The Strongest Seven Gather
Summary: The Sky Arcobaleno was not Luce as speculated, but an unknown woman named Holly who looks too young to be there.
Author's Notes: Kawahira demanded a lot of attention in this one... I feel like he's trying to slowly drag me into writing a Kawahira/Fem!Harry story.
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He found them quite by accident. No, it's better to say that he found her quite by accident.
Skull de Mort, as he chose to be known, had been purposely sought out.
.
The Mafia was full of gossips, so when Kawahira had first heard the whispers of a civilian that'd appeared from nowhere to become the best stuntman in the world in less than a year, he hadn't given it much thought beyond the passing curiosity as to why the Mafia were paying such attention to something so seemingly mundane.
But the whispers, the rumors, didn't stop as he'd expected them to. Instead, within months, there were rumors of several families all courting Skull de Mort in hopes of drawing him into their families. They wanted his strength, his immortality, as they called it.
They wanted his Cloud flames.
Well, Kawahira couldn't not investigate now, not with how rare Clouds were. Especially strong, unattached, adult Clouds. Kawahira was the last of his kind, the Guardian of the Tri-Ni-Set, the Administrator. It was his responsibility, and that responsibility included investigating potential candidates for the pacifiers.
So he went to one of Skull's shows.
And he found so much more than he'd been expecting. He found more than just a civilian with strong flames.
He found a Cloud strong enough to bear the pacifier for decades beyond the norm. He found a Cloud that was not as unattached as all the Mafia families had assumed.
And through Skull de Mort, Kawahira had inadvertently found a second candidate to hold the Sky Pacifier. Possibly, he mused as he measured the strength of Skull's flames and compared them to the memory of the latest of Sepira's line, a better candidate.
.
He'd hoped to approach Skull's Sky first; underhanded as it may be, getting the Sky to agree first would mean that getting Skull's agreement wouldn't be very difficult at all. Unfortunately, for all that he acted the loud-mouthed fool, the future Cloud Arcobaleno was (unsurprisingly) tight-lipped about his Sky, keeping what was his well-hidden and well-protected, going so far as to never even tell anyone that he was Harmonized at all.
Truly, Kawahira despaired, Skull was the pinnacle of a protective, territorial Cloud. And that made finding Skull's Sky difficult; not impossible, of course, as few things were ever truly impossible, but given the time constraints Kawahira was working under, it was… improbable that he would find the mysterious Sky on his own.
So, with a sigh that was half annoyance and half glee – it was so rare that he had to do things like this, so rare that powerful Flame users could hide from him well enough that he had to resort to such tactics, and he'd lived so long that life constantly bordered on boring – Kawahira stalked Skull.
.
Kawahira was impressed. Skull had noticed his presence quicker than even the Hitman Reborn had; not that the Cloud made it obvious that he'd noticed someone was watching him for reasons other than his skills as a stuntman. Skull went about his daily life with no apparent differences, though Kawahira admitted to finding no small sense of amusement in watching the paranoia grow more and more every day. Who knew a human could be so subtly twitchy?
(It didn't help, Skull would later insist, that Kawahira kept playing small tricks on him. Not that the Cloud just took it; Kawahira had ended up with some close calls when Skull had decided to return fire.)
In true Cloud fashion, Skull avoided returning to his Sky for nearly two months after realizing that he was being followed, unwilling to take a potential threat near the thing he was so protective of. But eventually, near the beginning of April, Skull did pack up his things and hop on a plane to England.
There, Kawahira learned that not only had the magicals his people had once looked down on created barriers and wards powerful enough to block his senses, but that maybe he wasn't so alone in his long-lived nature after all.
.
Skull's Sky was pretty. Pretty and dangerous. Pretty and dangerous and much more than she had seemed at first glance.
He'd followed his choice for Cloud Arcobaleno to a restaurant in the middle of London where the violet-haired stuntman had strode confidently a table tucked into a private corner in the back that had some sort of illusion that made even him want to look away and forget it was there.
