Title: It's Like the Russian Roulette,

Character(s): Fran, Kawahira, Genkishi etc.

Genre: Angst, psychological horror (?)

Rating: PG-15

Warning: Contains OC, no happy ending and references to the TYL arc and final arc.

Summary: Except with six full slots and three kinds of bullets. Fran's POV.

Malachite was the first to go. Byakuran's fangirl had already been worm food for years by then, but no one, not even Master, could tell if he had died from the war or the Ring. So to keep things simple, Malachite was the first to go.

Fran had never really known her. Everything he remembered came from that one time Master had brought him along for a dealing: hair a bright, petroleum-hued green, plus a smile to hide all the secrets (or knives) of the world. She couldn't have missed Fran's mutterings about her "ten-buck dye job" resembling bleached seaweed, yet the surprisingly matronly voice chiding 'Rokudou'–albeit with swear words–for bringing a child was sincere. It was the voice he recalled later, whenever he heard of her doings–fought a man, freed another, seen in Johannesburg–that and the disgustingly sweet lollipop she had bade goodbye with, so he attended her funeral and stayed properly silent.

Then it was his Master. The next up in their little relay race, and the only logical choice, really, given the extra Ring on his soul. For one bright, foolish moment, it had seemed as if His Screwness could actually do as he so arrogantly claimed and outrun the odds (as if a frog-hatted boy could hope). Then their dame-Boss had to go and realize gone-Mukuro believing in non-existent things didn't sound so different from cryptic, normal-Mukuro, and everything crashed back to earth.

(Everything crash landed. Everything burned.)

(And through it all, Fran remembered. That even in senility, his damn Master always remained a lying bastard.)

(Stupid Master. He really didn't need that description of what it felt like to have the back of your throat nibbled by leeches.)

Fran didn't get the punchline this time. What was the whole point of trapping a mind that defined the word 'broken'? The sense of humor for inanimate objects, he supposed, had to be completely alien.

(Then they should find it funny too, he decided, if he destroyed them.)

Ramen-geezer came last. No talking to invisible shades this time, nor a gentle wasting away of an empty shell. The Segno had been, for some strange reason, even more vicious than his Master's pair. Perhaps retribution for living the remainder of his life in peace, not satisfying its bloodthirst? The thing had been very reluctant to allow Kawahira's escape from the humiliation of his painfully vibrant insanity, even if by death–Fran had wounded up doing the honors.

It was a messy job to end all messy jobs.

That was it then. Even the half-god had fallen. So Fran waited, and waited. And waited. Meanwhile, Squalo had joined Bel-sempai in his old mentor's stead, to hack away at his six hundred and sixty-six misfortunes. Time carried on. It wasn't until Fran stood over his and the Fake Prince's caskets, silent again, and looked at the Decimo's middle-aged profile, looked at his own nice, un-wrinkled skin, that he understood. The nature of his personal demon.

He wanted to curse the dead for their cunning. Wanted to press the cosmic rewind button. Wanted to switch places with them, any of them, or grab the universe by its shoulder. Use every method the Varia had ever taught him on it, for making him its bitch; for dangling the truth before his nose, right before him, with every stab of his senior's knives and his teacher's trident. And by the way, wasn't that just ingenuous? Now he would never think of reaching for pills or a gun, because he was already too intimately acquainted with how tortured his flesh and nerve endings could be while his treacherous body just went on and on.

And he wanted (needed) to crush this monstrosity clinging lovingly to his ring finger, to throw it somewhere it could never return (again). There must be some way to (he has to, he will) outsmart this earth-old power, where his Hell-cheating Master and the half-god had failed (even if he suddenly felt like a scorned brat before it).

(He has to.)

For the moment though, he simply stood before the sea of graves, a youthful-looking emotional husk and the living embodiment of man's oldest dream. And waited. And waited.

Fran waited.

(Owari)

A/N:

-Malachite: a green stone said to protect against evil, especially for businesses and children.

-Story based on my headcanon for the Hell Rings: all users of Hell rings eventually pay a price. Usually, that's either death or insanity. Then, there's a rare third ending, which makes death look kinder...