Disclaimer: Katekyo Hitman REBORN! was created by Akira Amano.

Claimer: I own the plot and OCs; nothing more, nothing less.

Warning: takes place before Gola Mosca; there is also blood and "blood" in this chapter; Belphegor is a bit OOC (Depends on your view)

Pairing: BelOC

Cue the dancer bathed in scarlet.

Where were those words coming from? Where was she?

The words are definitely descending from the sky.

An Italian girl looks around with a dazed confusion. Her hair is pinned up in a messy and curly bun with her bangs hanging down around her face. The dark-haired girl looks down to see that she's wearing a somewhat thick red dress that reaches her knees.

Why is she wearing a dress? Why is it such a disturbingly bright shade of red?

The perplexed girl didn't notice her surroundings. The trees' bark is all a deep shade of crimson. The leaves are a light shade of red, making what little sunlight shining through them is tinted with more red. A dull pink mist is dancing along the red-stained ground. The leaves have a wonder of making the ground look like a river of crimson with the way they're scattered, not showing a crack of the ground.

The girl wiggles her toes and notices that she's standing on red leaves. She looks around and takes in her surroundings, the forest, with bewilderment. The girl had fallen asleep in a bed, so how did she end up in a blood-red forest such as this one? She didn't know of any illusionists, or why they would even put her under an illusion.

The gunman lightly slaps her cheeks, but she feels no pain. It dawns on her that this must be some kind of dream. Or maybe this is a nightmare?

Everything in this world will be cut up.

Aria looks up in a befuddled manner. She raises an eyebrow, squinting the eye underneath her squished eyebrow. She puts her hands on her hips, wondering why in the world she would hear Belphegor's voice coming down, and why those words have to be chosen.

The trees groan with movement. Aria stands there, baffled that the trees are moving. With every movement they give, they spurt a dark, warm and red liquid. Some of it splatters onto the Italian's face. She touches the sticky liquid and analyzes it on her fingers.

Blood? The trees were bleeding?

Leaves suddenly slap into the girl's face. The weight of the tree branches keeps her down. The sound of ripping and tearing can be heard. Aria feels panic bubble up her throat, bringing her heart with it because she can feel the beating in her airway, making it hard to breath.

All in a moment, the trees are gone again. Aria is drenched in spots of bled blood. She is unable to move her limbs which are stretched out. She looks at her hands to find silver knives have cut clean through and pinned her down to the bloody ground. The trees had moved so that the sun shone down on Aria. The thing is the sun isn't yellow and bright like it's supposed to be.

The sun is a deep crimson color.

Quite suddenly, the trees are gone and the sun has become a lamp, of sorts. It's shining down on Aria with a new intensity. She has to squint even though the light is red. She can still feel the forest floor, but now it looks like she's in a room where the walls are colored an almost-black scarlet color.

I want to cut up your soul.

There was Belphegor's voice again. It was coming from the ceiling, which looks like it's made of silver. It shines down on her with a red stare that sounded like murder. Or maybe the loud sound of blood pumping in Aria's ears made the sight sound like murder.

A large version of Belphegor comes into sight. Aria begins to violently pull at her limbs. Belphegor has the largest grin she's seen yet, his face almost seems to be tearing into two. Malicious gray-colored eyes are staring down at her. She could tell he's like a student who's much too happy at the idea of dissecting an animal.

Aria can't pull away. Belphegor brings down a silver knife and lets it glide down her torso. Aria tries to scream, but she can't. When the cut opens up in itself, torrents of red cloth spill out. Belphegor throws his head back to laugh at the top of his lungs. He lowers his head again and raises the silver knife above his head.

All Aria can do is watch as he brings his knife down on her.

[][]

The Prince is cold, and more so than usual.

The Prince has wrapped himself up in his blankets, looking like he's made himself a cocoon. It's still not satisfying. Belphegor has always been cold, and never cared seeing as his Varia jacket and long sleeved shirt would help with that. For some reason, tonight was different. He's colder than usual, and he doesn't like it.

