Maybe it's solely his Hyper Intuition. Maybe it's because Tsuna has spent a good half of his life being the one on the outskirts, the ignored loser no one wanted to deal with, whose only options were to watch other people. A combination of both is the most likely answer, honestly.
Either, it doesn't matter which it is. All that matters is what Tsuna notices as he watches.
This time around, it's Takeshi.
They're little things, really. Dismissable by other people. The way he reacts to compliments, to all of them gathering as a group, what he wears even.
Asking about what's wrong is out of the question, as much as it makes Tsuna sigh. Takeshi is almost as bad as Gokudera when it comes to hiding his feelings away, like he needs to take care of it all himself. So how to approach it?
The idea comes to him one night when Takeshi is the one to occupy his bed, arms wrapped around his Rain Guardian's neck and his fingers digging into his shirt. Breaking the kiss with a flushed face, he blinks up at him. "Hey, Yamamoto.... Would it be alright if I tried something tonight?"
He enjoys his times with Tsuna. Sometimes he really has to question how he got to be so lucky. Not everyone got to be like this with their best friend, but here they are. They're in bed and kissing and it's really nice. More than nice. He can't help the stupid little grin that crosses his face when the other pulls away. With his face flushed like that, with those large expressive eyes, Takeshi is reminded again just how cute Tsuna is. He wonders how someone like him got such a cute lover. All of them, all the Vongola are like that. Handsome, beautiful, elegant, mysterious, rugged, cute. All of them except for him. He told himself that someone had to be the plain one. Someone had to be the normal one. He just was the one to draw that stick. He tried not to let it get to him, but there were just says when he would hear guys and girls whispering about them and he just knew they weren't talking about him.
But right now, those small misgivings had taken a backseat as they always did. Right now Tsuna is what matters. Kissing him. Being kissed by him. Looking at that cute flushed face of his and feeling those fingers in his lose concealing shirt. He knows Tsuna doesn't ask for things often so it's pretty easy for him to agree. "You want to try something? Sure. Go ahead Tsuna. I'm sure I'll really like it." He would because it's Tsuna, one of the people he adores more than even baseball.
A small but playful huff is ushered out as Tsuna leans against Takeshi, not quite managing a real scolding expression. "You can't just agree without even knowing what it is," he murmurs, nudging his nose against Takeshi's shoulder.
"I was wondering... about tying your hands behind your back. Would that really be alright?"
Every morning, Tsuna tries to hide under the covers. Like he's a child again, and bad things can be kept away just by a simple sheet or blanket.
It's not even conscious. Not really. He does it while asleep, burrowing, hiding, seeking any sort of sanctuary even if only temporary. It doesn't alleviate the pain in his shattered heart... or the pain in his back from the burn marks that make one huge X across his back like a target.
He is one, after all. He feels it every day when he's dressed in fine clothing, when he acknowledges the enormous mansion he lives in. He sees it when he looks upon his butler.
Tsuna doesn't want to be a target. He doesn't want fine clothing, or a mansion. He doesn't want this butler, either...
But unlike everything else, he needs him.
Safety. That's one thing. And the other is a promise, an oath, made to find the few things that matter in this world anymore to him and to fix something broken. With the thing that calls itself a butler watching over him, then.... they should be guaranteed, these things. Fixing this Family, and finding his family.
This never would have happened if not for the precious blood in his veins, the blood of the first Vongola. If he were just normal, a Sawada like his mother and father, then he'd never have had to see their blood spilled on the floor. Never lose his home. Never wonder where his other siblings had been whisked away to- good as any even if not truly related to him.
It's a lot to do. It's so much to do.
But for now, he stays curled up and hidden beneath his covers.
One way or another, after all, his butler gets him.
The thing about being an immensely powerful and wanted mafia boss is that you can do a lot of things except normal things.
It's probably how presidents or prime ministers or kings feel, Tsuna figures, in that your life has now officially stopped being anything approaching normal and a worrying amount of people would like to see you dead. Or in jail, but Tsuna isn't really bothered about that part. It's better than being dead, and there are interesting people in jail when you don't have to worry about being killed.
What that basically means is that his ability to spend personal time with the others in the ways normal twenty-somethings usually do is often hindered. When he was a teenager in Japan, he'd been lucky. He'd been a known entity, the future Decimo then, but he hadn't been a presence. Timoteo, the Ninth, he had been, but not Tsuna. Not then, anyway. There were incidents, now and then, but they were manageable. So, back then, dates were things he was allowed to have with Kyoko when Reborn could be persuaded/bribed/convinced that Tsuna could take a single afternoon off from any "lessons".
There's none of that in Tsuna's current station. Worse yet, he understands it all. He's Vongola Decimo, the unofficial king of the underworld where Vongola is felt almost everywhere. A lot of people want him dead. There's no way for him to take a simple date without people fussing.
...Until he gets an idea.
It's weird how people don't recognize him with the most minor of changes. Enough for him to believe a little bit how Reborn could get away with everything in his middle school years, or how Clark Kent could stop being Superman with just a pair of glasses. Then again, Tsuna is cheating a little bit. Sure, he's straightened his hair- an endeavor that took him literal hours to accomplish before it accepted gravity's rule- but he's also applied makeup expertly. (Reborn's training would accept nothing less.) Good enough to change the look of his face on a shallow level and make his soft lips more noticeable. Clam barrettes to his normally unadorned hair help make another difference, and he likes to think he looks fairly cute in a simple brown sweater with bursts of red here and there in the tree design. A short skirt, leggings, and ankle length boots finish everything off. (The mittens hidden away too, of course. Always the mittens.)
All that effort for Yamamoto. Tsuna doesn't regret it. Kyoko got so many cute dates back then before they were engaged. The rest of his lovers, now that he knows his feelings, deserve nothing less.
Besides, no one can complain with his Rain Guardian keeping his dear boss safe.
It feels amazing to be out and about, not smothered by the underworld or specific etiquette designed to not accidentally offend a bunch of hair trigger temper mobsters. It feels even better to be curled up against Yamamoto's side as they walk and take in everything, a more casual day than either of them get. Another bonus is, disguised like this, he can kiss the other man in public whenever he likes, and no one can gossip about the Decimo kissing his Rain Guardian when he's engaged. To anyone else's eyes, he's just a pretty girl showing her date some affection. When he first realizes it when they're on a tram going through the city, he makes sure to make it a nice long kiss too.
As a thank you for him.
Right now, however, they're separate with Tsuna waiting patiently on a bench and checking his phone just to make sure the world hasn't fallen apart with his absence. There's a place selling panzerotti nearby, but the line goes on for what seem like forever to Tsuna's eyes. Yamamoto had gone to get some, a volunteer as always, and now it's just him.
At least, it's just him until there's a voice speaking in front of him. "Anyone sitting here?"
Tsuna glances up. It's someone around his age, an actual Italian to whom the language comes to easily, naturally, with slicked back hair and strands that still fall dashingly out and against his brow. Handsome enough for most people, a thought which Tsuna notes down and then tucks away out of sight. For now, he just gives a small smile. "Ah, no. Go ahead, it's fine." That's where he'd normally leave things.
The new visitor, however, well, he seems to have different ideas. Tsuna shifts a little as the stranger sits just a bit too close, with his arm slung around the back of the bench coincidentally behind his own back. "You're pretty cute, you know! I don't usually see such cute girls around here. Are you a tourist?"
"Ah, just out of town."
"I see, I see. Then you must not know about some of the great clubs around here! Why don't you let me give you a tour? The drinks can be on me. I promise you'll get shown a really good time."
For once in his life, Tsuna realizes he's being hit on. Perhaps it's because people are bolder with him, when he's in a skirt in makeup. Regardless, it doesn't change one fact:
He has never once been asked out so honestly in his entire life.
A brain that can stare a gun right in his face and not react short circuits at this simple occasion, and all Tsuna can do is stare up with wide eyes with a soft "Um" on glossy lips.
Takeshi had been pleasantly surprised when Tsuna had asked him about going on a date, just the two of them. He hadn't been sure how they would pull it off initially, if they'd make it look like a business meeting over dinner or what exactly, but then Tsuna had explained his plan, of dressing like a normal tourist-y couple and escaping their responsibilities for a short while. Takeshi hadn't been sure how well it would work, but Gokudera and Tsuna had been absolutely confident. He'd been convinced when Tsuna had shown up looking cuter than Takeshi could ever have imagined.
It was a good think he had let Hayato dress him up even if he'd abandoned the tie as soon as they left the Vongola Fortress. It's more than a little wonderful knowing he can touch Tsuna, a hand at his back, arn arm around him, threading their fingers together, long kisses that would get them shooed off the streets in Japan....They can do all of that, and Takeshi takes full advantage of it once Tsuna's clear he's just as happy about the situation.
He absolutely has plans to take Tsuna to a bistro later, Hayato had told him exactly which one he had better go to, but Tsuna's stomach had growled and the cart had smelled so good he volunteered to get them a snack while they continued walking around enjoying their time together. He very nearly ruins all of that when he sees the stranger sit down next to Tsuna. His first instinct is to check for danger, but the man is unarmed, and there's no discernible flame signature or anything like that. Tsuna can take care of himself anyway, it just makes Takeshi's hackles rise to see someone hitting on his date.
He waits a little less patiently until he's got the hot food in his hands and returns perhaps a bit too quickly to the bench, bending over to press a kiss to Tsuna's mouth without warning or even a glance at the man attempting to invade Tsuna's personal space. Takeshi already knows he's welcome in Tsuna's space.
"One of them's a little crunchier. Do you want that one or the softer one?" He speaks in Japanese, excluding the intruder and holding the food out for Tsuna to inspect.
Somewhere in his fourteenth year, Tsuna got used to a complete and alarming lack or privacy.
Back then, it was I-Pin and Lambo invading his room at all hours of the day for attention or to play along with Reborn needing somewhere to stay.
These days... Well. There's assassination attempts, of course. Sometimes it's one of his guardians coming in to wake him up about the latest emergency. Mukuro seems to have problems with respecting his privacy, but a call to Chrome usually sorts that out.
Tonight, it's apparently Squalo kicking down his door with armfuls of fast food bags and yelling about whatever is bothering him today. (Margy Burger. He hopes really bad that it's Margy Burger.)
"Oh," he says, utterly unsurprised and in the middle of removing his shoes. "Hi, Squalo. What do you want to watch today?"
"VOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOI! Something bloody, kid and has lots of fuckin' explosions."
The last month had been full of ridiculous amounts of bullshit that Squalo wasn't sure he'd ever recover from, well, he probably would, but the stupid shit that was going on in Varia at the moment... It's why he snuck off to buy copious amounts of Margy Burger and flee to the main house.
So, it wasn't like Squalo really had any issue with most of the main house anymore - most, because fuck the goddamned cow and Gokudera - but he still knew he needed to avoid the goddamned sword-brat if he wanted do get his quiet time with Sawada even at all. Goddamn, the kid was like a giant, slobbering baseball obsessed puppy. But he was still his student.
"You busy?" Well, the amount of fucks he gives as to if Tsuna is actually busy is nill, so he just moves from the window like he owns the place and sets the down on the floor, because like hell is he getting the bed dirty if something leaked. "Cause you're going to be busy for the next week."
[The problem for working for a brothel is that sooner or later, you're going to eventually need to have sex. Or be punished. And Tsuna, bless his heart, didn't want either.
But he didn't have a choice in the matter. It was do it or be punished. And by being punished, he would have to do it anyways. And he hated it so much. But he really didn't have a choice once his virginity was auctioned off. And he would have to give it up the very next day, at noon.
