A/N: I should really be banned from starting more fics….
This is an AU (as always, lol). It's kind of Monster Tamer verse, but there are changes as well as this being, well, darker. (I hope)
By the way, Mukuro doesn't have his powers, and flames don't exist. It's simple heterochromia. Of course, even though he doesn't have the Six Paths of Reincarnation, he's versed himself quite well in Hunter charms and spells over the years.
And I love Mukuro's character to bits! He's just so … he always tries to be strong and all in front of others, going so far as to hide his care for his subordinates so they can't become his weaknesses, and yet actually cares for them so much. And he's so in denial about it sometimes ^o^[Random rant that has no relevance]
Also, in this fic, Mukuro has had little social guidance, so he can be a little naïve towards some things here.
Leo is Leonardo Lippi, the man Mukuro possessed to get into Byakuran's confidence. I do know that his real name was Guido Greco, but I like Leo better.
Warnings: This chapter contains mentions of violence.
This story will contain mentions of and/or graphic violence, vampirism, male/male slash, most probably some dubcon (dubiously consensual intercourse) or noncom (nonconsensual intercourse AKA rape).
Also, the chapter names are taken from the song To Destination Eden by Hong Kong Knife.
Drops of Crimson
[Deep Behind this Wavering Dream]
"There he is!"
"The Demon Child."
"You're the source of all our troubles."
"The Demon keeps on coming back for his spawn."
A ten-year-old boy sat in the corner of the dark room, as the voices rose, getting gradually louder and louder, each trying to be heard over the others. One would expect such a young boy, stranded in the dark, traumatized by the death of his whole family merely one day ago, would be cowering in shock and bawling his eyes out.
Mukuro did neither.
He just sat there, with a faint, faint smile on his lips and a world of anger swirling in the depths of his cobalt coloured left eye – the one eye that was left uninjured, the red right eye hidden behind an eye patch.
"Mukuro-niisan…"
"Where do you think you are taking him?"
"Let go of my son!"
A smack resounded in the air. Mukuro screamed as his mother fell down, trying to hurl himself at the man who had performed the slap.
"You bastard!"
"Why you brat…."
And then everything went black.
"Let's burn him!" A particularly loud voice cried out. Mukuro's blood froze in his veins for a moment, before his breathing returned to normal and he sat there, pretending not to care, indifferent to his fate. He wasn't afraid of death – even that would be better; he had nothing left except death, after all. These people had killed all the family he had – the street children he had found himself gravitating toward, and formed a bond with.
"Ahhh!"
He could vaguely hear his little sister cry out. What…
"Get away from my sister….." he managed to rasp, trying to get up, but his body simply refused to.
"Don't you wish?" a voice sneered at him, before everything faded into pitch black once again.
"If we do that, the Demon will come after us!" Another voice – that of a female – protested and Mukuro's lips lifted in a humourless grin.
If he really was the child of a demon…..
"Then what should we do?"
"Maybe we should send him back to his Dark Father." The same voice that had suggested he be burned to death hissed. "That way He shouldn't have any complaints against us. "
"And I assume you would know how to send him back to the Devil?" the female voice spoke up again, words laced with sarcasm.
"So what do you suggest we do with that….. that thing?" the male yelled back. Mukuro had to clasp both his hands to his ears and wonder how it was that they hadn't gone deaf yet, all of them.
If he really was the spawn of Devil…
Then…
Why wouldn't his Father save him?
Why didn't his so-called Father intervene when his family were taken away from him, beaten brutally and savagely to death, tortured, dismembered and their body parts disposed of in some ignoble, anonymous way?
….
He decided then and there, he was going to kill all of them – and the person who they claimed had birthed him from Darkness, too.
[x-Deep Behind This Wavering Dream-x]
Mukuro jerked awake, a light gasp falling from his lips.
Glancing around surreptitiously to make sure he hadn't awakened any of his group, he let out a relieved sigh when his fears were proved wrong by the gentle breaths all around him.
Following the …. 'incident' in his childhood that he never spoke to anyone about, Mukuro had picked up random strays throughout his journey to find and kill all demons, vampires and associated unnatural creatures of darkness.
Oh, he hadn't forgotten his tormentors either. At that time, though, he had been too weak to actually do something to them; hence he had only escaped from his dark, cold prison when nobody was looking, promising silently to himself that he would go back and end them once he was strong enough to.
And boy, had he made good on that promise.
Blood coated the walls, making the boy standing in the middle of the room scrunch his nose at the smell.
But the smile on his lips never once wavered as he stared at the corpses piled around him, just like it hadn't once flickered during the act itself, even when the woman who had objected to his death sentence all those years ago pointed at him and screamed out "Monster!"
If one looked closely at his eyes though, they wouldn't find a trace of the smile his mouth held, instead seeing a determined rage burning slowly, reflecting the flames licking at the building he was standing before.
Slowly though, the fire in his eyes faded as his body sagged down, landing on the ground on his knees with a thump.
His work here was done.
Mukuro scowled, shaking his head to get rid of the images. He shouldn't care, he didn't care. They deserved what they got. Every bit of it.
He got up slowly, making sure not to disturb the others.
Looking at the sleeping forms of his 'friends' – to be honest, he preferred the term 'allies', but it seemed like they had carved their own niches in his heart no matter how hard he had tried to prevent that from happening – he let a small smile – one of his rare genuine ones – show on his face.
His 'group' was a ragtag one at best. Over the course of six years, he had met up with and picked up a lot of different, unique characters.
The first two he had met were Joshima Ken and Kakimoto Chikusa – they had been quarrelling by the roadside. To be more accurate, Ken was shouting at Chikusa, who was looking at him indifferently, face frozen in a silent glare.
After interrupting them, Mukuro had found out that the two of them were from a village that had been attacked by a Demon, and most probably the only survivors. He was also pretty sure Ken was descended from or somehow his lineage had mixed with that of a werewolf, because the boy had an uncanny resemblance to an animal sometimes ….. well, most of the time.
At any rate, after he had broken them up, they had found that none of them had anywhere to go to, and were completely alone in the world. It was then that Mukuro had suggested teaming up together so they could watch each other's backs.
….. only because of that reason, really. Not because he felt sorry for them and a little lonely.
Really.
Some time later, they had met a red haired girl who had attached herself to Mukuro, for God knew why. At first their relationship was purely a monetary one, when some villagers had recruited her to help him in bringing down a particularly nasty Vampire – they were all young, but their fame was known all over the region – and they had shared the reward between their groups. After that, she had suddenly come to them and told him that she thought they made a good team, and wouldn't it be lovely if they got together?
(He still wasn't sure why she had winked while saying that.)
They had found Nagi lying on the roadside, sick and with terrible injuries, and Mukuro had taken it on himself to care for her, since she reminded him so much of his dead little sister.
Fran had joined them of his own volition, having trailed them in complete silence for a week before they accepted the fact that he was coming along and never having closed his mouth since. True, he could get on their nerves at times (more like whenever he opened his mouth), but Mukuro hadn't had the heart to drive him away. He was just a kid, albeit a very rude, snarky one.
The last to join them was Leo, who was among one of the children being held captive by a twisted vampire. They had rescued the raven-haired boy, among many others, when they managed to defeat him after hours of fighting, but Leo was the only one who had offered to come with them. He was an orphan, and he had pledged his life to his saviour.
Somehow over time, they had become one of the most renowned Hunter groups in the country, especially Mukuro, who was hailed as being one of the strongest Hunters in Japan, if not the world.
He frowned as his eyes caught a light moving towards their inn through the glass window.
Who could be visiting so late in the night?