Giotto had been watching over Hariel and Reborn with a mixture of worry and impatience. She had looked very pale, but with the amount of blood she had lost, it was understandable.

He wanted to be exasperated with her, he really did, and in a way, he was, but he had been, well, surprised. The events had unfolded themselves in an unusual and almost eldritch-like way.

Hariel had been oh, so, so very drugged, apparently magicless, weaponless, and barely walking straight. Yet.

Yet.

She had been highly resourceful, quick-witted, and clever, maybe in a lateral thinking kind of way, yes, but Giotto, who had been watching over the Vongola Bosses generation after generation and had seen almost anything, had been impressed, and it was difficult to impress him.

Yes, her Flames had been helping her a little, even if she didn't know about them, but he had been very aware of it, and the help had been minimal. Just instinct.

Maybe they had burned some of the drugs on her system (but she had been too high for that to be totally true). Still, she had just taken it all in stride and got things done like it was an everyday occurrence. It had been reckless and impulsive, but it did seem that she did, in fact, have a method to her madness.

It was pretty evident to Giotto that she was not a short-range fighter, but she was scrappy, spirited, and so very, very competent. Because if she was like this when she was high and half dead, well, how could she be if she had been Mafia-raised, tutored, and trained?

He thought that maybe it was better for everyone involved that she hadn't.

It just, well, he had his Hyper-Intuition, and it had been telling him just to follow her. His intuition hadn't felt worried at all, even if he had been. Now that Reborn and Shamal, was it? Had arrived, he didn't know if it was because it had known they were going to reach her in time or because she would have found a way out. He was betting on the latter.

There were two more doors left, and she would have been free after all, and those doors hadn't even been protected in any way. They could have just gone and done their thing, whatever that was.

He wondered just who Hermione and Ron were. The real ones.

It was evident that she felt a level of codependency so significant to them that in her drugged state of mind, she had needed to recreate them. A very Mist thing to do. He wondered if her secondary Flames were Mist or if it was the magic itself that felt like a close sibling to the Indigo Flames.

Giotto had been sure that if they had Flames and if Hariel could Harmonize, they would have been her Guardians. Right hand and Left hand. It was obvious in how she acted and reacted to them and found comfort and guidance, even if they weren't really there at all.

He had been musing on that when a sudden flare of Sky Flames enveloped him. Cocooned around his own, meshing together and screaming homehomehomeloveprotectionhome. He had felt an incredible warmth settle down in his soul, their bond, which had been a product of magic and mistrust, at last, getting soul instead of magic and being completed. Her soul, his soul. He didn't know. He was Flame drunk, wasn't he? Had his Guardians always felt this way? Because it was nice, very, very nice, but also disconcerting.

His Flames felt elated, happy, complete in a way he had never felt before.

Not when he had been married to a woman he had loved deeply, not when he had held his first child in his arms, not when he had been fully guarded and protected by all of his guardians in perfect Harmony.

And just then, when he was Flame Drunk and dizzy and not thinking straight, he had felt something else creeping inside. It was dark, it was inky black, and it was icy.

Flames of the Night.

Of course, they had always been there. Giotto had been interested in her because of them. He had been worried, then tricked, then worried again, and now in a strange Sky Dyad bond that he didn't understand.

They must have moved to let enough of her Flames Harmonize with Reborn, and at the same time, to finish their bond, which was indeed a very done deal.

Magic seemed pretty permanent, after all.

xxx

Reborn was concentrating hard on healing his Sky. He was still Flame Drunk and in a bit of a stupor, but he was a professional (not a professional healer, but who cared), and his Flames were fast to obey him.

Hariel had been shot in the side, and it had nicked her liver. She had also been shot in her left shoulder, but that seemed clean and less worrying.

She had been stabbed too, and even if they were also not critical places, that's where most of the blood was coming from.

He used Activation to make her blood cells reproduce fast, but not too fast as to overwhelm her body, while he worked on tissue, muscle, and organs.

