Merry Christmas!
Here is another oneshot that might turn into a twoshot.
Summary: Her eighth life starts in captivity. (Or: In which an old soul gets reincarnated into a world ruled by rainbow-colored flames and ends up becoming the Sky of the World's Greatest Hitman.) [SI, Self-Insert/OC-Insert]
Enjoy.
Heartless
samsara (n.) a sequence of change, impermanence, the cycle of rebirth-redeath that afflicts every living being until release.
I.
Her eight life started in captivity.
It was the first time she was reborn in such a situation, though she had been through worse in the past. While the dark walls trapping her were rather stifling, they still offered protection against all the natural disasters that might occur outdoors.
After her last death, that was actually a blessing.
She would not have fancied dying due to a hurricane once again.
II.
Three stone walls. Steel bars. A freezing floor.
She was laying on an old mattress, a thin tattered blanket wrapped around her bony body. It was cold, incredibly so. White puffs of air were visible each time she exhaled a breath.
Her newest incarnation was three years old. They always were when the memories returned.
Sighing, the girl closed her eyes. Sleep did not manage to elude her for too long.
III.
Once upon a time, she might have cared about her current situation.
That time had long since passed.
Eight lifetimes of hardships, despair and loss had secured her a rather pragmatic outlook and desensitize her to the world around her. It was hard to feel anything when she knew that at the end it would not matter.
At the end, the girl would die and get reborn again. What did a few years in captivity matter, when she had already tasted freedom more than once. When in a few years this new body of hers would expire and she would just receive a new one.
There was no reason for her to care about something as fleeting as one life.
IV.
The scientists came during her third day in this new life.
She was sleeping when they arrived and it was the rattling of their keys that awakened her from a deep slumber. Cautiously, she opened her eyes and squinted at them, looking up at the balding man above her.
There was no warning, just a harsh hand reaching out for her body and carelessly picking it up. Leonzio, as she would later find out was his name, dragged her out of the prison cell and down a long empty corridor.
That night her screams echoed through the whole building.
V.
She had been an African boy named Nuru in her previous life.
VI.
The Estraneo Famiglia consisted of some of cruelest souls she had seen in the last few decades.
They possessed no morals or empathy, only a scientific curiosity that made them incredible at their profession. Although she did not like them, the girl could admit that the two leading scientists, Alfieri and Leonzio, were great.
And to be truly great in this field, she knew just as well as they did, one had to be a monster.
VII.
What they were doing to her would be a mystery for a very long time.
Even on the day she burst into flames nothing became clearer. The name they gave her did not help all that much either.
Tertia.
She was the third one.
The third what exactly?
VIII.
Tertia quickly found out that the orange flames dancing across her body were called Sky Flames.
They did not burn her, but neither did they do something as useful as healing the dark bruises on her skin or the wounds left by all the needles that had been injected into her body. Their only good attribute was their color.
It complemented her auburn hair.
IX.
Once she found enough motivation, Tertia started to explore her new home.
Some might have claimed that there wasn't much to see, however, she had already gotten used to meager accommodations in her poorer lives. As such, the girl started memorizing all the specialties in her new 'home'. From the cracks in the floor to the small inscriptions on the walls.
There had been others before her in that cell.
Names, hand prints or just simple manmade lines decorated the walls and gave the barren room a personal touch.
After a while, Tertia added her own scorched imprint.
X.
She was four when they started introducing her to other children.
Those meetings, Tertia thought, were actually worse than any other experiments she was forced to partake in. The children, although a small part of her pitied them, were impossible to stand. All of them seemed to want something from her, their colorful flames reaching out to her and leaving small scars on her soul.
While Tertia seemed to call out to them, none of the other prisoners managed to catch her attention in return. Over and over she had to rejected their ill-fated advances and each time something inside of her hurt.
(...A Sky should never be forced to bond with an Element...)
It was a horrible cycle that never stopped. The scientists always brought new children into her cell. Children who practically threw themselves onto her.
At the beginning she hated them for their behavior, but that changed when she found out about the consequences of her rejection.
