He's still moving slowly a few weeks later when it comes time to go back to the rest of the Arcobaleno. Fon's wounds have closed and the stitches have been removed, but it hurts. Again, it's worth it. Mei is free. The only people he has to watch over are Sifu's family.

The Arcobaleno can tell something is wrong – they're the best after all – but they haven't asked yet. It's not exactly the first time one of them has come back injured. He's fairly certain Lal has at least guessed the reason he's hurt; but she hasn't mentioned it and Fon is grateful.

Skull badgers him into helping the stuntman review the basics he's learned over the years. It's a very transparent attempt to keep him from his usual, rigorous morning katas. It's adorable and the Cloud seems worried enough that Fon allows himself to be distracted. The slow review of stances is accompanied by quiet chatting about Skull's latest performance. Fon is always amazed by what the young man can do on a motorcycle. Partially because he can't ride one; he's never learned how to drive either. In his last life his sister drove him around (for convenience and as an excuse to get her out of the house) or he could bike everywhere he needed to go. Then he was in the hospital and it just wasn't a priority. In this life, he was intentionally kept from learning by the Triad. They like to control him however they can, and limiting his methods of transportation is one way they do so.

Fon makes the mistake of admitting he doesn't know how to drive to the young Cloud. He doesn't say why he doesn't know, just that he never learned. Skull takes it very personally and whisks him away to the garage. Before he really knows it, he's behind the wheel of… some car? Skull had spit out a series of words and numbers that Fon's brain ignored. Driving is weird. Fon is used to knowing exactly where all of his limbs are at all times. This is like wrapping him in a bubble and having to account for where all the excess space is. He also can't get a good sense of where things are around him; the mirrors are weird and have blind spots and every time he twists around (which isn't much because it hurts) to look behind him, the car swerves.

It's a really good thing his reflexes are superhuman. It's also tricky to avoid leaning back against the seat. The pedals are weird too but Fon figures those out pretty fast. All the levers and stuff he generally leaves alone.

They go back to the mansion for lunch, and Fon immediately is dragged back out driving. Colonello joins them this time. Mostly because Lal threatened to shoot him if he didn't stop bugging her. Fon's certain that Lal would never kill Colonello, but he knows for a fact she has nothing against shooting him non-fatally to prove a point.

They've only been going for an hour or two and Fon figures he's doing okay. After all, Skull had directed him to a more heavily-trafficked area. He probably should have guessed that a stuntman and a career soldier weren't the best judges of these things, because he's seeing police lights behind him. The martial artist asks if they should slow down, already knowing the answer is no. Colonello has a rifle, at least two handguns, and a strap-thing of grenades on him; and that's just the stuff Fon can see in the rearview mirror. Skull is in full leather, but has left his helmet at the mansion, so the makeup and piercings are clearly visible. Fon himself, well – beyond being the most obviously foreign, wouldn't be able to stop himself from breaking limbs if they tried to rough him up. All in all, they may be eclectic for a group of punks, but there is no way the cops are going to let them go. Not even in the heart of mafia-controlled territory. And pulling the 'Strongest Seven' card is only going to get them challenged.

So Fon does the switching-gears thing and speeds up. The car weaves through traffic and back alleys at high speeds for a while, and pick up another two police cars in their little caravan.

(Seriously. Why is this his life? Why not Ouran High School Host Club? He seriously wants a vacation.)

He follows Skulls directions, and almost seems to be losing them for a little while. But the police know this area well, and Fon is very new at this for all his reflexes make it possible to avoid crashing. After no less than four scrapes against nearby cars, five near-misses involving pedestrians, and a moment of panic when he wound up on the wrong side of the road; Fon gives up and tells Skull to climb over him and take the wheel.

It's awkward maneuvering, but Skull ends up in the driver's seat while Fon curls in on himself on the passenger's side. He'd had to bend pretty strangely, which normally wouldn't even register, except the car had swerved and Fon knocked his back against something. He doesn't think he's torn anything open, but it certainly feels awful. Skull's driving isn't helping but they haven't exactly got many options.

He doesn't complain, just uses his arms to brace himself between the door and the seat. It leaves him with a good view of Colonello rolling down his window so he can lean out and shoot their pursuers' tires. The man really does have great aim. Fon wonders if it's natural or something Lal drilled into his head. That's another thing he's never done before – fire a gun. Hell, he's never even held one outside of combat situations in which he literally broke them out of people's hands. Or Disentigrated them in people's hands. That's always funny.

