Metallic thread knitted into fine lace, covering madder red and pomegranate yellow. The yarn of the elbow-length gloves had been stained a familiar rust-red, but patches of the original dye still remained.

Oregano raised an eyebrow as she examined the contents of the laundry hamper in my arms, "So you kept fidelity to the 'gauntlet' part of 'throwing down the gauntlet', but ignored the 'throwing'?"

Turmeric winced, "The alternative would have been dismissing both parts of the statement as metaphorical. However, the gauntlet was taken up, which meant that the challenge was accepted. On purpose or not, if the action can be misconstrued, it will be—and Basil, that applies to us too, so watch yourself."

"This one doubts that this one could forget the consequences of the old don picking up his daughter's glove." I examined the bloody clothing, remembering grossly mutated and acid-eaten corpses. Bianchi's Poison Cooking had been brutal, and, more than that, thorough.

"There is death, and there is destruction. Bianchi's vengeance was the stuff of epics." 15. I saw the concerned looks on the older agents' faces. Oops, in keeping the admiring note out of my voice, I had accidentally gone too far in the other direction. "Not nightmares," I wrinkled my nose, emphasizing my childish indignation, "This one won't suffer disturbed dreams from witnessing the aftermath of violence, but Bianchi was not yet blooded when she killed her parents—therein lies thy greatest concern—with her, not this one!"

"I've already done everything I could for Bianchi." Turmeric said, "And I presume you've explained the situation to Hayato?"

"Yes." I confirmed. The boy had taken the reality of his parents' executions surprisingly well (meaning, of course, better than Utakata), and had accepted the task of keeping his sister from sleeping too soon. I had left him more of Turmeric's mint-and-lemon tea mix before I had been forced to leave by swarming Family members.

Regarding the tea: Some might think that it's better to be given something soothing as you come down the adrenaline high—warm milk or chamomile being the obvious options, being excellent for nudging an exhausted soul over the borders of sleep—but dealing with first kills was different, even when a mess of familial complications hadn't been thrown into the mix. Sleep solidified memories and deepened the mark of trauma, and while Bianchi no doubt needed rest, slumber come too soon would be the opposite of restful. Ergo, mint tea, slightly bracing but without the energy of caffeine, to tide her over while she processed her parricide. With the help of...

"Is Shamal reliable?" I asked. He reminded me of the Toad Sennin, which was not a mark against him, except that it was.

Oregano grunted, "As much as I want to say otherwise, he's as good as he is perverted. He's taken a few students in his day too, meaning he's got experience. Better than us—we've never had a problem with killing, so we keep forgetting there is one."

"Ah." I grimaced, "This one was unaware."

"You know now." The Cloud answered briskly, "Now, get the gloves to Cleaning before the bloodstains set."

14. The countdown in my mind clicked once more. I had sidestepped a few incidents, but alas, it seemed that my apprentice-brother's creations would be permanently altered.

Given the delicacy of the situation, there was no point in worrying over the other Family's affairs, what with our inability to intervene. In response, I shifted my focus to other projects instead.

Flame was not chakra, not a neat even mix of physical and spiritual energy, but rather a single force heavily skewed towards the spiritual side of things. That made filtering out the physical component far more difficult—not impossible, given that Giotto had done it, but still, I was not looking forward to progressing from the basic Zero Point Breakthrough—speaking of which, ow. It was extraordinarily painful to cast, and worse than that, casting it went against every engrained instinct one had, akin to forcing oneself to breath water.

Just like breathing water, I coughed out substances that did not belong in my lungs.

"Aww! My little basilisk is turning into a dragon!" Sir ruffled my hair. 8. I ignored him as I focused on expelling the altered Flame before my lungs froze. On the ground before me, crystals formed where spurts of bluebell flames had passed.

I wheezed, and was then interrupted by another fit of hacking coughs. Beneath me, clear quartz turned into garnets.

Oops. Beside me, not beneath. Cold. I was shivering. I was helped upright. Pressure against my lips. Hot chocolate.

The hot drink warmed me, and my trembling gradually slowed to a stop. "This one was unaware that hypothermia could be a side effect."

"Well, Basil-kun." Sir said cheerfully, a lick of orange warming the air about me, "You're the first Rain to try Zero Point! There're bound to be a lot of surprises!"

None of them pleasant. My airways felt raw and bloody, like that time the Estraneos had used some form of gas in their defenses.