This lead to the teenager freaking out, and hiding off with his older self. He's taken all the box animals out and held onto them while trying to hide. He can't avoid this.
[The screen, filled with colorful font and cute pictures, is probably one of the more mocking things Chikusa thinks he's seen in his life.]
[Maybe it's less the screen, and more that it's a representative of his own inner complications which he's, as usual, kept locked away out of sight from even the rest of the group. Since he was a child, all he needed was Ken and Mukuro-sama. As he shifted into adolescence, MM and Dokuro became part of the group. It was still fine. It was still, at their core, them- Kokuyo being their new name.]
[No one else is needed. Not as far as outsiders are concerned. Despite knowing this perfectly logical fact, Chikusa is alarmed to have found himself gaining an interest in someone else.]
[Just a cashier at a store he regularly goes to when they need actual food of some sort that isn't gum or whatever dead animal Ken has managed to sink his teeth into.]
[He'd suffocated the feelings the second he'd noticed their presence, but Chikusa is well versed in emotions. It's very hard to actually destroy them. The best one can do- what he's done for years- is keep them from reaching the surface where other people can see.]
[It's a method that never actually disposes of emotions.]
[Chikusa has never stopped being mildly annoyed of this fact.]
[Regardless, it's something he doesn't know what to do with now that he has it. The sensible thing would be to get knowledge and advice from another source. Normally, he'd go to Mukuro-sama, or one of the others, but in this case...]
[So. Here he is.]
[It's an internet forum, since simple web searching has proved to be not as effective as he'd like. Nothing that really required anything indepth. The name he goes with is Kurēn. The profile, he completes with the bare minimum of facts because it would bother him not to. There aren't any lies, because he is due for high school soon and he is a boy and he does like quiet forested places (on account of living in the middle of nowhere)... But it's obviously just with more than a few facts omitted. The profile he fills out could belong to anyone.]
[Only then, satisfied and with some of his well hidden aggravation worked out, does he make a post in the advice section.]
Kurēn I recently gained romantic feelings for someone. I am not sure if I want them. It's not a matter of that person. I just think that a relationship of any kind would be troublesome.
There's no way to make an emotion like that stop, is there?
I'm not sure what I should do now that I feel this way.
[There. That's good enough as a starting point. It's only taken around half an hour, which is something. He quickly logs out of both the site and the library computer, and goes to head back home.]
[The next day, he comes back to check if there's been any answers. Eventually, they're going to have to stop by that store again, after all. It has the best prices.]
[Mukuro had been accused of many things in his life, but idleness was not one of them. There was little he did that wasn't to help at least two or three of his schemes come to fruition, and while many tasks he would assign others would seem harmless or trivial, normally they were anything but.
For instance, one of Mukuro's latest ventures had been to assign some of his newer would be vessels and followers menial tasks like scrounging the internet for a random assortment of information. Some was harmless, just to see if his cronies would actually do the tasks assigned. Some were more high risk, testing to see if they had any abilities worth noting and using.
One of the many tasks he enjoyed giving out was creating random accounts on various websites, both to help expand his information network and because Mukuro enjoyed having a front row seat to petty drama or into the lives of others. He just never expected it to be so fruitful.
Three of his followers had accounts on the forum that Chikusa, or excuse him, Kuren had posted to. Surprisingly Mukuro had an old account as well, which he was more than willing to dredge up. Most of the profile information was innocuous enough ( love of video games, swimming, sweets ) and the name 'Maru' had been chosen at random. The picture he had set was of a long limbed teenager with bright blue eyes and dark hair, expression neutral as they sat on the steps of a temple. Perfect.
Just to be sure, he had his other followers comment on the post ranging from suggesting Chikusa ignore his emotion as it would go away to aggressively acting in on it. Mukuro decided it would be safest to go with the middle ground posting in response:]
Maru Ignoring it will only make the feelings worse, and it sounds like you've already tried it. Instead of writing it off as troublesome, you should make sure your feelings and interest are genuine. Getting to know the person is the quickest and easiest way to find this out. They could have flaws that help deter those feelings or traits that are endearing. Either way, it's hard to write something off as troublesome if there's no effort put into it.
It had taken a little bit for him to fall into the habit of just not being- where his body was a thing, that much he knew, but it was a thing he could look at as if it were a puppet and he was connected to it only in the faintest of ways. That first time it had happened... it had been the purest relief. His body was a plaything to adults, yes, writhing and screaming on the ground, but it didn't feel like him. He was unaffected, until things came rushing back and he had to deal with the aches and pains.
Eventually, of course, the experiments ensured that even when he was "in" his body, he didn't feel pain.
Chikusa can't tell if that's made his mind less anchored to his own body or not.
Either way, it gives him plenty of time to reflect on how this particular Family has picked the wrong target in almost sardonic amusement. For once, he'd been on his own, separate from Ken, getting information from Mukuro-sama. At the first sign of something being amiss, he'd protected himself appropriately... Certainly, he thinks he'd taken out a good amount, especially with some traps picked up from observing Hayato Gokudera, but it hadn't been enough. Enough quantity of men, and most go down.
He had, certainly.
It's why he's here, laying limply in a chair. It's amazing that they still strap him into it by the arms, honestly. The knife that has pierced one of his hands and is into the wood beneath it is enough on its own, you'd think, and the state of his legs, well. They're broken, shattered, a classic sledgehammer to his knees. Honestly, the whole thing is a cliche.
Chikusa has never seen hell, not like Mukuro-sama, but he likes to think he's seen near enough. This is nothing.
That's obviously not what his interrogator wants to hear, however. It shows in the aggravated tap of his shoes against the dim floor and the way the man bares his teeth while pacing. The only shot that this pathetic group has gotten at getting information on the elusive Mukuro Rokudo, and he won't even talk or react to what they do to him. Chikusa can't say he's surprised as the man's hand goes into his jacket, pulling out the menacing black form of a handgun.
Escalating already, and all he can think is He's really bad at this.
"Alright, you piece of shit garbage-" The gun presses under his chin, and Chikusa only notices from the way the force of it nudges his head up and makes his view change. Around him, the world swims- maybe that's the bloodloss. The lack of food? Oh right, the black eye.... Another nudge and he focuses. "This is your last chance before I fill your lungs with lead. Give us information on your boss."
Ken is so difficult for other people to control that most people would assume he's not capable of exercising any himself. And, for the most part, they'd be right. Ken doesn't control himself much, and only lets two people on Earth instill control on him. And maybe sort of Chrome, but if anyone ever asked him he'd insist that's because of Mukuro working through her. And certainly Chrome doesn't really try to control him unless Mukuro is directly involved. His Famiglia had controlled him for awhile - his freedom, his body, his very biology - and he'd had his lifetime's fill of control there.
But when it's necessary - when it's important - he can rein himself in. And when someone is holding a gun under Chikusa's jaw, it's important. He wants to launch himself at the guy and tear him limb from limb, and he absolutely will, but making sure the gun doesn't go off and spray kappa brains all over the wall takes first priority.
So when Ken comes into the room, it's with a stealthy cunning that's markedly unusual for him, creeping on silent Lion Channel feet. Luckily the bastard's distracted fruitlessly threatening Chikusa, so it's not hard to slip up behind him - and then Ken is wrenching his gun arm away from Chikusa, hard enough that it looks like he's already trying to tear it off the guy's body.
And as soon as that's handled, as soon as Ken feels it's safe to let loose - the sound that rips out of him is a full-throated roar that makes the whole room ring.
Chikusa may get some satisfaction out of the next few minutes, if he has the stomach to watch. Ken doesn't go as far as eating his torturer, but he doesn't really stop at anything else. An actual lion couldn't have mauled someone so thoroughly - which was, of course, the idea behind the Estraneo giving Ken the strength, speed, and natural weaponry of vicious animals. Animal power guided by a human mind, both exponentially more destructive in combination.
Ken's a mess when he finishes, but he - as he so often does - ignores that entirely. He stomps over to Chikusa, eyes still flashing with anger. Mauling the guy to death didn't erase the outrage, so it's still present, and now he doesn't have anything else to vent it on. So Chikusa's going to catch some, victim though he is. "Dammit, Kakipi, how'd you let them catch you?!"
His claws flash through the ropes, even as he sniffs at Chikusa as though that somehow helps him to assess the other boy's state. Maybe it does. He prowls around the chair to find that embedded knife, which earns a growl right before it's yanked out. Ken vaguely recalls you're not supposed to remove things like that, that it causes more blood loss than if you leave it in, but he doesn't see how he could leave it in if he wants to move Chikusa. It was pinning him there. Besides, at this point he doesn't know how much more damage it can do.
"Stupid Kakipi...letting some shit mafiosos do this to you, byon." As far as Ken's concerned, Chikusa should never have been caught by scrubs like these in the first place. Never mind if there were dozens upon dozens of them. "Now I have to take you to the Vongola, byon!" He sounds disgusted by the idea. "I'll beat healing out of them if I have to, byon."
To say that Rokudo Mukuro had enemies was an understatement.
He was wanted in more countries than he cared to remember, had so many curse his name with their dying breaths that it wasn't entertaining anymore, and had ruined Families simply by selling their secrets to the highest bidder. In the years he had been actively fighting to bring the mafia down, he had managed to accrue a sort of reputation as a boogeyman, a ghost who knew everything, who could be anyone or anything. An illusionist who could break out of any prison, and who even the Vindice couldn't contain for long. That anyone who glimpsed his true face was ruined not too long afterwards. Amusing superstitions, ones that Mukuro didn't bother to correct, and in fact went to great lengths to cultivate. After all, it was more satisfying to have a target fearing his appearance long before he came.
This particular Family, the Basso Family, had been a wayside causality, a stepping stone in a plan to bring down a much more irksome Family. He had never thought that a small, weak, pathetic Family would dare come after him or his own. A miscalculation, to be sure, but one that Mukuro rectified.
While they were busy hunting Chikusa down, Mukuro was carefully cutting away at their toes and fingers, severing their alliances through vessels or forged documents or through blackmail. While they were stabbing a knife through Chikusa's hand, Mukuro was cutting their limbs off to the joints, draining their bank accounts, liquefying their assets, and setting fire to their safe houses. While they were busy breaking Chikusa's kneecaps, Mukuro made sure to slaughter every member of their extended Family, as bloody and messily as if the Devil himself had done so.
If they had wanted Mukuro Rokudo, they would get him and none would be spared.
As he made his way into the room where Chikusa was being kept, he let his illusions slip in through the rest of the house, allowing the people inside to die struggling against their worst nightmares, dying for their efforts.
When he opened the door, there was no one left but himself, Chikusa, and the last remnant of the Basso Family.
"Kufufu wouldn't it be better to get your information straight from the source?" When the man whirled around, eyes wide and uncomprehending, Mukuro disregarded him, instead taking in Chikusa's state. His killing intent was almost tangible, as sharp as spikes and as nebulous as miasma, the only outward sign of his rage was a widening in his smile.
"I see you've been taking care of one of my subordinates. For that, I thank you, and I'll be sure to return the favor a thousand fold." He canted his gaze to the other man, smiling as if he had fangs to tear out the other man's throat. "Or perhaps it's better to say I've already returned the favor. You have the dubious honor of being the last of the Basso." A small, thoughtful pause. "Even if it's only for the next few minutes."