Given how the adventure in driver's ed has turned out, Fon isn't going to mention marksmanship.

Skull gets them away from the cops and on the way back to Luce's property. It seems to take a while, but Fon can't tell if that's because he's in pain or because they really wound up that far away. Skull tells him that they're not too far away; he's just being cautious and taking a more round-about route. It makes sense. Especially given their current duties.

They aren't running missions as the 'Strongest Seven' right now. Luce is very pregnant and they have taken to playing extra security for her. Renato had been in something of a mood since she started showing. Fon can't remember if they have a thing or not. If they do, they've kept it discreet enough that Fon didn't pick up on it. He supposes he could pay Viper for the information, but it honestly doesn't make a difference to him.

It has led him to a realization though. Luce is carrying a child. An innocent child, Luce won't live to see grow up. A child who will be cursed to an equally short life, who will know with absolute certainty that she will never live outside the curse.

The child doesn't deserve this. None of them deserve this. Luce is taking that choice from her daughter, and from them. In a way, so is Fon. He knows there is light at the end of it all; that Renato's future student will save them. But the others have no way of knowing any of it, and so he asks Colonello and Skull a question.

"If you knew something bad was going to happen to you, but it was for a good reason, would you let it happen?" He tries to maintain his usual serenity, but something must have slipped.

"Fon is this about…" Colonello makes a vague gesture. It takes Fon a minute, but he realizes they think he's talking about his injuries.

"No, no, it's just a question," he protests, maybe a bit too quickly, "but if something horrible was going to happen, and you could stop it by allowing something less horrible to happen to you, would you want warning ahead of time?"

It's clear neither of them believe he's speaking in hypotheticals, but Fon is okay with letting them believe it's related to his injuries and not something else.

"Fon," Colonello says more softly than most would believe him capable, "is your sister alright, kora?"

There's something reassuring in that verbal-tic, and the way Fon can see Skull's grip on the steering wheel tightening.

"She's alright and she actually isn't the reason I'm asking." He smiles, managing serenity this time. "I'm just curious."

"Well, I'd like to know the reason," Skull announces, with all the bravado of someone ignoring the elephant in the room, "and maybe get a little heads up."

Colonello stares at Fon for a moment before giving up and answering.

"I guessed I'd prefer a warning, but I'm a soldier, kora. I don't need to know what the reasons are, just that there are good ones."

"Alright, thank you. I'll keep that in mind."

Asking the others is similar, but he manages to raise less alarms. He waits for an opportunity to be alone with each of them then plays up the zen-monk-warrior aesthetic. Seriously, Fon doesn't know where they got the idea that he knows anything about religion – let alone Buddhist monk philosophy. (In his last life, his family were Christmas-and-Easter lapsed Catholics. In this life, the Wo Hop To taught Buddhist beliefs the way he assumed the mafia taught Catholicism: twisted to justify their actions.) It's probably because he meditates and drinks tea.

By phrasing the question as a meditative exercise, Fon gets answers without getting much more than a raised eyebrow. Well, he had to bribe Viper with lunch and Verde needed some convincing that there was an actual point. And he didn't ask Luce, because it's one thing for her to suspect he knows; it's a whole other thing for her to know he knows. But the rest of the Strongest Seven eventually humored him, given they had nothing better to do. (If they hadn't been bored out of their minds waiting for Luce to give birth, they probably would have asked more questions.)

Lal was pretty much the same as Colonello, not that Fon expected any different. Viper was always in favor of knowledge, especially if it was relevant to their future condition. Verde said 'knowledge of an experiments outcome would invalidate the results,' but agreed that the 'hypotheses of other individuals could be relevant' (Fon was going to take that as a yes, he would like to know, but he wasn't necessarily going to believe it). Renato had actually gotten really into it. Fon forgets sometimes that Reborn's character was actually a huge nerd who likes to be an expert at everything. The resulting debate ended with the conclusion that Renato was as skeptical as Verde, but more appreciative of advanced warnings.

So now all Fon has left to do is find a way to warn them, without actually telling them what's going to happen and completely throwing off the future.

(Seriously, why him?)