Where the forceful attempts caused her pain, they also completely destroyed those she did not accept.
XI.
A year passed and her weariness only grew with each passing day. Most times Tertia could not bring herself to even stand up from her cot and she had long since given up on fighting the scientists during her treatments.
She did not even push the foreign children away anymore and allowed her Flames to do it in her stead.
Anger wasn't an uncommon reaction to her rejection, the scratches on her arms showed just that. Perhaps she would have once fought against the aggressive outburst of those small boys and girls, but she did not have enough will left to fight them anymore.
Neither did she believe that those injuries were truly undeserved.
XII.
Giving up was not an option.
Tertia had already killed herself twice and she knew that it never did end well.
XIII.
Her interactions with the other prisoners were always the same until one day they weren't.
Until one day a young dark haired boy with haunted eyes was led into her prison, his indigo Flames reaching out to her. It took less than a second for them to twine themselves with her orange ones.
One moment there was only Tertia and then he was suddenly there as well. A fundamental part of her soul that made her feel more content than she had in a long time.
She had never seen the scientists as gleeful before.
XIV.
Rokudo Mukuro.
XV.
The boy was relocated into the cell next to her own and once they were finally alone, he introduced himself as Rokudo Mukuro.
Right after his introduction, Tertia spent a moment wondering what a Japanese boy was doing as an experiment in Italy. Then she thought about the fact that they had been trapped in this dungeon by the Mafia of all things, so the whole thing did not seem as improbable anymore.
Reaching out through a gap between the prison bars, the girl offered the other child her hand. She was hesitant at first, but her instincts were urging her to trust this boy and if there was one thing she had been forced to learn in all of her lives, it was to trust her instincts.
When she did not immediately receive a responding touch, the redhead lowered her hand with her palm pointing upwards and uttered her first words in this new life, ''I'm Tertia.''
A few minutes of silence passed before a small hand took a hold of her own.
XVI.
Mukuro was a year younger than her and did not speak any other language than Italian.
That would not have been too much of a problem if Tertia had even the slightest mastery of the language. She did not, obviously.
Tertia knew Spanish and French, though, which helped her learn Italian and was something she could teach the small boy. The scientists did not care about something like their knowledge, thus they did nothing to stop them.
Knowledge was power and power was something they both would have in spades.
XVII.
The experiments continued.
XVIII.
More often than not, they were dragged together into the labs. The scientists liked observing their reactions to the other being tortured.
While Mukuro's Flames raged outwardly, Tertia herself seethed internally and prepared herself for the day she would slaughter them all.
XIX.
During her unusually long life, Tertia had changed a lot. The first time she had died, she had been only fourteen years old. Russia wasn't the nicest of places during the 20th century, especially for a newly orphaned infant. Her second life had only been slightly longer than her first one and taught her to rely on no one but herself.
It was also during that life that she saw the darker aspects of humanity for the first time.
(...after that life, she did not dare to go back to Russia for more than two lifetimes...)
For sixteen years the girl—back then she had called herself Natalya—had lived on the streets of Moscow as a thief. She had stolen things from the rich and poor and done everything to survive, until one day she tried to rob the wrong person and ended up dead in an alley once again.
The next time she got reincarnated, it was as a boy.
XX.
Children were continually brought into her cell. Their presence and Flames hurt her so much that she was forced to learn how to hide her own fire.
The first time she managed to successfully pull them into herself so that nothing seemed to be left of them, Mukuro killed the two boys who had been thrown into her prison and the scientist that was standing outside their cells.
His illusions were as great as they were horrifying. Disfigured monsters crawled along the walls and dug their sharp claws into their visitors' skin. Blood was splattered along the ground and innards glued to the stone that trapped them.
Tertia would never forget the sounds of Mukuro's mournful and more than slightly mad shrieks.
XXI.
One day, instead of a child, an adult returned into Mukuro's cell. His eyes older than they had any right to be and shoulders weighted down by a heavy burden.
