Author Notes: Hey guys, this chapter was super difficult to write. Having to be in Reborn POV for too long was hard for me, he's much more serious and difficult to write than Hariel.
But since today is my Birthday I decided to push through it, so I hope you enjoy it.
xxx
Reborn was revising and methodically updating all of his notes and considering whether he should speak with Vongola Nono about this.
Vongola Primo had tasked him with securing Hariel, well, in some way, so that was Vongola Business. Tsuna had a few years until he finally took the mantle, even if he had started doing more and more things.
Then he remembered again how it all had gone down, and he couldn't find a way to explain how he had been talking with Vongola Primo without getting in explanations about Spiritual Realms, Strings Of Fate, and being possessed by a cursed sword.
Since he had decided that no one, and he meant it, no one would know about that truly and over the top humiliating experience, he didn't want to risk it and have Nono knowing he was hiding something. Damn Vongola Hyper-Intuition to hell and back.
He pondered on just how he would make Hariel and Primo forget about it. Maybe he could convince, and with that, he meant, pay a fortune to Viper for them to do it with their Mist Flames. He could bully Shamal into trying, but he doubted very much his Flames could overpower the two Sky Flames to do such an invasive thing.
He doubted very much it would work in a ghost, either. What an irksome duo. He truly was surrounded by the worst kind of skies. Problematic in a way that had nothing to do with the chaos in which he thrived.
He was eating a piece of a fresh and sweet watermelon when Shamal finally arrived.
"Reborn," he said, looking harried and disheveled. "What is this about?"
"I have something for you to do. In an exceedingly discreet fashion," Reborn added the last bit because he wanted Shamal to really be in his game, that of an Assassin and not a fool that would be following and falling over every woman like a lovesick moron all day.
Maybe he could pay Viper to erase that annoying part of Shamal's personality, but no, he was not spending his hard-earned money on bettering other people.
If other people required bettering, they would have to pay him. That was how it was done, and it got excellent results too, aka Dino, Tsuna, and even Tsuna's Guardians.
He was the World's Greatest Hitman, after all. Oh, yes, that made him write a note not to forget his hit. No need to get sloppy and distracted, even if he was bored now at the idea of having to waste his time in an irrelevant and surely profoundly uninteresting hit.
Shamal glared at him, trying to compose himself. His white suit had spilled apple juice all over it, and it was dreadfully wrinkled. Yes, he had been bothering air attendants again.
He also had a red mark on his right cheek, so he had been slapped again. Well deserved, he thought, smirking. He just had no game.
If Reborn wanted, he could get any woman to fall for him without having to debase himself and act like an idiot.
"Well, what is it then?" Shamal asked. "I hope there are no men involved. Except if you want them dead."
"As if. If I wanted someone dead, they would be," Reborn scoffed. "No. I have found a Sky, and I want you to run an in-depth analysis of her Flames."
Shamal gave him a half-smirk and looked very pleased with this. The fool.
"Why didn't you start with that? Who is this lovely lady I have to examine?" he asked, eyes glinting a little dazed, surely fantasizing on nonsensical scenarios between him and a female Sky.
Sigh.
"Her name is Hariel, and that's all you need to know for now. She's out, but she will be back when she finishes annoying the locals by being a tourist."
Shamal huffed, clearly annoyed at the lack of anything else, but it is not like Reborn was going to share his very difficult to obtain information. So, what if he was somewhat feeling possessive over what he got? It was his Mystery to resolve, and he was not the sharing kind of person.
"So what, are you going to be her tutor?" Shamal was like a dog with a bone sometimes. "I didn't think you were going to take another one after the Sawada boy."
A tutor to Hariel. That idea had its merits. Maybe Shamal wasn't as useless as he has been thinking. As a tutor, he could order her to forget about the Sword Incident or keep her too occupied to do or say anything about it. He could also get lots of blackmail material.