The liver was the thing that was giving him more trouble, the shot had been just near the biliary ducts, and it had touched an artery that was bleeding profusely. He damned all those fucking traffickers to hell and back and concentrated on pushing more and more of Sun Flames there, but he also had to be cautious.

Too much, too soon, and her body could enter into shock, more so if she had been drugged. It was delicate work, and that's why he didn't notice the Night Flames corroding his Sun Ones until he felt the acute and intense sudden pain.

He didn't know what they meant, and right at that moment, he pushed any thought about them to the back of his mind, fixated on what he was doing, so he kept pouring Sun Flames while the acidic Flames of Night started creating havoc within his own ones. Ignore, ignore, ignore.

It had been perhaps twenty minutes when he had to stop.

His Flames were too unstable to continue working on such delicate processes when those damn Flames of Night were doing who knows what to his own.

He got up, pain and all, and with Hariel held close in his arms, careful not to move her too much, he entered the room where Shamal, who was actually a doctor, was. He would have to finish healing her and do it well if he knew what was good for him.

He saw something shiny and golden behind them and turned around fast, gun in hand. It was… Vongola Primo. And he looked incredibly pained too.
Well, he would pay attention to him later. First things first.

"Shamal," he called, and the assassin seemed to be back to normal, or well, semi-normal at least, because he took stock of the situation and started working efficiently.

Reborn was hurting. Whatever the Flames of Night were doing to him, they needed to clean up and get out of there, so he decided to do what he did best, his job. Or one of the parts of its. The less fun one.

"Look after her. I am going to do a clean-up. Do call for two cars because we are leaving this whole country. It's not safe."

The Doctor nodded, concentrated in Hariel as he was. He had brought part of his equipment with him, so he would be fine. Reborn knew it.

Still, he didn't want to leave his Sky undefended. It was something… instinctive and annoying, but the idea of leaving her alone and unprotected was jarring.

"We will look after her," said Vongola Primo. And yes, he was there and had a guardian bond, all gold, orange and shiny with his Sky. That... shouldn't be able to happen. But no, stop. He was not thinking about anything but the job right now.

He would ask questions later.

He left and followed the easy trail of blood, debris, and dead bodies, to a room that he supposed was where his Sky had been held.

Fifty-four people of ages between months and early thirties were there, all of them naked, drugged, and in various states of malnutrition and other conditions.

Shit.

This was not Mafia, so he would have to tip the local police.

He asked Leon to search anything that smelled or belonged to Hariel and eliminate it, be it blood, cells, hairs, whatever kind of DNA sample must be eliminated.

While Leon was doing that, he looked around the room for cameras, there was one, but it was not working. He rolled his eyes, amused. Amateurs.

He shot it to smithereens and burned it with his Flames, even when using them caused him excruciating pain. He would just have to endure it for the time being and ask Shamal to look at him later. It didn't hurt more than the pacifier when… well.

He was fine.

The door to the cell was heavy, and it was closed, he examined it, not finding anything broken, but Leon was cleaning blood here, burning it with his Flames. How had she gotten out without a key or breaking the lock, he didn't know, but it had not been lock picked or manipulated in any visible way.

Some of the people looked at him with fear in their eyes; the vast majority only had dead eyes, too drugged, or maybe too much time spent in this place or similar ones. There were some small babies and a few kids, and he wasn't so cold-hearted to let them be there, naked and in the cold, until the police arrived in twelve or so hours, he had calculated. So, he sent a strong wave of Sun Flames to warm up the cell, especially the kid brigade's area. It would maintain the room temperature warm for enough time, maybe even more.

Hariel must have been naked there too. Someone had divested his Sky of the clothes and maybe even touched her and then left her there to rot. Reborn was not amused. If he could kill them again, he would.

The door had been blown up, but he didn't detect any residual explosives or chemical agents. Leon was there and burning more of Hariel's blood. Uh. Weird.

Outside in the direction opposite to the bodies, he discovered another room his Sky had not been in. He infiltrated it noiselessly and saw about six of these morons, obviously drunk and sleeping it off in that room with had several mattresses on the floor, loads of empty beer bottles, and filth. He shot them all with his regular gun and left no one alive.

