Clear to cloudy
Target 45: Fourth heir to the red rose
the bubble reappears and Gerald's sword extends. His opponent Barley just smirks leaning his head back slightly in a confident and condescending manner in order to ensure he's looking down at the man.
"Let the match… BEGIN!" The Cervello declare and Gerald instantly goes on the attack rushing forward.
"W-wait! Gerald! He-" Tsugemora starts before being silenced by Geraldino.
"Your old man doesn't need you to help him… but you're right… from what a saw with that redhead over there…" He says nudging towards Jute. "He might want to prepare for a storm flame to the face…"
Jute lifts an eyebrow. "A storm-flame you say…?"
"Aren't your hair colors connected to your flame type? That's usually how it goes…"
"Just watch…" He simply says as Gerald comes in for the attack and Barley's hair flames up in a hazy indigo flame, correlating with the mist flame Kotsu saw from Murphy. Gerald swings his sword at him but Barley simply leans back still with his hands in his pockets using his hair to support himself as it's impossible to lean back that far. However with his superhuman reaction Gerald switches the direction stabbing down at him. The young man, still with his hands in pockets rolls backwards making the slice go right between his legs setting off the ground with his hair, however the second he lands Gerald is right up in his face. Barley just keeps dodging with relative ease.
"That blade is interesting… it has no weight, so it's easy to swing without worrying about air resistance…" He says before coming with a surprise kick from the side which Gerald quickly blocks with his free hand, giving Barley a setoff for a jump getting into the air. Gerald holds up the sword where Barley will land and the boy just smirks. "Do you really think an attempt like that will get you anywhere?" He says stopping himself with his hair however suddenly Gerald swings a second blade from behind his bac, right at Barley's hair, taking Barley by surprise, quickly moving his hair out of the way however Gerald gets a good chunk of it cut off. Barley creates some distance.
"You… you bastard! A rosa rossa family's hair is as important as his life!" He yells realizing that if Gerald had gotten the whole attack through he would've sliced off about 50% of Barley's hair.
"So long as you live when I'm done with you… I'm the winner. Your hair is none of my concern,"
Barley starts laughing a bit. "Oh you've done it now… you've REALLY done it now… I'm going to destroy you…" he says as all his hair starts moving out taking the shape of a creature much like Jute's did. His is a giant moth. On the wings the lizard eyes appear. "You're in MY domain now!" He yells as he starts floating. He enters the moth of hair disappearing in it and it starts floating around the arena with Gerald able to do nothing against an enemy that can fly.
"You must come down eventually," He says preparing with both of his swords. The moth starts giving off little sparkling spores. Gerald holds his hand over his mouth in order to avoid breathing any of them in. He leaps back as suddenly Barley comes crashing down into the ground. The moth disappears now only being the wings and he tosses the hair that made up the body towards Gerald. Gerald jumps back, swiftly dodging and swings his blade slicing at the hair cutting it up. "I thought you cared about your hair more than your life!" He mocks and Barley just smirks suddenly evaporating into tons of little moths.
"I do… but I care about destroying YOU more," He states from right behind Gerald and Gerald slices back hitting someone and as he looks he sees Tsugemora now with the blade stuck halfway into the side of his body.
"D-dad…?" The young boy says looking quite surprised and Gerald grits his teeth.
"This illusion won't fool me Barley Rossa…" He says looking towards where Tsugemora is standing however he's completely gone and Kotsu even looks to see where he went suddenly. "W-what? How!? This is impossible!" He looks towards the Cervello who have somehow passed out so they can't even stop the match. "My boy!" He yells pulling the blade away.
"W-why'd you do that dad…?"
"I… I thought it was Barley…" He says looking down to avoid seeing Tsugemora's face as he begins coughing up blood.
Barley suddenly grabs Gerald's hair forcing his gaze up. "What a great father you turned out to be… on opposite teams… not able to help him become strong and look what happened now… you crossed a Rossa rosa family member… and now got your own son hurt beyond repair…" He says disappearing again as multiple more Tsugemora's appear around him all laying dead. "So how does it feel? Hurting the ONE person you swore to protect above the boss!" He yells as everything catches fire. Laughter from Barley starts filling his head coming from all around, giant heads appearing everywhere laughing at him.
"Stop it… stop it! STOP IIIIIT!" He yells and starts swinging his sword around furiously at the heads. Barley appears in front of him.
"It'll never stop… you've done something unforgivable and paid the price… eternal torment…" He says smirking that devilish smirk and starts laughing again. Gerald screams and stabs him right through the head, but he doesn't even seem fazed. "Does stabbing me make it go away…? Does it!?" He yells grabbing Gerald's hair and keeps stabbing himself with it all over all the wounds repairing themselves.