Ken's a ferocious fighter. It comes to him naturally, and the Estraneo had taken steps to make it come to him unnaturally, too. With his Channels, he's a much more versatile combatant than most close-quarters brawlers could ever hope to be - to say nothing of being far stronger and faster than a human, or at least any human not using a ring to enhance their abilities. So while he's sent off on his own more often than Chikusa, since it's less likely he'll need backup, it's by no means easy for anyone to get the drop on him. Especially some lowly mafia family without any rings worth talking about at their disposal.
In the end, they'd apparently decided to take a cue from Ken's animalistic nature. They'd actually tranq'ed him. A tranquilizer dart, fired from a considerable distance, and Ken hadn't even fully comprehended what had happened - much less where it had come from - before he'd dropped.
Sometimes normal guns were still useful in mafia work.
Of course, as smoothly as capturing Ken had been...his volatile nature has made keeping him anything but. The Corvi interrogators had shattered his knees within the first few days, though in truth that had been as much practicality as any part of the torture regime. Ken is obscenely violent, had in fact killed the first man they sent in to torture him with his bare hands - despite his cartridges having been confiscated first thing. He doesn't need cartridges to be dangerous, as it turns out, especially when in a towering rage - and he needs methods of restraint that take facts like his being willing and able to slip his own shoulders out of joint into account. Holding Ken in captivity has been a learning experience, to say the least. The breaking of his kneecaps had followed that incident almost immediately, and while it's made him significantly less mobile and a whole lot louder and angrier, it doesn't seem to have instilled any fear or desire to cooperate in him. And while the pain must be immense, nothing but Ken's increased volume and hostility has served to indicate it.
Truthfully, Ken's torture has gone slowly, because it's so damn hard to do. He's constantly thrashing, yelling (over any interrogation, it may be added) until his voice gives out, trying to escape his bonds with such violence that he's done almost as much damage to his own arms as any torture could without even seeming to feel it. (Or, at least, to care if he does.) One wrist has to be broken, judging by the bracelet of bruising around it, despite the fact that what torture has taken place has actually avoided Ken's arms. It's as much as anyone's life is worth to try giving Ken food or water enough to keep life in him; he's been allowed to feed himself just so no one has to get close. The Corvi don't want him dead before he can be of any use at all...which is, unfortunately, looking like more and more of a possibility.
Between protecting themselves from Ken, and keeping Ken from either escaping or inadvertently killing himself in his struggles, very little actual progress has been made on getting information about Mukuro from him. Worse, Ken's refusals to talk are even more violent than anything else. There's a distinct concern among the Corvi that all of this effort, and the death of one of their own, is going to be entirely wasted; at this point, further effort in Ken's direction is mostly out of the desire to make it all, somehow, worth it. To get some return on their risky investment.
The interrogators had decided, several days ago, to stop feeding Ken. With less energy, they reasoned, his struggles would weaken, and it would become easier to both torture him and talk to him. To demand information, and perhaps even get it. He's wildly opposed to helping them, his fanatical devotion to Mukuro obvious, but the Corvi had done their homework. Ken's not smart. He could possibly be tricked into revealing something, especially while weak with hunger and pain. As ridiculously intractable as he's proven to be, he's still human, and the strain on his body will wear him down eventually.
And results have finally begun to materialize. Ken's grown quieter over the past few days, his struggles less fierce, and today he's almost limp. (Which isn't to say the Corvi don't still take precautions, putting muscle relaxants in his water and waiting until a full hour after he's drunk it to move into his cell and strap him head and foot into a chair.) But the fact that he barely puts up any resistance is very positive. Today, finally, they may get something from him.
But Ken is either more uncooperative, or more cunning, than anyone had predicted. He refuses to answer anything they ask - in fact, he doesn't say anything at all, beyond the occasional expletive or threat. He doesn't respond to the interrogation at all, as if he can't even hear their questions...and so it comes down, once again, to torture.
Dental torture is on the table, and is quite tempting; it might scare him, considering his teeth may or may not be necessary for his cartridges. (The Corvi aren't sure about this; for all their research, there's hardly any information anywhere on how, exactly, the cartridges work, and their R&D department has been studying them all week with next to nothing to show for it.) But it's hard enough to get anything intelligible out of Ken as it is, and...well, frankly, no one wants to get near his mouth. He's already bitten several people, two of them all the way down to the bone. So instead, the current interrogator picks up a knife, holding the tip of it inches from Ken's right eye.
The Estraneo had never gotten to that point with him, for one thing. In part, that had been his fault. So much of Chikusa's personality has been built from those days. Be quiet and don't cry where they can hear or see you. Shrink into the background, become a part of it, change into a ghost and let the other children be picked first so that he could survive longer. Inevitably, of course, someone remembered his number on the list, dragged him to experiments that left him writhing on the floor in agony so intense it drove his mind from his body...
But it had been better than nothing. It kept him from being the first to be used for experiments that stole the lives of other children. It helped him survive.
Habits like that don't leave so easily. If anything, they've simply become worse as the years have passed. Behind Mukuro's charisma and aura of danger and Ken's loud presence, it's easy to pass him over. Chikusa wouldn't want it any other way. The only thing that bothers him is that he's not as useful as he could be for Mukuro. He doesn't have any extraordinary abilities. Everything he's capable of, he's had to work on his own: his knowledge of poisons, his ability to engineer a complicated and inconspicuous device, keeping pace with some of Mukuro's thoughts, and, of course, becoming even better at taking targets out before they have a chance to respond.
Ironically, it's made him the most like the mafia they despise so much.
Chikusa doesn't complain about it. He simply uses it to his full extent.
That means it's not illusions that help him sneak into the Corvi Family estate, but simple skill. Hard learned stealth lets him slip into the mansion like a ghost, existing where other people don't look, and a lifetime of having to deal with the mafia lets him know exactly where to lurk and eavesdrop. Listening to the Corvi's men talk about their prisoner down in the basement, Chikusa stays detached and silent as he always has been. That's why it's a surprise when, after listening how they plan to keep him alive to try and get any information at all, Chikusa is surprised to find himself realizing his heart is descending from his throat.
Dammit, Ken.
For the first day, he takes in all the information he can including that the Corvi are having trouble even getting in the same room as Ken. The second, the third days, those are the ones he learns as much of the routine in the Corvi mansion as he can. It's a rushed job, but it's all he can do when Ken is on the line. The entire time, he stays detached. Forces himself to be detached.
When he's not, after all, there's his heart in his throat and a tremor in his hands, and Chikusa can't stand any of it.
The fourth day is when he decides that there's no more need to wait.
He takes out the civilian staff first. It's a basic poison, one that makes them drop to the ground and leaves blood pooling out from the entry points. He's a little bit proud of that one, honestly- a poison which keeps the blood from clotting up and closing the wound, encourages the flow of it. Nothing is more perfect for tracking someone than a continuously bleeding wound if they manage to survive the shock, and it's always been the best thing for Ken to track with his nose. It seems contradictory then, for him to switch the needles to the sedative sort, but he has plans. In other places, in different bodies and guises, Mukuro-sama is isolating this family on a political level. There'll be no cavalry for them, no one they can turn to.
That gives Chikusa plenty of time to tend to things in his preference.
After the staff, he patiently clears out the floors and rooms one by one starting from the top. It's work that really requires him to move quickly, never knowing if or when someone will hear the sound of bodies crumpling to the ground and come to investigate. He can't afford an alarm being raised. It's not pleasant work, and he sure as hell doesn't particularly like having to do it all... But in the end, it all pays off. A mansion full of unconscious mafiosos, and traps set up all around the mansion entrances for anyone who might come wandering in.
The only place left is the basement where Ken is being kept.
His shoes are removed and set aside neatly near the top of the stairs, his barefeet making him a much more silent entity as he makes his way down into the basement. Checking through the rooms is tedious, but he does it anyway to make sure there won't be any unexpected guests. When he finally reaches the room where Ken is being kept.... It looks like he's just in time.
Chikusa's stride looks almost deceivingly lax, if one can ignore the speed that's been added into it, and he's on the scene in a heartbeat. One hand sneaks around the Corvi interrogator's shoulder, needles placed inbetween his fingers, and he jerks his hand back so that they go straight into his throat. A wet gurgle, the knife shaking and then dropping, and Chikusa pulls him back with a grunt. He ignores the hands scrambling at his wrist, and even the blood that's bubbling against his palm and dripping down to stain crisp cloth. Chikusa waits, until finally the body slumps lifelessly against his own. Eager to be rid of it, he dumps it against the ground and a look of distaste crosses his face as he stares down at his bloodied palm.
Something much more complicated crosses his face as he looks over to Ken and sees the state he's in. It takes a second before he can force his expression back into blankness, slouching over to him.
[Don Caro was a wise, if far too kind-hearted, man.
When he had opened the door one fateful afternoon to find his newest charge holding a pistol to his head, he had spoken softly and warmly, advising without lecturing. 'Faustino, what you lose when you walk a path doesn't make up for the knowledge you gain.'
He had felt old and young then, a mix of past lifetimes that had been injected into his brain ( the eye was the window of the soul for a reason ), an angry and lost little boy who knew too much and had seen too much but had yet to truly live. Some nights he awoke with the songs of languages he had never known on his tongue, the feel of the desert sand beneath his feet, with the warmth of a lover he had, a confusing maelstrom he had never asked to traverse but had been tossed into headfirst. If he had to be in this hell, he would drag everyone down with him.
Somehow, Don Caro managed to talk him out of opening that last forbidden door, that he wasn't alone in this hell. That while his world had only been pain and suffering, now it would be introduced to kindness and love. All he had to do was trust.
It seemed hardly worth it, but Faustino handed over the gun ( but not the three possession bullets ) and took the Don's hand.
Though the Caro Family was small, it was prosperous and welcoming, adopting not one broken child but three. Tutors were brought in to help Faustino learn his 'native' languages ( French, Arabic, Japanese, and a few others that had long since been dead ). He learned how to shoot, and through watching egregio signor Lancia tirelessly, started to pick up hand to hand combat.
Schooling was boring when it came to the actual content but interesting in a social context ( Faustino only went to press the dress code, test out how easy it was to form a cult, and so he could have an alibi ). The Don decided he would be suited for diplomacy and started prepping him for that, and while it was interesting, it wasn't his only calling.
He started to amass an information network, a network of willing hosts, a black book full of aliases, and honed his combat skills and illusions until he knew he was topnotch. While diplomacy was well and good, Faustino knew better than to believe that everyone in the mafia was as forgiving as Don Caro.
Still, he found ways to make time to be home whenever egregio signor Lancia was about, a coincidence he chalked up to their closeness when he was a child, but over the years had taken a different glint of interest. Besides Don Caro, egregio signor Lancia had been the one who had cared after him most, and the only one who put up a decent fight when Faustino was in the mood.]
Egregio signor.
[It was said with equal parts mocking, affection, and warmth, even though Faustino's smile was more of a sharp smirk. He sauntered into the training room easily, long hair fluttering behind him because for some reason, wholesome murder was frowned upon but crimes against fashion were acceptable.]
You're back sooner than expected. How was your trip?
[Once upon a time, Lancia himself was an unwanted orphan on the streets before the Caro took him in.]
[Even now that he's an adult, he simply can't put together the words describing how much it had all changed his life. There was no shortage of kids on streets who took up to petty crime, always running and never living. Sure, there were worse lives. He's seen enough in the mafia to know how brutal people can get. But.... it still wasn't a way to properly live a life.]