Already seated at the table, a young woman who looked barely older than Skull flipped through a menu, bright emerald eyes narrowed in thought. Black hair had been pulled back into a high pony-tail in an attempt to tame the wild curls that still hung to just below her shoulders and behind her side-swept bangs, a faded scar in the shape of a lightning bolt could just barely be seen. Upon seeing Skull from the corner of her eye, she popped up from her seat, emotion lighting up her face from the almost solemn cast it'd held before as Skull wrapped her in a hug that pulled her from her feet.
Kawahira's brows shot almost to his hairline as the woman's happiness caused Sky flames to burst from her skin to the area around her until the entire restaurant was filled with a feeling of warm contentment. As all the other diners relaxed in their seats from the effect of her flames, Kawahira was taken off-guard by the sheer strength of her Flames. Give her a few more years, a decade at most, and she would be strong enough to try and pull even him in!
So distracted by his thoughts, he missed as the reunited pair in front of him fell silent; feeling the weight of their eyes on him, he turned back to them with a startled blink.
Their eyes remained on him easily, but the happy smile on the woman's face now had far too many teeth to be friendly.
"Hello," she greeted, as if she and the Cloud at her side weren't seeing through illusions that had fooled even his own kind once upon a time. "Won't you sit down?"
It was only as he eased into the seat opposite Skull and his Sky, the threatening focus of her Flames almost forcing him to do so, that he noticed.
The table was already set for three.
.
It wasn't been easy, but Kawahira had wrangled an acceptance from the Sky to become a bearer of an Arcobaleno pacifier.
Only after he'd spilled the history of and reason behind the Tri-Ni-Set in its entirety, though; Holly, as the Sky introduced herself, was certainly a persuasive conversationalist, and very good at tricking his flames into believing his food and drink hadn't had a truth serum mixed into it.
She agreed to become an Arcobaleno on the condition that he agreed to work with her on finding 'a solution other than cursing seven people to become batteries for the world.' She'd been quite annoyed over the thought of seven people suffering for the greater good of the world, and Skull had almost stabbed him in the hand with a fork when the words had left his mouth.
At first, he'd been hesitant to agree to try and find another solution; why should he make a deal with a human woman who likely wouldn't survive long enough to see the work through? And when he'd said as much to her, she'd raised her brow condescendingly and told him that she could bear the burden for a century if she chose to, but why put herself through that for a being that was too lazy to find a more permanent solution to a problem he'd been dealing with for years?
"Don't worry so much, Mr. Kawahira. You wouldn't want to start getting wrinkles now," Holly had said with a sharp smile. "Skull and I won't be dying anytime soon."
He'd considered her for a long moment, something itching at the back of his mind. Something was strange about the pair in front him. He tilted his head, a hint of his power veiling his eyes with a thin layer of indigo, and truly looked at Holly and Skull.
Holly's soul was older than her outward appearance by a decade; the pain and trials she'd experienced through her life had nourished the growth of her soul until its power was staggering to see in a human barely into her third decade of life.
Flames and the power of her soul that fueled them swirled lazily within her frame, not even seeming bothered by the thick strand of amber power that stretched from her to wrap around Skull's, fueling his own power and bringing it into harmony with her own.
What she said was true; neither she nor Skull would be dying any time soon.
Holly's soul held the touch of immortality, and without even realizing it, she had harmonized so strongly with Skull that his soul now bore a weaker, but similar hint of immortality. Skull would not, could not die before his Sky, her soul had wrapped so tightly around his own.
When he mentioned this to them, Skull had been surprised, though Holly was largely unaffected.
"Of course," she'd said, smirk pulling at her lips as she met his eyes firmly. "Mothers should pass before their children."
.
Kawahira had not been expecting that.
He was afraid he'd lost all chance of being seen as someone to be feared by the pair of them; it was hard to be afraid of anyone you'd once seen choke on their own spit.
.
When May came, Holly and Skull traveled to the large, secluded house that Kawahira had provided as a safe house and base of operations for the duration of their time as Arcobaleno.
They were, fortunately, the first to arrive and so had plenty of time to settle in and get things ready for working with a bunch of complete strangers.