He left, and Leon kept cleaning spots here and there.

They reached a tall beefy man, killed in a very messy way, naked, and suddenly Reborn just knew what clothes Hariel and the minions were wearing.

His wounds were pretty gruesome, and seeing the "weapon" used to eviscerate him lay near the body, forgotten, he imagined precisely how it had been used. Overkill. He had been stabbed and slashed half a hundred times.

This was... she had been angry. Even drugged, she had been mad as hell.

He wondered what the poor sod had done to get himself that kind of death instead of the much more impersonal ones he had seen in his way in. He hadn't examined them yet, but they had seemed cleaner.

He burned the body. There would be no traces.

He entered the smallish room he had passed through before too, and that held some more dead bodies; Reborn had passed them by earlier too, but he had been paying the minimum attention required to ascertain that they were no longer a threat.

Two had been shot to death. The trajectory of the majority of bullets was… well, not good, but two of them were clearly dead by bullet-made wounds, and the other two had their throats slashed with a precise cleanliness that had him arching an eyebrow. There was more of Hariel's blood there. She had at least been shot here once.

He felt vexed. Why couldn't his Sky just have waited to be rescued?
Everything would have been faster and smother, and she would not have gotten hurt.

Feeling annoyed, he cleaned everything and got rid of the bodies killed by his Sky. The others he would let for the police. He was erasing any and all evidence of Hariel having been there.

There were cameras here, and they worked, so he took them out. He would need to find the place where they had their tech room if they had any, and get everything. He would have to check if they had uploaded anything to the cloud and erase everything. Well, except the copy that he would keep for himself.

He continued on his cleaning spree. Now, once again in the room where his Sky was, he felt better and much less irritated. Shamal was still working on her, and Giotto was crouched down observing the procedure and telling him something.

Uhm, the minions were there too. What to do with them? His Sky had… chosen them. Maybe. They were hers, but they were also a liability. Ah, the headache that woman was producing, and she wasn't even awake.

At least his Flames were pushing now the Flames of Night to a small compartment inside his soul, and he didn't feel as terrible as before. He would think later about them. Later. He would have to get a good chunk of time to evaluate and think about everything. It was too much, and now there was no time for such things.

"You two. Names. Now," Reborn commanded the minions. He couldn't clean up the room with civilians here, and apparently, they needed to be alive, so they would have to wait outside.

"We are Ron and Hermione," the blonde said, sarcasm dripping from her voice, and was that a hint of cloud potential?

"You are not. Names now, and stop trying to be funny because you are not," he had listened to Hariel talking with both of her friends, and their voices didn't match at all, plus these two had been clearly here for a long time.

"I am Andrei," the boy said, timid and slightly hunched over. Where was the kid who had threatened him earlier?

"Léna," the female part of the duo said at last, almost out of spite. This one was an angry one.

"We are going to leave this place in about 25 minutes. Wait outside. And... Do. Not. Run." He added the latter because it would be irksome to have to go and get them again. "You are now murderers, so forget going to the police."

He was fibbing, but they didn't need to know that.

They looked at each other, and then Andrei looked at Hariel, worry in his big doe-like gray eyes.

Reborn frowned. Why had Hariel used these people for? They were unharmed. Majorly.

Scrapes, bruises, and maybe some nick, but nothing else, and not to the extent of her injuries. So, why? Why had she needed them? They were useless.

"Why did you let her get so hurt?" he asked, for once, letting his morbid curiosity win.

"She's fucking fast and was running like a madwoman," Léna said with a sour face on her otherwise pretty face.

Or maybe it would have been pretty if she had not been severely underweight and her whole being showing the symptoms of prolonged drug exposure. Long years of drug use. Still, her eyes were sharp and not dulled at all by the time spent held or by whatever that had happened to her.

"She… didn't really wait for us? I mean, she was very nice, but she was also, like, not really there and just…like…." Andrei trailed off, clearly not knowing how to continue. "She just wanted us to be these people, and well, we were," he added.