[Protecting their small but fortunate little territory is the least he can do, in his mind. The fact that he's gotten pretty good- really good- isn't something he meant to do, but oh well. 'Strongest in Northern Italy' has a nice ring to it. Some of the guys have even talked about the Varia looking to recruit, but, frankly, he'd be happy if they never came calling. He's heard more than enough stories about them.]
[Besides... He guesses he's a lot like the don. He doesn't need a lot of power or a huge paycheck. All he needs is a decent territory and something to protect.]
[In that case, along with the Family, it's the kids. Faustino, Ciro, Al. Kids that were in the same position as him, once: abandoned, homeless, familyless. How Al puffed up and tried to make himself bigger, the flickering wariness in Ciro's eyes when he kept an eye out for all exits. Even Faustino, although he put up a better facade than the other two. You could see it a little at the start, when the only friends he had his age were Ciro and Al. Lancia had done his best to care for them when they were younger, and only half because Don Caro had himself asked. He'd have done it anyway, seeing bits of himself in a bunch of hurt kids.]
[It had taken a damn whole lot of patience, with Ken as the easiest and Ciro as the most difficult, but he can look at the now and feel a little swell of pride. 'History repeats itself' and all that shit, and, looking at them, he can see it. The years have brought healing, thank God for that. Now they're old enough to be getting into work themselves and, just like him, only half because it's for the Don's wishes. Al is already great at doing bodyguard work, although Lancia still has to get some of the finer details like patience through his head. He's still amazed at how smart Ciro is showing himself to be, one of those types who just has to push himself and he gets things quick as lightning.]
[And Faustino, well. He's kind of like Ciro in how fast he picks up on other subjects. It's just that, unlike Ciro, that means other people too.]
[But the more things change, the more they stay the same. He knows for a fact that Ciro and Al still curl up in the same bed together, Faustino sometimes joining them like they'll be taken away from each other if they don't cling as tight as they can. Lancia is almost sad that they're still not kids. He'd liked coming in at the middle of the night, a soft tap against their doorframe to let them know it was him, and make sure they were tucked in instead of Al kicking the blankets off the bed.]
[They're too old for that kind of thing anymore. What Lancia can do, however, is continue to keep that little room of theirs safe. He can make sure that nothing ever threatens Caro territory.]
[Recently, that'd meant doing a little bit of cooperation with the Vongola- never a bad group to get on the good side of in general, but especially when you were trying to get favors just in case a certain Family from the south tried to make any moves on Caro territory. It'd gone as smoothly as Lancia had hoped it would but never expected it to and now, well, he's just glad to be back home.]
[Jobs like that always leave him with a buzz in his body, however, an adrenaline that's gone on unused. It means getting to sleep is impossible until he lets it out. So, he drops by Don Caro's office just to let him know that things didn't go to shit, and then he slips into the training room while shedding his jacket. He's only actually been pulling himself up at the bars for maybe five minutes when he hears that familiar tone.]
[Figures. He has a sneaking suspicion that Faustino even knows the resident mice population's comings and goings, let alone when he gets back home.]
[Dropping from the bar, he stretches his arms behind his head and grins over at the youth.]
It went well. I'm always surprised at how well the Vongola run, it's no wonder they're so successful still. Have you eased up teasing your teachers at school?
They lived, bent, and broke in predictable ways. Give them a bit of wishful temptation, promises made of lies, and a weapon and they'd kill their whole family for money, fame, a scrap of bread.
Those with supposed intelligence were just as easy to con. If he told them that you could help them pierce the veil between life or death they became a demon's puppet so easily. Tell them that you could give them the secret to eternal life, well, they would sign their soul over without even needing to hear the rest. Simply to appear before them was enough to make them believe they were chosen and special, and they'd work themselves to death doing his bidding.
After helping humans fall into depravity for centuries, Mukuro had mostly lost his taste for it. There were no interesting challenges, but Mukuro had a quota to fulfill, a habit he couldn't break. Just when he had been thinking of storming heaven to alleviate his boredom, a whole slew of humans arrived to pique his interest and remind him why he was regarded as one of the best.
Currently, he had been keeping a close eye on a newly minted priest, putting little whispers into his ears every now and again, nothing too extravagant. But now, well. He wanted to meet him, to see how he would react.
So he had possessed the man's teacher, and over the long weeks had slowly gotten more and more comfortable in the other man's skin. Humans weren't meant to be vessels for demons, so his body and mind were starting to go, to the point where even the Pope was willing to agree to an exorcism. It wouldn't do after all, for one of their high ranking patriarchs to be crawling along ceilings, slaughtering believers, and shrieking blasphemy as his head spun on his body.
They had gotten smart enough to try to restrain the patriarch, at the very least.
'Kill me before I commit more sins' he was saying in a rasping breath, Mukuro hovering over his shoulder to watch him suffer with disinterest. It wasn't him he was here to see.]
[In a way, the only surprising thing in this whole endeavor is the... indirect way things are happening.]
[This is not the first time he has had to deal with demonic forces. To be accepted as a priest himself, capable of guarding the flock and guiding it, confronting a demon had been one of his tests. The affair had taken place in a simple blank room, his teacher behind him and the possessed soul in front, and young Chikusa Kakimoto had done his duty has had been required of him. So many whispers, hisses, and snarls there had been over his steady prayers and commands.]
[They say you never forget your first. However dark the situation might have been, Chikusa supposes that's true. He still hasn't forgotten a single detail of that moment.]
[Perhaps because of that, when his hair had risen on the back of his neck and he could almost feel lips along the curve of his ear at words on the edge of his hearing.... Well. There weren't many other things it could have been. Dutifully, since then, he had done his prayers and prepared for any number of scenarios including possession of his own body. He'd... almost been fascinated at the idea, in the detached way he views so much still.]
[So for his teacher to be the one to be taken is almost a shock. Almost.]
[There's no trace of that on his face as he enters the room, however. No grief, no shock, no anger as his eyes all upon the poor sight restrained tightly in the chair. Chikusa is as quiet and emotionless as a doll, pale skin all the paler between his cassock and black hair with the only sign of color being the purple stole hanging from his shoulders and his eyes.]
[Dutifully, he crosses himself, but, instead of shifting into the ages long Litany of Saints, Chikusa stares over at his former teacher.]
[Is this the same one that's been bothering him for so long, targeting now one of the only people he has any connection to? Is it arrogance to suspect so? Well, regardless, his job is the same. He starts to turn to the appropriate pages in his Bible.]
...If you could surrender your name and leave this man's body, it would save us all the effort.
[It's a quiet bland statement, as if this occurrence is that of the mundane instead of the supernatural, and his teacher isn't looking more like a corpse than a living person. Oh, by all means he'll do all the prayers anyway, because you can never be too safe, but still. Having a battle of wills with a demon and figuring out its name, a source of power over it, are the kinds of things which take even longer than simple prayer.]
[Lancia knows that things have gone wrong in his life. While he's been a lot of things and will continue to be so, he's not blind to his own faults. Once you do a bit of time, after all, you have to face the facts. Unlike so many other people, he'd gotten lucky, got out, but what to do after? It had been a wake up call.]
[He couldn't let his life continue down that path.]
[Not one where the end of such a path was covered in nothing but blood and a violent death.]
[In the end, to put himself on the right track, he goes back to his roots. What can he say? He's Italian, and religion has been such a presence in his life even if he'd turned away from it more than once. This time, it'll be different. He's going to make sure of it.]
[It's why Lancia has retreated to a place where no one knows his name, and dedicated to a peaceful church with a welcoming congregation. While he's not expecting a quick fix, it's amazing to him how good it feels to take part in mass again like he hasn't since he was young. For the first time in years, he can feel himself calming down instead of his body wracked with tension.]
[He's glad for it.]
[In return, the least he can do is help out when he can. There's no reason not to, after all- he's a healthy, tall, muscular man. Plenty of strength and energy to do whatever handiwork needs doing in the church if it'll help them not need to spend so much money. And whenever he's not doing that, it feels nice to simply linger long after mass has cleared out, finding a little peace in prayer.]
[The church itself, the congregation, mass- all of it helps. But Lancia knows that it's the kindness of the priests that are to be thanked just as hard for all of this. He wonders if it's enough sometimes, doing just what he's doing.]
[Unlike most other priests that Mukuro had met in his life, he had known for quite some time that he had wanted to join the clergy. Not out of any sort of unshakeable faith or belief, but solely to disappoint his family.
His parents had believed in science over faith, and had considered those who needed religion as 'intellectually inferior' and 'vapid'. Yet for all their scorn, Mukuro had yet to see them do anything worthwhile in their lives. His father wrote academic journal reviews solely to tear others down while his mother was constantly attaching herself to anyone who looked like they might have a promising career and jetting off after them. More than once, Mukuro had wondered why they had bothered to procreate, and the few times he had find solace or peace was in the swooping high ceilings of churches, decorated beautifully and full of uplifting music. He had liked that part, at least.
He had studied religions from Hinduism to traditional religions in Africa before settling on pursuing Catholicism, perhaps the most fascinating to practice and the one that his parents held the most scorn over. Amusing to him, considering that the religion was deeply steeped in methods that had hardly changed, which held true no matter which country and continent, much like their science. He put on a good show in college of double majoring in history and philosophy, in that time collecting the necessary pieces to help him ascend into the clergy.
Their faces when he announced his intentions after graduating were still hilarious to him, and to help sever ties, he had moved far, far away from them. The small town he had been relocated to was quiet, welcoming, and sleepy. Mukuro's becoming a priest was celebrated nearly by the entire town, and while he couldn't say his heart had been moved by God, it had definitely been moved by how easily manipulated and gullible people could be.
It was difficult work to prepare sermons, to attend to the ill, to help the unfortunate, but it wasn't exactly thankless work.
For example, one of their newest clergy members could definitely give Solomon a lesson or two on strength, and he watched with appreciation as he helped with building the newest house for one of their parishioners. Since it would only get in the way, for once he was in plain clothes, a well worn pair of jeans, an faded old t-shirt, a pair of heavy work gloves, and he had his hair tied back. The only thing that really gave him away as being a priest might be the cross he had around his neck as well as the fact that most of the parishioners referred to him as 'Father'.]
While your enthusiasm is appreciated, just be careful not to hurt yourself.
[It was said in a low amused voice, one eyebrow raised delicately as he came to stand beside him.]
We're going to take a break for lunch. Would you like to join us?
[To add insult to injury, once he had made it back the the Caro Family Estate, the Don and their doctor had been waiting for him. Though the injuries he had sustained were humiliating, being fussed over and ordered to stay in bed for a week to recover was irritating. He knew his body better than anyone, and it would take a day or two at most for him to be back on his feet, and he was certain the Don had assigned the extra days so that he could sit next to him and try to scold and lecture him.
There was a lot of talk about trust, as if somehow that was the problem here. Faustino trusted Al and Ciro, but he also knew their strengths and weaknesses. He couldn't have brought them along, and he would not ask of them what he couldn't do himself. As for why he didn't ask the family, or even Lancia, perhaps that was even simpler. He had expected them to talk him out of it, to order him not to do what he knew must be done. While the Abbandonato Family had been eradicated with help from some of the Family, it brought him little pleasure.
So if he was sulking, unmanageable, and cruel, he felt like he had good reason to be. Even the walks he had liked taking outside of his body hadn't consoled him, so he was in a foul mood when he heard the knock on the door. Still, lashing out at Ciro was like lashing out at a mirror. Pointless, and it would just mean he would have to pick up the shards later.]
[Faustino has never told him everything, and Ciro has always accepted that.]