On the other hand, she was too old to be molded as he exactly required. He had very high standards, and that woman was too stubborn and confrontational. Maybe when she started believing him when he told her he was a Hitman, that would change, but after seeing her chat a demonic (but foolish) ghost up, he was having doubts about her sense of self-preservation.
She appeared to be purely civilian, but there were some things that were clearly NOT normal working here. She had said she was an only child, and the records he had obtained confirmed it, but if the postal box that had arrived for her a few hours ago had something to say, she had highly overprotective and possessive friends. Or maybe it really was afamiglia. Secret British Mafia was starting to ring more and more true.
He had, of course, checked the box and had even changed the ringtone to something palatable because apparently, her friend had sent her another phone.
A sleek and bright red and gold StarkPhone. The last model at that. He wondered if she would just keep getting them if she got rid of them. Her friend seemed the kind of person to do just that passive-aggressively.
It would be fun to see.
The note attached to it had said:
Harry,
The money for this one comes from your ILLEGIBLE TEXT account. Please do me a favor and don't lose this one mysteriously.
How was your trip been going? I hope you are getting all the relaxation you deserve and not getting into trouble.
Mom and I miss you. We are going to be spending part of the summer with my annoying relatives. I don't think you know about them because dad disliked them a lot, but mom feels lonely, and I want to give her that. I am trying to get her to go to therapy too, but no such luck.
She can be so very hard-headed and impossible sometimes.
We will be in the Basque Country (That's in the North of Spain, by the way) for the time being since our relatives will be there too for a few weeks, but you know we can always go and get you if you need to, or get lonely or if you just want to talk. I will be bored to tears, so I am starting a new project on ILLEGIBLE TEXT. What do you think?
Mom and I DID, in fact, have that talk about boundaries, and she's on my side on this. Please try and be more understanding of other people's feelings. Everyone worries about you. You know ILLEGIBLE TEXT said it was not totally safe because of ILLEGIBLE TEXT, so please be careful and don't go recklessly ILLEGIBLE TEXT. I know you totally would, so please don't.
Do try to get to Ron too; he's acting all excited about his trip with Charlie, but I know for a fact that he would drop him like a hot potato if he could join you. I have been explaining to him again what a trip of self-discovery is, but he keeps telling me that is stupid and nonsensical and that if you need to rediscover yourself, we could always ILLEGIBLE TEXT you. Of course, I was really hurt by that, and ILLEGIBLE TEXT him with ILLEGIBLE TEXT that I found in ILLEGIBLE TEXT. I can't understand how someone can be so insensitive sometimes. He should at least think before talking and saying such things, don't you think?
Get a lot of photos; we want to see them!
Lots of love,
Hermione.
P.S: Send something to Nev too, even if it's just ILLEGIBLE TEXT that I know can be found there easily in the ILLEGIBLE TEXT. I am pretty sure he would love that, and since your birthdays are so close, you could use the occasion.
Overprotective and clingy friends. That sounded like Guardians all right, even if she did not have any bonds, but the letter had annoyed him, with all that clearly Mist-Fuckery attached to it. He could decipher any and all encrypted messages, and he knew a good number of languages. Yet, that gibberish that hid potentially valuable information (or at least the Hermione girl thought it important enough to hide it.) was lost on him.
Her handwriting had been meticulous and impeccable; having those words that meshed up was intentional.
He frowned, took the text back, and put it in front of Shamal, who had started smoking, even if their compartment had a clear Non-Smoking Sign. He sent a flicker of Sun Flames to incinerate it.
"Ouch! Reborn, for fuck's sake, I needed the nicotine," whined Shamal sending a tired glare his way.
"Read that and tell me if you can find Mist Flames on it."
Shamal frowned at his burned fingertips but didn't seem to get on his bad (or worse) side, so he did as he was told and frowned.
"It's… strange. It's not Mist, at least I don't think so? It feels Mist-like, but not. But I can feel something there. The intent, at least, is to protect the information hidden inside. So, this Harry is the Sky, then? Why would her Guardians allow her to travel alone? A Sky alone? She could be attacked. I mean, even the letter hints to that specifically."