Holly was enjoying the idea more than she'd expected she would; a part of her had missed working with others to reach an objective, not to mention that she'd missed the sheer busy-ness that came with looking after more than just herself and Skull.
Skull just wanted it to be over with already.
.
The first meeting could have gone better.
Skull was already on edge just being around so many strangers with strength that rivaled his own, especially when said strong strangers were near Holly. When he noticed the laser focus of the "World's Greatest Hitman" on her, he got a little… Territorial and may have snarled. Just a little.
Reborn's eyes flicked to him before being drawn back to Holly as she moved around the table, depositing plates and cups.
"Are you sure you're old enough to be here?" he'd asked her, tone patronizing.
"I'm older than I look," she replied easily, no small hint of amusement filling her voice.
"Oh, fifteen then?"
Skull felt the slightest hint of hurt beneath the exasperation in his mother's flames – she had always been sensitive over her physical appearance, the reoccurring malnourishment she'd suffered as a child keeping her from ever being as tall as she could have, and always causing strangers to look down on her – and snarled at him, flames flaring just the slightest bit.
"Don't worry, Lackey, I'm not into little girls," Reborn said dryly.
Holly upended a pitcher of water over the Hitman's head.
.
Things didn't get better much from there. Not for a while.
Skull and Holly were constantly at odds with Reborn, the Hitman having little issue with undermining the pair by pointing out their lack of experience with Mafia missions, their lack of age, and their lack of professionalism by being in a relationship with one another.
For a woman who had led and won a war, being treated like a toddler by a man younger than her was a whole new test of Holly's tolerance level for bullshit. (Spoiler: it was already quite low.)
For the most part, the others who'd been selected to be an Arcobaleno stayed out of the conflicts between them, or at least pretended to. They made it clear whose side they were on each time they followed Reborn's lead, even when Holly's plans or suggestions made more sense.
Not for the first time in her life, Holly cursed herself for her saving-people-thing.
.
It took an explosion for things to change.
Another day, another mission; at least, it should have been but things that been a little off from the start.
As they went over the plan before heading out, Holly couldn't be bothered to argue with Reborn as she usually did, instead only throwing out half-hearted suggestions. Her attention was largely on the building blueprints before her, something about the design so familiar but she just couldn't remember from where.
When Reborn decided to separate Skull and Holly rather than let them pair up as they usually did, they all expected her to disagree as vehemently as Skull had. Instead, she only looked at Reborn, emerald eyes edged with amber, and said nothing. She would let it play out.
.
The mission went smoothly. Perhaps too smoothly given the bad feeling all of them had.
As they'd gathered on the lawn outside the mansion of the Family they'd just taken down, it was obvious that Holly had not yet returned. The itch of foreboding grew worse.
Just as Reborn opened his mouth to order them all back into the house to find the Sky, the mansion went up in a fiery explosion, the blast sending them flying several feet back.
Debris raining down around them, ears ringing from the sound, the others could only stare as Skull rolled immediately to his feet and darted closer to the burning ruins, yelling frantically.
"Mum!"
.
The world stopped.
"She's your MOTHER!?" Viper demanded, the others too surprised to do more than gape.
"I did say I was older than I looked," a weary and amused voice said from behind them.
Robotically, they turned to find a soot-covered Holly standing behind them, the files they'd been tasked to retrieve in hand and smiling far too widely to be friendly.
Rather, she looked pissed, even as Skull bound over and checked her frantically over.
"The next time I say 'I've seen these plans somewhere before' you had better not ignore me, because if I get nearly blown to bits over some misplaced sense of honor that thinks I'm too young or too innocent or too stupid to know what I'm doing, I'll kill you myself."
They could only continue to stare in disbelief.
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Seriously. Kawahira demanded so much attention and then didn't want me to write about the actual Arcobaleno. It was all me, me, me.
Unfortunately, my schedule did not open up as much as I'd hoped, so I feel like I'm still existing in a haze of 'wake up, work, sleep, repeat', sometimes remembering to fit 'eat' in there somewhere.
Doesn't feel like it's my best because, again, Kawahira was so needy, but I hope you enjoyed this all the same!
See you soon, dear ones~
-D.