Chapter 58:

From You.

Right, warnings for a M rated chapter… possibly. Anyway the following is the awaited torture scene along with an important plot point. So if you don't want to read the gore but want to know what the important plot point is, then PM me and I'll tell you. Although to be honest it's not really that bad.

And then next arc we'll be getting cuter again. Don't worry.

I want to thank you all for your wonderful suggestions of what 'Mich' would have done to the right hand man. As such, many of those ideas will feature here as well. If yours does, then thank you *bows*. There are too many for me to name individually.

The Arcobaleno all gather around Tsunayoshi, taking in every single scratch, cut and bruise the small boy had. Skull hugs him closer before stroking his hair.

"You were so brave Tsunayoshi." He whispers. Tsunayoshi was certainly braver then he was, taking on an adult like that.

"And he kicked ass, kora!" Colonnello inserts, lightening up the mood slightly. The other Arcobaleno have to nod at that comment. They didn't think they had taught Tsunayoshi most of those moves. Around the house, the brunet was better at dodging and catching weapons than actually using them.

"In a very uncoordinated and rough display, leaving openings everywhere." Lal growls out. But even she had to admit that the brat had done a reasonably good job considering the limitations and odds weighed against him.

Viper put her video camera away somewhere safe, in a place where it wouldn't get crushed no matter what. She could get the Varia to pay for viewing rights. They'd want to see how close to being Varia Quality Tsunayoshi was. She didn't say much, remaining quiet per her usual style. Plus these broken ribs were digging into some very painful places at the moment.

Fon didn't say anything either, instead trying to focus the storm of rage inside. It went against discipline to show such emotions on the outside. Instead it was better to focus them internally and compress them into strength instead. He feared that something untoward may slip his lips should he open them. Instead, he settled himself into his usual breathing pattern.

Verde rolled his eyes as he watched Viper put the camera away. He wondered how much money Viper was going to charge for that clip, whether he could get an 'Arcobaleno-discount' or not, or whether it would be easier to pin the woman down, steal the camera and hack into it. Both seemed like a lot of bother, but he wanted to analyse those tapes and add the information gleaned to his collection.

Luce was busy running warm caring hands over her baby in Skull's grip, checking for any more major damage. She kept herself from looking at the torn and ripped clothes the boy had- she would mourn over her hard work once she knew Tsunayoshi was safe and sound at home. But it seemed that she had two things to contend with first. Luckily it seems that dealing with the first would also deal with the second.

"Bermuda." She says in a warning tone.

Bermuda had taken one look at Tsunayoshi before turning away and sending a glare to the two enemies in the room. He grit his teeth, not even noticing the blood dripping out the side of his mouth as he suppressed another cough. The chains scattered on the floor around him shook, creating tiny chinking sounds. By the barest of margins, his noble heritage was stopping him attacking the man infront of him. But that didn't stop the pulses of Night Flames swirling around his hands.

He takes a slow step forwards, ignoring the protests of his poisoned body. He short warps and before anyone, even the Arcobaleno, can register, the Leader of the fake Arco Iris is chained to a chair, the spiked tips of two chains piercing the man's hands and pinning then to the arm rests. The air is thick with the presence of the Vindice Boss. The Vindice's presence was suffocating on a good day, but with Bermuda like this… even the Arcobaleno had trouble moving.

"Bermuda!" Luce snaps once again. The man turns to her, sub-zero eyes boring into her own. She may be a nice enough woman, but he was not going to bow down to her like the rest did. "You're hurting Tsunayoshi."

Bermuda's eyes flick to where Tsunayoshi is grimacing in his sleep, one hand tightly clutching at Skull's leather jacket. The small child was currently in no state to combat Bermuda's Flame Pressure, especially after having drained his own untapped Flame via the Dying Will bullet. Quickly, Bermuda regains a tight control over his Flames, keeping the aura wrapped tightly around him like a cloak instead of filling the room.

Verde tuts and strides across the room, something glinting in his hand. Bermuda raises an eyebrow as he watches Verde inject something into their captive. Whilst not being able to see the raising of the eyebrow, Verde still guessed that Bermuda wouldn't understand what was going on.

"Hn, we have a system for this. This isn't our first torture you know." Verde drawls, pulling the needle out and pocketing it so the captive can't use it against them at a later date.

