Disclaimer: iNikkix3 does not own Katekyo Hitman Reborn. This covers the whole story.
Follia
Chapter One: Beginnings
Insane, that he was.
A sly giggle escaped his lips. Just like how he escaped every single prison before. Nothing could detain it, him.
How many times had he been locked up so tightly, with electronic devices blocking his every stop? How many times had he escaped so easily from those security precautions?
Ah ah, killing him did not work. They tried to break him, but they obviously could not. All he did was to simply regenerate everything with real illusions. So all they could do was to keep him in a safe little padlocked room, keep him away from people to kill. But then, they forgot that there were grubby little insects everywhere for him.
And the sweet death of all his tormentors. With so much blood, of course. Warm, sticky, delicious. So much that it all soon became glorified liquid. He painted everything the colour of his left eye, the artificial one they stuck back in the empty socket after gouging the real one out. The one that jump started all his powers.
Pretty, bloody red.
Well, he did show them what they wanted. An example, the final product of all their efforts. Too bad they were too… dead to see it.
They, men in sterile white coats who might as well be sterile themselves, tested their filthy mechanic products on him. Stuck a mutant gene in him, cut his flesh to experiment on, inserted drugs for his reactions. Like he was not human, like he deserved it.
Though, the man mused thoughtfully, he might as well not be human anymore. Not with all the drugs swirling in his veins, stuck in scientific stasis for years and years.
But every single one of those scientists was dead. After the day one 'kind hearted' new scientist forgot to turn the electrocution up to the maximum, he managed to escape; managed to dye the whole white hostile area a warm, welcoming shade of crimson; managed to torture every single one a mere fraction of what they had done to him.
But then he was shot through the heart; captured before he could finish creating his fake heart with his real illusions again, before he could stabilise his unsteady condition.
They named him crazy, stuck him in cold laboratory after laboratory, for simply more and more research on their interesting specimen. They did not understand him, so he killed. Until one day, people would get why he murdered, why all of these actions were so unjustified it hurt.
They had inadvertently trained him, so that he immediately knew how to murder, stab, slice in the best way possible and get all the liquid gushing out. He could polish his skills, twisting their weak human minds around his little finger before snapping them all, tearing out their minds while they stood before him armed with a gun. After all, countless men had fallen for him, cold and soulless- not that they were not without a soul before.
A quirky smile twisted his face into something mad, delusional.
Some might think men died for useless reasons, but he was no cynic or pessimist. He preferred to think that men died to pave the way for his success, his freedom. If more decided to lock him up further, well… more died. And he loved it when more target practices came his way.
Honestly, did they really think he would fall from simple tear gas? When he could rip their minds apart with just one touch? When he could make them live in eternal fear with just a look into their soul? Did they think they could break him with endless walls, comforting gestures? Did they think he would be convinced by some crack pot doctor who believed in fairytales?
It was their choice to keep him alife, their precious product, so as to make him stronger, stronger. Well, perhaps with a little of his influence, he conceded. Why succumb to death so easily, when there was so much more in life he had sworn to see?
He was not that little boy who was captured and broken anymore. He was stronger, given weapons by his own enemy, the man spat mentally. How ironic.
He would purify the world of all the filth, starting with this 'top-notch' asylum for the mentally unsound, where patients were known to only escape in body bags. Maybe he'll set another record again. After all, the scientists had finally been caught by the law, and the police merely knew him as a weak, mentally unsound pubescent who had been tortured, who killed in defence, who could not be held guilty, who needed help.
He could hear the door slide open with metal chains clinking; a slight rustle here and there; soft, careful footsteps. A futile attempt to keep him unaware. The eyes glowed faintly in the dark- one red, one blue.
Sitting in his straitjacket, the man smiled happily, tilted his head as much as he could manage and whispered, "Starting with you."
-lock me up, take me away-
At a first glance, the Italian Vongola Asylum for the Mentally Unsound was simply another high-security prison for criminally inclined mental patients, equipped with all the fancy gadgets to keep the... ah... special criminals in and located in an unknown place far away from civilised people.
Should you look closer, the asylum provided extra help for these deemed unredeemable people. They were allowed to socialise, but nothing further. Everything was monitored carefully, notes taken down by specialists during these little sessions. It was all for the patients' sake, for them to heal.