Belphegor frowns and turns to Aria who's sprawled out on her bed, looking rather warm. How was it that she could be warm while he was freezing? That was hardly fair. He wanted some of that warmth. The cold was truly annoying him, and The Prince doesn't like being annoyed. This was hindering him from having a good sleep, and The Prince likes to have his sleep.

The Prince surely won't stand for this. If he wants something, then he could take it. The Prince owns his peasants and all of their own belongings. The Italian girl needs to pay homage to her Prince.

Belphegor wrestles himself out of the cocoon of sheets. He walks over to Aria's bed and watches her for a bit. She looks peaceful enough, so she couldn't be woken up. The Prince wouldn't want to be caught in the act of taking some of her warmth. Strangely enough, even though she looks peaceful, she seems perplexed.

The blond pushes down on the bed then waits. When the dark-haired girl does nothing, he pushes the covers to the side. The Prince has never done this before, but he never wanted that warmth from another before. Belphegor ends up grinning, though. He's wondering what kind of reaction he'll get from Aria when she wakes up.

Belphegor slips into the covers. What he came to take makes immediate warmth begin to envelope him. The warmth makes Belphegor give a grin of crazed content. Maybe it was because he was leeching off of the girl without her knowing of it. It almost made him giggle.

Just this once, being a parasite is funny.

The Prince stretches, almost seeming like a cat. The blond snuggles his face into the unused pillow, slipping his arms underneath. Prince the Ripper heaves a content sigh and easily slips into sleep's arms to dream sadistically wonderful dreams. He's not even aware that his presence has made a turn for the worst for the girl sleeping next to him in the bed.

[][][][][]

The body lying on the left of the crowded bed jumps herself into waking up. She has to take a few deep breathers in order to realize that she's not in the dream world, but in the real world. The girl immediately touches her stomach and looks around over her body. She touches her face with panic and then breathes a sigh of relief.

She wasn't deformed in any way.

Aria heaves with labored breathes. She's happy that she's safe after the kind of nightmare she had. She turns to see where Belphegor is and almost screams when she sees a face closer than it should be. The frightened girl immediately backs away, but stops when she realizes that there's nothing to fear. He's only sleeping.

Doesn't he have his own bed?

Pure hate and anger bubble inside of Aria's stomach. She glares at the boy that had slipped into the bed next to her. She slowly reaches underneath the mattress and pulls out a gun. Aria takes the safety off and puts the gun against blond hair.

CLICK

A twitch of life. A grin of a twisted soul.

"How'd you sleep?" Aria spats.

"Mm, I was cold. The Prince wanted some of your warmth. What's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine," Belphegor says with a giggle afterwards.

"I'm not your toy!" Aria retorts angrily.

The gunman can see it all over again. She can see Belphegor dying so clearly. He seems to be gently cooing her to do it. All she had to do was pull the trigger, and a bullet would come out this time.

The sound would be ear-piercing. She might have the goal of wiping the grin off of that supposedly royal face and to make the words stop slipping through that supposedly royal mouth. The words would stop, but the grin would still be there, taunting her.

Was it too hard to ask just to see Prince the Ripper, that parent-killer, bleed out? His blood would spray onto the bed and Aria's skin if she just let the bullet go in. It might come out the other side and then the crisp white pillow would begin to be dyed a dark red.

Her finger starts to twitch inward. She wants to pull the trigger so badly…

Belphegor's grin widens. Aria's eyebrow twitches just slightly. The originally panicked and drowsy girl had let her guard down. She wasn't supposed to show this boy how angry he made her.

To Prince the Ripper, this is a breakthrough. This kind of hate and anger didn't come from just anywhere. Now he knows that there must be a specific reason for the way this girl is acting.

"If I shoot you and make you bleed, will you act the same way as when I found that girl?" Aria asks, being quite serious.

"Ushishishi, probably," Belphegor replies.