[To Faustino first, and then the Caro, Ciro knows he owes them everything. Without Faustino, he would have just been yet another broken child of the Estraneo, discarded into the pile of corpses they had made in their pursuit for some idea of "glory". Without the Caro Family- well, who knows? Maybe another Family would have taken them in. Maybe they'd stay wild, running away from human beings which had made themselves so untrustworthy back then. It'd be a different life, or sure, for better or worse... but Ciro has become content with it.]
[And, for years, he's been content with the fact that Faustino doesn't tell him or Al everything. That he does things on his own. It's simply a part of how he is, and why worry about it? Faustino is one of the strongest people he knows, matched only by Lancia.]
[Why worry about it. Until now.]
[Even Al doesn't buy that Faustino is alright after he was kidnapped. Ciro doesn't have to ask him about it. Unlike Faustino, secretive to his core, Al wears his heart on his sleeve, and him and Ciro have always been two different halves of a whole. Perhaps he smelled the amount of blood in the Abbandonato labs, or it's just pure animal instinct.]
[Ciro doesn't have anything like that. He just knows when he's being lied to.]
[Anything else.... For any other event, he'd let this pass. For any other place, not swathed with the overwhelming smell of medicine and blood and death.]
[He pauses at the sound of Faustino's voice, hand still curled up near the wood of the door, and takes a breath. This isn't something he's been looking forward to. In fact, more than once he's wanted to emulate Ken, and simply avoid the foul air around their friend and most beloved. But he can't run away from this. He won't. So he opens the door and steps inside, shutting it behind him.]
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badliifechoiice22016-01-08 10:36 am
Praise Play
Either, it doesn't matter which it is. All that matters is what Tsuna notices as he watches.
This time around, it's Takeshi.
They're little things, really. Dismissable by other people. The way he reacts to compliments, to all of them gathering as a group, what he wears even.
Asking about what's wrong is out of the question, as much as it makes Tsuna sigh. Takeshi is almost as bad as Gokudera when it comes to hiding his feelings away, like he needs to take care of it all himself. So how to approach it?
The idea comes to him one night when Takeshi is the one to occupy his bed, arms wrapped around his Rain Guardian's neck and his fingers digging into his shirt. Breaking the kiss with a flushed face, he blinks up at him. "Hey, Yamamoto.... Would it be alright if I tried something tonight?"
no subject
But right now, those small misgivings had taken a backseat as they always did. Right now Tsuna is what matters. Kissing him. Being kissed by him. Looking at that cute flushed face of his and feeling those fingers in his lose concealing shirt. He knows Tsuna doesn't ask for things often so it's pretty easy for him to agree. "You want to try something? Sure. Go ahead Tsuna. I'm sure I'll really like it." He would because it's Tsuna, one of the people he adores more than even baseball.
no subject
"I was wondering... about tying your hands behind your back. Would that really be alright?"
(no subject)
(no subject)
Hell of a Butler
It's not even conscious. Not really. He does it while asleep, burrowing, hiding, seeking any sort of sanctuary even if only temporary. It doesn't alleviate the pain in his shattered heart... or the pain in his back from the burn marks that make one huge X across his back like a target.
He is one, after all. He feels it every day when he's dressed in fine clothing, when he acknowledges the enormous mansion he lives in. He sees it when he looks upon his butler.
Tsuna doesn't want to be a target. He doesn't want fine clothing, or a mansion. He doesn't want this butler, either...
But unlike everything else, he needs him.
Safety. That's one thing. And the other is a promise, an oath, made to find the few things that matter in this world anymore to him and to fix something broken. With the thing that calls itself a butler watching over him, then.... they should be guaranteed, these things. Fixing this Family, and finding his family.
This never would have happened if not for the precious blood in his veins, the blood of the first Vongola. If he were just normal, a Sawada like his mother and father, then he'd never have had to see their blood spilled on the floor. Never lose his home. Never wonder where his other siblings had been whisked away to- good as any even if not truly related to him.
It's a lot to do. It's so much to do.
But for now, he stays curled up and hidden beneath his covers.
One way or another, after all, his butler gets him.
Date Day
It's probably how presidents or prime ministers or kings feel, Tsuna figures, in that your life has now officially stopped being anything approaching normal and a worrying amount of people would like to see you dead. Or in jail, but Tsuna isn't really bothered about that part. It's better than being dead, and there are interesting people in jail when you don't have to worry about being killed.
What that basically means is that his ability to spend personal time with the others in the ways normal twenty-somethings usually do is often hindered. When he was a teenager in Japan, he'd been lucky. He'd been a known entity, the future Decimo then, but he hadn't been a presence. Timoteo, the Ninth, he had been, but not Tsuna. Not then, anyway. There were incidents, now and then, but they were manageable. So, back then, dates were things he was allowed to have with Kyoko when Reborn could be persuaded/bribed/convinced that Tsuna could take a single afternoon off from any "lessons".
There's none of that in Tsuna's current station. Worse yet, he understands it all. He's Vongola Decimo, the unofficial king of the underworld where Vongola is felt almost everywhere. A lot of people want him dead. There's no way for him to take a simple date without people fussing.
...Until he gets an idea.
It's weird how people don't recognize him with the most minor of changes. Enough for him to believe a little bit how Reborn could get away with everything in his middle school years, or how Clark Kent could stop being Superman with just a pair of glasses. Then again, Tsuna is cheating a little bit. Sure, he's straightened his hair- an endeavor that took him literal hours to accomplish before it accepted gravity's rule- but he's also applied makeup expertly. (Reborn's training would accept nothing less.) Good enough to change the look of his face on a shallow level and make his soft lips more noticeable. Clam barrettes to his normally unadorned hair help make another difference, and he likes to think he looks fairly cute in a simple brown sweater with bursts of red here and there in the tree design. A short skirt, leggings, and ankle length boots finish everything off. (The mittens hidden away too, of course. Always the mittens.)
All that effort for Yamamoto. Tsuna doesn't regret it. Kyoko got so many cute dates back then before they were engaged. The rest of his lovers, now that he knows his feelings, deserve nothing less.
Besides, no one can complain with his Rain Guardian keeping his dear boss safe.
It feels amazing to be out and about, not smothered by the underworld or specific etiquette designed to not accidentally offend a bunch of hair trigger temper mobsters. It feels even better to be curled up against Yamamoto's side as they walk and take in everything, a more casual day than either of them get. Another bonus is, disguised like this, he can kiss the other man in public whenever he likes, and no one can gossip about the Decimo kissing his Rain Guardian when he's engaged. To anyone else's eyes, he's just a pretty girl showing her date some affection. When he first realizes it when they're on a tram going through the city, he makes sure to make it a nice long kiss too.
As a thank you for him.
Right now, however, they're separate with Tsuna waiting patiently on a bench and checking his phone just to make sure the world hasn't fallen apart with his absence. There's a place selling panzerotti nearby, but the line goes on for what seem like forever to Tsuna's eyes. Yamamoto had gone to get some, a volunteer as always, and now it's just him.
At least, it's just him until there's a voice speaking in front of him. "Anyone sitting here?"
Tsuna glances up. It's someone around his age, an actual Italian to whom the language comes to easily, naturally, with slicked back hair and strands that still fall dashingly out and against his brow. Handsome enough for most people, a thought which Tsuna notes down and then tucks away out of sight. For now, he just gives a small smile. "Ah, no. Go ahead, it's fine." That's where he'd normally leave things.
The new visitor, however, well, he seems to have different ideas. Tsuna shifts a little as the stranger sits just a bit too close, with his arm slung around the back of the bench coincidentally behind his own back. "You're pretty cute, you know! I don't usually see such cute girls around here. Are you a tourist?"
"Ah, just out of town."
"I see, I see. Then you must not know about some of the great clubs around here! Why don't you let me give you a tour? The drinks can be on me. I promise you'll get shown a really good time."
For once in his life, Tsuna realizes he's being hit on. Perhaps it's because people are bolder with him, when he's in a skirt in makeup. Regardless, it doesn't change one fact:
He has never once been asked out so honestly in his entire life.
A brain that can stare a gun right in his face and not react short circuits at this simple occasion, and all Tsuna can do is stare up with wide eyes with a soft "Um" on glossy lips.
Re: Date Day
It was a good think he had let Hayato dress him up even if he'd abandoned the tie as soon as they left the Vongola Fortress. It's more than a little wonderful knowing he can touch Tsuna, a hand at his back, arn arm around him, threading their fingers together, long kisses that would get them shooed off the streets in Japan....They can do all of that, and Takeshi takes full advantage of it once Tsuna's clear he's just as happy about the situation.
He absolutely has plans to take Tsuna to a bistro later, Hayato had told him exactly which one he had better go to, but Tsuna's stomach had growled and the cart had smelled so good he volunteered to get them a snack while they continued walking around enjoying their time together. He very nearly ruins all of that when he sees the stranger sit down next to Tsuna. His first instinct is to check for danger, but the man is unarmed, and there's no discernible flame signature or anything like that. Tsuna can take care of himself anyway, it just makes Takeshi's hackles rise to see someone hitting on his date.
He waits a little less patiently until he's got the hot food in his hands and returns perhaps a bit too quickly to the bench, bending over to press a kiss to Tsuna's mouth without warning or even a glance at the man attempting to invade Tsuna's personal space. Takeshi already knows he's welcome in Tsuna's space.
"One of them's a little crunchier. Do you want that one or the softer one?" He speaks in Japanese, excluding the intruder and holding the food out for Tsuna to inspect.
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Back then, it was I-Pin and Lambo invading his room at all hours of the day for attention or to play along with Reborn needing somewhere to stay.
These days... Well. There's assassination attempts, of course. Sometimes it's one of his guardians coming in to wake him up about the latest emergency. Mukuro seems to have problems with respecting his privacy, but a call to Chrome usually sorts that out.
Tonight, it's apparently Squalo kicking down his door with armfuls of fast food bags and yelling about whatever is bothering him today. (Margy Burger. He hopes really bad that it's Margy Burger.)
"Oh," he says, utterly unsurprised and in the middle of removing his shoes. "Hi, Squalo. What do you want to watch today?"
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The last month had been full of ridiculous amounts of bullshit that Squalo wasn't sure he'd ever recover from, well, he probably would, but the stupid shit that was going on in Varia at the moment... It's why he snuck off to buy copious amounts of Margy Burger and flee to the main house.
So, it wasn't like Squalo really had any issue with most of the main house anymore - most, because fuck the goddamned cow and Gokudera - but he still knew he needed to avoid the goddamned sword-brat if he wanted do get his quiet time with Sawada even at all. Goddamn, the kid was like a giant, slobbering baseball obsessed puppy. But he was still his student.
"You busy?" Well, the amount of fucks he gives as to if Tsuna is actually busy is nill, so he just moves from the window like he owns the place and sets the down on the floor, because like hell is he getting the bed dirty if something leaked. "Cause you're going to be busy for the next week."
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Not for Sale
But he didn't have a choice in the matter. It was do it or be punished. And by being punished, he would have to do it anyways. And he hated it so much. But he really didn't have a choice once his virginity was auctioned off. And he would have to give it up the very next day, at noon.
This lead to the teenager freaking out, and hiding off with his older self. He's taken all the box animals out and held onto them while trying to hide. He can't avoid this.
But he's going to try, dammit!]
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[Still, sitting and letting his fingers comb through the Cloud leopard's fur, he can't help but sigh.]
I don't think this is going to work.
