Disclaimer: I do not own Katekyo Hitman Reborn.
A/N: Christmas present 3 Yes, another one ;)
Oneshot: Scars No One Can See
"In a pinch?" The dark silhouette stretched out a hand.
The boy trembled unnoticeably with excitement, almost grasping the proffered appendage before noticing a smear of dark… substance on the nearly impeccable man. He recoiled warily.
"Come on now, don't be a wimp. A little bit of blood can't harm anyone," The deep baritone scoffed.
The child scowled, or at least it seemed like it, hackles rising slightly like an offended cat. He was not going to rise to the bait and take the hand of a murderer.
"I give up. Children confuse me." The man told another subordinate over his shoulder exasperatedly, casually tossing a sullied green gun with his other hand.
It wasn't like he had a choice anymore. Uncomfortably, the dull brown-eyed boy put one cold hand into the callused palm, "What a pity for a grown man to give up so easily. I never declined you anything."
Despite the superior tone, the boy noticed that the hand had never withdrew at all and was inwardly grateful.
Shamal… wasn't always Shamal. Not simply talking about his whole playboy character, built in with women hanging from his arms and massive track record (though that one incident with the queen was sheer luck for his image), nor the kind-hearted (if you tilt your head and look at him under the light… hmm… maybe not) women-crazed tutor he had grown to be to the Vongola's self-proclaimed right hand man.
But he wasn't originally the cold-hearted assassin, equipped with the sheer power of his mosquitoes' diseases and a lack of practically any good emotion the Vongola Tenth seemed to emit so freely. He wasn't always the man who got recruited by the Varia but declined, or the wrecked man he was after the arcobalenos were created.
The termed 'Trident Mosquito' smirked to himself in his lonely flat, swirling a glass of red wine in his darkened flat. Here, he was not an incorrigible Casanova, nor the mindless assassin with fingers so bloodstained he couldn't even see their silhouette anymore. Here, in this lonely cramped room, he allowed himself to be the scared little boy of his past.
The frightened child who was ostracized by his seniors, despised by his family and… abandoned by his tutor.
His father was never around. His mother waited faithfully every day for him. And when he said 'waited', he really did mean it. She did not do much else.
At four, he started learning how to do the chores in their small house. At five, he was the only person who entered the kitchen at all. At six, he was singularly supporting his mother and himself with the pittance his father sent every month. At seven, school was a relief. Though not for long.
When his father did come back though, it was the worst period of his life. He was never wanted. He was a mistake. He was the fucking ugliest thing his father had ever seen. Oh yes, the child was quite aware of that each time his poor excuse for a father repeated it.
It was no wonder, really, that he was all that anti-social when he finally went to school.
The man loosened his tight grip on his true emotions, his true personality. It was The Day. He was permitted to show how he never really moved on. How he never really grew up.
Shamal let out an uncontrolled snort. He was bloody Peter Pan, only mentally.
He could hear them talk. Incessantly, whispering tales in his ears, tales that no one would ever dream of, would ever believe in. That friendly buzz, dismissed as insignificant by so many, would tell him truths of how his teachers whispered of him, of how his gloomy presence would make goose bumps rise upon their skin, for the way his dull brown eyes stared was not normal at all.
They did not bother looking past his defensive surface at all. They did not enquire about his wellbeing, like what they did for all the other children. They did not take the chances he so desperately gave to them. And so, he wouldn't give them any more leeway. And so, he curled up deep within himself. And so, he let his only friends be the tiny mosquitoes everyone thought of as pests.
After all, he was a pest himself.
The dark room seemed to press in on the adult, rendering him gasping for air. The shadows seemed to dance around Shamal, taunting him. How inadequate he was for still living in the past!
The mousy brown-haired child watched with morbid fascination as his father protected his mother from the burly men in suits from the stairway. It was faintly amusing, he noted, to watch how the bully became the bullied. Payback for all the times he pleaded for his father to let him be, payback for all the times his father never listened under a drunken stupor.
He hid behind the stairway, watching the way his useless father actually managed to handle a weapon and defend his mother. Well, that was a disappointment… For a while.
The heartless child watched. Looked upon his father's dying bloody body with mild amusement. Looked upon his love struck mother fell with a single blow with distaste. Looked at the saviours, far too late, as they killed the enemies with superior ease- wait. His eyebrow rose.
The agile bodies seemed to fly skilfully through the air, dancing with such ease that the hidden boy almost looked past the shrieks of pain breaking the silent night, almost looked past the copious amounts of blood leaving the still corpses. Almost, not quite.
Excitement rose in his heart. Glee bubbled up in him. How he wished to be one of those men, fighting so elegantly!
He was so distracted that he nearly forgot he was just a child. And children were never to have been exposed to such gore, for it will leave a scar, even for this child, who had given up on hope and love… his innocence altogether.
No, that was just a minor part of his past. Shamal couldn't bring himself to care for his old family anymore, not when they were just faceless people of his past. The hand holding on to the wineglass shook slightly, as the Trident Mosquito peeled back the layers and layers of protective barriers in his mind.
"What's your name, child?"
He opened his mouth, but then obstinately snapped it shut again. He wouldn't go by his old name, no. Not when he was so determined to start anew. He reassembled his current name, not his family name, but his own.
"Sha… Shamal. Just Shamal."
The man knew he was lying of course, after all, the hitman was rather acquainted with "Shamal's" father. But who was he to deny this man in a child's body his brief respite?
Dark eyes gleamed as lips twisted into an interested smirk, "Of course, Shamal. My name… Well, you'll only learn it if you're worthy."
