barracks full of free labor, each one crammed full of men and women who lacked the basic human rights everyone else in the world took for granted. There was a tenth barrack just for the slave handlers, a far nicer and better-built structure befitting their position further up the ladder. They actually had beds, decent food, good facilities, entertainment, and everything else that made a place enjoyable to occupy.
Regardless, it was actually the last place a slave wanted to find themselves. The only reason why a slave would be brought to the handler barracks was that they had been so disobedient that only an especially extreme punishment would suffice. The basement was a room of nightmares, filled with instruments of pain and suffering, used only on the slaves who had proven to be so disobedient that the Sasaki's were willing to accept the possibility of the slave dying during his or her punishment. Effectively, to be sent to the basement meant you were either on your last chance, or had just used your last chance.
Hido pulled open the door to the barracks and entered, Hikari quick to follow, with a guard taking up the tail. She didn't bother looking at the furnishings that the room held, knowing it would just make her consider what her own living quarters lacked even more, and simply followed Hido down a simple wooden staircase, sinking down below ground level.
She wasn't surprised that Taichi was down here. She had basically assumed as much after not seeing him for a few days straight. She just didn't know what he could have done to earn it. Taichi was one of the more productive slaves around, and missing his service right near harvest deadlines was something the Sasaki's wouldn't risk unless they had no other choice.
Or perhaps she was applying logic to an illogical situation, and the simple truth was that her masters valued sadism over production.
Hido opened the door at the bottom of the staircase and pushed it open. He stood to the side, eyes on Hikari. She stepped forward, entering the dark room, encased in walls, floors, and ceilings of dark grey stone.
Hido flicked the lights on, and Hikari couldn't supress a gasp. Her stomach flipped. Admittedly, it was good to see that her brother was still alive.
On the other hand, there was...everything else.
Taichi was seated on a simple wooden chair, just a half dozen steps into the room from the door. He had been stripped naked, his impressive physique absolutely covered in sweat. His ankles were strapped to the two front legs of the chair, and his wrists were tied to the armrests. His body was heaving as he panted and wheezed, sucking down quick huffs of air and quickly pushing them out. His trademark large ball of hair was nearly flat on his head, seemingly weighed down with sweat. Every now and then, he would make a wheezing grunt that painted a picture of the kind of pain he was in.
She wanted to run forward and embrace him, try to help him, get him out of the chair, but she was just able to hold back. Hido would decide if and when anything could happen. The last thing she wanted to do was make things worse for her brother. If things could get any worse.
Hido had a bemused smile on his face as he slowly walked towards the bound slave in front of him. "This is one of my favorites. It's almost all psychological, just a little sprinkling of physical stuff."
Hikari swallowed the lump in her throat. What did he mean? What had they done to him? Taichi had always had something of an impressive tolerance for pain, what could have pushed him into this state?
"It's all based on fear and anticipation, you know?" Hido continued, stopping just a step-and-a-half away from Taichi, placing the tip of his shoe on a small, rounded, bronze lump in the floor behind the slave. "I just do it a few times and leave him here, and the mind takes care of the rest." He turned to look at Hikari. "You might not be able to fully relate to this, but...maybe you'll get the general idea."
His foot pressed down, pushing the lump down into the floor. The effect was immediate and horrifying. With a pneumatic hiss, a metal pole suddenly shot out of the ground from right underneath Taichi's chair. She hadn't noticed it was there, since the top of the pole was flush with the floor, but that was the last thing on her mind. The top of the rod, maybe four inches in diameter, rocketed right into Taichi, slamming into the spot right between his legs. Hikari realized that a portion of the bottom of the chair had been cut out, which allowed the rod passage up past it, meaning that it was finding it's mark right in the most unwanted of locations.
She screamed as the rod slammed into Taichi, unable to hold back. Taichi, meanwhile, let loose a haunting screech of pain, a howl of pure agony, body jangling like a marionette in his bonds. Hikari didn't need to possess the same anatomy to understand the intense, inhuman pain that the blast must have inflicted. The rod slowly slid back into the hole in the ground, the top again becoming flush with the floor, ready to shoot upwards again and inflict another strike.
Hikari couldn't keep control of herself. She stepped forward, not thinking about anything except trying to spare her brother a bit of immediate pain. Hido simply pressed his palm into her chest as she tried to run by him and roughly pushed her back, sending her sprawling to the floor.
