Skull rocks up the harbour in thongs, bright purple board shorts, thick white sunscreen smeared over just his nose, and literally nothing else.
Everyone else is wearing their usual clothes because they still have the ferry ride over plus the walk across Mafia Land to the actual beach. They've loaded up Fon with the bags that hold their swimming clothes and the stuff Luce brought along for the picnic.
"You're all weak," Skull scoffs. "Down in 'Straya, if you go to the beach, then you damn well go to the beach. You need to commit-"
"Boat is here," Reborn interrupts.
If they let Skull keep going then he'll start some bullshit story about Australian culture. His last one was about feeding protein powder to kookaburras and making them fight after they beef up. Reborn is eighty-six percent sure that Skull is making it up, but Australia is pretty weird, so he won't discount it.
Reborn heads straight for the bridge to the ferry, the mass of people parting around him because they're all mafia here and you don't ever get in the way of a hitman. He gets on first and heads up to the third level front deck to get the best view.
Colonnello lunges forward and ploughs into Reborn's back, arms squeezing Reborn's waist to pick him up and carry him over to the very end of the ferry.
All this, just so the blond can whisper creepily, "I'm flying, Jack."
Reborn slams his head back and almost breaks the moron's cheek bone.
"Do you all have your passports?" Luce asks, rummaging through her huge bag.
"Yes," the all chime, already bored with her going through a checklist. She's taking her mothering duties too seriously.
Mafia Land is in international waters, where authorities don't have the jurisdiction to do anything. The man-made island also travels around constantly during the year, cloaked with the power of several hundred Mist users, so only this one specific ferry can get across, and you can only board with invitation.
It's also counted as its own (albeit unrecognised) country, so a passport is needed. Not a real one of course, this is the mafia.
Reborn leans over Fon and searches around in Skull's pocket to grab his passport, interested in what kind of forgery the civilian could manage.
"Oh," Reborn muses, impressed despite himself. "It is a fake."
"Uh," Skull begins. "Was it supposed to be fake?"
Reborn scoffs. "Are you telling me that you're actually twenty-three?"
Skull stares. "How old do you think I am?"
Reborn stares back. The hitman is one month older than Skull. He mentally breathes a sigh of relief at narrowly missing that cut off.
"W-wait," Colonnello stutters. "I'm twenty."
Skulls eyes go wide then they curve up in glee as his lips pull into quite frankly the most terrifying expression any of them have seen. "Call me senpai," Skull hisses.
Reborn flips Skull over the railing but the stuntman unfortunately sticks the landing on the floor below.
Lal ignores everything that's happening and instead raises an eyebrow at the bond. "I thought you were in SEALs for a few years before you came to COMSUBIN."
Colonnello gives a thumbs up. "Dropped out of high school."
Lal frowns.
Colonnello realise what trap he's fallen into and tries to recover. "How old are you then?"
"Twenty-eight."
"Same!" Luce says happily.
Fon has puffed up a little because he's twenty-five. This means he has a responsibility over the younger ones, but he also has right to all of their things.
Verde blinks. He always thought he was the oldest at twenty-seven.
"Don't worry," Reborn tells Verde, reading something like disappointed confusion in his expression and then guessing the inventor's thoughts from there. "You're perfect just the way you are." He reaches out and pats Verde's belly. "I especially love how you're adorably pudgy."
If Verde actually cared about his appearance, he'd smack Reborn for that comment. As it is, he still wants to smack Reborn for that irritating expression on the man's face.
"Say it!" Skull shrieks, bounding up the steps. "I'm your senpai!"
He crash tackles Colonnello to the floor, wiping out Viper as well since the Mist was unfortunately too close.
They get off the ferry and steal a car to hunt for a private beach. It doesn't take long since the entire rim of Mafia Land is sand for a couple meters before a drop off into the actual ocean. Skull is plastered to the window the entire time as Lal takes the scenic route through the island. They pass the theme park and a couple black markets but avoid the BDSM clubs and snuff film sets.
Reborn chases off a couple Bovinos who were tanning on the private beach, and by the time he gets bored of terrorising them, the others have changed and wandered off to the rock pools. Reborn changes quickly, rubs a little bit of sunscreen on Leon, and then follows after.