Reborn nodded. He would have an extensive research party when everything was done.

He waited until they left outside and got rid of the bodies Hariel had touched. It was going to be an interesting police investigation, that was for sure, that's why they were leaving the country as soon as possible.

Fifteen minutes more, and the cars would be here, and they would be on their way to one of his safe-houses.

xxx

Hariel opened her bleary eyes to an unknown man poking at her. She felt a little dizzy, her memories all jumbled up.

Was he a danger? She closed her eyes again, thinking about how to get rid of him. She was weaponless right now, and her magic felt sluggish, but at least it was there.

"Hariel, it's alright. Don't do anything hasty." That voice. She recognized it. Smolder. Yes. Giotto.

She opened her eyes again, and he was here too, near the unknown man, but Giotto was her guardian, and he couldn't cause her harm, or lie to her, so she must be safe. Maybe.

"Who are you?" she croaked at the stranger, who looked momentarily surprised and cheeked her neck for something. That was not acceptable.

"I am Dr. Trident Shamal, lovely. You will be fine in no time at all."

Hariel looked at him dubiously. He had a charming voice, though. It was somewhat calming. Wait. Was he using some kind of compulsion on her? Because that was not going to fly. Giotto had said it was safe, and she had been hurt and drugged. Maybe she still was drugged. She certainly didn't feel all there.

"You are a Doctor?" Hariel asked. He nodded, and she looked at Giotto in question. He also nodded.

Good. She was particularly fond of doctors, muggle ones, not healers.

They had been the very first people to treat her nicely when she had been burned when she was a child. She closed her eyes because she felt nauseous and off-balance. Maybe she should let him try to help her, even if he was a muggle.

Time passed. She wasn't sure how much, but something must have happened when she felt pain, a sudden, stabbing, and intense pain in her scar, dammit to hell, that damned scar. She felt blood trickling down her forehead, but it hurt. It hurt a lot.

She screamed and grabbed the person next to her, the one hurting her, and then suddenly everything was Indigo-colored. She vaguely recalled something like this happening before. Different color, though? Why was her magic doing weird things? The drugs?

The pain disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared, and she was half slumbering again, trying to curl herself into a little ball inside her mind to escape everything that was happening. More time passed. She was sure she was sleeping.

In her dream, everything was dark, except for some lights, all of them surrounded by a darkness that tried to suffocate them. Hariel felt worried for the little lights.

There were three of them, an Orange and Golden one, a Bright Yellow one, and one that she guessed it could fall between Blue and Violet. Ultramarine? Indigo?

It was not Ravenclaw blue, that was for sure.

She tried to reach the lights and push the darkness away. She had felt that darkness before. She just didn't know when. She had felt so much darkness all her life that it was difficult to remember.

The darkness would kill the lights, and the lights were beautiful. She didn't want anything to happen to them. They were hers. They were, right?

But what could she do?

So tried to send her magic their way, make a light so strong that the darkness would have to go. A Patronus perhaps, but she also knew that she was inside her mind, so how could that work?

Didn't matter. Her mind was her domain; Hariel half-remembered Hermione reading out loud from a book about Occlumency, trying to get the theory into Hariel's head. Oh, how she had hated learning Occlumency. But, yes, her mind was hers, and in it, she was Queen. Her will would be done.

She sent the strongest Patronus she could invoke to the light's way, and the inky darkness receded enough to show her that the lights seemed small balls of charming and ever moving colored fires.

She wanted to giggle a little. They resembled Hermione's Bluebell fire. Would they burn Snape, too?

Oh, but now she felt tired and weird. Did she feel hollow? Why did she feel so hollow? The emptiness hurt.

She started to cry ugly tears. But maybe they were on the inside. She didn't know.

The Orange light came near her, and it… embraced her like a big, strong warm hug. It felt like drinking hot chocolate in front of the biggest fireplace in the Gryffindor common room. It felt safe in a way like she hadn't ever felt in her whole life.

She tried to get more of this light, but she didn't want to hurt it; it seemed small and still recovering from being surrounded by the darkness, but it felt resolute, just, fair, and caring.

