What is fire? It is heat and light and energy. I could not fight against the diffusion of heat, how warmth seeped into my bones, spearheaded and woven through and melded with impossible thought and power centuries old. It was absolute and irresistible, the sheer satisfaction of want and the fulfilment of instinct which was human nature, that sense of belonging, of being part of something greater, one current in an inevitable tide which was change in accordance with a will imposed upon the world.
It was Mukuro's Will, not Massimo's.
Flame was a manifestation of the primal within us, Storm's rage and Sun's inspiration and Lightning's determination and Mist's creation and Cloud's propagation and Sky's connection, and I would have to kill my heart to resist. Every shade of orange from pale almost-gold to dark vermillion bloomed behind my eyelids, fireworks and mushroom clouds and everything in between.
What was Chigiri stained with, if not suffering sanctified as sacrifice?
650. Ironically enough, struggling resistance against Mukuro's will once again united Massimo and I, and between us, blue and orange sparked. This was not just a matter of Will. I could feel indigo cobwebs in my head, sensitive to every mental shift. My Rain was contaminated, controlled, compromised.
My Mist was untouched.
Genjutsu could be reversed.
Two others entered the room, male, young, Joshima Ken, Sun, Kakimoto Chikusa, Rain. The pair I had arranged to be transferred to Mukuro's side as payment. I had been blind to plots that I had not anticipated before their inception.
"Hey, boss, it's taking a bit long, innit, byon?"
"No." Mukuro laughed, "I would expect anything less from the closest any have come to being my equal to be a trap, but he is breaking now."
649. I focused on the feel of carpet beneath my splayed fingers, so different from Kiri's gravelly shores. I wanted to sink into the perfect warmth, the direction of another's will, to align mine to theirs and wield my power as part of a greater whole. To contribute to something bigger than myself, something that would be truly admirable.
I could not fight this.
Water bends but never breaks.
648. There would be too many enemies between me and victory even if I broke free.
647. Curse it. Massimo was home and belonging, warmth and acceptance, unconditional support, spiced with the tailored-to-me lure of desperate faith. I wanted to be sword and shield, share his pains and my sorrows, be at his side through trial and tribulation, make him the lens through which I saw the world, an absolute point in a subjective world, my hearth-prince. I could not bear his suffering.
I was wind and water, ever in movement.
I would rather a watchfire on a long campaign.
I was a weapon, my nature was to be wielded.
I would not. Could not turn against him. Harm him. Could not allow him to come to harm—how had I ever thought otherwise?
646. It wasn't erasure of who I was, only the addition of something cruelly [perfect][true][incontrovertible], rearranging my priorities.
The Bloody Mist had been crueler.
"Damn thee." I choked out, scattered on the ground, feeling tracks of coolness on my cheeks, "Damn thee through fire to ice and the frozen lake of Judecca."
645. But Mukuro simply patted my cheek in condescending triumph, "Oh Basil, only if you fall with me."
Betrayal can only come from trust.
This was personal.
I forced myself to me feet. Acted pointlessly as a barrier between Massimo and the rest. "What now?"
"The world lies before us, my friends." Mukuro spread his arms, conjuring images out of thin air, criminals and officials and generals, all keystones that would bring the peace on earth crashing down. "Foul and corrupt. But worry not, your cares are not unfounded, but this shall not be so crude a demise as of fire and brimstone, for all that the Antichrist is among us, and we are four and one. No! Instead, this shall be a Ragnarök, the twilight of the gods—but only the old gods, after which shall come the new and greener world. Power breeds power, and so, let us sow its seeds."
"Expansive." I complimented dully, "The CEDEF has more depth on mafia matters, but we have never conducted such extensive intelligence acquisition on irrelevant entities. Will you escalate beyond proxy wars, and if so, do you intend or have a plan to prevent nuclear warfare?"
644. Mukuro grinned, "How can a weapon do harm without a hand to wield it? How can a hand wield a weapon without a mind to guide it? How can a mind, a body, a spirit resist me? I need but—"
Chikusa coughed politely, "—Mukuro-san, aren't you revealing too much to someone who was just our enemy?"
My comrade laughed, "That's the beauty of Harmony, Chikusa—what Basilicum would have condemned us to, and instead, in an act of absurd irony, has been condemned. He knows it as well, and is too reasonable to fight it, correct?"
"Yes." I stated, "This one would that you meant poetic justice and not irony presume, though the two are in this case little removed."
Daemon Spade!?
"Perhaps." Mukuro acknowledged with a smile.
I felt my body move under another's direction, brushing aside the hair over my right eye, and another will puppeted my voice to form words, "And if you still worry, his mind is laid bare to me, as you would know from your own experiences."
Ken scoffed, "Yeah, our bodies are yours an' stuff, but seriously, it's creepy when you talk about my snack trips, yanno-byon."
Mukuro released me, "I would expect, that with our newest addition, we would be far more rarely pushed to such extremes."
"This one would be of greater assistance if given more specific information." I stated blandly, "So far, this one has been given but the most artistic of renderings."
Mukuro sighed in exasperation, "Basil, you are not so dull. I have repeated, and more than once, that we shall cast this old world into flame, and upon its ashes create the glorious future of the new."
"Understood. And this one presumes thy plan is to spark war until civilization collapses, and then emerge as its sole sovereign?"
"Indeed."
With their want of vengeance being their first and foremost drive, and heroism only a distant second.
Why, do you not agree that we have been wronged?
Mukuro reverberated inside my skull, fingers poking into my perceptions to press dark-fuzzed rainbows behind my eyes.
The drive for vengeance had been beaten out of me all but literally in a past life, and that lesson, though brutally taught, had served me too well to be discarded. I could only distantly comprehend their drive, this unreasonable, destructive thing.
But he was my leader now, for all that Massimo was still a Sky-radiating statue behind me.
643. I sighed in defeat.
"This one is at your command."
"Excellent!" Mukuro clapped his hands, and began detailing his plans. Assassination, espionage, information leaks. He would first use Massimo to take over the underworld, by erecting the common enemy of a proactive government, the compromise of which would in turn give him access to more international power. I was useful as an additional Mist and as a way to control the CEDEF. In time, I would be charged with reforming it into an even more global intelligence organization, compromising government agencies, and acting as Mukuro's consigliere.
It was sound, for a strategy schemed up by a handful of children not yet in the double digits.
And yet.
"The Vindice will not allow this." I pointed out, "Nor would the Giglio Nero. There is also precedent of the Vestals acting as a rallying point against the Vongola. Secrecy is your strength. Without it, you would fall. We are strong, but we are not yet in the full primacy of our power. You should have waited."
"And endured more indignity?" Mukuro mocked.
He had been forced to act.
Why?
Attachment.
I pulled out chairs for his two companions, and returned to my own seat. "The tea is become cold."
There was smugness in his expression, but also genuine delight. Massimo was sent for coffee. "Let us plan."
I had not lost.