"You'll make this much worse for both of you," he warned. She took the hint and didn't get up, laying there on the ground, trembling in fear and starting to cry in sympathy at her brother's plight. "You know the amazing part, I've only done that about...five or six times. After the first couple strikes, the victim does the rest." He turned to look at Taichi, who was still groaning in agony, body still twitching as the intense pain that had been pumped through his entire body refused to subside quickly. "He gets left in that chair for days, unable to see the button, ears plugged and unable to hear sound. No idea when the button gets pushed again. Could happen in two seconds, could happen in two days. Could never happen. No warning, no preamble, no chance to brace for it. Just the knowledge that it could happen. They sit there, shaking in fear, body twitching, can't sleep, can't eat, can't do anything but think about what might happen. All we have to do is hit the button every now and then, and they'll torture themselves with thoughts more than we ever could."
Tears streaked down Hikari's cheeks. This was beyond anything she had ever seen before. Nobody deserved such a fate. How could anyone, even someone like Hido, possibly look at this process with admiration or appreciation? Who could possibly sentence someone to such an impossibly cruel fate? She gave out a little squeak, not wanting to speak out of turn but not in complete control of herself right now.
"Of course...they usually don't make much of a recovery," Hido admitted, turning back to look at Hikari. "I mean, the mental damage...spend enough time in the chair and you go insane. At the very least, good luck getting a good night's sleep ever again. And physically, ooh...I've seen one or two just spend the rest of their lives in the fetal position. Mostly they can't sit right ever again, and walking's a pipe dream...it's ugly."
Hikari continued to sob madly, as the gravity of this situation began to weigh even heavier. Hido just continued talking, as if she wasn't, almost like he was giving an educational lecture of the torture. She only half-paid attention, as the puzzle pieces came together in her mind. If this was a torture that would render the victim unable to walk and mentally unhinged, then it surely must be done only to slaves who were already marked to be killed.
"It's not something we use lightly...so you can rest assured, your brother deserved it." Slowly, Taichi began to make quieter noises, settling down into a bubbling series of groans, body still writhing. "Truth be told, you deserve to be sitting right next to him, suffering something just as bad. You're part of this too."
Hikari still wailed madly, but tilted her head up just slightly towards Hido to acknowledge some level of confusion. He raised an eyebrow at her.
"Or maybe you're not?" He shrugged. "Well, you are part of it...maybe you didn't know? Suppose it doesn't matter if you did or not." He turned, pointing at Taichi. "A week ago, he tried to escape in the middle of the night."
Hikari continued to release uncontrollable sobs, but forced herself to quiet down just a bit, wanting to hear exactly how this had happened.
"The odd thing was, he managed to get out of his barrack, but didn't go right for the border," Hido continued. "Escaping the grounds is hard enough when you take the quickest path, but becomes impossible when you go the wrong way. So we caught him trying to break into another barrack. Yours, as it turns out."
Hikari finally began to run out of tears, though the misery and sadness remained, and she was quiet outside of a couple little hiccups.
"So we did what we always do with escapees. Two days of assorted punishments, and back to work." He clapped a couple times. "Happens at least ten to fifteen times a year, I can forgive, let it go, no need to lose a perfectly good slave over one ill-advised escape attempt." He gave his head a slight tilt to the right. "Of course...an hour after we threw him back into the barracks, we caught him making a second attempt. Again, trying to break into your barrack building instead of just high-tailing it towards the roads." He shook his head. "I mean, if he does that, at least he has a CHANCE, I don't understand why someone who actually got that far would get so greedy, you know? I just don't get it. Anyway, at that point, I know we have a lost cause on our hands."
"S-...S-Sir, please," Hikari sobbingly exclaimed, knowing that talking right now was probably a bad idea, but she was desperate to spare Taichi from what seemed to be an inevitable fate. "I...I'll...I'll t-talk to him, he won't ever try to escape again, I s-swear, let me-"
"Oh, you think you need to talk to him?" Hido interrupted, sounding almost amused. He gestured towards him. "Look at him, you think he needs you to tell him to not try escaping again? After he went through this? I could buy him a car, drop him off by the road, and he wouldn't try to escape." He shook his head at Hikari. "Maybe you can't understand thanks to gender, but..." he pointed down at his crotch, "take it from me, I'd never have to worry about anything ever again with him. Besides, how would he even go about that? What, he's gonna roll on his side a half mile to the road?" He waved his hands around in front of him. "Now keep your mouth closed or I'll hit the button again, I'm talking."
Hikari swallowed down hard, the threat more than enough to silence her.
"So I tell Rui, he's all yours, make a game of it, see how long you can keep him alive and in pain, try to break your record, we'll sell his organs to science to try to recoup some of the loss." Hido walked over to Taichi. "Earlier today, I came down here to check in, see if he was still breathing." He gave a small chuckle. "To my amazement, he was doing more than that. He was still able to talk. And I mean full sentences. Usually after a few days in that chair, they've got nothing, but your brother, he just...call it an incredible amount of focus and will on his part, I suppose."
