Chrome's Daughter
By AmyFawkes
Author's note: I do make fun of Mukuro way too much, so excuse all of the name calling and sarcasm towards him. I love him and he's my favorite character, so it can't be helped ;D Anyways, the title is really irrelevant to the actual story. This story is simply in response to Blockhed13's one-shot story called "Chrome's Brother", so his character Kumoru Dokuro is also included in this.
Disclaimer: I don't own Katekyo Hitman Reborn! or Kumoru Dokuro.
"Why?" I asked. "Why me?" I pulled at the green skirt of the Kokuyou Academy School's uniform. It was too short for my tastes. What the hell was he thinking? It didn't even look good on me.
He simply smiled. "Because you're the only one who can do it."
"Why?" I asked again. "Why can't you do it?"
"I exist in the past. Time travelling would be foolish of me. If I were to go to the past, I could erase my past self's existence, thus erasing myself and creating a paradox." He started fixing my hair to the best of his ability, but it wouldn't stop drooping to the right side.
"I don't know him. This Tsunayoshi Sawada. Why in all the seven realms of hell should I give a damn about him? I never wanted anything to do with mafia anyways." I scowled in disapproval.
"I know. But he's missing in this age and we need to find him. There have been no leads on the mystery of his disappearance and so I figured to look in the past – to find out if there could be any reason why he left." He handed me a pair of glasses.
I put on the glasses. They didn't do anything for my vision. He said it was to help me see through illusions. "Who is he for you to even care?"
He paused. ". . . Somebody."
I frowned. I didn't like it when people kept secrets from me. "Fine. What about that skull person you told me about? How come I've never seen her?"
"What, Chrome? Oh, she doesn't exist anymore." A twisted smile seemed to crawl across his face.
"What'd you do, kill her?" I asked incredulously, already bored of the situation. All of this seemed like one big lie.
"No. Chrome Dokuro simply does not exist in this time anymore. She dropped out of the whole mafia ordeal." He handed me my katars. They were three-pronged trident tops, except without the whole fancy stick part. They were new and silver, just waiting to be used.
"So Chrome Dokuro drops out and you pull me into all this?" I asked using the same tone as before.
"Yep." He said with a chipper smile, one that made me think that he didn't really give a crap about this Chrome girl anyways.
"Didn't you have somebody else to do this for you? What was it… Geeko Gecko?" I said sarcastically.
He laughed. "Kufufu… Guido Greco. He disappeared with Chrome."
"What'd they do, run away and get married to each other like Romeo and Juliet?" I rolled my eyes.
He laughed again and didn't answer my question. "Are you ready?"
I frowned. I didn't like it when people ignored me and didn't answer my questions. Even worse, he countered me with another question. Oh joy.
"Yeah." I mumbled. I got up from my chair and smoothed out my skirt.
The symbol in his right eye spun and changed from the Japanese character of "six" to the one I knew as "seven."
"Who should I look for first? You or that Tsunayoshi Sawada?"
"Whoever you happen to come upon first." He said with that creepy grin of his. "You were trained to protect all those around you, no matter who it is. I need you to find and protect him."
"What was your name again?" I asked rudely, ignoring what he just said completely.
"Kufufu… My name is Mukuro Rokudo."
Then he was gone.
"Chrome?"
I turned around like an idiot. "What?"
"Ah…" The boy stared at me and I stared back. We were like two staring idiots. He looked just like me. Gosh, Mukuro must have some weird fetish with these stupid uniforms and this weirder hairdo.
"You're not Chrome." He said rather dumbly.
"No. Duh. Are you Mukuro Rokudo?" Huh. He looked really different than he did in my time.
"Um. No." He said in an irritated tone. It seemed like he didn't like being mistaken for Mukuro.
"Well. Are you Guido Gecko then?"
"… Who?" He frowned.
"Who the hell are you?" I asked, already tired of guessing. I was hoping that this wasn't Chrome.
"My name is Kumoru Dokuro." He said with a bow, formally introducing himself.
Dokuro… that's Chrome's last name. That meant skull. Kumoru meant cloudy weather…. Put together that would be translated as Cloudy Skull but alternatively it would be… "Dim Skull?" My mouth twisted into a frown.
"Wha—" He fumbled for his words somewhat clumsily. He scowled at my interpretation of his name.
"Kufufu, what do we have here?"
The man with that stupid laugh emerged from the shadows with that even stupider grin of his. There he was – certainly that was the Mukuro Rokudo I was told about.
Except he was about twenty years younger than he was supposed to be. That couldn't be good.
There was a girl behind him. She was tiny and shying away and hiding behind the pedo-faced man. Her cheeks were rosy and there was a skull eye patch over her right eye, just like that dim skulled boy. Her other eye was big and a brilliant violet color, but it almost looked hollowed out. Her arms were hugged tightly around a black bag that she held in front of her chest. She was cute. She didn't seem like the type of person who'd be part of the mafia at all, especially not Mukuro's family. But she was wearing that stupid Kokuyou uniform, so perhaps she was dragged into it just as I was. This must have been Chrome Dokuro.
"I-I don't know…" The dim skulled boy said under his breath, more than obviously annoyed by my presence.
The girl looked at me with her one eye. "She looks like us…" She mumbled, unsure if she was intimidated by me or not.
Mukuro smiled. "What's your name?"
I smiled. "My name is Lock M. Cold." I said on the spot. Wow. Why didn't I decide my name beforehand? Where did that name come from?
"R-Roku Mukuro…do?" The girl mumbled as she tried and failed to pronounce my name.
"Ah… no. Just… call me Lock." I replied.
"Well then," Mukuro spoke, "Welcome to Kokuyou Land, Lock Kurodo." I couldn't take them really seriously when they couldn't even pronounce my name right.
It was then that I realized where I was – a run-down, dirty, filthy, dark, dim and barely tolerable old shack. This was the place that that great "King of Hell," Mukuro Rokudo lived in the past? Hell indeed. I'd heard about it but I never imagined that his little kingdom would be this bad.
"What are you doing here?" A quiet voice behind me spoke up.
"Who the hell is she?" A much rasher voice shouted out obnoxiously.
I spun around quickly, alarmed by the two new voices. There was a blonde guy who stood out among us all and certainly looked just as dirty as the place we stood in. He had a scar running across his nose and he was baring his fang-like teeth. The other one beside him looked much more calm, darker, and surely more sophisticated and cleaner. He had neatly trimmed dark hair and a surprisingly white hat. In his hand he held a red yo-yo with a K on the face of it. They were the only two people here without that obnoxious pineapple hairdo.
I recognized those two as those nasty old men who kidnapped me and dragged me into the cruel life of Mukuro's mafia. They looked resentful to see me, just as they did in my time when they first broke into my house to knock me out.
I grinned at them – a hateful grin it was, but nonetheless a mischievous one – and slyly said, "My name is Lock. I…" I paused, wondering if it was okay to say why I was there. After all, they did look about ready to eat me since I did trespass onto their home, just as they had done to mine a couple decades from now. What harm could it be if gave them their answers? I'm sure the King of Hell had his questions as well.
"My name is Lock Kurodo," I repeated, letting their mispronunciation become my name, "And I come from the future."
That's right. My name is Lock M. Kurodo and, as I'm soon to find out, I'm about thirty years off course.