His beloved tutor, with so many personas. Shamal masochistically pulled back one of his final protections that helped him survive through the rest of the year. If he didn't go through this at least once per year, he would be even unhealthier. He had to let out the demons of his past out.
Shamal ducked calmly, hiding the fact that his blood was racing wildly through his veins. The bullet nicked a part of his dark hair off, but he was hardly vain.
Shamal, never lose your attention. But of course, the opponent doesn't need to know that.
"Whoa, hey. That's my hair you're aiming at. Too cowardly for the real piece of this sexybod'?" Shamal jeered, reinforcing his arrogant façade while releasing fifty mosquitoes behind his back.
His opponent flushed like a virgin in bed (Shamal would know) and screamed out another threat, while flinging his gun hastily.
Shamal, a real hit man never loses his calm.
Whistling nonchalantly, Shamal watched his mosquitoes fly, too fast for the average eye, towards his opponent, who was currently in the middle of another haughty speech. He tilted his head slightly, it was too easy. Where was the challenge?
He shot his opponent a pitying look, just as the man collapsed from darling Angela's bite. His favourite mosquito had done it again.
"P-please! Have mercy!"
Shamal, never have mercy.
"Sorry, man," He laughed out, allowing his other mosquitoes to fly in for the kill.
The warm eyes soon turned dull and cold as his opponent started coughing out blood and pus started leaking from every hole on his face.
Shamal…
"Well done." His tutor came and hit him on the back roughly.
Shamal could feel himself preening. He stopped the unsightly action at once.
One warm tear leaked out of his eyes, so full of emotion. He really missed his real tutor, his true hit man. The one man that had made such a deep impact in his life that Shamal would never be same again.
"You… You're going to be an arcobaleno…?" Disbelief coloured Shamal's otherwise deadbeat voice.
"Don't be a sap, Shamal. You know why I'm doing this." The tall man frowned slightly, adjusting his hat.
The then already named 'Trident Mosquito' let out a shaky snort. "You self-sacrifical bastard."
"Every inch." One had to know the man to note the slight tremor at the end of the word.
"I have one request." Despair started to sink into Shamal's shrivelled heart, something he thought was impossible.
"Demanding as usual, stupid child." Shamal noticed the slight warmth in his tutor's eyes and barely held back a puppy smile.
"Let me be there when you change."
"No." The single measly word was laced with frosty ice.
"But-" Shamal started to plead. Surely his b-beloved tutor would let him be there when his true self disappeared!
"No. You'll stay here, and help me complete the rest of my jobs." Any sign of the previous warmth vanished as the future arcobaleno prepared to leave for his hazardous journey.
"…" Shamal's lips twisted into a pout, one that would be better suited on a child, but who said he was not one?
"You know I need you to help me settle that affair." It was the closest to a 'please' Shamal's tutor would ever utter.
The mosquito whisperer agreed with ill grace, promising himself he would finish those tasks and that job and find a way to see his tutor's last moments.
Shamal pulled away his last shield that hid away what happened on The Day. He needed to do this and he was not a coward! …At least he hoped so.
Shamal's momentary glee at being able to sneak to this creepy place without his tutor figuring out vanished instantly. The change was about to happen and he was about to let it. Shivers wracked his body.
In approximately a minute, the soul of his tutor, the only one to offer a hand to Shamal, would be sucked into the yellow pacifier for its protection. All that would remain would be an echo of the true man, who was kind-hearted despite what everyone said, who saved Shamal from his past demons, who actually showed some fatherly love for him. Shamal would never see the hit man's true persona again.
Shamal would let it happen. He would. And he would also leave this unearthly place before the inhuman hit man would notice him. (… Did he already realise Shamal was there…?) Well, he would leave before his tutor could confront him… If he even cared enough by then.
His sharp gaze focused on the almost sun arcobaleno and noted the little smile that crossed his lips before the bright flash of light. A smug bastard as usual then.
By the time Shamal managed to get up and deal with the aftershocks of the sudden blast of power, his tutor was already grouping the other arcobaleno together(why were there eight of them?) and was preparing to leave.
He swallowed the lump in his throat and blinked back the rapidly growing tears. Men do not cry like wimps, unless they were wimps of course. Which Shamal most certainly was not.
"Shamal." The emotionless voice caused the said man to jump an inch.
"Took you long enough to figure I was here," Shamal ignored the fact that his voice sounded the tiniest bit choked.
"Don't let me catch you again." The young baby didn't sound at all like his old tutor.
As a petty last shot before the sun arcobaleno left, Shamal yelled at his back, "Unsightly curls as always!"
The ghost of Shamal's tutor stiffened slightly, before making his way down the mountain.
Shamal smiled slightly, trying to let go of his last lingering attachment. "Goodbye…"
"Reborn…" Shamal gasped, crying like an admitted wimp as he remembered the grown man's truly smiling face. "Today's the anniversary of your death and revival as an arcobaleno… I'll find a way to bring you back if that's the last thing I do!"
"I broke my arm…" Young Shamal sniffled pathetically, lying on the hospital bed uselessly.
His sadistic tutor hit him on the head, lecturing in an annoyed tone, "Shamal, real hit men never cry and bemoan their fate. They find a way to prevent the problem from happening again and move on. Remember that, or you'll never learn my name."
Shamal still hasn't managed to move on from that unpleasant scar, still hasn't stopped crying or bemoaning his fate, but he has gotten Reborn's name. Until this day, Shamal holds this small final victory close to his heart.