A bright crimson colored his iris. The cycle of Samsara was reflected by his pupil.
For the first time in years, Tertia pitied another being.
She would not have wished her fate even upon her worst enemy.
XXII.
''Have you ever been a girl?'' Asked Tertia after an especially long session in the labs.
Mukuro played softly with her fingers and hummed. ''Twice, I think.''
XXIII.
There wasn't much to do inside their cells.
Talking was one of their only options and so that was exactly what they did. Mukuro told her about some of his lives and taught her one or two languages she had not known from before.
Tertia did the same.
XXIV.
All her lives, whether they were long or short, had steeled Tertia's heart and numbed her to cruelty of the world. They had taught her how to survive in the harshest of environments and the true value of a life.
During seven lifetimes the girl had become apathetic towards humanity. She had stopped caring about the well being of the people surrounding her and about what most considered to be morally right or wrong.
If killing a few scientists would set her free, then she would not mind doing just that.
XXV.
Mukuro came back into the dungeons by himself one day. Blood covered his whole body and the smirk gracing his lips ignited a curious fire inside Tertia's chest.
He opened her cell with a conjured key and offered her his hand.
Tertia took it without hesitation.
XXVI.
On the 7th October 2003 two children slaughtered the entire Estraneo Famiglia.
No survivors were left behind.
Mukuro made sure that no one who could bother his Sky lived. He did not hesitate in killing the other test subjects, not even the two boys who might have been his friends in another life were spared from his wrath.
XXV.
Before Tertia left the Estraneo mansion, she made sure to pack as many files as would fit in the small bag that had belonged to Leonzio.
Due to those files she finally learned how this world she had been reborn into differed from her previous one. She found out about the Flames both Mukuro and her could use and what they meant in the Mafia.
The rarity of her own Sky Flames insured that she would never truly be free in this world.
XXVI.
They wandered the streets of Italy. Two old souls trapped inside the bodies of children.
Theft and murder insured their survival. Each time Mukuro came to her with a piece of bread in his hand and new bloodstains on his clothes, Tertia just smiled brightly and gratefully shared the small meal with him.
XXVII.
A new Famiglia soon found them and took them in.
They were given a roof above their heads and beds that were warmer and softer than anything they had touched in this life.
Tertia enjoyed the few moments of reprieve this Famiglia offered them.
XXVIII.
It did not take them long to try forcing Tertia into Harmonization.
None of them survived that night.
XXIX.
Every action was followed by a reaction.
Tertia should have known that all of their actions would have a price.
XXX.
The Vindice hunted them down. Four times they managed to escape the Mafia police. The fifth time Mukuro made sure that Tertia wasn't caught alongside him.
His illusions hid her so thoroughly that no one even remembered her presence.
Not even she herself could fight off the bindings he had wrapped around her. Tertia could only watch in silent desperation how her only companion was dragged away from her...
...
...into another prison.
XXXI.
Supposedly, absence made the heart grow fonder.
Tertia found out how true this saying was during the first night she had to spent alone in years. It was then that she realized how much she missed having Mukuro at her side and how much she had actually come to love that boy.
Rokudo Mukuro wasn't just a fellow prisoner. He was her only friend, her Mist and kindred spirit and Tertia did not think that she could survive this life without him.
XXXII.
To protect herself, Tertia hid her Flames as securely as she could.
She wore clothes that allowed her to disappear in the crowd and made sure to stay out of trouble.
All the while, she planned the prison breakout of her Mist.
XXXIII.
Although living on the streets was preferable to being trapped inside a dungeon, it still wasn't easy. Some nights Tertia was forced to go to sleep with a completely empty stomach, other nights she could not even do that because of the other urchins that were chasing her.
By the time she managed to get away from them, it was already light outside and she had to try out her luck with the different fruit stalls.
The girl got weaker each day.
XXXIV.
Something changed during his time in the prison.
One day a stranger joined their bond. Tertia had no idea who it was or where that person came from. The only thing she knew was that she suddenly had two Mists.
XXXV.
As it turned out, she did not have to help Mukuro too much.