Other such asylums could not, for these highly secured uncontrollable patients would escape so easily. But Vongola Asylum was just as special as the patients it housed.
You see, like all other heavily guarded prisons, most of their patients were sent from all around the world with records so stained that the black ink almost looked red. But unlike all other heavily guarded prisons, Vongola Asylum was one of a kind.
All the patients there were, well, equipped with extraordinary powers, for the lack of a better word. Some were all natural, some were forced into those itty bitty bodies at a young age, but all these patients had another thing in common besides murdering an uncountable number of people, they were all insane.
Then, why, you may ask, were all these patients grouped together? Would it not be better for them to be separated so that there was not a mass break out due to all of them cooperating?
There comes a tiny little problem in these insane freaks' way to freedom. All the guards were similarly equipped as well. The only difference?
They killed under the government's orders, nice and legal. Restrained insanity. The rest of the time, they were locked up too, as guards, in this nice place called Vongola Asylum for the Mentally Unsound.
-let me tear you apart-
"New patient?" Reborn asked shortly, keeping his blank poker face steady and calm.
"Room M69, Reborn," His fellow guard, Lal Mirch, smirked back, stroking her beloved gun covered in unsightly bloodstains.
Now, his own weaponry was always polished, clean and shining to the very end. It was always more satisfactory than the cannibalistic way Lal had always let fresh blood splatter over her. Reborn took great pride in making sure his guns looked new even after several murders. They would look reborn, like their owner.
He showed his displeasure by frowning slightly and demanded, "File."
New patients always took so long to break, especially after all the victories they have had previously. They had to be conditioned to accept that they would not be leaving this place, ever. After all, if they, the guards, could barely leave, why should the lower ranked filth be able to hope to see sunlight at all?
A faint swish of air.
Before Lal could even cock her gun that she had aimed at him, Reborn pointed his quaint sickly-green pistol at her, finger pressing dangerously on the trigger.
"Always the fan of eccentric colours, eh?" Lal gave an unhealthy grin as she threw the file at his head. "Your reflexes slowed by .02 seconds."
Reborn's eyes glinted dangerously as he caught the file before it even came near his new hat, "I can murder you in .02 seconds."
She was testing his limits, way too much as the weakest of all eight guards when he was still the strongest, the alpha.
She pouted cheekily, before backing away with her hands in the air. Not that it did much difference, for both knew she could kill him from that distance with a well placed rain flame. That was, if he was already on death's door with a million bullet wounds.
He continued walking to Room M69 coolly. Fucking new patient bringing him extra work.
"I'll just go fuck with 'Herbivore' K18 then," She laughed; called after him.
Reborn could have shot her fifteen times in the time she took to react. "He's mine to break, Lal."
"But he's not breaking anytime soon, from what I hear." She muttered, disappearing into mist.
Reborn's fingers gave an unrestrained twitch.
-you can try, you will die-
The patient in Room M69 was bored. He could feel his bloodlust churning up, yet the silly man that walked into his room fell so fast. Was this so called impenetrable area really so substandard? Why, the man fell after .4 seconds in his happy play area. And he was still in his strait jacket and chained to his chair!
At least the door was still left open. Giving a regretful smile to the man carrying his 'meal' laced with at least one type of hallucinatory drug, he prepared to break free of his restraints and leave.
Well, he tried to. Somehow, the more the energy he put into the grimy restraint, the more energy was sapped away quickly, leaving him light-headed. Come to think of it, he could barely force out enough power to kill the man on the ground too.
Oh my, they had created a fun new gadget for him to play with! Like every new asylum he was shunted into. No matter, it was all fun and games until everyone got injured- oops, he meant, until everyone died. Since, you know, one man was already dead.
He frowned, moving his flames cautiously around the areas the strait jacket touched his skin. They were sucked in immediately. Quickly, his flames gathered in one hot ball in the middle of his chest, leaving his limbs weak and floppy. This would slow down the rate in which his flames would vanish at.
"You move fast," A new dark voice sounded out from the doorway that let fluorescent light spill into his dark cage.
Funny, he had not sensed the guy at all.
Patient M69 gave a proud grin, "That's what everyone tells me. I prefer slow and painful torture though."
He tested his reserve stores of energy, just below half. The strait jacket had drained more than he thought, and was still draining. He would not try to escape first then. He would wait. Like in all the other prisons, until he got a full plan on how to escape.