Hikari couldn't take her eyes off her brother's heaving figure. She would have been proud of him for resisting so much pain and torture for as long as he did, if she wasn't completely occupied by terror.
"So he says, he wants you to be moved to indoor duty. He said he tried to escape because he thought you weren't going to last much longer if you were kept in the fields. He was going back to try to get you, that's why he kept trying to get into your barrack. I kind of figured that much." He gave a disbelieving smile. "And then he says, if I moved you to indoor duty, he'd stop trying to escape."
He paused for a couple seconds, then started laughing. She just laid there, on the ground, smart enough to keep quiet. She seriously doubted this was going to lead to a promotion to inside work for her...but it wasn't completely out of the question.
"I mean, the balls on this guy, right? No pun intended," Hido said. "He's talking to me like he has some sort of leverage. Like he's got some grounds to negotiate on. He's strapped to a chair, getting his testicles smashed by a metal rod, and he thinks he can make a deal." He shook his head. "I couldn't decide if I should be furious or in admiration of his boldness." He turned to look at Hikari. "You worked indoors before you got here?"
Hikari couldn't believe it. Was he actually going to take Taichi up on his offer? Was all this going to get her back inside, where she might actually have a chance? She quickly nodded, afraid to actually open her mouth.
"W-well, I mean, don't think for a second that you're getting moved inside," Hido said dismissively, dashing Hikari's hopes instantly. "I give him what he wants, who knows what the slaves are going to start asking for next, not dealing with that. Worst thing you can do is give a slave a scrap of kindness, they'll start expecting it." He pointed at Hikari. "You are going to either figure out how to pull your weight in the field or end up a corpse, that's all there is to it."
Hikari felt like a ten pound weight had dropped down to the pit of her stomach. That was that. Taichi was about to die. She had been brought down here to be forced to watch. Or maybe she was next, just for the crime of being the reason why Taichi tried to escape.
"But he did give me a bit of an idea," Hido continued. "So...don't call it a deal. Call it a...challenge." He cleared his throat and leveled his gaze back at Hikari. "I'm hosting a card game tomorrow with my friends. I'll need a slave in the room, ready to fill food and drink orders, or whatever requests get made. Akari's filled that role for me for a couple years now, but she snapped two days ago out of nowhere." He gave a cartoonish shrug. "Grabbed a knife in the kitchen, tried to attack my mother with it, and when that didn't work, she killed herself with it." He rotated his left index finger in little circles by his left ear. "Sakura would have been the backup girl, but I can't have her either, her nose is leaking snot like a faucet right now, disgusting." He scowled. "Gonna have to bake it out of her in the hotbox. So, my options are thin. But you've done things like this before, and you look the part, so I suppose you're the best I've got."
Hikari's gaze danced back and forth between Taichi and Hido. If Hido was annoyed by her focus clearly not being fully on him, he didn't indicate it. She just couldn't help it, even as she knew that it might get her in trouble.
"So, you're going to wait on the card game tomorrow. Kneel on the floor, don't make a sound, snap up the moment anyone asks you to do something, and follow instructions to the letter. If you do it perfectly...and I mean that quite literally...he lives." He pointed back at Taichi. "You two get to go back out to work in the fields, and he gets one last chance at life, that I'm sure he'll appreciate it very deeply." His expression hardened. "Any slipups, and you're both done. I'll drag you down here and force you to watch Rui finish him off, then I'll give you to my brother and tell him to have fun."
Hikari audibly gulped, but was quick to nod her head up and down. Not that it was really a request that she could decline, but it was better than nothing.
"Good," he said curtly. "You sleep down here tonight, some of the maids will come get you tomorrow to clean you up. I'd spend your time visualizing yourself handling your tasks perfectly tomorrow."
With that, he stepped forward and roughly grabbed Hikari by the shoulder. She had all the strength of a rag doll at this point, and Hido had no problem dragging her over towards one of the steel doors built into the wall. He opened the large door with his right hand, then shoved her into the cell with his left. She slipped and fell to the floor, falling in a pile in the center of the small cell.
She didn't protest as Hido slammed the steel door shut and locked it. Didn't jump up and run to the door to pound on it. She didn't have the energy to even put up this half-assed attempt at a struggle. Seeing her older brother in such a state, hearing the impossibly large stakes of tomorrow...she was more than happy to curl up into a ball and quietly sob to herself until she fell asleep.