"n-no…" He starts before falling to his knees grabbing his head shaking.
Barley is standing in the bubble everyone confused as to what's happening as Gerald is just standing there looking at the eyes of Barley's moth wings, tears flowing down his cheeks. He has a few strands of Barley's hair wrapped around his head going into his ears.
"W-what're you doing to dad!?" Tsugemora yells from the sideline.
"I think that's plenty…" Barley says before pulling his hair back and his hair sets itself back to normal.
Gerald has a sharp breathing spike and falls to his knees grabbing his head. "I-It went away… W-what… happened…?" He says shaking out of fear of remembering what he just saw.
"Simple… when I shot my hair at you I'd made some of it invisible… that was easy… it caught you and you got trapped in my illusion," With that Gerald falls forward passing out from too much mental bombardment. "That's what you get for cutting my hair…"
the bubble disappears and Tsugemora runs to check on his father. "Father!? FATHER!? Are you alright!? FATHER!?" He yells and Gerald slowly comes to again seeing Tsugemora's worried face.
"T-Tsugemora… you're alive…? That's wonderful… I… I saw you die…"
Tsugemora gulps a little. "B-but I'm not dead! I'm alive… i-it was just a trick!"
"I know that now… but I still killed you in that trick…" He says and before Tsugemora can answer he feels Ywan looming over him.
"G-Go away! He's in shock!" Tsugemora yells getting up to protect his father even from the brooding deadly man.
"I am aware… However he's in my care… he will be fine. Pietro is a master of helping people get over traumatic illusions," He says and Tsugemora slowly steps aside. Ywan picks him up and starts walking towards Pietro, stopping halfway looking back. "As my enemy I would kill you where you stand for being in my way… but currently you're this man's child… as that… I can assure you he will be alright," he says and Tsugemora slowly bows his head.
"T-thank you…" He just says before going back to Kotsu who's looking after Barley who doesn't seem to be reprimanded by Zaccaria at all.
"Good work Barley…" He simply says and Kotsu grits his teeth.
"How can you say that!? He nearly broke his mind!"
"He won… that's all that matters…" he just says before spinning on his heel and everyone on the team get out of his way feeling quite a lot of anger. "Now… we're done here…" He says walking away. The Cervello hold up their hands.
"The score is currently: Kotsukiba: two wins. Ywan: one win. Zaccaria: three wins. Tomorrows battles will be decided at random as there's no need to draw the remaining guardians!" They declare before leaving along with Ywan's group.
Tsugemora looks a little sad. "I-is father going to be alright…?" Kotsu and Ren put a hand on his shoulder.
"I'm sure he'll be fine…" Ren says and Primo nods in agreement.
"He may be cruel, but he truly does care for the family… now… let's get home as well," He says and begins walking away. Kotsu looks after Zaccaria's group also having sensed an intense amount of anger coming from Zaccaria.
-NII-
Outside Zaccaria stops walking right outside of the mall. "Kagetora…? Are they gone?" He says and Kagetora quickly leaps up the building seeing that Kotsu's group and Ywan's group are far away.
"Affirmative…" He says and everyone makes some distance except Barley who has no clue what's going on.
"um… guys… what's this?" He says chuckling a bit nervously suddenly getting slammed into the ground with Zaccaria standing over him with the two large katars on his hands. "Hey! What's the big idea!?" He yells and tries getting up when Zaccaria stomps on his chest to keep him down.
"I told you to WIN without going overboard! You showed him killing his own son!" He yells angrily, very different from his earlier statement.
Barley grits his teeth and his hair flares up. "Careful Zaccaria… I'll break you too… a child like you should be easy to take care of!" He yells right back forcing himself to his feet and away from Zaccaria using his hair.
"You will most certainly not… If you try something like that you'll be a goner before you get the chance… mark my words Barley… I do NOT approve of you," He says walking away. Barley just tsks and laughs a little.
"That bastard deserved it! Cutting up my hair like it's no big deal! I should've kept it up until he broke for real!" He yells when Zaccaria stops. Everyone on his crew gulps and gets more distance even though they're already really far away. Zaccaria takes out a ring which has quite a special appearance. It's five small orange spheres connected in the middle where the ring itself is.
"'That bastard'… is Gerald Gagliardi… one of the greatest men we have in the Vongola family… strong and kind… a combination sorely needed… he merely wished to win for the sake of the family… Barley… you may be on my team… but you can't go around saying and doing whatever you like just because we're the bad guys… your actions have consequences…"
"Yeah! A mild scolding from a kid!? Some consequence…" He says when Zaccaria looks back with those piercing orange eyes.
"Oh no no no… your consequence is just getting started…" He says slowly turning around looking quite angry and eerily scary.