So @beefkuto had been posting a lot about tattoos and Bokuto, and specifically tattoo'd Bokuto. It gave me this amazing idea for an AU. The gist of it is "monster hunter Bokuto with a magical tattoo" and I'm pretty sure i want it to be urban fantasy. Bokuto would be 25ish. /1

The thing about this magical tattoo is that it is alive. It contains several souls in it, and Bokuto can call upon those souls when he is in a monster battle. The tattoo has a distinct design for each soul, and they can move around Bokuto' body at will. The only thing is... /2

...these souls in his tattoo are actually Bokuto's deceased friends, bc Bokuto is actually a specialized type of necromancer. An accident (when he was 17 or 18) killed some of his closest friends. Bokuto survived thanks to his magic, and then he spent years trying to... /3

...hone his magic so that he could return his friends from the afterlife. But to do this without corrupting their souls, Bokuto had to attach them to a living person, and they needed an active conduit in order to use that host's lifeforce. Bokuto knew he would use himself... /4

...as the host and decided to get magical tattoos for conduits for friends' souls.

Each soul in the tattoo has a specific design that represents itself in the tattoo. The design itself can be chosen/manipulated/changed by the soul that controls it. /5

Kuroo: black cat
Akaashi: owl
Kenma: cream and white cat
Oikawa: a little alien if he's feeling cheeky, or a tall tree otherwise
Hinata: small crow
Atsumu: fox

Six friends is the most Bokuto has been able to bring back so far. Twelve of his friends died in the accident. /6

Every time he physically manifests a soul into a physical body, it takes a small portion of Bokuto's lifeforce unless he can drain it from another being. This is why he fights monsters, to use their lifeforce instead. When Bokuto brings someone out of the tattoo, it only... /7

...lasts for a short time (days, sometimes weeks, depending on the strength of the monster he killed). All of his friends admonish Bokuto when he manifests them using his own lifeforce, but sometimes he just wants to see them and hug them. He is very lonely despite having... /8

...six souls with him at all times. Bokuto can even talk to them in his head if he concentrates hard enough. Some of the souls are stronger than others, mostly bc the more Bokuto manifests them physically, the stronger they become. Kenma, for example, doesn't like battles. /9

And isn't brought out often unless Bokuto needs a tactician. So Kenma, even though he is actually better at thinking through battles than even Oikawa, is much more frail than the others.

The binding the souls to his lifeforce also had other consequences for Bokuto. There... /10

...is a remarkable intimacy between the connected souls and Bokuto. He has such a great love for all of then, and lately, he finds that it goes beyond just friendship (yes, this is a Bokuto has six boyfriends AU). So he has monster fighting, six friends he is in love with, .../11

...and a world that is in peril as it is being torn asunder by evil forces.

But just remember, Bokuto is a wonderful necromancer bb covered in a large magical tattoo. The visual alone is an amazing thought, right? /end

Bonus: some of the tattoos (aka friends) are absolute shits. Bokuto often finds his Kuroo black cat tattoo sleeping, the design wrapped around his dick. Sometimes Oikawa in his alien form will make it look like he's going to do an anal probe. Akaashi's fave spot is the shoulder.