A/N: Hi, I fell rapidly back into an old fandom. It's great, welcome to the show. Reviews or PMs would be helpful and encouraging! Summer school is gross, so updates vary. If you like what you see, please check out my other OC-inserts, such as "The Inglorious Wonder Woman" (Harry Potter).

Disclaimer: I own nothing but Dora/Mui. Italian is in bold!

Warning: mentions of skin insecurity

Edit: 10/22/17

"She decides God is no good, but he must exist, he must exist so she can hold him accountable."

—Ada Limón, from "The Echo Sounder", Lucky Wreck

Chapter 1: Everyone Dies

Before Mui and Nagi, there was Amadora and Sepira.

And after Amadora and Sepira, there was you.

And you deserve an apology, because "Dora" owes you, everyone, for the terrible things she couldn't prevent and all that the "Mui" after her will finish with an angel of suffering. After all, she is the reason you are here in the first place, waiting out your suffering in a backwater, underground laboratory; surrounded by the people you once called "family"; remembering the other six lives through which you barely lived and miserably died. You are a testimony of the Mafia's failures; you are her sins.

Put the apology somewhere close to your heart, so that no one can take it back. Keep it under your pillow, to warm you when nothing else can. Hold it to the light, just like that, and see the bulletproof dream through the sheen that only one widowed mafioso by the name of Giotto can recite, word for word, in Italian, English, Japanese, tears.

Dora wants to start from the top, all the way down to the fitting end, because someone needs to know that she didn't want to die before her cielo, the better part of her.

A curly green-haired monster visits Sicily in the dead of night, bringing with it arson. By human standards, Amadora Nero is 13 years-old when she burns her neighbor's mansion down.

It is her first time playing with fire, and she nearly dies from handling the gasoline; had it not been for her Lighting flames, which decided to manifest right there, her brown skin would've suffered more than just a couple of minor burns.

But, she thinks, every burn is worth watching all of his worldly possessions melt into oblivion.

That, and fire is kind of pretty—scratch that, really pretty. It deals with her problems instantaneously, and almost always matches her headwraps.

To be fair, Giallo Estraneo is a big-time snitch too; people should be lining up to thank her for running him out of town.

Her personal reason? Nobody feels her sister up and gets away with it—not even if they control most of the city's criminal syndicates.

Sometimes, she thanks God, and the Pope, and whoever else is out there, for her golden awakening, but then she remembers that there is no heaven for her kind.

Or at least, their associate Kawahira is convinced that nothing human can apply to them.

A few days after this incident, Sepira Nero comes storming into the room with poison on her tongue and a lecture on her backhand slap. After a massage or two though, she isn't angry for long, and even offers Dora a tight "you did good" hug. In truth, whether she approves of her little sister's pyromania or not, Sepira knows that the Nero twins always stick up for one another.

"Stop putting yourself in danger!" She cries over the wine and cheese. "You're so bad."

"I thought you like them bad!"

No matter how oblivious someone is, they can always tell who is who between the twins; they are identical in everything but palette; two different sides of a coin; black and white. Of course, occasionally, there will be someone who asks stupid questions, like do you have different fathers or how long did it take you to burn your skin this dark or can you still read each other's minds if she's black and you're white, but they take it in graceful stride.

Yet occasionally, just occasionally, Dora feels ashamed of her skin and hair.

People don't exactly help the 18 year-old's case, particularly the older ones and fellow students. Dinner parties can become rounds of comparison, academy a popularity contest. Even Kawahira, with his permanent neutrality, looks more to Sepira for guidance.

Thus, she equates her features with failure. The shame runs, and boy does it run deep, so much so that every shooting star, every birthday candle, every crystal keepsake is called upon, wished upon.

I want her pale skin. I want her dark blue locks. I want her intellect.

I want to be Sepira.

Burning down drug warehouses and weapons factories becomes therapy rather than work.

Maybe the arsonist is 24 when Sepira suddenly expects child, her rounding belly carefully hidden beneath her long white dress. Hours after the revelation that Dora is going to be a zia, and the potential baby daddy drops in through the window, flaming (ha) yellow-orange hair and all. The guy even has a cloak for the whole tall, dark, and handsome look.

But seriously? That's her door. Now Dora has to enter through the roof.

