I was not stupid. My default Kyoukau was already drifting down, and now I breathed out the Mist in my lungs in the shape of Kirigakure's signature jutsu. I kept the posture just shy of deferential, the careful balance of loose limbs and lowered chin and uplifted gaze that left one ready to move at a moment's notice.

Daemon Spade's face fell into a frown, "Inconvenient timing, as expected of Alaude's lot. It would have been so much easier if you had had the decency to wait an hour or two."

I waited politely.

He chuckled, "Nufufufu. I am, indeed Daemon Spade, Mist of Primo, Mist of Secondo, CEDEF head of Settimo and Ottava. Congratulations, little spy."

Alright. If he was going to gloat like that, then Daemon Spade wasn't going to kill me, and I was capable of defending myself against any genjutsu he could try. I might as well just let him get his ridiculousness out of his system. "This one is an agent." I corrected smartly, "An employee of the Consulenza Esterna Della Famiglia, tasked with investigating the attempted assassinations of Enrico and Massimo of the Vongola, the assassination of Federico of the Vongola. And thou art no human creature." I added as an afterthought. Kyoukau was a three-dimensional awareness of the world, and I could feel that he did not breathe.

He stepped closer. I stepped back. He pressed closer, and I continued to step back until I was pressed against brick and mortar. Trite.

…Really, that can't be natural. Bel's smile pretty much pushes the limits of human ability, and Daemon Spade's was even wider. And yep, the corners of his mouth now split red and wet, dripping blood from a Glasgow grin. He laughed, "So I am not. What, little heir, gives you the impression that you can obstruct me?"

"Thy Flames have been identified as the ones that burned at the scenes of the crime, and they were the flames that touched the mind of this one before thee. Alone among those within this world, thou art possessed of such capabilities even as thou art not possessed of an alibi. Each attempt made to harm the blood of the Vongola has its reflection in antiquity, in the deeds of thine. Denieth thou this?" I was being embarrassingly obtuse. Why did I decide to interpret it as a question of whether or not I had proof?

"My, someone has been doing his research. However," He tilted his head, finger on chin in mock contemplation, "How about…No. I orchestrated the attacks on the sorry excuses for Vongola blood, then took matters in my own hands to rid the Family of that sorry excuse for an heir. As to whether or not you can obstruct me, little boy… The answer is, once again, no."

"This one begs clarification." I almost said, but it was not my place to be a supplicant-a queer use of the phrase, to claim that a place is above, instead of beneath, but such is the nature of a place-between those above and those below, kept by choice, changed by will. I stepped away from the wall-towards Spade. Schooled my features, and asked, "By what right?"

It was, as I expected, the correct and the worst thing I could do, for he was sent into a fit of rage at being questioned so. He was one who had cheated death, and like the other men I knew who had denied old Shinigami his due, he had succeeded because of two things. The first, a purpose, immovable and absolute, anchoring him to reality. The second, a will, adamantine as only a mortal's is, chaining self to that anchor. Add a touch of supernatural power, and a self may remain even when flesh should crumble. The price of remaining in the world was that one became…fixed. Trappings were worn away with time, until only the core of identity remained. Assailing it would be…inflammatory, to say the least.

And I had.

Having not taken deliberate care to think in a certain manner, my thoughts had taken on a detached, dispassionate bent. Thus was I kept on my feet when the full force of Spade's attention turned onto me. Killing Intent, unrefined, but all the more potent in its rawness, slammed down upon me like the crash of a wave, and I, in response, was the permeable intangibility of mist over waves, unaffected by tide or tsunami.

"Vongola is weak!" He hissed, whirling on his heel and pacing to-and-fro. A Danzo-type, how utterly insipid. "A pacifist boss who would rather turn the other cheek, last in degenerating line rotted at the root, unwilling to defend even his closest kin. Spoiled, arrogant self-righteous heirs who know not loss and lack the Will to fight for what is theirs. And the best of the lot!" He laughed, fey and mocking, "The best is Giotto's bumbling get, holding Alaude's useless legacy yet refusing to cut out the rot at Vongola's core!"

Bumbling. Yes. The boss of Giotto's Cloud's agency, that employed, by his design, more active Misty personalities than the any three other Famiglias put together, and as a result, was mostly impregnable to outside influence-the influence we didn't want, anyway, was a jester, and no more than that. Truly, a terrible CEDEF boss. Wouldn't even be mind-controlled.

"Vongola must be strong!" He ranted wildly, all the fury of a wronged spirit, 冤魂 now raging for such wrongs, "It must be strong enough to protect what is theirs and crush any who dare touch them!"