"As do I. Fortunately, you will have a chance to be tortured painfully and slowly." The refined voice altered a little, letting some glee and anticipation to slide into the deadpan tone.
"Say," Patient M69 squinted a little to make out the silhouette of the tall man leaning on the doorway. "Are you a new roommate?"
He had to admit, his eyes were not very good without his flames' help. Especially the one that was not gouged out and replaced with a synthetic one. And the synthetic one did not let light filter through it so his brain could not read the images sent through his nerves and interpret them- for all you stupid people, he could not see through his left eye.
The man chuckled and stepped towards him, "No, I'm your temporary psychologist- or guard."
Patient M69 pouted, "Are you going to insert drugs in me again? If so, I'm going to have to kill you. And I don't like killing sexy guys- though those curls are a turn-off," He managed to tack a leer on to the end of the sentence.
Cold metal pressed against his temple- both of them, as a deadly voice whispered in his ear, "I must say, being hit on by my patient is a new thing for me."
Managing a cheeky grin, Patient M69 relaxed his tense shoulders and licked his lips a little. He could barely see the guard move, with such speed, what was such a man doing in an asylum as a guard?
"I'm going to bring you to your daily compulsory session, where you can meet all your fellow... extremists. If you make one twitch, I'll pull the trigger." Once the man finished speaking, purple flames (1) surrounded the air below his hard chair and pushed Patient M69 out of the room.
Light flooded his eyes as M69 recoiled, pushing his head back uncomfortably.
Being shot would be nasty for him, M69 calculated. He needed his energy reserves for when he went to wherever he was brought to, so he could not waste energy trying to regenerate his brain after being shot. But... he would take the risk anyway. Insane people had no sense of boundaries after all.
"You're one of us," M69 mentioned serenely, eyes flickering to where the propagating air continued to push him up, generating a floating effect.
The man with the curly sideburns barely stopped his finger from hitting the trigger. "Yes, I guess you can learn a new thing every day. I did tell you to shut up, didn't I?"
"Why are you siding with them?" He ignored the warning and charged straight on like a mad bull... in a strait jacket and with one blind eye...
"This bullet is charged with sun flames. If shot, it will numb all your bodily functions until you die (2). If you do not want that to happen, shut the fuck up."
Patient M69's lips twitched as he held back a rude insult and fell silent, contemplating the various reasons for the betrayal. Even insanity was not a reason for this; being insane did not mean they were door mats who would side with the enemy, they wanted revenge too.
They moved in silence, as annoyance emanated from the guard.
His eyes remained flickering, memorising the path they had taken as his mind continued whirring. Four unlabelled doors, six doors without knobs, two labelled doors like his own. Eight lock down zones, one corridor leading away. Endless gloomy grey; endless silence beyond the soft sound of flames burning.
Reborn stopped outside a door with a knob and dripped some blood on the panel beside the door. M69 was courteously jerked to a stop in front of the door, so that he almost fell. Whirring and clicking noises sounded from behind the panel as all sorts of tests were conducted.
These kinds of tests were so easily passed with a big explosion, M69 mused, feeling disappointed. What happened to the good security in this place?
"Here we are," The man scowled slightly- lips twitching down. "Instructions and introductions inside."
M69 remained silent, taking the chance to feel for the flames, checking if they were absorbable so that he could replenish his energy. The flames hissed and spat at his toes, obviously as friendly as their master. What a bummer.
Curly Sideburns paused for a moment before slowly replying, "To your earlier question... It's so that I don't become like you."
With that, M69 floated into the room full of strange people. The door closed, whirring again. The flames vanished, leaving M69 to tip over unglamorously and kiss the carpeted ground.
His face stretched into an unearthly grin. He might like his temporary psychologist.
-I'll break you-
(1)- I'm guessing that Reborn is so strong he can't only have sun flames, so I'll give him multiple flames in this story.
(2)- It's a type of bullet, appeared in canon. For confirmation, search Reborn Wikia, under Reborn's abilities.
A/N: This is dedicated to NinaKerndall. Your present, dear 8D
A/N2: I do not support R69, for that matter. But Mukuro being the horny guy he is, technically flirts with everyone even when made a little bit more insane than he was previously. No OTP decided for now, though I'm mostly leaning towards 6918 or 6927 :) Your reviews might influence my decision, so you know what to do /hinthintnudgenudge/
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