Prologue


Subject L-13 did not remember a time before the Estraneo. She had intentionally sealed those memories away from herself with what paltry mist flames she could scrape together. Her main Flame was Lightening, so it was difficult for her. The seal she placed on her memories would later be strengthened with the help of Rokudo Mukuro, but for now it was a flimsy thing that broke every now and then. Subject L-13 did not like to remember her time Before the Cage because it was painful. She chose not to remember why it hurt so much, but suspected it was because Before had been happy for her and the Cage was too jarring in comparison to cope with. So she sealed that part of herself away and didn't look at it.

The experiments were horrible. At first, the only thing they did to her was pump chemicals into her arms and neck. It was painful and terrifying because she didn't know what they were doing to her, but not as invasive as the surgeries some other Subjects went though and not as physically or mentally debilitating as it could have been. Then a day came that the chemicals stopped hurting. The scientists got very excited about that, tried lots of different chemicals and were both ecstatic and sadistically disappointed about the fact she had no reaction to any of them.

Poisons, chemicals, pathogens, and any foreign substance entering Subject L-13's body no longer had any effect.

New experiments would begin shortly. These would consist of surgeries.


The experiments were all housed together in communal cells that were visible to each other through the bars, approximately twenty Subjects to a cell. Subject L-13 knew it was a cruelty and not a blessing.

Because they were all in visible contact, they all saw when one amongst their numbers did not return to the cells. They all saw each other get dragged away, some fighting others limp, for experimentation and wondered if that person would come back this time. They all saw each other's injuries, but could do little to nothing about them. They saw the hopelessness in each other's eyes and the fear. They all saw that there wasn't enough food to go around and careful eyes watched those that tended to give up their portions for the smaller Subjects to ensure that they still ate, even just a bite. They all saw thin, worn scrubs become dirtier and looser as the children in them became gaunter and more broken. They all hated it.

Some Subjects, the older Subjects, were known to have been descendants and blood children of the actual Estraneo Family itself. Neither the scientists nor the other Subjects treated them any differently. Some Subjects had been kidnapped from other Families for their Flame potential. Some Subjects simply scooped up off the streets for need of more bodies. Subject L-13 wasn't sure which of these origins belonged to her, and she didn't think it mattered. The Estraneo treated her the same, and so did the other subjects.

That was the truly strange thing in her eyes, having grown accustomed to cruelty. All of the Subjects treated each other as kindly as they were able to. There was no fighting over meals and on occasion some Subjects would even volunteer to switch places with each other so that another could recover slightly. The Subjects cared about each other as much as they knew how. Subject L-13 knew that it was strange, but not unwelcome.


Subject L-13 absolutely fucking adored Enzio.

He was a Sky, a few years older than her, she guesstimated him to be about eight though no one knew their ages for sure any longer because it was impossible to tell how long they'd been there. Enzio was kind. He shared his food with her and held her and the other youngest children close in the night. He comforted her when she came back from her first surgery as best he could. He brought many of the children together and drew them in.

She became his Lightning and he became her Sky.

Tony was their Sun and Chikusa their Rain. Clelia was their Storm and Aidano their Mist. Normally it would be impossible for children that young to have active and useful Flames, much less go about establishing Guardian Bonds and Harmonies, but the Estraneo had no use for subjects that couldn't manifest Flames. They found a way to bring them out early. It wasn't healthy, it wasn't humane and it killed sixteen percent of the Subjects right off the bat, but it worked. And that's all the scientists cared about. All the Subjects cared about was each other. They were young, broken and scared, but they were complete. For a short time.

Tony was the first of them to die. Clelia had just come back from a particularly crippling surgery, her eyes were ruined and she couldn't walk, and he was attempting to heal her with his Sun Flames. The scientists came to take Clelia away again and he fought back. Tony did not survive the attempt. They dragged a sobbing and blinded Clelia away in the same direction they dragged Tony's body. Clelia did not come back. She was the second of them to die. Enzio was the third. They never found out what happened to him exactly. It didn't matter.

His death damn near killed the few who were left.


Subject L-13 just stopped what she was doing and screamed. Granted, what she had been doing was sitting there shivering but the screaming was still very sudden. Sudden and terrifying because it had happened at the exact same time that Aidano and Chikusa had burst into a seizure and tears respectively.

She was screaming because there was something wrong! It wasn't supposed to happen! Something was missing and it hurt more than missing a limb! It hurt deep inside her chest in a way that none of their experiments or scalpels ever could reach. Something had just torn out her heart and cut away a piece of her soul with it. Dear god, why did it hurt so bad? What was wrong? Who was responsible? Who did she need to kill to make it stop?! Subject L-13 did not know.

The other Subjects tried to help them, not knowing what was wrong. A growling blonde boy named Ken went to comfort Chikusa through his tears. Other Subjects went to Aidano's side. Rokudo Mukuro went to help Subject L-13.


Rokudo Mukuro was not a kind person. He had once been a very sweet little boy who liked his mother, absolutely worshiped his aunt, laughed and smiled often. When his mother had given him up for experimentation without a word of protest, he had twisted. And when his aunt did not come for him he had damn near broken.

He saw the other Subject breaking in front of him. The larger part of Mukuro wanted to do nothing to help her. He wanted someone else to be in as much pain as he was, as lost and alone as he was. Just as broken. Just as hopeless. The rest of him simply didn't care. He didn't even know the other Subject's name. Something, and he was not sure then what it was, prompted him to help her anyway.

