Reborn sets up a treasure hunt for money and that distracts Viper long enough for Reborn to finish his hit and fly back to Italy. The plane is halfway to Rome, and Reborn is feeding little bits of sandwich to Leon hidden in his breast pocket, when Reborn looks up as a pilot turns on the speakers and does the whole 'hail Hydra' thing.
The plane takes a nosedive.
"Mother fucking cultists-!" Reborn wrenches off his belt as the entire plane is jostled around by the fall, luggage falling up as the gravity calls it quits.
Reborn elbows his fellow business class passenger when the man tries to grab Reborn by the throat and Reborn kicks off, spinning up and back slamming into the ceiling so he can yank open the overhead luggage. Some cultists drag themselves in from economy class (having taken the time to pull on robes apparently) and Reborn unholsters his gun.
Normally he wouldn't recommend firearms in a pressurised vehicle but he doesn't miss. The other passengers are screaming even louder now as the bodies go flying back through to economy (but the blood goes everywhere, wow, remind Reborn to never use a gun in pseudo-zero gravity again).
Reborn pulls out the book and in his final moment he's going to fucking set it on fire, this little masochistic bitch-
Blood splatters on the book and across the ceiling as Reborn calls upon fire and rage.
Reborn wakes up being…carried? Princess style? He's very confused, this is not a position he's (ever) been in. The smell of burning is in the background and the sound of strong wind.
Reborn opens his eyes, his head pressed against someone's shoulder, the person wearing flowy red and in Reborn's blurry vision it looks like Storm flames before it settles into a traditional Chinese top with wide sleeves and slits up the side of the almost floor length material, showing peeks of loose white pants.
Reborn's fedora has gone somewhere but Leon sits on his chest, radiating Reborn's own Sun flames which is fantastic because Reborn is pretty sure he has a concussion. Surprisingly, he doesn't have more injuries, considering the half a plane they're walking away from is closer to scrap metal than an aircraft.
Reborn is also holding the book to his stomach with a death grip that is not his own and once he can think straight, he will be slowly ripping pages out of the dumb book and then feeding the thing its own shredded insides – how's that for an offering?
Reborn blinks and takes a deep breath, golden light shimmering under his skin and then he shakes himself out as best as he can while being carried. He sits up better, slinging an arm around the shoulders of the man carrying him who – damn, that's a pretty face and Reborn wants to ruin it.
"I'm Reborn," he purrs, leaning in with a smirk. "Are you carrying me off to your bed or are we just going to find a patch of grass that isn't on fire?"
"I was warned about you," the man muses, peering down at Reborn with silver eyes, his long braid of black hair swinging behind him as he walks. "I'm Fon, and like the others, I do not have human-enough anatomy for copulation."
"All you need is a hole, right?" Reborn chuckles, dark eyes narrowing. "Give me a knife and two minutes, I'll be having fun."
Fon purses his lips but also seems to be smiling. "Rest for now. You may not be physically injured any more but I took many souls from you and your metaphysical self is drained."
"That's not a no."
Fon winks and Reborn giggles.
"So to be clear, I'm just going to keep accidentally summoning because I have too many souls?" Reborn asks, sitting on Fon's lap because he's claiming his territory.
The others all nod.
"Okay, so you're all in on this joke," Reborn confirms.
There's a collective groan as all the people surrounding Reborn's living room are once again firmly rebuffed by Reborn's absolute certainty that they're just idiots.
"Okay, let's try it this way," Colonnello offers. "You being in denial about us, is like civilians being in denial about flames. Just because you didn't know about it before, doesn't mean it's not real."
Reborn rolls his eyes. "Just because you can do more things with your flames doesn't mean you're any more special than the rest of the mafia."
"What is so hard to believe?" Verde demands. "Where is the point that you just won't even consider it?"
"I'm atheist," Reborn deadpans.
"Oh fuck off!" Viper complains. "Do a summoning, right now. We'll show you."
"Oh, you want to see?" Reborn sneers, lurching off Fon and grabbing the Mist flame book off the low coffee table. He opens it to a random page and spits into it then slams it shut again. "I want to be able to strangle this book and watch the light leave its eyes – take all my souls, I don't care, I'll just get more!"
Lal kicks up the coffee table to hide behind, dragging Colonnello with her, Viper vanishes, Fon vaults over the back of the couch and Verde dives to the side and slides straight out of the room.
The book melts through his fingers and Reborn suddenly wheezes, the breath forced out of him as he staggers, knees going weak and he crumples to the floor as the room spins around him.
The walls unfold and unfold again, again, again until the world around them is quiet, muffled, smothered and the fog rolls in. Dark shapes and creeping lights in the distance, just barely seen through it all. Shadows of a behemoth in the distance, the very presence of it pressing down on the Earth.
The sunlight becomes a sickly yellow, radiating from a planet looming too close overhead. There's screaming, somewhere, inside the house. It peels apart, the ground turning to pinkish red of vascularised flesh, and it twitches, writhes.
Reborn tries to get up but his body is not his own, it's warped, and his chest is-is moving, it's-
A blink and the house is back, as are the faint noises from the street outside. Reborn swallows thickly, panting. He pushes himself up on shaky arms and looks around. The others peek back out as well, eyes wide.
"That was an Outer God," Fon says quietly. "That was…not one of us."
A knock at the door.
"If that's another fucking cultist I'm about to start a culling – or what do they call it, a crusade?" Reborn swears, staggering up with more difficulty than he'd like to admit even with his Sun flames helping. "Viper, you better fucking run after trying that Mist flame shit on me."
"Wait!" Verde cries. "Reborn, wait, you just summoned an Outer God!"
Reborn wrenches open the door, hand behind him holding a gun.
There's a man standing outside on the step, shorter than Reborn, decked out in motorbike leathers in blazing purple and a black so dark it absorbs the light, like the colours of the Mist flame book. He has a helmet tucked under one arm, tentacles curling out from under the closed visor with the same striations of the image on the front cover.
The man stares up at Reborn with wide eyes as bright purple as his messy hair as the lipstick smudged on his lips, dark eye liner making his eyes look deeper, and more piercings than Reborn can count at first glance with a chain dragging from his ear to his lip. A little tear drop tattoo sits under one eye.
"I'm sorry, are you lost? The clown car already left but I can call you an Uber," Reborn drawls but keeps a hold of his gun because Clouds can be hard to deal with.
"Hi!" the man chirps excitedly. "Um, I'm Skull." He looks around, suddenly a bit shy. "Ni-nice to finally meet you, Reborn."
"I don't do autographs," Reborn says but doesn't slam the door in this guys' face. Something about him…makes Reborn want to step on him.
"Okay," Skull says, breathing a little bit heavy, eyelashes fluttering. "I'm cool with you writing on me though, that's – that was nice. Um, I'm here for the, uh…whatever you want, really."
Reborn tilts his head. "Oh?"
Skull bites his bottom lip, teeth catching on the metal chain. "Spit in my mouth while you choke me, daddy."
"Come right in," Reborn says immediately, stepping back and holding the door open.
Lal is not the only one to face palm, all of them collectively and absolutely done with this human.
.
A/N: Yes, the entire fic is a joke about Reborn defeating masochistic Eldritch Gods with the power of his horny.
I just thought Necronomicon!Skull would be really into it.
