Feeling a great deal more settled, after having taken care of the tasks that had been laid out in front of him, Ezio was not so relaxed that he failed to notice someone or other skulking in the shadows near where he was, continuing on his way back to the tunnels that would allow him to move more freely within Roma while the Borgia continued to hold outward power. For a lingering moment, Ezio found himself tempted in the extreme to set Aeon upon the fleeing figure, but no. This, of all things, was something that Ezio could manage for himself.
Of course, once he'd managed to recognize the fleeing form of Paganino – one of La Volpe's thieves who had been present at the sack of Monteriggioni, and the only one who'd insisted upon staying behind when the Borgia forces had been breaking through the last of their battle-lines – Ezio found himself reaching for the Apple nearly without conscious thought. A shadowy blur dashed forward, smashing into Paganino's back with the seeming force of a loosed ballista bolt, crumpling the bald, one-eyed man against the wall of a nearby building he'd seemed just about to either climb or else – more likely, given his age and the condition he seemed to be in – to run past.
"Why did you run?" he asked, once Aeon had pulled Paganino back to his feet, holding the thief by the back of his collar as though he were nothing more than a disobedient puppy.
However, just as he'd managed to catch sight of the letter stuffed into the old thief's pouch – or rather the seal on said letter – Paganino gave an almighty wrench, pulling his already threadbare shirt even further into tatters, and thereby managing to free himself from Aeon's grasp. His hands, having been scrabbling at his belt even before he'd managed to free himself, were now holding not only an ugly-looking cinquedea, but also a stiletto, besides.
A blur of hot, hissing red slashed downward in the time it took Ezio to blink, though he had been readying himself to take hold of his own weapons – or else to disarm the previously-unknown foe standing before him – and he found himself staring at the cleanly-severed forms of Paganino's hands, still clutching his blades in their dead grip. For a handful of moments, as Paganino stared down in understandable horror at the charred stumps at the end of his arms, Ezio found himself in complete sympathy with the man.
"Aeon!" he shouted, just slightly too late, as Paganino tried to run off a last time, and Aeon dove upon him with all the preternatural speed that he'd not-quite-seen the man in black demonstrate on so many occasions.
"Yes?" Aeon asked, raptorial yellow eyes coming to rest upon him, as he came to a neat stop, shimmering carmine blade extended for just a moment before the familiar snap-hiss sounded and the blade vanished once more.
"Let me handle the rest of this," he said, glancing briefly to the maimed and horrified form of Paganino, shivering on the cobblestone street as he stared at his feet, neatly severed as his hands had been, just a few moments prior.
"As you wish," Aeon said, dipping his hooded head slightly, before vanishing once more into the depths of the Apple.
"Cosa diavolo aspetti?!" Paganino demanded, snarling as Ezio crouched down next to him, having clearly regained himself in the absence of Aeon's baleful presence. "Kill me already! You were clearly planning to do it before!"
"I was hardly going to kill you," he said, considering just how he was going to be able to bring the man before him back to La Volpe. "Though I would wish to know why you were willing to sell our cause out to the Borgia."
"You truly think I'd be willing to throw my life away for anyone willing to consort with that maldito bastardo?! That phantom beast?!"
"Messer Aeon truly terrifies you so much?" Ezio asked in return, though he was beginning to understand such a sentiment more and more, the more time he spent around the man in black.
Aeon, for all the aid he had so willingly offered to the Brotherhood and all who lived under threat from the Templars and their designs, could at times seem terrifyingly inhuman. For all that he clearly tried to restrain himself, it was more than obvious that Aeon had been alone and apart from humanity as a whole for long enough to forget that he himself was, in the end, human. For all the strange powers and abilities that his binding with the Apple had granted him – however such a thing had ultimately been accomplished – Ezio was beginning to realize just how much it had cost the man who called himself Aeon.
Perhaps at had even cost him his name, in the end.
Knowing that he wasn't likely to secure the cooperation of Paganino – at least not so long as Aeon was an acknowledged part of the Brotherhood, and certainly not after everything that had previously happened – Ezio ended the wounded man's life as gently as their circumstances would allow, taking the letter he'd been carrying so that La Volpe would know just who it was who had ultimately been responsible for leaking information to the Borgia. So that the both of them could put their remaining worries to rest.