The presence of her own Flames seemed to be enough to strengthen his resolve, so that by the time she came near the prison entrance, the boy was already there.
He waited for her with a small army of minions and brightly flaring Flames.
XXXVI.
They fled to Japan.
It was there that Mukuro introduced Tertia to her second Mist.
XXXV.
Akiyama Nagi was a shy girl with Mist Flames powerful enough to bond with both Tertia and Mukuro. She was the heiress to a big candy company.
The Japanese girl opened her home to two strangers. Only Tertia stayed.
XXXVI.
Mukuro sometimes scared her.
His drive to protect Nagi and her was so strong that he completely disregarded his own safety. That he left one night with the mission to destroy the whole Mafia, not even bothering to write a note.
When they found out, Nagi cried and Tertia felt like doing the same.
She did not.
XXXVII.
Nagi used her Flames to get Tertia signed up at her school.
Unsurprisingly, the Sky did not fit in.
XXXVIII.
''Could you pass me the cornflakes, Tertia-sama?'' Nagi pointed at the box next to her Sky's bowl.
Tertia grimaced slightly guiltily and picked the empty box up. She knew how much her Mist liked those cornflakes but there hadn't been anything else to eat in the house, so she had followed her normal lifestyle and taken what she could. Now, as she saw the disappointment in the younger girl's eyes, Tertia actually regretted her actions. ''I might have eaten the last of it. Sorry?''
XXXIX.
It was a normal school day. Tertia was sitting in her math class and trying to not fall asleep due to the droning voice of her teacher.
When there were only ten minutes left, she could suddenly feel Nagi moving in her direction.
The younger girl ripped the door of her classroom open, her hair windblown and eyes distressed. What she said next froze the blood in Tertia's veins. ''They caught him. The Vindice caught Mukuro-sama.''
XL.
''We will get him out of there, Nagi, I promise.''
XLI.
For her fifteenth birthday Nagi baked her a cake. It was a small and dry thing with a too sweet cream on the inside. The fruits on top were falling down on the sides and Tertia hated the pineapples in the middle.
All this was triumphed by the fact that this was the first gift she had received in this life.
Smiling, Tertia forced the awfully tasting cake into her mouth and uttered a grateful and earnest thank you after she ate he whole thing.
(...Never before had Nagi seen such a beautiful and heartbreaking smile...)
XLII.
Reborn.
She had heard of the man during her time with the Estraneo Famiglia. The scientists liked theorizing about his Sun Flames and their strength. The greed in their eyes was especially obvious when they talked about him and his fellow Arcobaleno.
One thing Tertia learned because of their stories about the hitman was that she, no matter what, did not want to anger the other Flame user. His anger was to be avoided and his wrath to be feared. No one who crossed him survived.
What the seemingly teenage girl did not expect was the pull of this Sun and how much she would want him to be hers.
XLIII.
''Umm, is there anything I could do for you?'' Nagi questioned the small infant that stood on her doorstep. She bit her lip nervously and tilted her head to look inside the living room at her Sky.
Tertia's pinkish eyes were narrowed and she was moving in her direction. The older girl's auburn hair bounced with each of her steps and as she reached Nagi's side, the teen easily slid between herself and their intruder. ''What do you want?''
XLIV.
The Arcobaleno's Flames were almost palpable at such a close proximity. Warm and inviting, that's how Tertia would describe them.
This was quite the shocking revelation. Until now, only her Mists had ever managed to garner her attention. All the other Flame users were just nuisances she wanted gone.
She had heard of the Arcobaleno and their appeal before, of course, but she had never believed that this appeal could be so strong.
Tertia wanted to have him.
''I have a proposition for Akiyama-san.'' The hitman answered her question smoothly, looking over her shoulder at the aforementioned girl. ''Should you choose to help out my charge, then you would be gifted with the one thing every Element desires.''
Had he just dismissed her?
Tertia bristled at that thought and at the implications the fake infant was making. Nagi and Mukuro were hers, they did not need a new Sky. As if to prove a point, her Flames flared up instinctively, escaping the cage she had created for them.