And cue a Danzo-type monologue. At least the Sandaime had the decency to be moderate. It gave me the time I needed to stretch out my senses and gather my power in preparation for battle.

"I will make it strong!" Daemon snarled, "I tethered myself to the living world and committed travesty upon perversion to remain here onto this day, only to watch over the Vongola! It was my choice of Daniela that let the Vongola survive Mussolini when another would have led us to destruction! And the Vongola still hasn't learned! It has grown fat and indolent on peace, forgotten the blood that builds it. But I," he seethed, gesticulating wildly, "I will not let the Vongola fall. If it has become complacent, then I shall set fire to the Underworld, and let the flames of war burn away-"

He didn't get to finish. I was slamming a hand into the ground, ripples of Matatabi spreading out from the impact point-the theatrics were unnecessary, but a cardinal rule of illusion-belief dictates reality, and action influences belief.

A shimmering dome of blue closed over our heads-mine, to be precise.

.

seal

.

Surprise shocked the spirit into thoughtful contemplation. Good-not good? Less irrational behavior-more predictable-less likely to be tricked/blinded. Calmer-no emotion-induced spikes in power-better scheming.

Spade tried to touch the edge. But no matter how he walked, he was trapped, as I was, in the center of the kekkai. "Fascinating." He admitted, "I could not have escaped." He frowned, examining the space in front of him, "But how?"

Now, here was a conundrum. The more power I poured into Kyoukau, the more I could sap his strength, but on the other hand, Kyoukau is terribly inefficient, as area-of-effect jutsu usually are, and the stronger it was, the less Kyoukau it remained, until its cardinal virtue-undetectability, was lost.

A wisp of twisted indigo-foreign flame-new-found flared from Daemon's fingertips, burning through the dappled, water-filtered light made from a memory of my fatherland. "Fascinating indeed." He murmured, "You had already infused the area with your Flames before we began our conversation, but the depth of saturation-that speaks of layers of Flames. Every time you came here, even when you were no doubt exhausted and licking your wounds, until-" suddenly, he laughed, "Of course, a fool was I not to see. Rain's soul and Mist's mind, but a Cloud's heart. Why should I expect any less, when the child's under a Sky of Giotto's line? Fate will twist, but destiny remains. And now I have stepped into a Cloud's Territory! But." And again is personality shifted, "Little heir, do you not realize? You have trapped yourself within this space with me."

"And so this one has." I replied serenely. "And thou shalt not leave."

There is a certain element of ritual to meetings such as this, expectations engrained within our selves so subtly we do not notice. A lingering spirit? He would be even more unconsciously hide-bound. A saying, 不打不相识, there is no understanding without battle. And without understanding, there can be no effective communication. Ugh, that sounded like something one might find in a cheap pop something book.

Spade's face twisted, "Do you presume to hold me?"

Stakes rose from the ground at my command. Chains twisted from thin air to crush them into pieces, but the splinters became blessed arrows aiming at his heart. He was gone in an eyeblink, and a bomb was thrown at my feet. I leapt clear. It exploded, sending shrapnel in my direction, but the shrapnel morphed into peach blossoms that fruited as they fell, rooting in the earth and growing into countless peach trees-the bane of evil and all that did not belong in the yang-world. Though mokuton really was not a Kirigakure trait, I'd let it slide in this case as the branches twisted and sought my opponent, directed unerringly by Kyoukau's sense of absence.

"I am Giotto's Mist!" Snarled the angry ghost, "and Ricardo's after Giotto abandoned us and I forced him to abdicate his privileges when he forsook his duty! I know what the Vongola should be. This softness will lead us to ruin but I intend to save Elena's legacy. There are sins to inherit and burdens to bear, and I will have a generation of nightmares that will take the mark of darkness proudly!"

"Sins to inherit?" I repeated under my breath.

Flapping.

Innumerable papers scattered from my open binder.

I caught a glimpse. It was inheritance tax paperwork. And income tax paperwork. And corporate tax paperwork (but those two should be mutually incompatible!). And. You get the idea.

"Forgive this one's pedantic behavior." I cut into his new rant, "According to Italian law, the inheritance tax alone should have rendered the current sin to 47.22% of the original. Factoring other forms of taxation, and bluntly speaking, it approaches zero too swiftly to be of relevance."

"YOU!"

Fire broke out, the black of Uchiha Itachi's Amaterasu and I recoiled on instinct, and that showed Spade weakness. However, though my own expectations had incinerated the trees, he did not understand what he had crafted. I would need a lure then, a weakness more attractive to draw attention away from the one I had inadvertently shown. The fear of drowning any other child would now have.