She gets punched in the nose by her twin for asking too many questions; the young man, and future king of the world, blushes from head to toe. How cute!

"Soooo that means he's not taken. Nice."

"Dora!"

"So if he didn't do it, who did? Who is the real father Seppie? Tell me!"

She has to hand it to Giotto though: he can really get down to business, and has a mean knack for vigilante ass-kicking and inspiring speeches about justice. She almost wants to believe him herself, when he talks about a world without crime, about an ultimate dream, but she lets Sepira handle the talking. Sometimes, it's amusing to visualize her sister being unable to say no to a pretty face—not that she would deny him anything either. The man is definitely hot stuff, with or without the Sky flames at his temple.

He will make a fine line of successors; she doesn't need foresight to know this.

Giotto comes over too often for dinner, and it makes Dora uneasy that her twin buys his goody-goody act so much. Because why would such a widely-admired figure come to their house every day if he wasn't here for something? They do host his business receptions, but there must be something to it.

This guy can't be for real. Oh, please be for real—wait no, yes, nooo.

Plus, his smiles are borderline scary, their longevity so endless, she wonders how his face hasn't cracked from all that cheer. Nobody's that happy, and whenever she cracks a joke, he laughs like she's the most charming thing in the room; gross, it has to be fake. Sure, she can be flirtatious and downright alluring, but Dora would sooner shove dynamite up some aristocrat's ass than play a scale on the piano.

"Seppie, help me." She rolls around in bed, secretly listening in on Giotto's speech. He is trying to win the favor of some big cheeses in the speech hall. What? Don't give her that look. The man has a way with words. "I'm not even that funny. What does he want from me?"

"Your loyalty? Your friendship?" her sister supplies. She is the spitting image of patient frustration, but her younger twin thinks that she's keeping something from her too, hmm hmm. "Look, if he wanted something, he would've already made a move. Just admit that he's one of the good guys. You could really learn a thing or two."

Dora ceases her movement, propping a cheek on her hand and contemplating the perspective. She comes to the conclusion that her sister is going to be the toughest parent ever to bypass. "I absolutely hate it when you make sense. Okay, what do I do then?"

Barely a moment later and she suddenly rises from the bed, clapping her hands together like she's finished devising her latest fireproof plan: pearly whites out and gunpowder loaded. "Nicknames! Friends give each other nicknames right?"

"Poor Giotto."

"Giotto… Giotto…"

"I should've never proposed—"

"I got it!" she exclaims. "Giozo! Like bozo with Giotto! He's always such a chump, this is perfect."

"Dio santo, someone save him—"

The next time Dora sees him, she christens the poor mafioso with a full kiss on the lips and a bear hug; his face promptly erupts and his guardians laugh all the way home.

The Tri-ni-set is divided and an alliance comes into existence a year after baby Lucy is born; Dora designates herself babysitter and Sepira's #1 supporter.

Vongola, Simon, Estraneo, Bovino, Cavallone, Superbi. Multiple Famiglia sign a pact towards peace. Sepira also founds the Giglio Nero Famiglia; much to her chagrin, her younger sister designs the emblem. They both get it tattooed under their right eyes in the brightest orange ink possible.

Personally, Dora thinks they got the best set of rings too; only "Giozo" would name his clan after seafood. He laughs his sweet, airy chuckle when she starts sending him clam-themed gifts every holiday. In exchange, she receives hundreds of "Mare" sea drawings, to which she pleads "please no more water."

Sometimes, when he's not looking, she'll just sit there and admire how he looks in a suit and tie. The ballroom is big enough, Giotto surely won't notice her watching his pretty hands move as he passionately speaks, or the calm smile that graces his lips whenever someone agrees with him, or the way his hair catches the sunlight. Cozarto Simon declares somewhere over her right shoulder "ah, young love!" and Dora deliberately backs up into his foot with her heel.

When Giotto finally spots her, she is delighted when he waves his signature shy wave and makes a beeline towards her alone. The familiarity and acceptance makes Dora feel less like a second-class citizen and more like a star when she stands on the stage next to her golden twin.

"Thank you all for coming tonight. As you may have heard, the Sicilian ring has been—"

He gets his cloak all wet protecting her groceries one spring shower, and she decides that the "Wet Look" ranks in her top ten, next to "Sultry Gaze" and "Mafia Boss." Giotto mentions visiting Japan on the way home, with its cherry blossoms and summer fireworks; she mentions that the slightly opened yukatas and seafood must be shared with a partner in crime like him.