"She doesn't have any Guardians Bonds."
"Well, alright, I will check her over, but I need some hours of sleep if she's not ever going to be here."
"Just as well, I have someone to get rid of. Don't even try to use my compartment, or you are dead."
He left Shamal to his grumblings. There were plenty of comfortable seats to take a nap. He was just being dramatic. Not something new or surprising, but still annoying.
xxx
It had been a few hours.
Giotto was worried. Hariel had seemed to wake up a few times, even when the kidnappers had commented between them that she should be asleep for forty-eight hours at the very least. He had seen how they had injected her with something in the neck and then left her in that cell to sleep it off.
Her Flames were acting up a lot more than usual. He could see and feel them, angry, worried, determined, hateful.
When she woke up for real, or at least he thought so, he tried talking to her, but she didn't seem to see or hear him.
Then, she had spent a few minutes looking at everything with a vacant and glazed stare, and suddenly, her eyes had turned Sky Orange for a few seconds. It had happened a few times after that, always just a few seconds.
A blink and they were gone, but if you observed her closely, and he was, it was clear she was using her Flames in some way, for something. He wasn't sure what, though.
It seemed like her Flames were actually in Sync with her actions for once, even if those actions made no sense whatsoever.
Her sight had lasered on some random fellow kidnapped people, and she had strong-armed them into a charade, with copious amounts of Sky Charisma and Attraction and a very militaristic tone of voice and attitude that spoke of experience.
When she had started poking at the ring he was bound to, he had thought she might be calling for him for help, but… apparently, it was a magical ring that opened doors, among other things. A bit cumbersome if you needed to bleed on it, though, but useful. He had looked at it, and it was full of tiny and strange symbols. She had tapped with her nail in one of them to open the door, so he assumed that the rest would do different things.
It was when they were outside the cell, and Hariel was looking pensively at the big, secure, password-protected safe-like door that he had noticed.
Of all the people in the room, and with the little children included, there were more than fifty, and she had chosen the only ones that had Flame Potential. It was small, minuscule, he would have felt it before if it was something notable, but they held in their soul's Inactive Flames.
He knew they were the only ones because he had concentrated hard on feeling each of the people after discovering it, but no. No Flames in them, even minuscule ones.
He wondered at that, but Hariel's eyes had been Sky Orange when she had chosen the both of them. What did it mean? Were her Flames trying to help her choose the people who would be most affected by her Flames? Had it been Sky Intuition?
A Cloud and a Rain. Figures.
Then things had started exploding.
xxx
Reborn was feeling highly suspicious, so he had decided to investigate. He had gotten rid of his mark fast and easy, just as he had predicted. It had not even been a little enjoyable, with his mind in other much more important things.
A poisoning that would look like it was her wife the one to do it. He had left all the traces and evidence neatly arranged for his famiglia to find.
The two famiglias who had been recently united by marriage would be soon in a feud.
Then, when he had come back to his train compartment, his Summer Beetles were there, and their information was problematic. They had completely lost Hariel two blocks from there.
Now, it was not impossible to lose a trail, but Hariel had not seemed to know, been aware, or care about it the day before, and he had them following her very closely.
When she had not arrived by dinner time, he had sent more of his bugs to investigate, and even some of Shamal mosquitoes (He could be useful, sometimes that's why he kept him.)
Finally, one of the insects had brought them information about a young woman with Hariel's characteristics that some unknown gang had kidnapped.
Reborn's eye had twitched after learning that. Of course. What had he been expecting with this Sky?
First was the cursing and possessing, then the dealing with ghosts, and now what? Kidnapping.
He entered the shabby and run-down local and wondered what would Hariel want to do in such a place. Everything was covered with dust and dirt; the patrons all looked like drug dealers, druggies, or run-off-the-mill delinquents of some kind, and the atmosphere was not something that he would ever have associated with her.
