Skull finds it incredibly ironic that whilst he always wins the coin toss with Death - he always loses on Earth. Maybe all of his winning luck went into winning a longer life for him, leaving him to lose all the other non-Death related tosses. Maybe it was Death somehow making him lose out of spite. Or maybe it was just-

"Senpai, you are a dick and a cheater," Skull declared, looking away from the obviously rigged coin toss.

Reborn automatically lifted his gun. "What did you just call me Lackey? And you better not lie," he threatened casually as he clicked the safety off.

"A dick?" Skull said with some reluctance.

Reborn lowered his gun slightly.

"That is true," he mused. Skull relaxed slightly, but yelped and flailed when Reborn quickly raised the gun and shot at him.

"SENPAI! WHY DID YOU SHOOT, YOU JUST AGREED WITH ME," Skull screamed as he dodged the next bullet.

"Just because it was true, doesn't mean you can say it," Reborn explained, a cruel smirk on his lips.

"OI, STOP THAT. WE HAVE A MISSION TO DO!" Lal Mirch marched in, Skull hiding behind her instantly. Her eye twitched slightly, but she let the cowardice be. "Which one of you is driving then?"

Skull sulked behind her as Reborn raised a hand in a lazy wave. Why did the bastard have to win the coin toss? So unfair!

Only Skull, Reborn and Lal Mirch have been sent on the mission. Even then they felt it was an overkill on Tsuna's part. But when he looked at them with shining orange eyes they silenced their protests.

And Tsuna had good reason to be cautious. The instant they arrived the whole mission just… exploded.

Skull remembers pulling Lal Mirch as enemies shot at her from behind and then-

"You again?" The exasperated voice of Death reached Skull's ears.

"Ow," is the reply it got.

"What," A third voice chimed in and Skull jumped from his skin, as he turned his head towards it.

And there stood Reborn, cautiously staring at Death. And Death stared back at him. Skull could feel the beginnings of a hysterical laugh bubble up in his throat, but he stopped it just in time.

"Death?" He asked cautiously and the being turned towards him, its exasperation still there. "Why did Reborn appear with me?"

"Ah that," Death said as Reborn stilled even more. "You see, usually I would do the coin toss separately, but as you do know him and he's your family I thought why not? It's not against the rules," it said with a shrug and Reborn twitched minutely.

"They probably should have made it against the rules" Skull said, lifting himself from the floor at last.

"Your existence should be against the rules," it answered reflexively. "Now be quiet while I explain the rules to the new arrival," and with that it focused its gaze on Reborn.

"You have died. But there is still a chance for you to go back," here Death flicked the Coin in the air and then caught it. "If you guess the toss correctly, you will continue living. If you guess wrong, you will move on. Ready?"

"What if I don't want to play?" Reborn asked lazily, his eyes sharply focused on the being. Skull watched in fascination the interaction between the two.

"You have no choice. Everyone has to play, no matter if they want to or not," here Death threw Skull a glare, who looked away, whistling innocently as he pretended interest in the white abyss. Reborn twitched.

"Fine," Reborn grumbled. Death tossed the Coin in the air.

"What will it be?"

"GO FOR TAILS SENPAI!"

"Heads," Reborn said without missing a beat. Skull pouted, but upon noticing the lack of attention from the hitman allowed a small smirk to flicker across his face.

The Coin flew in the air and then landed on Death's clothed hand. Heads.

Death gave a sigh and then turned towards Skull.

"Heads!" He chimed, and he could see Reborn's eye twitch in the corner of his own eye.

Death tossed the Coin once more. It spun and spun until it landed and-

Death twitched.

"YOU GUESSED HEADS RIGHT 15 TIMES IN A ROW! DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE PROBABILITY OF THAT IS," Death raged, waving the Coin in the air.

Skull furrowed his brows and then started muttering, while counting on his fingers.

"Like 1 in 32768 and that's like around 0.003%?" He said, his voice higher at the end.

"THAT WAS A RHETORICAL QUESTION YOU DUMBASS! I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS," Death went on. Reborn watched from the sidelines as the two bickered.

"WELL, I'M SORRY. I DON'T DO THIS ON PURPOSE!" Skull gestured at nothing wildly.

"I hate you," Death glowered at him and Skull stuck out his tongue out in retaliation.

It took a deep, steadying breath.

"Anyways, what will it be?" It asked Skull.

"Same age, at the same moment and same gender please," Skull replied. Death inclined its head slightly and then turned towards Reborn.

"As you won the coin toss, you get to pick what age, gender and time you appear at. Should you wish, you can go to the past and become separate from your past self - mind you, you will not remember exactly how you got there. Your mind might make something up to fill the gap, but it will not be the truth," Death explained patiently.

"Hmm," Reborn stared in contemplation at the being. "Same as Lackey there," and here he turned and stared at Skull. "Once we get back, you have a lot of explaining to do," he growled at the cloud.

Skull laughed nervously, scratching the back of his neck. "Ah, you see, you kinda won't remember this?" He told Reborn, his voice growing higher with each word. Reborn stared at him.

"YOU SEE," Skull flailed wildly. "THIS IS LIKE, YOUR SECOND DEATH?" Death shook its head in the background. "THIRD THEN. YOU ONLY REMEMBER THIS AFTER YOUR SEVENTH!" He explained wildly.

"I will forget what happened here," it was less of a question and more of a statement, but Skull nodded his head. "And you will not," he continued and Skull reluctantly nodded his head again, before whirling round to face Death.

"You probably have many people to see! Don't let us keep you," he quickly aimed at the being.

Death looked ready to deny the statement, to let the hitman interrogate the stuntman, but in the end it decided against it. It nodded its head and pointed them towards the right direction.

Skull bolted down with a hasty "see ya!" thrown at the being and a "bet you can't catch me senpai!" at Reborn.

Reborn narrowed his gaze at the already gone cloud before turning towards Death. He gazed steadily at it, searching for something.

"How many times has he died?" Reborn asked at last.

"I am not meant to say, you know confidentiality and so on," Reborn's gaze intensified. "But I can give you a broad idea of some number. Let's see, how many times has he come out of a situation, which should have killed him, with hardly a scratch and very depleted cloud flames?" Death said casually and Reborn could only stare.

A moment passed before he inclined his head at the being.

And with that, only Death was left in the white abyss.

A/N: firstly, the first chapter is set after the curse was broken, but before they regained their adult forms. This chapter is set after the first chapter and they nearly regained their adult forms.

Secondly, I just got back from seeing The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe theatre play, so sorry for any grammar or spelling mistakes (was the play good? Listen I could spend all day telling you how wonderful it was and what happened, but no one wants that).

And thirdly, thank you to everyone who followed and/or favourited my story! A big thank you to: Rin-isobu-walker, BlueAutumn12, webpixie, Iouko Miku, cielo (guest), HowToEnglish (guest) and the unnamed 2 guests for reviewing!

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter^^

Edit: lost a word or two so I added them back and included some more punctuation. You can visit my profile for a sneak preview of the next chapter!