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Fishing
[Maybe it's less the screen, and more that it's a representative of his own inner complications which he's, as usual, kept locked away out of sight from even the rest of the group. Since he was a child, all he needed was Ken and Mukuro-sama. As he shifted into adolescence, MM and Dokuro became part of the group. It was still fine. It was still, at their core, them- Kokuyo being their new name.]
[No one else is needed. Not as far as outsiders are concerned. Despite knowing this perfectly logical fact, Chikusa is alarmed to have found himself gaining an interest in someone else.]
[Just a cashier at a store he regularly goes to when they need actual food of some sort that isn't gum or whatever dead animal Ken has managed to sink his teeth into.]
[He'd suffocated the feelings the second he'd noticed their presence, but Chikusa is well versed in emotions. It's very hard to actually destroy them. The best one can do- what he's done for years- is keep them from reaching the surface where other people can see.]
[It's a method that never actually disposes of emotions.]
[Chikusa has never stopped being mildly annoyed of this fact.]
[Regardless, it's something he doesn't know what to do with now that he has it. The sensible thing would be to get knowledge and advice from another source. Normally, he'd go to Mukuro-sama, or one of the others, but in this case...]
[So. Here he is.]
[It's an internet forum, since simple web searching has proved to be not as effective as he'd like. Nothing that really required anything indepth. The name he goes with is Kurēn. The profile, he completes with the bare minimum of facts because it would bother him not to. There aren't any lies, because he is due for high school soon and he is a boy and he does like quiet forested places (on account of living in the middle of nowhere)... But it's obviously just with more than a few facts omitted. The profile he fills out could belong to anyone.]
[Only then, satisfied and with some of his well hidden aggravation worked out, does he make a post in the advice section.]
Kurēn
I recently gained romantic feelings for someone. I am not sure if I want them. It's not a matter of that person. I just think that a relationship of any kind would be troublesome.
There's no way to make an emotion like that stop, is there?
I'm not sure what I should do now that I feel this way.
[There. That's good enough as a starting point. It's only taken around half an hour, which is something. He quickly logs out of both the site and the library computer, and goes to head back home.]
[The next day, he comes back to check if there's been any answers. Eventually, they're going to have to stop by that store again, after all. It has the best prices.]
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For instance, one of Mukuro's latest ventures had been to assign some of his newer would be vessels and followers menial tasks like scrounging the internet for a random assortment of information. Some was harmless, just to see if his cronies would actually do the tasks assigned. Some were more high risk, testing to see if they had any abilities worth noting and using.
One of the many tasks he enjoyed giving out was creating random accounts on various websites, both to help expand his information network and because Mukuro enjoyed having a front row seat to petty drama or into the lives of others. He just never expected it to be so fruitful.
Three of his followers had accounts on the forum that Chikusa, or excuse him, Kuren had posted to. Surprisingly Mukuro had an old account as well, which he was more than willing to dredge up. Most of the profile information was innocuous enough ( love of video games, swimming, sweets ) and the name 'Maru' had been chosen at random. The picture he had set was of a long limbed teenager with bright blue eyes and dark hair, expression neutral as they sat on the steps of a temple. Perfect.
Just to be sure, he had his other followers comment on the post ranging from suggesting Chikusa ignore his emotion as it would go away to aggressively acting in on it. Mukuro decided it would be safest to go with the middle ground posting in response:]
Maru
Ignoring it will only make the feelings worse, and it sounds like you've already tried it. Instead of writing it off as troublesome, you should make sure your feelings and interest are genuine. Getting to know the person is the quickest and easiest way to find this out. They could have flaws that help deter those feelings or traits that are endearing. Either way, it's hard to write something off as troublesome if there's no effort put into it.
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broken (torture and violence)
It had taken a little bit for him to fall into the habit of just not being- where his body was a thing, that much he knew, but it was a thing he could look at as if it were a puppet and he was connected to it only in the faintest of ways. That first time it had happened... it had been the purest relief. His body was a plaything to adults, yes, writhing and screaming on the ground, but it didn't feel like him. He was unaffected, until things came rushing back and he had to deal with the aches and pains.
Eventually, of course, the experiments ensured that even when he was "in" his body, he didn't feel pain.
Chikusa can't tell if that's made his mind less anchored to his own body or not.
Either way, it gives him plenty of time to reflect on how this particular Family has picked the wrong target in almost sardonic amusement. For once, he'd been on his own, separate from Ken, getting information from Mukuro-sama. At the first sign of something being amiss, he'd protected himself appropriately... Certainly, he thinks he'd taken out a good amount, especially with some traps picked up from observing Hayato Gokudera, but it hadn't been enough. Enough quantity of men, and most go down.
He had, certainly.
It's why he's here, laying limply in a chair. It's amazing that they still strap him into it by the arms, honestly. The knife that has pierced one of his hands and is into the wood beneath it is enough on its own, you'd think, and the state of his legs, well. They're broken, shattered, a classic sledgehammer to his knees. Honestly, the whole thing is a cliche.
Chikusa has never seen hell, not like Mukuro-sama, but he likes to think he's seen near enough. This is nothing.
That's obviously not what his interrogator wants to hear, however. It shows in the aggravated tap of his shoes against the dim floor and the way the man bares his teeth while pacing. The only shot that this pathetic group has gotten at getting information on the elusive Mukuro Rokudo, and he won't even talk or react to what they do to him. Chikusa can't say he's surprised as the man's hand goes into his jacket, pulling out the menacing black form of a handgun.
Escalating already, and all he can think is He's really bad at this.
"Alright, you piece of shit garbage-" The gun presses under his chin, and Chikusa only notices from the way the force of it nudges his head up and makes his view change. Around him, the world swims- maybe that's the bloodloss. The lack of food? Oh right, the black eye.... Another nudge and he focuses. "This is your last chance before I fill your lungs with lead. Give us information on your boss."
Chikusa doesn't say a word.
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And maybe sort of Chrome, but if anyone ever asked him he'd insist that's because of Mukuro working through her. And certainly Chrome doesn't really try to control him unless Mukuro is directly involved.His Famiglia had controlled him for awhile - his freedom, his body, his very biology - and he'd had his lifetime's fill of control there.But when it's necessary - when it's important - he can rein himself in. And when someone is holding a gun under Chikusa's jaw, it's important. He wants to launch himself at the guy and tear him limb from limb, and he absolutely will, but making sure the gun doesn't go off and spray kappa brains all over the wall takes first priority.
So when Ken comes into the room, it's with a stealthy cunning that's markedly unusual for him, creeping on silent Lion Channel feet. Luckily the bastard's distracted fruitlessly threatening Chikusa, so it's not hard to slip up behind him - and then Ken is wrenching his gun arm away from Chikusa, hard enough that it looks like he's already trying to tear it off the guy's body.
And as soon as that's handled, as soon as Ken feels it's safe to let loose - the sound that rips out of him is a full-throated roar that makes the whole room ring.
Chikusa may get some satisfaction out of the next few minutes, if he has the stomach to watch. Ken doesn't go as far as eating his torturer, but he doesn't really stop at anything else. An actual lion couldn't have mauled someone so thoroughly - which was, of course, the idea behind the Estraneo giving Ken the strength, speed, and natural weaponry of vicious animals. Animal power guided by a human mind, both exponentially more destructive in combination.
Ken's a mess when he finishes, but he - as he so often does - ignores that entirely. He stomps over to Chikusa, eyes still flashing with anger. Mauling the guy to death didn't erase the outrage, so it's still present, and now he doesn't have anything else to vent it on. So Chikusa's going to catch some, victim though he is. "Dammit, Kakipi, how'd you let them catch you?!"
His claws flash through the ropes, even as he sniffs at Chikusa as though that somehow helps him to assess the other boy's state. Maybe it does. He prowls around the chair to find that embedded knife, which earns a growl right before it's yanked out. Ken vaguely recalls you're not supposed to remove things like that, that it causes more blood loss than if you leave it in, but he doesn't see how he could leave it in if he wants to move Chikusa. It was pinning him there. Besides, at this point he doesn't know how much more damage it can do.
"Stupid Kakipi...letting some shit mafiosos do this to you, byon." As far as Ken's concerned, Chikusa should never have been caught by scrubs like these in the first place. Never mind if there were dozens upon dozens of them. "Now I have to take you to the Vongola, byon!" He sounds disgusted by the idea. "I'll beat healing out of them if I have to, byon."
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He was wanted in more countries than he cared to remember, had so many curse his name with their dying breaths that it wasn't entertaining anymore, and had ruined Families simply by selling their secrets to the highest bidder. In the years he had been actively fighting to bring the mafia down, he had managed to accrue a sort of reputation as a boogeyman, a ghost who knew everything, who could be anyone or anything. An illusionist who could break out of any prison, and who even the Vindice couldn't contain for long. That anyone who glimpsed his true face was ruined not too long afterwards. Amusing superstitions, ones that Mukuro didn't bother to correct, and in fact went to great lengths to cultivate. After all, it was more satisfying to have a target fearing his appearance long before he came.
This particular Family, the Basso Family, had been a wayside causality, a stepping stone in a plan to bring down a much more irksome Family. He had never thought that a small, weak, pathetic Family would dare come after him or his own. A miscalculation, to be sure, but one that Mukuro rectified.
While they were busy hunting Chikusa down, Mukuro was carefully cutting away at their toes and fingers, severing their alliances through vessels or forged documents or through blackmail. While they were stabbing a knife through Chikusa's hand, Mukuro was cutting their limbs off to the joints, draining their bank accounts, liquefying their assets, and setting fire to their safe houses. While they were busy breaking Chikusa's kneecaps, Mukuro made sure to slaughter every member of their extended Family, as bloody and messily as if the Devil himself had done so.
If they had wanted Mukuro Rokudo, they would get him and none would be spared.
As he made his way into the room where Chikusa was being kept, he let his illusions slip in through the rest of the house, allowing the people inside to die struggling against their worst nightmares, dying for their efforts.
When he opened the door, there was no one left but himself, Chikusa, and the last remnant of the Basso Family.
"Kufufu wouldn't it be better to get your information straight from the source?" When the man whirled around, eyes wide and uncomprehending, Mukuro disregarded him, instead taking in Chikusa's state. His killing intent was almost tangible, as sharp as spikes and as nebulous as miasma, the only outward sign of his rage was a widening in his smile.
"I see you've been taking care of one of my subordinates. For that, I thank you, and I'll be sure to return the favor a thousand fold." He canted his gaze to the other man, smiling as if he had fangs to tear out the other man's throat. "Or perhaps it's better to say I've already returned the favor. You have the dubious honor of being the last of the Basso." A small, thoughtful pause. "Even if it's only for the next few minutes."
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Cruelty to animals (torture and violence, no actual cruelty to animals)
In the end, they'd apparently decided to take a cue from Ken's animalistic nature. They'd actually tranq'ed him. A tranquilizer dart, fired from a considerable distance, and Ken hadn't even fully comprehended what had happened - much less where it had come from - before he'd dropped.
Sometimes normal guns were still useful in mafia work.
Of course, as smoothly as capturing Ken had been...his volatile nature has made keeping him anything but. The Corvi interrogators had shattered his knees within the first few days, though in truth that had been as much practicality as any part of the torture regime. Ken is obscenely violent, had in fact killed the first man they sent in to torture him with his bare hands - despite his cartridges having been confiscated first thing. He doesn't need cartridges to be dangerous, as it turns out, especially when in a towering rage - and he needs methods of restraint that take facts like his being willing and able to slip his own shoulders out of joint into account. Holding Ken in captivity has been a learning experience, to say the least. The breaking of his kneecaps had followed that incident almost immediately, and while it's made him significantly less mobile and a whole lot louder and angrier, it doesn't seem to have instilled any fear or desire to cooperate in him. And while the pain must be immense, nothing but Ken's increased volume and hostility has served to indicate it.