"Smile, Basil-kun! You've almost gotten it!" Sir pointed at the iridescent red ice on the floor, "See, it's not melting!"

That would explain the severity of my injuries. On the bright side, my reserves were not yet dry! "Once more." I mumbled through a swollen tongue.

"A manly choice!" Sir clapped me on the back, provoking another coughing fit.

Shakily, I brought my fingers into the Tiger Seal for fire and flame, then the mythical Dragon for that which did not exist to revere it, and finally to the Rat Seal for spiritual yin. My Matatabi was forced into unnatural contortions, burning inexistent coils with phantom pain, and I forced heat to reverse.

Rain's Tranquility made it a cold flame, and compelling it to become ice saw a shard of black unlight form above my hands, suspended in the air as if weightless, and then shatter into frigid powder that leeched all warmth from the world.

I closed my eyes and collapsed on the floor once more.

"You did it, Basil!" Sir congratulated as he swept up the Zero Point dust.

"And yet twas not the crystalline prison of thy creation." I objected.

"You did everything perfectly, but you aren't a Sky! There's bound to be differences!" Sir helped me up, "Now, time-out for you, Flame Exhaustion is bad for kids, even if Lal turned out alright!"

"Understood." I brightened, "It is time for dinner, is it not? Turmeric promised Krustenbraten!"

Crisp skin and a rich bite of fat between the crackling and the meat, drizzled with gravy and paired with some form of Knödel, it was my favorite until such times as I started to crave something drenched in tomato sauce again. I could almost feel the crunch of the pork between my teeth, hearty and perfect for the end of a productive day.

After managing Zero Point, I figured out the spiritual version of the technique without too much mishap. However, by my reckoning, I'd turn anyone I tried to Seal so into a vegetable. Fortunately, what I sought was understanding, and understanding I had acquired: lain into Misty ink, the Seal had resolved itself into lines upon lines of Latin, arranged in interlocking circles and squares and pentagons and pentacles.

And therein lay the problem. I did not speak Latin—on the other hand, someone who had joined us recently did.

"That's not how you translate it! In thee the Gods have fixed their dwelling place, strong, stable basis of the mortal race. In the names of all things holy, brat, that abomination you transcribed loses all the nuance of the original text!"

"As with the evocations to Prometheus, this one set down thy words as thou spoke them." I looked up at Daemon, "Thus can this one but beg for better instruction."

Daemon growled, "Youth these days, you have no respect for your elders and are not taught to any appreciable standard. Why do you not know Latin, pray tell? You are the heir to a venerable institution, and yet your education as a gentleman is sorely lacking! Asinus ad lyram. I despair of the future!"

I hummed and noted down his revisions and made my annotations.

I had the shape of it now, the evocations to Prometheus who brought Flame to mankind and bore a Ring as a bond, and also the hymns to Hestia of the Hearth, although she was more often worshipped in her Roman form, the Temple of Vesta yet maintained in Rome, with seven Flame Actives composing a Harmony of Vestal Virgins.

Harmony and Preservation, paired themes, the first to connect to the subject, the second to keep their flames in stasis. Break the latter, and the former would have the remains be subsumed into the subject's own Flames.

The lack of Dying Will Bullets closed off the brute-force approach, so I needed to unpick the parts. Easy enough. Well, easy enough if I was willing to ignore the…erm…side effects. Preservation was by definition temporary, for nothing lasted forever. Therefore, I could, theoretically, invoke the transient nature of Preservation through the concept of Mujo, 无常, inconstancy, but inconstancy was, as the word indicated, inconstant. The effects of applying it to the seal might be exactly what I wanted, or it might be as inimical to the Young Master's health as forcefully mutating him through exposure to radiation.

Another approach would be interrogating the idea of preservation and reinterpreting it to be incompatible with harmony. And for that, a dictionary would be useful.

A Latin dictionary.

Ugh.

4. Indicated my Ring as I realized my misfortune. I bared my teeth at empty air in vicious challenge. Now that the parameters were set, all I needed to do was see this through. "Daemon, this one begs further aid in this matter."

The ghost settled down opposite me with a sigh, "Given your manner, I shall assent. Come now, foul imp, beleaguer me with inane questions that you should know the answers to."

I smiled and dipped my pen.

I presented my creation to shishou two days later, at the tail end of a meeting, having reverse-engineered my counter seal to create a technique that could, theoretically, be cast by a Sky.