The water prison jutsu I had used to make my kekkai invoked the imagery of water, and that was half a step to an ocean. Water met fire and gave rise to superheated steam, salt falling like snow about the earth. Spade's will froze black fire into sharp obsidian, flying at me like glossy butterflies. I rolled low and used Matatabi to slip loose of new-formed chains, even as a wind from the coldfire blew white flakes towards Spade.

Salt and saltwater and sand and steel, with these things was a village built. Steam was mist was Mist was mine, salt to bind and iron to kill. Belief strengthened will, and stories gave rise to belief. I was hijacking the belief of this land right now, the culture that said to capture supernatural creatures with salt and slay them with iron, the tales Spade was raised with, not mine of peach wood and red-thread-bound-bronze-coin swords. What he was weak to, not what I was strong in.

Trap in a circle pale and powdery.

Zabuza's butcher blade swung out of the gloaming to decapitate, as bade by its name. Strength of illusion clashed against strength of will, and my lie-spun certainty won out. Daemon was forced to block with a scepter.

I was on the ground.

There was blood in my mouth.

My back was on fire.

Kyoukau warned of a man behind me, and I rolled out of the way, ignoring the pain which was false.

Another fireball. My rain-mists congealed into a shield and I forced myself to my feet. My attacker-Xanxus-Ricardo-genjutsu threw a Wrath-laced punch that would have been the undoing of anyone who thought to block instead of dodge. My youth saved me, for I had begun training in both my lives too young to be resilient, too delicate by virtue of age to not avoid any blow I could, unable to catch them safely, and those were the instincts that were laid in foundation, now brought to fore under sir. I stabbed, no longer empty-handed, but with a sewing needle my height in length, slick in my grip were it not for power holding it still, while my other hand pulled tight kami's hair and sinew, catching Ricardo's fist in the blow.

Chains were wrapping around me as water rose, no doubt attempting to capitalize on the assumed trauma from my near drowning. "So you were why the fat idiot survived." Spade cackled in delight, "Not a miraculous breeding-true of Vongola blood, just you."

But I was born of blood and mist and sea, and if we were to battle in water, then he was the fool. Raiton raced along the chains, kept from harming me by the absoluteness of my will. Spade spasmed as he was electrocuted, face locked in a teeth-baring grin, and as the water rose above my chin, even as the chains about me turned into live snakes (but what did I have to fear from snakes, oh creatures of-) that turned into a great crane in return that flew towards him before splitting into a flock of vultures that dive-bombed me and clawed at me and forced my head below the surface, but not before they turned back on their maker to peck at the gross and oozing wounds of the corpse I had made him become.

His pungent smell made me retch as sharks were drawn by the chum in the water.

The malodor was indicative of methane, and he exploded as I drew down a spark from the heavens. Gaping maws approached me. Blood in the water. Iruka had burst up from the lightless depths, ramming into the sharks' delicate stomachs.

Spade reformed as a thousand thousand eyes staring from a hundred hundred angles in dimensions beyond the mortal, twisted mouths and endless teeth, choking tongues of indeterminate length and organs beyond description. Standing upon water, I bowed a butler's bow, and then the world warped.

We became a flat surface of two dimensions, then we bounded past three towards five and then six and then thirteen. Spade was now matched by the world, and I was the unnatural interloper. I laughed, for I had seen far more of the world than he, bound still to one, though permitted to see more deeply. I had been punted between trees when he remained on no more than a single branch.

Physical discipline kept me from stumbling, and I used my needle-sword as a cane, hiding the action as the beginning of another attack. Mental discipline pushed down surprise. I had burned power too swift, too fierce. This was a war of attrition, and therefore one I was sure to lose. I had been playing by my old world's rules, where genjutsu cost little energy and paid dividends. Perhaps the conventional genjutsu I used could say the same, but Spade was using Real Illusions and things beyond them, and I needed to match him blow for blow. I did not have the reserves. But the fight was not over and I could not falter.

Insidious, tempting, a thought wormed its way into my mind. I had an alternative. A backup. Battle raged between Spade and I, the details of our conflict long beyond description by mortal sentences. All the while, I felt my candle burning at both ends.

I again struck a lethal blow. The world collapsed in an eyeblink until we were once again two human-shaped forms in a dome of soft blue light.

Spade laughed, "Twice now you have killed me. Shall we see if you can a third time?"

Tick. Tock. Tick tock. Ticktock.