Truthfully, Ken's torture has gone slowly, because it's so damn hard to do. He's constantly thrashing, yelling (over any interrogation, it may be added) until his voice gives out, trying to escape his bonds with such violence that he's done almost as much damage to his own arms as any torture could without even seeming to feel it. (Or, at least, to care if he does.) One wrist has to be broken, judging by the bracelet of bruising around it, despite the fact that what torture has taken place has actually avoided Ken's arms. It's as much as anyone's life is worth to try giving Ken food or water enough to keep life in him; he's been allowed to feed himself just so no one has to get close. The Corvi don't want him dead before he can be of any use at all...which is, unfortunately, looking like more and more of a possibility.
Between protecting themselves from Ken, and keeping Ken from either escaping or inadvertently killing himself in his struggles, very little actual progress has been made on getting information about Mukuro from him. Worse, Ken's refusals to talk are even more violent than anything else. There's a distinct concern among the Corvi that all of this effort, and the death of one of their own, is going to be entirely wasted; at this point, further effort in Ken's direction is mostly out of the desire to make it all, somehow, worth it. To get some return on their risky investment.
The interrogators had decided, several days ago, to stop feeding Ken. With less energy, they reasoned, his struggles would weaken, and it would become easier to both torture him and talk to him. To demand information, and perhaps even get it. He's wildly opposed to helping them, his fanatical devotion to Mukuro obvious, but the Corvi had done their homework. Ken's not smart. He could possibly be tricked into revealing something, especially while weak with hunger and pain. As ridiculously intractable as he's proven to be, he's still human, and the strain on his body will wear him down eventually.
And results have finally begun to materialize. Ken's grown quieter over the past few days, his struggles less fierce, and today he's almost limp. (Which isn't to say the Corvi don't still take precautions, putting muscle relaxants in his water and waiting until a full hour after he's drunk it to move into his cell and strap him head and foot into a chair.) But the fact that he barely puts up any resistance is very positive. Today, finally, they may get something from him.
But Ken is either more uncooperative, or more cunning, than anyone had predicted. He refuses to answer anything they ask - in fact, he doesn't say anything at all, beyond the occasional expletive or threat. He doesn't respond to the interrogation at all, as if he can't even hear their questions...and so it comes down, once again, to torture.
Dental torture is on the table, and is quite tempting; it might scare him, considering his teeth may or may not be necessary for his cartridges. (The Corvi aren't sure about this; for all their research, there's hardly any information anywhere on how, exactly, the cartridges work, and their R&D department has been studying them all week with next to nothing to show for it.) But it's hard enough to get anything intelligible out of Ken as it is, and...well, frankly, no one wants to get near his mouth. He's already bitten several people, two of them all the way down to the bone. So instead, the current interrogator picks up a knife, holding the tip of it inches from Ken's right eye.
Ken simply glowers at him.
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The Estraneo had never gotten to that point with him, for one thing. In part, that had been his fault. So much of Chikusa's personality has been built from those days. Be quiet and don't cry where they can hear or see you. Shrink into the background, become a part of it, change into a ghost and let the other children be picked first so that he could survive longer. Inevitably, of course, someone remembered his number on the list, dragged him to experiments that left him writhing on the floor in agony so intense it drove his mind from his body...
But it had been better than nothing. It kept him from being the first to be used for experiments that stole the lives of other children. It helped him survive.
Habits like that don't leave so easily. If anything, they've simply become worse as the years have passed. Behind Mukuro's charisma and aura of danger and Ken's loud presence, it's easy to pass him over. Chikusa wouldn't want it any other way. The only thing that bothers him is that he's not as useful as he could be for Mukuro. He doesn't have any extraordinary abilities. Everything he's capable of, he's had to work on his own: his knowledge of poisons, his ability to engineer a complicated and inconspicuous device, keeping pace with some of Mukuro's thoughts, and, of course, becoming even better at taking targets out before they have a chance to respond.
Ironically, it's made him the most like the mafia they despise so much.
Chikusa doesn't complain about it. He simply uses it to his full extent.
That means it's not illusions that help him sneak into the Corvi Family estate, but simple skill. Hard learned stealth lets him slip into the mansion like a ghost, existing where other people don't look, and a lifetime of having to deal with the mafia lets him know exactly where to lurk and eavesdrop. Listening to the Corvi's men talk about their prisoner down in the basement, Chikusa stays detached and silent as he always has been. That's why it's a surprise when, after listening how they plan to keep him alive to try and get any information at all, Chikusa is surprised to find himself realizing his heart is descending from his throat.
Dammit, Ken.
For the first day, he takes in all the information he can including that the Corvi are having trouble even getting in the same room as Ken. The second, the third days, those are the ones he learns as much of the routine in the Corvi mansion as he can. It's a rushed job, but it's all he can do when Ken is on the line. The entire time, he stays detached. Forces himself to be detached.
When he's not, after all, there's his heart in his throat and a tremor in his hands, and Chikusa can't stand any of it.
The fourth day is when he decides that there's no more need to wait.
He takes out the civilian staff first. It's a basic poison, one that makes them drop to the ground and leaves blood pooling out from the entry points. He's a little bit proud of that one, honestly- a poison which keeps the blood from clotting up and closing the wound, encourages the flow of it. Nothing is more perfect for tracking someone than a continuously bleeding wound if they manage to survive the shock, and it's always been the best thing for Ken to track with his nose. It seems contradictory then, for him to switch the needles to the sedative sort, but he has plans. In other places, in different bodies and guises, Mukuro-sama is isolating this family on a political level. There'll be no cavalry for them, no one they can turn to.
That gives Chikusa plenty of time to tend to things in his preference.
After the staff, he patiently clears out the floors and rooms one by one starting from the top. It's work that really requires him to move quickly, never knowing if or when someone will hear the sound of bodies crumpling to the ground and come to investigate. He can't afford an alarm being raised. It's not pleasant work, and he sure as hell doesn't particularly like having to do it all... But in the end, it all pays off. A mansion full of unconscious mafiosos, and traps set up all around the mansion entrances for anyone who might come wandering in.
The only place left is the basement where Ken is being kept.
His shoes are removed and set aside neatly near the top of the stairs, his barefeet making him a much more silent entity as he makes his way down into the basement. Checking through the rooms is tedious, but he does it anyway to make sure there won't be any unexpected guests. When he finally reaches the room where Ken is being kept.... It looks like he's just in time.
Chikusa's stride looks almost deceivingly lax, if one can ignore the speed that's been added into it, and he's on the scene in a heartbeat. One hand sneaks around the Corvi interrogator's shoulder, needles placed inbetween his fingers, and he jerks his hand back so that they go straight into his throat. A wet gurgle, the knife shaking and then dropping, and Chikusa pulls him back with a grunt. He ignores the hands scrambling at his wrist, and even the blood that's bubbling against his palm and dripping down to stain crisp cloth. Chikusa waits, until finally the body slumps lifelessly against his own. Eager to be rid of it, he dumps it against the ground and a look of distaste crosses his face as he stares down at his bloodied palm.
Something much more complicated crosses his face as he looks over to Ken and sees the state he's in. It takes a second before he can force his expression back into blankness, slouching over to him.
"...You're an idiot."
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Inappropriate Advances AU
When he had opened the door one fateful afternoon to find his newest charge holding a pistol to his head, he had spoken softly and warmly, advising without lecturing. 'Faustino, what you lose when you walk a path doesn't make up for the knowledge you gain.'
He had felt old and young then, a mix of past lifetimes that had been injected into his brain ( the eye was the window of the soul for a reason ), an angry and lost little boy who knew too much and had seen too much but had yet to truly live. Some nights he awoke with the songs of languages he had never known on his tongue, the feel of the desert sand beneath his feet, with the warmth of a lover he had, a confusing maelstrom he had never asked to traverse but had been tossed into headfirst. If he had to be in this hell, he would drag everyone down with him.
Somehow, Don Caro managed to talk him out of opening that last forbidden door, that he wasn't alone in this hell. That while his world had only been pain and suffering, now it would be introduced to kindness and love. All he had to do was trust.
It seemed hardly worth it, but Faustino handed over the gun ( but not the three possession bullets ) and took the Don's hand.
Though the Caro Family was small, it was prosperous and welcoming, adopting not one broken child but three. Tutors were brought in to help Faustino learn his 'native' languages ( French, Arabic, Japanese, and a few others that had long since been dead ). He learned how to shoot, and through watching egregio signor Lancia tirelessly, started to pick up hand to hand combat.
Schooling was boring when it came to the actual content but interesting in a social context ( Faustino only went to press the dress code, test out how easy it was to form a cult, and so he could have an alibi ). The Don decided he would be suited for diplomacy and started prepping him for that, and while it was interesting, it wasn't his only calling.
He started to amass an information network, a network of willing hosts, a black book full of aliases, and honed his combat skills and illusions until he knew he was topnotch. While diplomacy was well and good, Faustino knew better than to believe that everyone in the mafia was as forgiving as Don Caro.
Still, he found ways to make time to be home whenever egregio signor Lancia was about, a coincidence he chalked up to their closeness when he was a child, but over the years had taken a different glint of interest. Besides Don Caro, egregio signor Lancia had been the one who had cared after him most, and the only one who put up a decent fight when Faustino was in the mood.]
Egregio signor.
[It was said with equal parts mocking, affection, and warmth, even though Faustino's smile was more of a sharp smirk. He sauntered into the training room easily, long hair fluttering behind him
because for some reason, wholesome murder was frowned upon but crimes against fashion were acceptable.]You're back sooner than expected. How was your trip?
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[Even now that he's an adult, he simply can't put together the words describing how much it had all changed his life. There was no shortage of kids on streets who took up to petty crime, always running and never living. Sure, there were worse lives. He's seen enough in the mafia to know how brutal people can get. But.... it still wasn't a way to properly live a life.]
[Protecting their small but fortunate little territory is the least he can do, in his mind. The fact that he's gotten pretty good- really good- isn't something he meant to do, but oh well. 'Strongest in Northern Italy' has a nice ring to it. Some of the guys have even talked about the Varia looking to recruit, but, frankly, he'd be happy if they never came calling. He's heard more than enough stories about them.]
[Besides... He guesses he's a lot like the don. He doesn't need a lot of power or a huge paycheck. All he needs is a decent territory and something to protect.]
[In that case, along with the Family, it's the kids. Faustino, Ciro, Al. Kids that were in the same position as him, once: abandoned, homeless, familyless. How Al puffed up and tried to make himself bigger, the flickering wariness in Ciro's eyes when he kept an eye out for all exits. Even Faustino, although he put up a better facade than the other two. You could see it a little at the start, when the only friends he had his age were Ciro and Al. Lancia had done his best to care for them when they were younger, and only half because Don Caro had himself asked. He'd have done it anyway, seeing bits of himself in a bunch of hurt kids.]
[It had taken a damn whole lot of patience, with Ken as the easiest and Ciro as the most difficult, but he can look at the now and feel a little swell of pride. 'History repeats itself' and all that shit, and, looking at them, he can see it. The years have brought healing, thank God for that. Now they're old enough to be getting into work themselves and, just like him, only half because it's for the Don's wishes. Al is already great at doing bodyguard work, although Lancia still has to get some of the finer details like patience through his head. He's still amazed at how smart Ciro is showing himself to be, one of those types who just has to push himself and he gets things quick as lightning.]