Bermuda hadn't thought of that before. Of course the Arcobaleno were famous, but they were generally renowned for being a group of famous individuals. They weren't well-known for their actions as a group in and of itself.

"Viper, you can drop the illusion now." Verde explains, standing up before flashing a light into the man's eyes, watching the pupil reaction to check he hadn't overdosed the guy by accident.

As soon as the captive was able to speak once again, the next sentence out of his mouth was so full of naughty words that Luce stamped over and slapped him around the face with the fan from her fight earlier, leaving scratches along his chin and nose. "There is a child in the room!" Even if the child was sleeping, it was no excuse for such dirty language.

"Hey you dirty lap dogs! Let Martillo go!"

The surprising shout comes from a woman in pigtails across the room, next to a stand of computers. A brief look at those computer screens showed that the Varia were still having fun terrorising the subordinates of this crazy group and that Primo and the V3 were still holding strong.

"There is a 88% chance that if you fought fairly, Maritillo would beat every single one of you!" she shouts. "I have computer simulations to prove it!" and she stomps her foot.

The Arcobaleno stare at her, what was she 8?

"If there is one thing you should know about the Arcobaleno it is that we defy expectations constantly!" Skull shouts, moving to a clear space just outside of the crowd and stomping his foot too. The actions jogs Tsunayoshi slightly, who squirms before settling back to sleep.

Crossing the room swiftly, Verde fearlessly strides past the woman and stared at the computer screens showing these 'simulations'. He lifts his glasses up before sneering at the woman with his usual "I'm better than you, stupid lowlife" look. "I do not know where you got this data from, but it's terribly out of date. You should know that data concerning human subjects needs constant updating. Unreliable data leads to unreliable forecasts. And you dare to call yourself better than me? Even a school child knows better than this."

"There he goes again," sighs Reborn, shaking his head at Verde.

"Yup, that's our Scientist for ya," agrees Colonnello, grinning broadly. To be honest the 'woman' was far too funny looking not to laugh at her. Her hair was up in two large pink pigtails. She had some sort of white and pink Lolita dress on with stockings and dolly shoes. It screamed geeky shut in. On an 8 year old, it would be cute, but on a woman similar to their age, not so.

Bermuda looks at the group, wondering what they were going on about. Verde acted like this with anyone who clearly had a lower IQ than him. So, when it's clear that the Arcobaleno are doing a countdown- either on their fingers or mouthing one- Bermuda turns to see what is about to happen.

"Ahh, I hate this bit. I never understand a word of it." Cowers Skull, moving to hide behind Fon as if the man could act as a sound barrier.

"But, look, he's having so much fun," coos Luce.

For there was Verde, looming over this weird woman, in the middle of a Physics battle. Physics: where science meets math. From a distance it looked like a civil conversation about the weather or some other meaningless topic. But if one actually listened it was a battle of snarky comments, disproving of points and scientific/mathematic one-ups, hotter than any political debate.

It was clear that Verde was wining this fight too. As the conversation went on and on, the woman got not only more vocal, but more active too. The number of posture changes increased, as did the number of times she stamped her foot. Verde's posture hardly ever changed, he just pushed his glasses back up every now and again.

"I think we can ignore the two geeks over there," Lal says, turning her back towards the pair. She was a woman of actions over words and therefore was uninterested in the battle the pair were having. She regrets her choice of words when Colonnello barely manages to save her from a flying scalpel.

"I heard that." Verde remarks before answering back to a point the pink haired girl had just made.

"If you think that will work, please continue trying, but I assure you the only result will be cutting your hand in two." Fon says, having kept his eyes on their captive Martillo.

Turning, the rest of the group look to see what had caused Fon's chiding comment. Somehow the captive had brought their foot up and was trying to kick the spiked tip of Bermuda's chains out of his hand.

"You've got another 10 seconds before it fully takes effect then he's all yours." Verde explains, looking over towards them. This veering of focus caused the girl to shout at him and grab his face to turn it back towards her. Almost instantaneously, she screamed out as electricity ran through her hands and around her body.

"10 seconds for what to take effect?" asks Bermuda since he could see no visible signs on their captive.

"A mixture of a few different agents to prolong conscious. We can't have them fainting before we found the information we need, nor do we want them to die of blood loss before then." Reborn explains, walking over to stand infront of the captive, noticing the look in his eyes. "You're the one who decided to mess with us. You pay the price." He smirks at the captive.