Aria is hesitant in putting her gun away. She doesn't want to make a habit out of pulling it out and putting it against the blonde's hair, threatening to shoot him only to withdraw. She wants it to be a serious matter when she pulls her gun out. The gunman doesn't want the knife thrower to get used to seeing her gun and thinking, or knowing, she won't pull the trigger.

"Get out of my bed, tick."

Aria brings her legs up and shoves Belphegor clear off of the bed and over the edge. She almost smirks when she hears the loud thump of the body hitting the floor. He might have taken the covers with him, but what did she need those for anyway?

Aria has to get ready for the man who played her.

The Italian gets up and scratches her head. She feels her hair move where she wasn't even touching it. She turns toward the younger Italian Varia member to see he's standing up with silver knives in between his fingers.

"The Prince isn't someone to be kicked around. If anything, I do the kicking. The Prince is no tick."

Prince the Ripper throws another knife in which Aria steps out of its way. She looks to the wall where the newly discarded knife is now sticking out. She yanks it out and throws it at Belphegor.

The handle hits Prince the Ripper on the forehead. His head falls back from the hit and his precious knife falls to the floor with a soft thud. Aria feels a little uncomfortable when Belphegor doesn't move from his position, a grin still plastered on his face.

"Don't be such a child. Get ready, won't you?" Aria tells Belphegor with a blank tone. It's about time she bring her defenses back up and try to salvage what was destroyed in such a short amount of time.

And with that said, Aria goes into the bathroom to get herself ready as well.

[][][][][]

They didn't talk. Both teens are eating French toast with bacon and fruit.

Aria wanted to have a "friendship" with Prince the Ripper, but they were past that when she tried to pull the trigger on him. Their relationship consisted of two things.

Now they have a mutual understanding. The Italian girl would kill Belphegor if she could.

They both know that the Prince has to find out why, but it won't be easy.

The Prince is bored, though. He has his elbow on the table with his princely face in his palm. He's moving his fruit around since he's done eating and is contently full. He glances at the gunman who's staring into space and chewing on a piece of bacon. He takes in her rather gray-and-black appearance, feeling an idea slip into his mind.

Belphegor grins. A cool silver knife slips out of his sleeve. The girl doesn't notice.

Aria jumps when she feels the cool metal on her fingers. She looks down to her hand to see that Belphegor is gently running his knife up and down her pointer finger. They both can almost hear the sound of metal caressing soft human skin.

"Can't we make the meat pay up all at once so I can cut him up?" Belphegor asks. "I can send him directly to a restaurant this time instead of a meat market where he'll be all ground up already. Or maybe I can get him cut up, and give him to some fisherman? He'll really sleep with the fish. Ushishishi~"

"It just doesn't work that way," Aria mumbles. She takes her hand away from the point of Belphegor's precious silver knife. "At least, banks don't work that way."

"Mm, then I guess it's good it'll take a while then."

Aria turns to Belphegor with a raised eyebrow. Belphegor is grinning at her, as if he's thinking something and he's glad she can't read his mind. Aria moves away in her seat just slightly, not sure she likes that kind of grin. She is doing a fine job of keeping a straight face, though.

"Why the sudden change in attitude?" she asks with as little suspicion as possible.

"Ushishishi~! It just means that I've got more time to figure out how my favorite toy works~!"

There he goes with that "toy" business again. Aria feels that same anger bubble up. She ends up snuffing it out by eating the last bite of her pancake.

"I'm not a live toy like from Toy Story, alright? Now start thinking about what you're going to tell Beto today."

"Ushishishi, whatever you say, peasant."

Alright everyone. This is the chapter to make up for the last two short, boring chapters. Like I said, I might've made Belphegor a bit OOC. I warned you guys about that. I did enjoy writing this chapter.

Although I found out that there's already a character in KHR named Aria... I feel stupid now.

Anyway, to get another update I'll need FOUR reviews. The last chapter got more than three views, so you readers have made me really proud! I will take constructive criticism for this chapter. I don't want any cursing, though.