I needed the power. I doubted I would have needed it were I more fully grown, but as of now… I could not lose. If Mukuro was discovered… well, the Madara/Indra situation was a nightmare. If I was killed, then sir's plans would fall apart, and this was war. If I was possessed… I had a responsibility to my people. My left hand came up.

His scythe came down. I jumped up and onto the metal, my weight bearing it down as the ground softened then solidified with the scythe embedded too deep to remove.

Rings are worn on the non-dominant hand. I was ambidextrous enough. The point of this was, as with all things, symbolism. Left hands and devil's blood. I slipped the unadorned band of metal onto my right pinkie.

Contract .

The light's cyan tint richened into blazing cobalt as the kekkai collapsed, pouring down in a monsoon of the fire of the Nibi no Nekomata.

Three truths and two lies.

The first lie: I was the Antichrist, and the 666 was my signet ring.

.

The first truth: I was wearing a Hell Ring.

.

The second truth: Daemon Spade was dead.

.

The third truth: I wielded blue flames akin to those of the necromantic hellcat.

.

The last lie: My flames gave me dominion over the dead.

I danced as the Wili danced, and Daemon danced with me, as spirits must under the Nekomata's command. By birthright and earned right and usurper's right, and the improbable made probable, I fettered him with Will, for I was daughter of the Devil, and he was my subject. Seal.

That ice-sharp confidence that allowed me to cobble the pieces together would falter in an eyeblink, and the burning of my cursed ring warned me that I would do well not to push myself, so I put both down before they dropped from nerveless fingers, my seal fading to fragile gossamer ties with form but no force.

If we shadows have offended,

Think but this, and all is mended,

That you have but slumber'd here

While these visions did appear.

And this weak and idle theme,

No more yielding but a dream,

Gentles, do not reprehend:

if you pardon, we will mend:

Thus spake Shakespeare, and thus were we, a touch sweaty, skin a bit tight from dried tears, but otherwise unmarred by our battle. Six steps apart, empty handed. Neither not too proud to show their exhaustion, both too wary to move from tense positions.

"So it ends," I commented politely, "Now we have both taken the other's measure."

"No." Spade said, ambling a few steps nearer, "So it begins."

The loose threads of my seal tightened about him for the price of the dregs of my reserves. He froze.

"So it ends." I insisted evenly, "At a stalemate."

He could continue fighting. I felt, in the depths of my soul, the potential for kinjutsu the Hell Ring had opened (why trade your soul away as a whole when could do so piece by piece?), so I could too.

Now, for the tricky bit. I needed to give him a way out that appealed to his pride. Ugh.

MEMO

To Sawada Iemitsu

YoungLion

From Basil

Basilicum

Re Assassination Investigation

The situation is resolved for now, sir. The culprit is Daemon Spade, who is, though not breathing, not dead either. This one has succeeded in talking him down from practicing corrective murder as his own external external consultant agency of one to accepting a position as a consultant of the External Consultancy by leveraging his obsession with Elena, Giotto, and Alaude and presenting this one as symbolizing both CEDEF and Giotto's legacy (He seems to be under the impression that this one is thy bastard son), which, coupled with this one's demonstrated competence, makes this one rather impossible to dismiss in his mind. He will seek to make this one, being the represention of the two he feels have betrayed him most grievously, acknowledge him as the superior, and to mold this one, as the heir to a greater third of Vongola's (i.e. his) legacy, as he wills. Both impulses are manageable, and quite frankly, given thine explanation of 10th Generation Politics, it is this one's belief that it behooves to learn and practice even the more extravagant of the Mist techniques, especially the ones unfit to be spoken of in polite company.

It is this one's suggestion that Oregano affects or emphasizes similarities to Elena and Daniela (Ottava), so as to make Spade marginally more biddable.

Complete psych analysis is attached. This one is lost as to how to handle the rest of the mess. Forgive this one for the incompetence, but this one pleads youth, inexperience and absolute exhaustion.

Awaiting instructions,

Basil.

Postscript: As misfortune would have it, circumstances seemed to necessitate the donning of this one's 1000-1.

Post-postscript: Turmeric wishes me to reiterate that thy reports on pruning the Fiscella Famiglia are as of this day, overdue. Please hurry.

Neither party was truly committing to the fight: Daemon didn't use his playing cards, etc. Basil kept a few of the more permanently damaging things up their sleeve. They both want to use the other, after all.
Basil's seems to be developing a M.O. of talking people down, then getting them therapy after.
And yes, if you spot Spade being Biblical, it's there on purpose, because he's an overdramatic ghost.