Here we may reign secure, and in my choyce
To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav'n
Paradise Lost (1.261-263)
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Despair drove people to do horrible things.
I figured that's what caused Antonio to leave his wife. That's probably what caused Gianna to go insane and kill her parents. And Roberto to commit suicide in front of his daughter.
I'm hoping, that's why my mother decided to sell me to the mafia.
Nine months in her womb, a particularly painful birth and three years of being the perfect son wasn't enough. Whatever attachment that formed in that period shattered like glass in front of a couple Euros, paper currency that meant nothing outside of social definitions.
She cried out loud, droplets of tears staining her face, soaking her collar and wetting my cheek. She was the heroine of a tragedy, her clothes tattered in places, dirt patches that could no longer be washed out staining the fabric, what was once a beautiful white dress now a brown coloured rag.
They dragged her off, tearing her arms off my body, throwing her out on the streets. She begged for another minute but they shooed her away. A vice grip on the back of my neck scratched against my skin, claws leading me into the dark, hollow halls.
Happiness was a facade. Kindness was a lie. Love was ephemeral.
When it came to the Estraneo family, all three were nonexistent.
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Children in the slums had no names. I was always 'hey you' or 'boy over there.' In the Estraneo family, names were a luxury reserved only for the important people. The powerful people.
We're only given numbers. Experiment subject codes.
Once upon a time, I had a name. Once upon a time, I grew up in loving family. Once upon a time, I was a spoilt, oblivious, happy child. But that time existed in another life, a parallel timeline that would never converge with the current one, a dream that only served to remind me how miserable and pathetic my current one was.
But dreams of that life kept me from going insane. Dreams of that life left kept me anchored to reality, despite the experiments, the pain and the suffering.
Dreams of that life kept me alive.
Because when I woke, the only things that greeted me were the dark, empty room, the burning pain in my eye, blood curdling screams and strangled cries.
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It hurthurthurt.
It was all pain, pain, pain and more pain.
I'd seen hell, and hell was nothing compared to this.
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Reincarnation was a supernatural phenomenon that shouldn't exist. In a world where truth and reality was based in science and logic, that was indeed true. But in a world where supernatural was the norm, where truths and facts are defined by things that cannot be explained by science and logic, reincarnation was but another concept that simply was.
I couldn't explain it. Estraneo didn't realise it. Despite all the exhaustive efforts and research, they couldn't figure out what made me special, what made me different, what made me a perfect fit for their experiment.
Ironic.
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There was one room with white washed ceramic walls that smelled. It stunk of rotten flesh, of blood, of pain, helplessness and despair. It was dark, pitch black, with a somber shadow cast over the room that never left.
Occasionally we heard a scream, but more often than not it was silent, the bruises, cuts and other inflicted wounds that decorated our skin as we were sent back to the room the only evidence of the abuse we endured.
They kept us silent in the room. The stray whimper and cry that escaped warranted punishments. More pain.
We barely interacted.
I never talked.
We just sat there, staring death in the face, praying for mercy.
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The day I turned nine, I made a pact with the devil. They promised to get me out of there.
Anything, I promised, clutched my body closer to myself and forcing it to stop shaking. Anything.
I was desperate, for release, for escape, for freedom. I needed power, strength, the ability to remove obstacles, to destroy my enemies and secure my safety. I pleaded with the devil. I danced along with the flames of inferno, relished in the scorching fire licking my skin, burning in marks that taint my soul at the deepest level.
I woke up with the most intense of headaches, my body splitting and torn apart from the onslaught of power, my blood boiling in my veins and my senses shutting down from the influx of information, screaming from the new heightened sensitivity.
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It was a torturous two months.
The Estraneo seemed more determined than ever to produce results and the incessant experiments in the day doubled, tripled and quadrupled. They ignored the toil it took on my body, focused only on producing results, resolved to perfect their one special weapon.
Me.
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It was exhilarating, almost orgasmic as the darkness purred at me, the power thrumming through my veins, watching as they kneeled and fell before me, one by one.
I held back the laugh bubbling at the back of my throat and managed to contain all of the elation in a smile, a sinister spread of my lips in ecstasy as I stared down at the empty room. The walls are splattered with blood, a gory mess on the floor of guts and other unfavourable bodily fluids. Tables were overturned, the curtains in tatters, and equipment sizzling slightly from electricity sparks. The pleads and screams still echoed in my ears, like a musical melody, a comforting tune as they begged for mercy, cursing and damning my existence as I reminded them that they were my creators.
I picked up the silver trident from the floor, tracing a finger softly over the ornate and elegant design on the hilt. It belonged to the unmoving body under my feet. They called him boss, while he was still breathing. Not that he had any use for it anymore.
The door squeaked open and two pairs of doe eyes peered in. I watched as their awed eyes scanned the room, mouth ajar and frozen in space as they digested the scene.
"Kufufu."
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Faking it came easily.