He had recovered admirably from the shock of seeing me actually make good on my promise to unseal the Young Master, ruffling my hair and complimenting me on both my work ethic and my genius. Sir had been reading childcare books about not emphasizing intelligence as the sole reason for success, then.

"Good job Basil!" Sir pushed a fist towards me. His body language kept me from interpreting it as an attack, but I didn't know what else I could do about it. Sir drooped, then used that hand to scratch the back of his head, "Hehehe, you were supposed to fist bump me, like a high-five. Try again?"

I nodded with an open grin, "Yessir!"

We fistbumped.

Then sir's expression fell, "You did super, Basil! But there's a reason that Skies don't go Active too young! Look at Xanxus, look at Federico, look at your dear old shishou! We're all super weird, and it's all because of our Flames!"

"The Young Master is an Active, Vongola Sky." I said slowly, "The property of Sky Flames is Harmonization. The virtue of the Vongola line is its Hyper Intuition, which is born from a harmonization with the environment that allows for near-precognitive awareness of danger."

"Not just near-precognitive." Lal said bluntly, "Vongola Intuition imparts a set of instincts and impulses. For the Eighth, it kept her and her people three steps ahead of the Nazis at all times. For Ninth, it's stocks and HR. Xanxus has always been far too aware of threats and is aggressive as a result. Federico was also too sensitive, but he turned soft instead. Iemitsu's from Giotto's line, so the Intuition even stronger than usual, and it makes him recklessly impulsive."

"I always know it'll turn out well, Lal!" Sir protested, "I'm confident because I'm always right!"

"That is news." Oregano tapped a finger against the arm of her chair. "Shall we take it to mean that your 'good feelings' are more than that?"

"Yep!" Sir scratched his head awkwardly, "I got one for you and Turmeric too, so don't be mad...?"

"I have grown used to the lack of logic in your thinking." My apprentice-sister shrugged, "And have recognized that your hunches are proven correct, more often than not. I would have appreciated an explanation instead of being forced to draw the conclusion from experience, but other than that? Congratulations, Basil, for finally getting our boss to cough up answers."

"Thank you."

Turmeric nodded in agreement, "I've always come in a package deal with Oregano. Hearing that you recruited me on my own merits? It's a pleasant surprise."

Iemitsu sighed, "It's loud. You'll be walking down the street and then want to take a turn down the alleyway just to see a dealer trying to push his product on a teen. It'll turn out to be cut with nasty stuff and then it'll be time to investigate. You'll throw a can of food into the trash only to learn later that it had come from a bad batch, or stock up on razors just before there's a shortage. You'll do weird things and not know why, and that's not even the worst of it!"

"Chronic hyperawareness." I realized suddenly, even as I digested the genuinely prophetic nature of Vongola Hyper Intuition, "Harmonized with the environment, a powerful Sky is constantly aware of everything."

"It can be mitigated with training." Turmeric put in, frowning slightly, "But Basil's a special case when it comes to control. A six-year-old—even a seven-year-old, would not have close to enough."

"A buffer." Oregano narrowed her eyes in thought, "Lemongrass has experience with sensory overload. We can consult with him for mitigating strategies. All else fails we make the house a sanctuary and pay the Autumn Rain to maintain it."

"Not possible." Lal cut in, "The Autumn Rain's wife's dead because of the Vongola. Man's stressed enough caring for his own to help with someone else. And why the fuck would we let a freelancer that close?"

"That's why I said last resort." Oregano replied, still looking thoughtful.

Sir held up a hand, "Turmeric, any ideas?"

The man furrowed his brow, considering, "I could ask Oma. If she can't help, Baba will or know someone who can."

"Undoing Nono's work." Sawada Iemitsu looked us all in the eye, one by one, "There's no going back from that."

"Only if he finds out—"

"—Coverups are possible."

Lal and I said at the same time. Lal raised an impressed eyebrow.

"Still." Turmeric intoned softly, "We're going forward."

"Seconded." Oregano added evenly.

Sky and Seal were both had, but now we needed Silence for Sawada Tsunayoshi's peace.

At least we were all united—oh no.

Apart from Daemon.

"Should Daemon Spade be read in?" I asked.

Turmeric sighed and went to put the kettle on, and we settled in for another extension of our meeting.

At least there were snacks.