[And Faustino, well. He's kind of like Ciro in how fast he picks up on other subjects. It's just that, unlike Ciro, that means other people too.]
[But the more things change, the more they stay the same. He knows for a fact that Ciro and Al still curl up in the same bed together, Faustino sometimes joining them like they'll be taken away from each other if they don't cling as tight as they can. Lancia is almost sad that they're still not kids. He'd liked coming in at the middle of the night, a soft tap against their doorframe to let them know it was him, and make sure they were tucked in instead of Al kicking the blankets off the bed.]
[They're too old for that kind of thing anymore. What Lancia can do, however, is continue to keep that little room of theirs safe. He can make sure that nothing ever threatens Caro territory.]
[Recently, that'd meant doing a little bit of cooperation with the Vongola- never a bad group to get on the good side of in general, but especially when you were trying to get favors just in case a certain Family from the south tried to make any moves on Caro territory. It'd gone as smoothly as Lancia had hoped it would but never expected it to and now, well, he's just glad to be back home.]
[Jobs like that always leave him with a buzz in his body, however, an adrenaline that's gone on unused. It means getting to sleep is impossible until he lets it out. So, he drops by Don Caro's office just to let him know that things didn't go to shit, and then he slips into the training room while shedding his jacket. He's only actually been pulling himself up at the bars for maybe five minutes when he hears that familiar tone.]
[Figures. He has a sneaking suspicion that Faustino even knows the resident mice population's comings and goings, let alone when he gets back home.]
[Dropping from the bar, he stretches his arms behind his head and grins over at the youth.]
It went well. I'm always surprised at how well the Vongola run, it's no wonder they're so successful still. Have you eased up teasing your teachers at school?
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Priest!Chikusa and Eternal Sin AU
They lived, bent, and broke in predictable ways. Give them a bit of wishful temptation, promises made of lies, and a weapon and they'd kill their whole family for money, fame, a scrap of bread.
Those with supposed intelligence were just as easy to con. If he told them that you could help them pierce the veil between life or death they became a demon's puppet so easily. Tell them that you could give them the secret to eternal life, well, they would sign their soul over without even needing to hear the rest. Simply to appear before them was enough to make them believe they were chosen and special, and they'd work themselves to death doing his bidding.
After helping humans fall into depravity for centuries, Mukuro had mostly lost his taste for it. There were no interesting challenges, but Mukuro had a quota to fulfill, a habit he couldn't break. Just when he had been thinking of storming heaven to alleviate his boredom, a whole slew of humans arrived to pique his interest and remind him why he was regarded as one of the best.
Currently, he had been keeping a close eye on a newly minted priest, putting little whispers into his ears every now and again, nothing too extravagant. But now, well. He wanted to meet him, to see how he would react.
So he had possessed the man's teacher, and over the long weeks had slowly gotten more and more comfortable in the other man's skin. Humans weren't meant to be vessels for demons, so his body and mind were starting to go, to the point where even the Pope was willing to agree to an exorcism. It wouldn't do after all, for one of their high ranking patriarchs to be crawling along ceilings, slaughtering believers, and shrieking blasphemy as his head spun on his body.
They had gotten smart enough to try to restrain the patriarch, at the very least.
'Kill me before I commit more sins' he was saying in a rasping breath, Mukuro hovering over his shoulder to watch him suffer with disinterest. It wasn't him he was here to see.]
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[This is not the first time he has had to deal with demonic forces. To be accepted as a priest himself, capable of guarding the flock and guiding it, confronting a demon had been one of his tests. The affair had taken place in a simple blank room, his teacher behind him and the possessed soul in front, and young Chikusa Kakimoto had done his duty has had been required of him. So many whispers, hisses, and snarls there had been over his steady prayers and commands.]
[They say you never forget your first. However dark the situation might have been, Chikusa supposes that's true. He still hasn't forgotten a single detail of that moment.]
[Perhaps because of that, when his hair had risen on the back of his neck and he could almost feel lips along the curve of his ear at words on the edge of his hearing.... Well. There weren't many other things it could have been. Dutifully, since then, he had done his prayers and prepared for any number of scenarios including possession of his own body. He'd... almost been fascinated at the idea, in the detached way he views so much still.]
[So for his teacher to be the one to be taken is almost a shock. Almost.]
[There's no trace of that on his face as he enters the room, however. No grief, no shock, no anger as his eyes all upon the poor sight restrained tightly in the chair. Chikusa is as quiet and emotionless as a doll, pale skin all the paler between his cassock and black hair with the only sign of color being the purple stole hanging from his shoulders and his eyes.]
[Dutifully, he crosses himself, but, instead of shifting into the ages long Litany of Saints, Chikusa stares over at his former teacher.]
[Is this the same one that's been bothering him for so long, targeting now one of the only people he has any connection to? Is it arrogance to suspect so? Well, regardless, his job is the same. He starts to turn to the appropriate pages in his Bible.]
...If you could surrender your name and leave this man's body, it would save us all the effort.
[It's a quiet bland statement, as if this occurrence is that of the mundane instead of the supernatural, and his teacher isn't looking more like a corpse than a living person. Oh, by all means he'll do all the prayers anyway, because you can never be too safe, but still. Having a battle of wills with a demon and figuring out its name, a source of power over it, are the kinds of things which take even longer than simple prayer.]
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i am mad this already happened in canon
mukuro rokudo: ruining things even past the 4th wall since forever
ruining everything since conception lbr
clearly mistakes were made
MISTakes even
Mimi *no*!!!!
don't mimi no me when you started this filth
i didn't start the puns
no you are just the original sin
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who let mukuro be a priest AU
[Lancia knows that things have gone wrong in his life. While he's been a lot of things and will continue to be so, he's not blind to his own faults. Once you do a bit of time, after all, you have to face the facts. Unlike so many other people, he'd gotten lucky, got out, but what to do after? It had been a wake up call.]
[He couldn't let his life continue down that path.]
[Not one where the end of such a path was covered in nothing but blood and a violent death.]
[In the end, to put himself on the right track, he goes back to his roots. What can he say? He's Italian, and religion has been such a presence in his life even if he'd turned away from it more than once. This time, it'll be different. He's going to make sure of it.]
[It's why Lancia has retreated to a place where no one knows his name, and dedicated to a peaceful church with a welcoming congregation. While he's not expecting a quick fix, it's amazing to him how good it feels to take part in mass again like he hasn't since he was young. For the first time in years, he can feel himself calming down instead of his body wracked with tension.]
[He's glad for it.]
[In return, the least he can do is help out when he can. There's no reason not to, after all- he's a healthy, tall, muscular man. Plenty of strength and energy to do whatever handiwork needs doing in the church if it'll help them not need to spend so much money. And whenever he's not doing that, it feels nice to simply linger long after mass has cleared out, finding a little peace in prayer.]
[The church itself, the congregation, mass- all of it helps. But Lancia knows that it's the kindness of the priests that are to be thanked just as hard for all of this. He wonders if it's enough sometimes, doing just what he's doing.]
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His parents had believed in science over faith, and had considered those who needed religion as 'intellectually inferior' and 'vapid'. Yet for all their scorn, Mukuro had yet to see them do anything worthwhile in their lives. His father wrote academic journal reviews solely to tear others down while his mother was constantly attaching herself to anyone who looked like they might have a promising career and jetting off after them. More than once, Mukuro had wondered why they had bothered to procreate, and the few times he had find solace or peace was in the swooping high ceilings of churches, decorated beautifully and full of uplifting music. He had liked that part, at least.
He had studied religions from Hinduism to traditional religions in Africa before settling on pursuing Catholicism, perhaps the most fascinating to practice and the one that his parents held the most scorn over. Amusing to him, considering that the religion was deeply steeped in methods that had hardly changed, which held true no matter which country and continent, much like their science. He put on a good show in college of double majoring in history and philosophy, in that time collecting the necessary pieces to help him ascend into the clergy.
Their faces when he announced his intentions after graduating were still hilarious to him, and to help sever ties, he had moved far, far away from them. The small town he had been relocated to was quiet, welcoming, and sleepy. Mukuro's becoming a priest was celebrated nearly by the entire town, and while he couldn't say his heart had been moved by God, it had definitely been moved by how easily manipulated and gullible people could be.
It was difficult work to prepare sermons, to attend to the ill, to help the unfortunate, but it wasn't exactly thankless work.
For example, one of their newest clergy members could definitely give Solomon a lesson or two on strength, and he watched with appreciation as he helped with building the newest house for one of their parishioners. Since it would only get in the way, for once he was in plain clothes, a well worn pair of jeans, an faded old t-shirt, a pair of heavy work gloves, and he had his hair tied back. The only thing that really gave him away as being a priest might be the cross he had around his neck as well as the fact that most of the parishioners referred to him as 'Father'.]
While your enthusiasm is appreciated, just be careful not to hurt yourself.
[It was said in a low amused voice, one eyebrow raised delicately as he came to stand beside him.]
We're going to take a break for lunch. Would you like to join us?
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Faustino + Ciro Kidnapping Aftermath Thread
There was a lot of talk about trust, as if somehow that was the problem here. Faustino trusted Al and Ciro, but he also knew their strengths and weaknesses. He couldn't have brought them along, and he would not ask of them what he couldn't do himself. As for why he didn't ask the family, or even Lancia, perhaps that was even simpler. He had expected them to talk him out of it, to order him not to do what he knew must be done. While the Abbandonato Family had been eradicated with help from some of the Family, it brought him little pleasure.
So if he was sulking, unmanageable, and cruel, he felt like he had good reason to be. Even the walks he had liked taking outside of his body hadn't consoled him, so he was in a foul mood when he heard the knock on the door. Still, lashing out at Ciro was like lashing out at a mirror. Pointless, and it would just mean he would have to pick up the shards later.]
Come in.
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[To Faustino first, and then the Caro, Ciro knows he owes them everything. Without Faustino, he would have just been yet another broken child of the Estraneo, discarded into the pile of corpses they had made in their pursuit for some idea of "glory". Without the Caro Family- well, who knows? Maybe another Family would have taken them in. Maybe they'd stay wild, running away from human beings which had made themselves so untrustworthy back then. It'd be a different life, or sure, for better or worse... but Ciro has become content with it.]
[And, for years, he's been content with the fact that Faustino doesn't tell him or Al everything. That he does things on his own. It's simply a part of how he is, and why worry about it? Faustino is one of the strongest people he knows, matched only by Lancia.]
[Why worry about it. Until now.]
[Even Al doesn't buy that Faustino is alright after he was kidnapped. Ciro doesn't have to ask him about it. Unlike Faustino, secretive to his core, Al wears his heart on his sleeve, and him and Ciro have always been two different halves of a whole. Perhaps he smelled the amount of blood in the Abbandonato labs, or it's just pure animal instinct.]
[Ciro doesn't have anything like that. He just knows when he's being lied to.]
[Anything else.... For any other event, he'd let this pass. For any other place, not swathed with the overwhelming smell of medicine and blood and death.]
[He pauses at the sound of Faustino's voice, hand still curled up near the wood of the door, and takes a breath. This isn't something he's been looking forward to. In fact, more than once he's wanted to emulate Ken, and simply avoid the foul air around their friend and most beloved. But he can't run away from this. He won't. So he opens the door and steps inside, shutting it behind him.]
How are you feeling?
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