Hariel wanted to stay near and just let herself be surrounded by it and let it heal the hurts of her soul. Then the other lights came near, too; they felt different. The Yellow one felt strong and proud, protective and possessive, very sure of itself. She poked at it, making fun of how full of itself the Yellow light felt. But she liked it. She wanted to protect it. It was hers. The indigo light was… cautious, she could feel that it was insecure and shy, but it also wanted to protect and to prove itself in an almost desperate way. Hariel hugged the Indigo fire because it seemed to be so very, very, stressed and somewhat sad? Or was it confused? Hariel didn't know how to read lights that well.

That was a Divination kind of thing, and well, she had paid the minimum attention required in that class, so she didn't know if she was reading all the lights correctly. The lights were surrounding her, and it felt right. They wanted to take care of her, but she didn't need to be taken care of. She was the one who took care of people. She tried to convey that to the lights.

Then, the Orange light poked her like it was telling her to stop being silly.

Oh, was she going to let random lights bully her now? Even if they were hers. She poked it back.

It was funny. The Orange lights felt like something alien to her. Home.

xxx

Reborn was going to kill his Sky; he was. He may die or suffer from Flame Discord, but come on.

He had left for ten minutes. Ten minutes. In those ten minutes, Hariel's ridiculously strong and pure flames had decided that yes, Shamal would make a good Mist Guardian, and they had Harmonized, much to Shamal shock. He was nearly unconscious and absolutely Flame Drunk. Reborn hoped he had at least finished healing her.

How did that even happen? Strong Sky Flames only bonded with strong Elements and vice versa. That's why the Arcobaleno had been so unsuccessful with becoming Guardians. They were just too strong, and the Skies couldn't contain them.

He hadn't cared. Well, he had cared a little about it when he was younger and less jaded (if that was possible), but his experiences with Skies had always held and bitter aftertaste.

Luce had left him, not only with that feeling but cursed and in pain. She had condemned them all to die. It didn't matter to him that she was also going to die, and sooner rather than later. That was her prerogative. She had no right.

A Sky betraying the Elements that were courting her in that way… It had made him sick. He had stopped being Renato Sinclair then and there in that new and small body that held terrible promises of a future that wasn't.

Shamal had erased his past because he didn't want to be that person anymore, that stupid person who had gotten in that situation. He had been done with Skies, life, and everything. He had been waiting for his time to come while he distracted himself creating art.

His art was magnificent. He could mold the most ridiculous, wimpy, no-good person into a Vongola Boss much better than the ones before him. Almost like Vongola Primo.

He sighed and kept his Sun Flames on his Sky. He had just left ten minutes, and in that time, she had done something to all of them.

Her Guardians. A Sun, a Mist, and... the ghost of a Sky.

He had been keeping the Flames of Nigh in a corner of his soul. They were corroding at his Flames, but they were controlled. Then, he had felt an intense emotion coming from his Sky. Protection.

Hariel's Sky Flames had inundated the room, and they had been so, so bright they had seemed pure white.

The Flames had been overpowering and had gone after the Flames of the Night, almost disintegrating them. Yes, almost.

He could feel now that some part of his Soul held now Flames of Night. It was a small part, and it was part of him. It didn't hurt. It felt different from the Sun in him, but it did feel his.

When Hariel had started trashing, and Shamal had shouted something about a void left by the Flames of Night and how they needed to push their Flames inside.

They did; of course, they did. It was their silly and impossible Sky.

Ah, he wondered how this was going to pan out.

At least she now seemed stable surrounded by the Flames of her Guardians.

Now they needed to get out and leave the country.

Fast.

xxx

Author Notes:

So well, that's done. It gave me quite a headache, so I hope you didn't get one. But well, I am with a fever right now, so guys if something is wonky and looks weird I will revise it eventually.

Now that this arc has finished in all its colorful glory they have to go, and then Hariel will wake up for good since she was still drugged in this chapter. Just a lot less. Hope you enjoyed even with all the POVs and confussion.