Mukuro went to the tiny blonde girl, tucked her entire, frail body into his lap, and comforted her, whispering soft meaningless words in his native Italian and rocking her gently. When she did not calm, he reached out with his Flames. That was all it took for Mukuro realized that the girl's Sky had just died and that she was feeling the pain of a severed Guardian Bond. Most Subjects wouldn't have been able to identify it for what it was, but Mukuro had been raised with the intention of one day taking over the Family (even if things had changed since then) and had been taught things that the others hadn't.

Mukuro looked at the sobbing girl in his arms and reached for his Mist Flames. He cradled her until they both fell asleep.

This would change everything.


In most other lifetimes in most other universes, Subject L-13 would not have received assistance from Rokudo Mukuro that day and would subsequently not survive the loss of her Sky. She would then either die or be driven insane, taking no overly notable action and prompting no significant changes to the general timeline. Here and now however, this was not the case. In this universe, Subject L-13 lived and retained her will. And that changed everything.

When Subject L-13 regained consciousness, for it had not been true sleep she had been in but instead unrestful but blessedly dreamless unconsciousness, there was a certain clarity and stability to her world that had disappeared for a time. She had been inches away from Discord and she knew it. Hell, she'd damn near gone into Flame Rejection. Because Enzio had died.

She sat up and looked around. Adriano was dead on the floor, not having survived the Severed Bond. They had not yet taken his body away and no one would go near it. At least Chikusa looked okay. She was being held by someone who was not Enzio, which was strange. But not unwelcome.

The older boy, he looked about seven, smiled at her. "You woke up," he observed.

Subject L-13 blinked at him. She looked back at Adriano's body. She thought of Enzio, Tony and Clelia and wondered what happened to their bodies. Then she spoke. "I am going to kill them all."

The older boy frowned. "We're all planning it, it's just not possible."

"It doesn't matter," she reported factually, "I don't care anymore if I survive the attempt. I'm going to kill them all. I'll rip them apart with my bare hands. I'll paint the walls in blood for what they have done to us. They wanted weapons and they made us monsters. Well they're monsters too and they were monsters first. I'll kill them for it. I'll kill them all. Every last one of them."

The older boy wasn't frowning anymore. Actually, the smile from before was back, though more bloodthirsty this time. "Is that so?"


The Estraneo Family had tried to turn children into weapons. They had succeeded. They did not however, break them. Broken Flames were useless, dangerous wild animals that didn't have the presence of mind to do anything more than rage around in a killing spree until they were put down like rabid dogs. The Subjects were kept within control only because they had no hope. Learned helplessness was a powerful thing. Because the children did not believe they could possibly ever escape, they did not try. Even as they were given powers and strengths they had not originally possessed they did not try, because they saw others who struggled and died and they remembered being beaten back down by the adults with ease.

It was a completely functional system.

Until Subject L-13 woke up one day, marched up to the bars, channeled her Lightning Flames through her hands without a medium of any kind and fucking twisted them like pipe cleaners. She then proceeded to free the other Subjects, who mostly ran like scattered rabbits towards the nearest exit and into the streets. There were three exceptions. Subjects K-14, M-69 and C-49 joined L-13.

They went looking for the guards. They killed them. They also killed the scientists. And the Boss. They killed everyone. The Slaughter of the Estraneo took less than a day.

No more children died that day.


Subject L-13 laughed madly as she physically tore limbs off of the scientists one at a time with her Lightning reinforced strength. She was vaguely aware of some of the other Subjects helping her but not entirely. Internally, her Severed Guardian Bond, though patched somehow, still ached and pained her horribly, numbing her surroundings. Inflicting pain felt good. It helped fill some of the emptiness inside her where Enzio's Flames used to rest, keeping her warm. Blood splattered across her face and she laughed harder, not aware of the tears coursing down her cheeks as they cut a clear path through the red stains on her skin.

The other three saw. They did not comment. They were also making their first kills and could not afford to be distracted. Everything was awash in blood.


Most of the Estraneo Subjects ran towards the city, for one reason or another, and most of them did not survive to the end of the month. The Estraneo base was on the edge of a city. Which one it did not matter. They were promptly killed by enemy Mafioso thinking them spies or Estraneo loyalists, killed by the cold or the hunger, killed by infection and untreated wounds, killed by their own stupidity or the cruelty of others. Killed by inexperience or ignorance. Very few, if any, survived. Their fates do not matter here.

The four who had perpetrated the Slaughter of the Estraneo who had dared Cage them ran in the opposite direction, into the forest. They ran and they kept running. They only stopped in a grassy meadow, surrounded by tall grasses and colorful flowers in the Italian Summer heat.

It was Ken who started laughing first. He laughed, quietly at first, then deeply, grabbing Chikusa about the waist and twirling him around, shouting happy nonsense about freedom and joy. Chikusa could not bring himself to celebrate so soon after his Sky's death, but smiled with his friend and quietly wept tears of joy that he hoped no one else saw. Mukuro laughed too before collapsing onto his back, moving his limbs through the weeds and flowers as though attempting to make a snow angel with the grass. Subject L-13 sat and wove a flower crown for each of them, smiling the whole time. She also wove a flower crown for Enzio before setting it aside.

They were all still young and still afraid and still damn close to broken, but they were alive. And they had each other. Things were looking up, for the first time in a long time.


It was an unspoken and automatic fact that Mukuro was in charge. The Slaughter may not have been his idea, but he was the oldest, arguably the sanest and clearly the most responsible. Ken was a bit too animalistic and had a beta personality anyway. Chikusa barely talked and couldn't seem to summon up much resembling emotion at the moment. And Subject L-13 was clearly fucked in the head right now and much too young besides.

"We'll be okay as long as we stick together," Mukuro ordered eventually, when the adrenaline wore off and the truth sunk in and they were just so tired they needed to sleep. "I can handle this."

They believed him.

(They were wrong.)