"I thought we were going to leave humanity to its own devices," Dora starts one day in the parlor room. Not unkindly, like her usual inability to forgive and forget, but with all the caution a Lightning guardian can offer its Primo; that, and she has a two-faced checkerboard of a Japanese demon breathing down her neck. "Kawahira is unhappy."

"Kawahira is always unhappy," Sepira retorts. "How much did he pay you to bother me this time?"

"Ehhh," she feigns. Seers are scary. "Okay fine, like three times my salary? I'm just saving up for Lucy. I want to buy her a German dollhouse, those things don't grow on trees."

"Neither does honesty, apparently." Sepira rolls her eyes. She sits by a window overlooking the training grounds, sighing in contentment as she sews their crest onto her white mushroom hat.

Every day, the same sunny seat, the same loving gaze upon her people. The newest recruits are loyal young men and women with hearts of gold, the passion for social change running through their veins; reeled in by the one of brightest Skies to walk the earth.

"Nothing either of you says will change my mind. I want to live with the humans, Dora. My own daughter is proof that it will work. We will find greater purpose than living in fear of extinction and war."

For a moment, Giotto's smiling face comes to mind, close enough to touch the sun, and even the cynical arsonist is fooled, seeing the rainbow, the dream, the colorful life the Mafia could perhaps manifest: coexistence. Peace. She takes one look into her sister's baby blue eyes, and there is no yesterday, no tomorrow; only the present by her side.

"I see my dearest Seppie has been taking lessons from Giozo. That charisma almost seared off my vagin—"

"Dora, filter!"

Sometimes, Dora likes to make life a little exciting (harder), so she climbs onto Giotto's back as he trains his stamina and climbs up a mountain with his bare hands. Needless to say, she had a great view and he prayed silently for his future.

She is probably 27 when she learns from Kawahira that she can't have children.

"Anovulation." He simply states, like this one medical term is supposed to tell her why her body decided to bail out on her plans of family and legacy and happiness. Maybe Dora burned down one too many houses? Was it the petty theft from five years back? Accidentally killed an innocent? Invisible injury to the uterus? Did one of her enemies become a witch doctor?

No, you're just an incomplete woman. You'll never be like Sepira. You'll never have a Lucy of your own.

Around this time, Giotto gives her possibly the worst and best pep talk of her life.

"Go away Giozo. I don't want to hear it, I'm not a charity case," she sniffs. Why did Kawahira have to go and tell everyone, especially him? The river water looks more appealing than usual around her bare feet. She never had an affinity for water, but who knows? Maybe if she just—

"I've always wondered, why arson?" He turns his sunset smile to her and puts a warm hand on her back, rubbing circles down a weary, hunched spine. His comfort is never unwelcome, and she hates how her body leans into his touch. "You don't get off on it, but you like to watch things burn. It's so fascinating."

"Honestly, what's it to you whether I 'get off on it' or not?" Dora isn't sure what to make of the mafioso right now, miffed by his intimacy; it's like he's had to deal with her all these years and got good at it. "Like you even understand the first thing about pyromaniacs, ya twat. Gonna take me to jail once I confess? Has that always been your plan?"

"You're not a criminal, Dora," he says.

She scoffs and throws her hands up. What is with him today? "Oh, so now you have the answers to all my problems? Then do tell, what am I?"

"You're fire, baby." He even makes the finger-gun and bang! sound.

That's new, she thinks before breaking a rib laughing. Or crying. Or both. She's so shocked; he's managed to trivialize all of her worries so positively, she almost can't remember what they are.

Almost.

"Truthfully, you do our communities great service in taking down the crime rings. And no one handles a flamethrower like you do, so I stand by what I said."

"Absolutely terrible." She dabs at her eyes. "Where did you pick this stuff up from?"

"Only the best."

She will still cry every time she sees tiny socks and lacy strollers, but Giotto seems to always have a handkerchief lying around. While she blows her nose, she tells him about the time she burned down her neighbor's house, and the other time she used a grenade, and the other...

Some months after her newfound vulnerability, and she does get a baby… kitten!