"Che, I can take anything you dogs throw at me." The man then spits in Reborn's face. Reborn steps backwards whilst wiping the spit off his face. "Oh, too chicken to even face me after an insult? Pathetic."

Reborn lowers his fedora until all that can be seen is an exasperated smile. He gives out a light chuckle.

"DUCK!"

Before Martillo can take another snide verbal shot at Reborn, he is suddenly assaulted by flying rubber ducks travelling at a hundred miles an hour. He makes a sound similar to a duck when the first of the bath toys slams into his throat. The next one lands in his open mouth as he gaped from the first attack. This second duck almost chokes him. A third one smacks into the chain's dagger, moving it around in the captive's hand, making Martillo spit out the second duck to grunt in pain.

"FOUR!"

A huge ornamental number 4 comes flying next, slamming into the seated man's stomach, forcing the breath out of his lungs.

"BALL!" The fifth and final object is a spherical paperweight slamming into the man's shoulder. A sharp crashing sound is heard as the shoulder bone breaks. The leader of the Arco Iris hisses and his eyes tear up, but there is no other sound from him.

"OI, those aren't Milly, Tilly and Billy from my bath collection are they?" shouts Skull in indignation. He and Tsunayoshi played with those rubber ducks in the bath! They weren't weapons!

"I'm more worried about who's room than number four came from." Adds in Lal.

"From the Study." Supplies Viper, watching from her position leaning against the wall. "When we started to get more missions and we needed more wall space for shelving, the numbers were taken down and put into storage. Same for the paperweight. I didn't realise they'd made in into The Bag though."

"And this is for getting my baby's clothes dirty!" Luce finally shouts before bringing the head of the golf club down in a hard swing. This attack in particular does make the man shout out. The involuntary jerk and instinctual movement of hands to cup the injured area only cause more pain for the victim since the spikes are still embedded in his hands.

Luce turns away from her carnage and smiles a smile that only she could after inflicting such damage. "Who's next?"

"I am." Says Lal, stepping forwards as she reassembles her riffle. "I want to get to him before Fon does this time." Fon bows his head and extends a hand to tell her to go ahead. The men were still cringing from Luce's last low blow.

"That's a pretty gun you've got there, did sleeping around with those sleezy Italians get you the money for it?" Martillo asks.

There is a flash of blond and blue before Martillo's world rocks to the side and his jaw is on fire.

"Lal is not that type of woman!" Colonnello shouts, punching the guy's jaw once again. Colonnello of all people would know if Lal had been sleeping around. (He's not a stalker, honest.)

"I don't need you to defend me!" Lal shouts back, red dusting her cheeks slightly. She pushes Colonnello out of the way before kneeling down infront of the chair Martillo is sitting on. The captive takes a kick at her, but she grabs his foot and gives it a good hard twist, snapping the ankle. Before he can recover from the pain of that, Lal brings her riffle to rest against Martillo's other foot and shoots at point-blank range. The bullet shoots through his foot and into the floor, the gun's barrel leaving a circular burn mark on flesh.

Colonnello follows Lal's lead after adding in some more punches in revenge for the remarks against Lal, kneeling behind the chair instead. Three bullet shots ring in quick succession. The three bullets go through the chair and embed themselves in painful, but not necessarily life threatening, places inside the captives torso. Blood slowly turns the man's shirt red.

Bermuda moves another one of his chain tips to lift the captive's chin. Behind the bandages, cold eyes stare into the man's own as if they can read his soul.

"Explain yourself." Bermuda demands in his Boss voice.

"Oh, now ask the bloody questions." Gasps Martillo, still with a slight smile on his face. He wasn't about to let these 'Arcobaleno' rule over him. "You're all merely pawns to prove a point to your masters."

The atmosphere drops slightly in the room as everyone is offended by the remark. "You're all just little lapdogs of the Italian so-called Mafia Bosses, pampered so that you don't turn on them." NO ONE was the Master of the Arcobaleno. The only Masters any of the Arcobaleno had were internal to the group. Luce was their leader since she had brought them all together and ruled with a fluffy sparkly fist. Reborn and Colonnello held power over Skull because the stuntman didn't have the courage to actually fight back. Lal held power over Colonnello because he was a love sick fool who allowed it.