She was a Sky. Skies were like royalty, and even if she was a civilian, it was evident that she was a pampered and over-protected young woman.
She had lots of money, and she traveled in First Class in the more Posh train, Reborn had found. The tickets were astronomical, not that they would make a dent in his money. He was paying for it just with a third of what he had been paid for the hit.
Hariel and this place did not mesh. It was an anomaly.
A show of his gun had the barkeeper talking fast. She didn't want any trouble, she said. She had admitted to drugging a tourist girl because she was pretty, and such lovely things gave good money in the black market. She was fast to point directions, give names, and even some addresses.
That was good and all, but Reborn had a thing against women, or well, people, in general, being trafficked. Especially which what he thought they would do with them.
He signaled Shamal, and soon a diminutive fly bit her left forearm. She would be dead in a week, and it would be painful.
They had the supposed location, and they got even more intel on the way there. One street rat had told them about the old shoe factory and how a gang had taken over it a year ago. Another, looking pale and scared, had told them that people who entered that place never got out and that members of the gang sometimes combed the streets for young people, especially beautiful young women, but they took pretty boys too.
Reborn had been, well, really annoyed. He hated that kind of scum. That they had probably kidnapped a Sky, a fucking powerhouse Sky, seemed ridiculous. They were just small fries, maybe associated with a larger organization, maybe not; he would investigate that later.
Now he had a princess to rescue, it seemed. He would be terribly annoyed if someone killed Hariel, as he hadn't gotten the answers he wanted to know. It was his Mystery to solve.
She had also saved his life, as Primo had reminded him. Giotto was an annoying bastard.
If she had been killed, she didn't deserve his attention. Too weak, then. Too bad.
Shamal had sensed his bad temper rising, and he drove in absolute silence.
They had a timeline of the events.
Hariel had been drugged (and no, they didn't know exactly with what, but it was a very potent mix of drugs) when she had been dining at 7 PM. And then probably injected with something else.
The drugs would at least keep her out from twenty-four to seventy-two hours. It was 2 AM, so they would just storm the place and take her back.
Maybe she wouldn't even remember anything. It was a good thing that she would be unconscious, though Reborn, that way, she wouldn't get snippy about getting looked over by Shamal and getting her stupidly powerful Flames analyzed.
All in all, it was not that bad.
After the thirty minutes drive, they arrived at the site. It was a small factory, but it seemed to be in a decent state for being an abandoned building. He supposed it would be a good place to keep people confined.
He didn't make a face because he was a professional, but really, those who trafficked with people were scum just waiting to be eliminated. If this was not Mafia-related, and he was pretty sure it wasn't, he would just use his regular gun and be done with it.
No Flames were needed for mediocrity.
They had opened the front door easily. No one seemed to be guarding the entrance. They were too cocky. There were some cameras, but they would clean up later.
It was when they were inside that suddenly they heard a bomb exploding. It reverberated in the ample rooms of the factory, pieces of plaster falling off everywhere.
What the hell?
"Shamal," he said, and just with that word, he conveyed his profound irritation at the whole shebang. They were supposed to be human traffickers, not bloody Gokudera impersonators.
He walked quickly, almost running, Sun Flames, making him faster. There were shouts and gunshots. They apparently were late to the party.
He kicked a door open and, in just a fraction of a second, assessed the situation and eliminated the threats.
It was… not what he expected to see, that was for sure.
For once, Hariel had been on the floor trying to stab one woman with a Bowie knife, and she was so, so covered in blood that Reborn had to assume that it was all not hers because the human body couldn't dose those kinds of quantities and still be alive, Sky or not Sky.
Annoying that she was not unconscious. Annoying that she was not nicely drugged, so Shamal could examine her, but well, he was starting to understand that this Sky would just be problematic and do her thing, expectations be damned.
"Hariel," he said because she was stabbing the dead woman, and he was exasperated.
She looked at him. No recognition whatsoever in her glazed and dull green eyes.