They took me without much suspicion, believing me to be but a mere fortunate survivor of the massacre along with the other two children. We were separated but I swore to them we would keep in touch, a reassuring smile as they get dragged away.
And then I turned to meet my new "family," possession bullet in hand and the smile of an angel on my face.
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They gave me a name but the word never stuck.
I washed it down the drain along with the blood, the stench, the guilt and my morals.
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Another family in the Northern Italy fell, the power of the mafia in the area almost completely destroyed. I would slowly work my way through the country, then the world, until I was safe, until I was free.
I stood behind Lancia, the man currently under my control. Possession was a dangerous, dangerous thing. The ability to completely control a person was addicting and consuming - to have someone carry out your deeds, to be able to sit on the throne high above them and watch it unfold.
He broke down in front of me, the guilt and the weight of the blood on his hands suffocating him.
It later dawned on me how absolutely twisted and perverse a sentiment it was but I felt giddy. It was an intoxicating feeling, euphoric knowing that I caused, dragged and watched as a man, a man of his standing, a man on grounds as high as his, fell, plunging straight down, crashing and burning to where he was, right now, groveling under my feet.
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One day, the entire world will do the same.
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It was an amusing thing, watching as events unfold the way I expected them to, adhering to the way the future had been dictated as I knew it in another lifetime. I followed what the story had laid out. I destroyed the Estraneo family and all but eradicated all the Northern Italian mafia families.
Unfortunately for the story, however, I didn't quite enjoy the idea of spending the next four years in prison or up to ten years in a glass tube.
No. I had other plans.
What happened in the story served as a backdrop with a difference purpose. A purpose that worked for Sawada Tsunayoshi, for Vongola.
A purpose that, to be rather honest, I couldn't care less for.
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We left Northern Italy, covering our tracks and crafting false leads that led the investigating teams elsewhere. The truth was whatever I wished it to be. I painted a scene of power struggles, of mutual destruction, an internecine battle fought between corrupted families.
I laughed as they fell straight into my trap.
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Laying low(ish) was boring but necessary. The dull passing of time was measured only by the hands on the broken clock and the empty food containers building up in a corner of the abandoned factory.
With little encouragement, the others picked out names for themselves - familiar syllables that I had been calling them in my head for years.
Ken. Chikusa..
I followed the script, attached the name to my part. Rokudo Mukuro.
The words tasted funny on my tongue, I was much more used to another name, another label, one that represented an easier time and simpler days, a lifetime ago, existing only in my mind.
Memories that I mulled over in my head as I sat on the floor, staring into my empty future.
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Stalking. Escorts. Blackmail. Information Brokerage. Arson. Assault. Kidnapping. Smuggling. Arms trafficking. Murder. Assassinations. Massacres.
There was no nature of work that I did not accept and none that I did not complete perfectly.
I had no loyalties. I had no ties. No hindrance. No distractions.
Mukuro became synonymous as the one to go to for jobs no one else to take.
Mukuro was the one when jobs needed to be completed, quick, clean and in the shadows. A mercenary. A hitman. Anything you needed as long as the correct price was paid.
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I couldn't stop laughing, a hysterical grin across my face as I turned to the decaying ceiling, the sound of my laughter booming across the barren building.
"Kufufufu...fufu...fu...fuha...hahahaha…."
Despite the beckoning of my curiosity, I had stayed in Italy. Japan was a chapter for the future that I needn't bother with yet. And the result of my decision sat in my hands, in a primly sealed red envelope, ripped in half and awaiting to be burned. Barely visible through the tear marks were the words: Varia.
Receiving the letter was a feat in itself, and it meant that my choice to stay in Italy paid off. The significance of it, however, was lost on me. Besides, what use is it, joining an assassination unit that was currently on house arrest and under supervision?
I could only laugh at the irony as I set it on fire, watching as it burned in the middle of my palms.
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We met in a back alleyway.
I wasn't expecting seeing him there but it was a pleasant surprise, the white hair, lilac eyes and the purple tattoo standing out amongst the beaten thugs on the floor.
"Grazie," he said as I disposed of the last one, flinging the body over into the nearby trash collection.
I didn't reply and we stood there, staring at each other, a bubble of tension around us.
A wise decision was probably to kill the boy then and there. It would have been all too easy. In the back of my mind, I could hear the distinctive voice detailing how every parallel world other than the canonical one was destroyed fifteen years later. I looked at the boy in front of me, malnourished, stick and bones, with bruises, cuts and possibly a broken leg, and wondered if he was aware the amount of destruction that he was capable of.
He shifted in his spot, eyeing the various dead bodies that lay around us, the detached look in his eye best described as boredom.
"Kufufu."
He turned his attention back to me, and then to the exit of the alleyway that I was currently blocking. I met his gaze with my heterochromatic eyes, half a smirk playing on my lips and extended my hand.
There was no hesitation as he reached out and took it.
