Daniella, the eighth Donna of Vongola, steps into her office with a Storm Guardian at her side and comes to a halt. The Storm immediately lunges in front of her, ushering Daniella back. "What business do you have with us!?"
Reborn sits on the couch, legs crossed at the knee and hat tipped low to shade his eyes. "I've heard you can seal flames."
Daniella puts a restraining hand on her Guardian's shoulder. "I can."
"Can you seal one type of flame from a person?"
"I've never tried before."
"I'll find you someone to practice on."
Daniella pauses and deliberates carefully before she speaks. "You want to seal your Sky flames?"
Reborn uncrosses his legs and stands from the couch, smoothing down his suit jacket. "Thank you for your time, Donna Vongola." He nods to her, and the Storm, then walks past them and strolls down the hallway.
Daniella leaves the room as her Storm Guardian searches the place for recording devices or bombs. In the meanwhile, she stays in her Lightning Guardian's office and waits for the confirmation that the hitman is gone.
He walked right out through the front doors.
Daniella calls a number on the landline and it picks up on the first ring. "Did you do it? Did you get him disqualified?"
"No, of course not," Luce says urgently, sorrow in her voice. "I'm only watching, making sure the predictions are true."
"Well he just left," Daniella says, leaning back in the chair. "He wanted it sealed, like you said."
"That's good," Luce sighs. "I'm sorry. Thank you for doing this."
Daniella huffs out a laugh. "Oh, I'm not doing this for you. I'm stuck with this job too, remember?" She tsks. "He just to be a Sky, didn't he?"
"He'll be upset for a while but things will come together in the end," Luce admits. "Or - I don't know. It should. It gets hard to see sometimes."
Daniella sneers. "I've always hated you Giglio Nero. Looking so far ahead, you can't even see what's in front of you."
"Sometimes you have to put up with things that you hate," Luce muses. She sounds tired.
Daniella spins the Vongola ring around her finger. "Don't involve me in your mess anymore. I'm doing my part with the Tri-ni-set piece I got stuck with, I'm not dealing with your shit too."
"Would it make you upset if I said we're all a part of this together?" Luce wonders. "You always get upset hearing the truth."
The most satisfying part of the conversation is when Daniella slams the phone back into the cradle when she hangs up. "Bitch."
The others can't find Reborn. He's not saying anything when they call and ask how he's doing - he just says he needs some time, he's doing a hit, he needs to concentrate.
A month goes by with little to no contact and they worry. They heard -or Viper told them- about what happened at the hitman ranking. Pretty much everyone knows about it by now.
The (new) committee is still deliberating. Some of the powerhouse famiglias are getting involved because of course they are, they don't know when to shut up.
Half are against Reborn taking the title because either they've been targeted by Reborn before in a hit or they have their own designs on a baby Sky. The other half think it should go to Reborn because either they want to get on his good side or they want to piss off other people who disagree.
The fact of the matter is; Reborn is a hitman. He defeated the 'number one' in combat. He killed her, and the World's Greatest is the best killer, so the title should go to Reborn.
How unfortunate, that no one cares about facts.
Skull paces in one of the green rooms of the stadium, leather gear unzipped, the top half hanging down with the sleeves wrapped around his waist.
He wipes away sweat with the towel in his hands and drops it onto the floor. He stops by the table with the huge mirror and digs through the scattered bags of makeup and small boxes of piercings that he brought with him.
He comes out of the mess with a phone clutched in one hand and dials Reborn. It rings and starts to go to voicemail, not that Skull was expecting any different with how Reborn has been acting lately. Skull hangs up and tries again anyway. Voicemail.
"Hey," Skull says after the beep. "Um, shit, I'm awful at leaving messages. Uh, so, the show is tomorrow, and some things are a little...not to plan."
Skull smiles into the mirror, a wide grin that he hopes comes through his voice. "They don't have the time to move things around the way I like it without messing with the other guys, and I don't have enough time to practice. Like I will practice but this routine is kinda new, and they got like a whole ass biker gang here so there's not really much time-"
BEEEP
He hits the message limit so Skull calls again and it goes to voicemail again. He turns away from the mirror but keeps his smile and the cheerful tone.
"Anyway, I just wanted to say, I'll meet you on Thursday for the dinner with everyone for Lal's birthday, yeah? Because I wouldn't do this if I wasn't a hundred percent confident. You know that, right? Because I'd fuck myself up any day, but I wouldn't do that to you, yeah? Yeah."
Skull hangs up, curses himself for being a fucking coward and calls again.
"Because I was thinking," Skull chokes out. He coughs. "About what you said, like a while back, about what happens if one of us gets...hurt. Not that I will, but if I do stack it -like bad- it'll take some time but I'll shake it off. I'll be there, on Thursday. I'll be there. You just have to wait."