She finds him in a pile of dead tuna fish, feasting upon the rot and throwing up like a lightweight. Her clothes have ashes on them and her hair is greased back, but she still produces some kind of cleanliness from her back pocket. In a stolen doily, his body is carried into the house, held to the furnace and warmed back to life. The feeling of that tiny soul between her burned palms makes her think twice about ever setting fire to the world again… for like five seconds.

She names him Tonno because she's so creative (cynical). Giotto later apologizes to the cat for her.

In a year's time, they are the most dynamic duo on the block; a spiteful arsonist and her fat tabby against all odds. Before every job, when she gets down on one knee and kisses the Mare ring around her neck, her baby jumps into her backpack and makes room for himself among the wires and powders. On occasion, she would be a moment late in delivering the final blow, letting the cat out of the bag instead of the flamethrower. Many frustrated groans and furious scratches later, and another organized crime circle is up in flames, green sparks spreading across the ground.

Just a girl and her pussy. The men will never know what burned them.

Ultimately, it is Giotto's right-hand man, G., who presents Dora with a wedding ring. Sick of his boss's indecisiveness, he thrusts the ring into her chest and storms off to bother Lampo, mumbling something like "too old for this." She calls out to his retreating form that she doesn't like the color, but she pockets the jewelry anyway, the lie leaving a bitter taste in her mouth.

Soon after, Giotto comes barrelling into the area in embarrassment and immediately recognizes the resigned look on her face.

She takes his gloved hand and presses the ring back into his palm. "I have a sister complex," she blurts.

"She was our matchmaker."

"I have an obsessive headwrap collection."

"As long as you are comfortable."

"I burn things for a living."

"Keep doing it."

"I'm not human."

"I believe in aliens."

"I can't get pregnant."

"I don't want children."

He makes her look him in the eye, even as she tries to shove him aside and hide away. "You don't get it! I can't give you what you need. You have no future with me."

"And I might die tomorrow, but I still love you. You are all I need."

Sepira finds them that evening on a lone stone bench in the garden, somewhere between the dusk and stars, learning, listening, loving. To Dora's utmost delight, her fiancé thinks "anovulation" is a stupid word too, for loss.

It is in the most painful moments, when a bullet rips out her gut and her sister sings their broken Italian lullaby, that Dora appreciates her skin. For once, Sepira looks haggard and ghastly, and she selfishly adores how even at death's door, her own complexion retains its dark glow.

"I was supposed to die first," her older twin cries, as its other half bleeds out into the cobblestone.

"Please… feed Tonno when… you get home," Dora mumbles. "I left… the food in… the gray… cabinet…" The words break apart on her lips, flaking like the blood down her chin. Her head goes slack against an erratic heartbeat, the rhythm she protected from gunfire. Someone gave away the location of Giglio Nero's leader; of course they were set up, on her wedding day of all times. "Bury me… with my rings…"

"Shh shh, save your breath, my fulmine. Y-you will feed him with me. No one is b-being buried. It's okay. Everything will be okay. Giotto is coming."

Sepira is a liar; nothing is okay. She tries so hard to make this painless, her Sky flames burning into Dora's abdomen like the light of a strong kerosene lamp, but she is no healing touch, no Sun. It will all be over soon, and she knows that Giotto will not come in time.

"Do we… get a heaven… sorellona?" Dora hasn't called her that in years, or asked such a fruitless question.

One kiss, two kisses are pressed into a brown palm, the only clean skin. "It is a place on earth with you."

"Learned… that from… Giozo... always had a… way with… words…"

"No no no shh, be quiet sorellina. You must stay. Stay with me. I don't want to live in a world without you."

"Everyone… dies…" The arm falls limp against a red side. "At least…"

I died for you goes unsaid.

In a back alleyway, surrounded by the worst criminals in industrial Italian society, near a broken water pipe and some dozen rotting turnips, before the love of her life can say goodbye, Amadora Nero takes one last breath in her sister's arms.

Centuries later, in modern day Namimori, Japan, "Mui" is born the brown twin again. Just peachy.

Italian Vocabulary: cielo (sky), zia (aunt), Dio santo (for God's sake), Tonno (tuna), fulmine (lightning), sorellona (big sister), sorellina (little sister)

Question: Can you guess who the "you" in the beginning is?