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It surprised me.
It seemed all too easy to trigger his powers - it was barely a week before Byakuran (I played no part in his choosing of the name) came to me with a look on his face that spoke volumes.
It was nothing compared to what he was capable of in the future, but already, he could do plenty.
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I couldn't find the word to describe our relationship.
More than acquaintances. Definitely not friends. Partners? Not quite. Whatever it was, however, it worked between the two of us.
We didn't work together, but at the same time the two of us were inseparable.
A parasitic relationship. But as to who played the role of the host, I wasn't sure. Nor did it matter.
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"Have you ever wondered how the world will end?"
"That's a rhetorical question."
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Normal twelve year old boys went to school. They joined school clubs, played at the playground, made friends, hung out after school and went back to their families at the end of the day.
Mafia children went to school - albeit a special school, trained, focused on their specialities and went back to their famiglias at the end of the day where they swore fealty to a organisation that locked chains around their legs and put a gun to their head.
I started my day with a murder. Added an arson crime to the unending list in the afternoon. Followed that up with a blackmail or two in the evening and finished the day with an assassination, returning to my hideout at night, covered in blood that wasn't mine.
It was an apartment which proved to be more than enough room for them. It was mostly empty and contained only the bare essentials. There was no point furnishing when they were constantly on the move, going from one place to another to avoid being tracked.
But there was Ken. There was Chikusa. There was Lancia (sometimes.) And there was Byakuran.
It wasn't much, but it was home.
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"I have the details."
Byakuran dropped the papers on the table, a mess of letters and photos. An assassination request. It didn't look too difficult at first glance. I raised an eyebrow at him as I scanned through the documents, signalling for him to elaborate.
"It's on an artificial island, recreational but heavily guarded. As far as I know, the Italian army also has eyes on it. It's going to be tough getting in."
I let out a soft whistle, my gaze turning back to the information sheets. But something caught my eye and my eyebrows furrowed into a deep frown.
Mare Diavola.
It sounded...familiar. And then it clicked.
"It's Vongola's island." I snorted, coming to the realisation as to why it sounded so familiar. I threw the file of documents back on the table, losing interest completely. I leveled Byakuran a smirk as I leaned back, lounging against the couch. "That's where they locked him up. Xanxus."
Byakuran hummed in response, a cheerful smile on his face as he took another look at the papers as he does. He was used to it by now. There was no reason, no explanation as to why I knew some things that I shouldn't - that no one should. That was already established, when I knew of his powers, when I helped awaken his powers, powers that no one should've thought possible, much less that he possessed it.
It was just another of those somethings that simply was.
"I'll get you in. I have something I want to check out."
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It was a magnificent sight. What little light that streamed through was reflected against the emptiness in the cave, a sparkling rainbow that shackled the feared Varia boss.
It was an interesting thought, to think that this was how it had been for seven years.
"How does it feel, Xanxus? To be completely abandoned here?"
It amused me, to see the way the look in his gaze shifted. Had he not been frozen, it must have been a rather spectacularly dazzling scowl.
"Let's make a deal."
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She was dying, her silent desperate cries tearing down the walls of my mind as she flooded my world with her pleas.
Save me. Please. I don't… want to… die. Please.
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Saving Nagi - Chrome - was surprisingly easy.
I had thought it would take more to maintain a permanent illusion across such a vast distance. It didn't. I barely needed to pay attention to it.
Then again, they weren't my illusions. They were hers.
She was powerful, more powerful than she was ever depicted.
Now I saw what Mukuro knew. Her potential. He knew the extent of her abilities. That's why he trusted her so, even when she didn't trust herself.
Mukuro was a fool to give her to the Vongola.
There was no way, no way I would give her up now. Now that I know too.
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Mare Diavola was drowning in a sea of flames.
"Let's just say, Xanxus, you owe me one."
"Fuck off, scum."
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"Your bleeding heart is more trouble than it's worth."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Byakuran chuckled, a childish giggle that would stick no matter how old he aged. "No, I suppose you just can't help saving everyone that you come across."
I fought the urge to grin, but my lips twitched into a small smile despite myself. "Don't be jealous."
"Jealous?" Byakuran laughed, out loud, letting his laughter ring out in the empty apartment. He tilted his head slightly, lilac eyes falling on me in a gaze that I couldn't quite understand. "You're right. Perhaps I am. Just a little."
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"He's a weird fucking guy. I don't know why Mukuro-sama still keeps him around."
"Quiet down, Ken, they can hear you."
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Things moved quickly after I made the decision to leave for Japan. With Xanxus freed, there was little left to do in Italy for now and we arrived in the oriental country within days.
Kokuyo Land was more desolate than I expected.
"I hope you have a plan, Mukuro-kun."
I smirked. "Of course."
It was finally time to set it all in motion, to pay Vongola - Sawada Tsunayoshi - a visit and end this farce.
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I'll make them all pay.
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