So, she was drugged, but the morons must have given her a small dose.
Or not, the thought looking at her Flames closely. The Sky Flames were actually responding to her mood, or what he assumed it was her mood. They feel murderous, enraged, worried, and exasperated. Silly woman, like she was the one here that should be exasperated with these kinds of antics.
All those Flames must be burning some of the drugs, too.
He looked at the two people that she was working with. A kid, tawny brown hair, gray eyes, gangly and a woman, tall, blonde, hazel green eyes. All of them were in some kind of state of undress. They looked ridiculous, pointing their guns at him.
"Do you know him?" the woman asked with a raspy, unused voice, and Hariel looked at him, tilting her head, with an obvious no written in his now kind of empty-looking expression.
It was a bit unnerving, seeing those usually vibrant eyes looking so dead, and her face, which generally gave away all her feelings, was neutrally set in a bland, indifferent expression. Removed from everything, or so it seemed.
"Leon," he said and sent him to ascertain what kind of drugs were in Hariel's system. Leon could taste and recognize them in seconds. She stopped stabbing the dead woman and started cooing at him, actually recognizing him.
Ridiculous Sky.
He was losing his patience fast, and she was losing blood at an alarming rate too. He could see at least two gunshots holes in the enormous shirt she was wearing and a few gashes to boot.
Well, Shamal would have to work on that.
He looked at him, but he was paralyzed and with his eyes wide open. Ah, of course, Hariel Flames were affecting him. Well, he would need a few minutes to compose himself. Even Vongola Primo had been affected by them.
He told her to get up, and both her and her apparently new minions were pretty offended by that.
He looked amused at the ridiculous pair. Their hold on their weapons was simply atrocious, especially the boys, but he doubted the thirteen-year-old looking stupid little thing had ever held a gun before this moment.
No, it was funny, but he had important things to do, and if Hariel kept losing blood at the rate she was going, he was going to have to use his Sun Flames on her, and that was just no. He hated healing people.
She ignored him (again, it was becoming a recurring thing) and asked where her stuff was. Still totally Flame Drunk, Shamal pointed her to an adjacent storage room full of boxes. If they hadn't thrown her things, they would probably be there, not that a woman who had just been shot twice, stabbed, drugged, and kidnapped should be worried about getting her purse.
She ignored them all and started searching in different boxes, a very put-out expression on her otherwise drugged face.
"What are you doing now?" he asked, seeing how she was starting to shed the enormous and bloody shirt she was wearing with a determined look.
"Don't look; I am going to put damn clothes on; that's what's going to happen."
Reborn doubted it very much since her legs were crumbling and she was falling. He caught her, and she looked at him, confusion written on her face followed by a mulish expression.
Her Flames were acting up, between upset and glad to touch his Sun Ones, they didn't seem to make their mind, then and he would deny it forever, but he hadn't seen it coming, she stabbed him.
She didn't even have the decency of stabbing him in the back. It went swift into his side and perforated one of his kidneys.
"FUCK," he grunted because he was just so done, but then everything became an inferno of Orange Sky Flames. They surrounded him like a cocoon, and suddenly all he could feel was homehomehomesafetyloveprotectionhome.
He looked at her, stunned. No way.
His Sun Flames were… they were attached to her Sky ones, and a bond had formed there. A Guardian Bond.
A Guardian Bond to a Dying Sky. He was a Sun Guardian, and his Sky was bleeding out in his arms, unconscious and too cold. He had always prided himself in keeping a cool head in every situation all his life, even in the worst kind of moments, like when his mother had been killed by his own father or when he had been cursed to a long a painful existence in the body of a baby.
But, now suddenly, he felt frozen.
It was pure instinct that made him put his hands full of powerful Sun Flames over her skin and start healing her.
xxx
Author Notes
So yeah, that's it. They have kind of harmonized and now Reborn is having a panic attack. Do you think they will have a normal bond, or something will interfere with it? :P