Most of them immediately walk to the edge to swim around near the drop off point where it's just kilometres of open ocean that leeches into pitch black. Skull got distracted by the little sea creatures stuck in the rock pools though, and Reborn wanders up to him.
"Hey, watch this," Reborn says to Skull with a smirk. He crouches down near a large tide pool, holds out his fists, and then quickly spreads his fingers in an exploding motion.
Fish dart away, a crab flips a pebble in rage, and a bright purple octopus flails all eight legs and runs into a rock like dumbass.
Reborn laughs like a cliché bully who just tossed a victim's backpack into a bin. The laugh is surprisingly cute, which just makes it worse.
"Guess who the fuckwit octopus is," Reborn demands and turns to stare at Skull.
The stuntman scowls. "A giant alien just tried to kill it, of course it's scared."
"It would be dead if I wanted it dead," Reborn scoffs. "Look, this is what a dead octopus looks like."
"No!" Skull shrieks. "Leave my spirit animal alone!"
He lunges forward but Reborn snatches the animal out of the water.
"So you admit you're a mass of noodles?" Reborn presses, already gripping one tentacle in each hand, prepared to rip it apart slowly to let the insides dribble out in the most aesthetic was possible.
"Yes," Skull says quickly. "Yes, I'm a noodle."
"And a fuckwit?"
"And a fuckwit."
"And your face is ugly?"
"And your face is ugly."
Reborn scowls and starts pulling.
"No!" Skull wails. "I'm sorry, I'm ugly, don't hurt my little hentai soul!"
"Too late," Reborn says and adds a little evil villain laugh as he tugs at it. He's not actually going to because Skull might get legitimately upset, but it's fun to squish the octopus around.
Skull screams in horror and charges the last few steps to grab the octopus and try to get it away from Reborn. His hands are already coated in Cloud flames because Reborn is totally the kind of person who would torture an animal for fun, so of course he needs to heal it immediately.
As soon as Skull touches the octopus it grows twenty times its size.
Reborn drops it and tackles Skull away into the water right before the octopus is about to crush them. The poor thing flails and wriggles around a bit until it can roll its heavy mass into the ocean. It sinks like a boulder and passes the two humans on the way down.
Skull and Reborn break the surface and clamber onto the rocks again.
"Nice one, loser."
"This is your fault," Skull protests. He looks into the water, worried. "Is it going to be okay?"
"Probably not," Reborn says. "It looked pretty pathetic on the way down."
Violet fumes rise from the waves and then a regular sized octopus drags itself onto the rocks, trembling and looking like it's about to cry.
Reborn kicks it back into the ocean.
"Stop!" Skull cries. "Why are you such a bad person?!" He dives into the water to rescue the animal.
Reborn watches him go with a raised eyebrow. An octopus that absorbs flames on Mafia Land? Yeah, definitely an escaped experiment. It'll probably eat Skull or something.
Reborn wonders if he cares enough to explain, but then just goes to hunt down the others. He wants to see how many times he can drown Colonnello before either the blond escapes or Lal notices.
.
A/N: This is nowhere near the end of the beach episode, we have like three more chapters of this, and Reborn is going to be an asshole for every single one.
(Skip below if you don't care about how I came up with their ages.)
I already said Colonnello was just a recruit in this, so he has to be young. I couldn't make Skull any younger because for his fame to be at the level I imagine it's at, he'd have to be doing stuntwork for a long time - and they don't let minors do that shit. Reborn is this age cuz I thought it be funny if he just narrowly escapes that 'call me senpai' threat.
Luce is much older due to her being pregnant and Lal is the same age because she's got COMSUBIN firmly under her rule, which would have taken her some time. I wanted Fon older but also young enough that he's still able to work on his body without hitting his limit. Verde is just Verde -I picked randomly- and who knows what the hell Viper is.
Also, fun fact; the average age of mothers during first childbirth (i.e. Aria) in Italy is around thirty. Yuni is eight at the time she first shows up in present khr. This means the Arcobaleno had a whole four decades spent as babies.