Their Flames brushed against each other and as the Sky and the Sun met a bond snapped inadvertently into place.
''Oh.''
XLV.
Reborn had not expected to come across a Sky strong enough to pull him in at a moment's notice that night. He had not expected to look at said Sky and to dismiss her at the first glance.
In his defense though, there were way more important things to do than to entertain a nameless girl who without her connection to the infamous Rokudo Mukuro could have passed off as a weak civilian. Besides, he had still kept an eye on her and could have shot her should she have made one wrong move.
One did not survive the Mafia by completely dismissing the seemingly harmless, Reborn had learned that lesson the hard way.
That did not mean that he had expected the girl to be one of the strongest Skies he had ever met, capable of attracting even him. Luce was the only other Sky who had had the ability to do just that, but woman had already had a complete set of Guardians which meant that none of the Arcobaleno had harmonized with her.
After Aria and Yuni turned out weaker to be weaker than their predecessor, Reborn had given up on the notion of ever finding a Sky for himself. The hitman had actually preferred it that way.
In the Mafia there was no place for weakness and there was no weakness that could quite compare to the bond between an Element and their Sky.
Reborn had not asked for this and he certainly had not wanted to be tied down by a teenager.
Dame-Tsuna, this was all Dame-Tsuna's fault.
''Well,'' Reborn begun after taking a few seconds to enjoy the harmony and rightness he felt because of this newly formed bond. He had heard many things about Harmonization, but none of them seemed adequate enough to describe what he was currently feeling. It was as if after years of searching for it, he had finally found his home. ''This changes things.''
''It does, doesn't it?'' The girl - his Sky - tilted her head curiously to the side as she knelt and looked into Reborn's eyes. There was nothing patronizing about that action. ''I'm Tertia, it's a pleasure to meet you.''
(...later, he would think properly about the implications of her connection with Rokudo Mukuro and her name, put one and one together and curse the fact that the Estraneo Famiglia was already dead...)
''Reborn. May I?'' He pointed inside the apartment.
His Sky did not hesitate before nodding her head and inviting him into her home. She just smiled a small smile and stood up to lead him inside the living room. ''I hope that you realize that although this Harmonization changes things, it won't change the fact that both Mukuro and Nagi are mine. I won't share them with the Vongola Decimo.''
The Sun Arcobaleno nodded his head in understanding. ''Though you're not adverse to negotiations.''
''No.'' The girl sat down on the couch and what he now knew to be her Mist settled down next to her. ''I'm sure neither Nagi nor Mukuro would have anything against fighting for your charge in exchange for Mukuro's freedom. The Vongola Famiglia should have enough power to negotiate with the Vindice.''
He had expected something along those lines. ''I would have to speak with Nono first.''
Tertia smiled pleasantly. ''Of course.''
XLVI.
Reborn was reluctant to leave the two girls, his Sky and fellow Guardian.
They might have been very strong Flame users, but he doubted that either of them had any formal training.
His priorities in life were always very easily defined and it wasn't any different this time around, so after going outside to call the current Don Vongola, Reborn easily climbed onto the balcony of the Akiyama home.
That was only the first night he spent there.
XLVII.
''You can come inside, you know.'' He had felt her presence behind him, had known that this would be something she would say to him. Considering that she had left the balcony open for the last few days, the verbal invitation wasn't truly needed. ''I know that you didn't plan to Harmonize with me, perhaps you do not even want it now that it has happened, so I won't pressure you to do anything. But I need you to understand that this isn't easy for me either.''
She swallowed heavily. ''There is a reason why I have only harmonized with Mukuro and Nagi until now.''
Reborn turned around and their gazes met. The age-old weariness he saw inside his Sky's rosy orbs stopped him from questioning her.
XLVIII.
The next day he joined them in the apartment for dinner.
XLIX.
''I don't know you and I don't trust you, but I will protect you.''
Tertia's lips tilted upwards. ''That's alright, I don't trust you either.''