But outside of their group, they were ruled by no one. Bosses came to them with requests, not orders. Ties were created through interest and mutual benefits.

"If I get rid of all of you, then the Italian Mafia won't have anyone to hide behind." Martillo explains with venom in his voice. "We are fed up with the Italians abusing their power and forgetting their roots."

"By 'we' I assume that you are talking about the Spanish Mafia." Reborn interjects "In that case your position as the Arco Iris is no different to ours. You cannot call us lapdogs without placing that term upon yourself as well." He smirks as the man glares at him.

"No, we are different. Instead of lapdogs we are the Demonios that keep the Spanish Mafia on the correct path. We make sure that the crimes committed are against the wealthy to improve the lives of the poor. That the Mafia works to help those in the slums out of poverty. We scoff at the monetary and class divides that society has lain upon us. By working together we can help each other. But you and those Gad Damned Italians are just out for yourselves, out for the money and the fame and the power over the rest of the world. You never help anyone but yourselves. You have forgotten your roots and that shall be your downfall."

Of all people, it was Viper who this affected the most. Not because it had any relevance of course, but because it sounded strangely familiar. It sounded vaguely like the trouble the Alternate Dimension Tsuna had spoken about. She blinks as Tsunayoshi is suddenly thrust into her hands.

Skull stomps over to where Martillo is still spouting nonsense and kicks the man's knee-cap. "You're just as bad, kidnapping and harming an innocent child. Tsunayoshi has nothing to do with the Mafia yet you chose to harm him anyway!" He keeps on kicking throughout his speech, venting his anger. "I know some of them are complete scumbags but not every Family allied with the Italian Mafia is like that! Haven't you even seen the efforts that Vongola Version Vigilante are putting in? We protect and do the best for the members of our Famiglie since we understand that you can't protect everyone at once! It's not possible!"

Bermuda looks away at that statement, wishing Skull knew how ironic that statement may become in the future. The members of the Vindice knew the real price for protecting the world.

"If you want to change the world then fine, but at least get your damn facts straight first!" Skull finishes his kicking barrage before smacking the man in the head with his helmet. He turns and walks away, still grumbling to himself before sitting down next to Viper. Luce and Fon gave Skull a small round of applause for his efforts and words.

Fon takes light steps forwards eyes glancing over the body infront of him. The man was truly pathetic, not having the strength to gain their attention through a means other than the kidnapping of a child. Children were pure and innocent creatures that deserved to be left alone. This man had defiled that, and Fon would never forgive him.

Fon came in close, with hands like attacking snakes or pecking swans. Touch after touch, pinch after pinch, Fon slowly made his way up the captive's body. The captive hisses at the first few, but as more and more points are touched the pain grows and eventually he shouts out. Fon was methodically attacking every sensitive pressure point. He had taught Tsunayoshi the ones to numb an enemy's nerves and prevent movement, but not these ones, not the specific points that cause excruciating pain. A pins and needles like numbness follows after the pain until the man feels like he's a hedgehog's scratching post.

This was the reason that Lal had wanted to go before Fon, since these attacks generally numbed the pain as nerves shut down.

All around the abandoned church and the surrounding gardens, the sounds of the Arco Iris's leader's screams resound, amplified through Viper's illusions.

For those Demonios in Bull Fighting Uniforms that followed the Arco Iris, it was a shock, they had never heard their leader like that before. He was the Diablo, the Devil, no one would ever get more than a fake sounding hiss out of him. But these Arcobaleno had managed to make him scream, and scream like a girl no less.

For those of Mafia Row, it was nothing but motivation.

"We can't let the Arcobaleno have all the fun!"

The Varia smirk, pleased with the sound.

"At least the Trash are doing something right."

"Ushishishi~ sounds like Mammon's having fun without the Prince."

"Vroii! Well if you lazy lot worked harder then we might be able to join in, you idiots!"

A few certain people who belonged in the past nodded their heads in appreciation.

"Nufufu, sounds to me like the Arcobaleno are getting their revenge."

"Punishment should be given to those who disturbed the peace."

"The Arcobaleno have got the right idea. It's shameful kidnapping a child. The bloke got what he deserved."

"Now G. really, you shouldn't be encouraging this type of behaviour."

"You know our G. though Giotto, he's always looking for a fight. But shouldn't you be more emotional? It was your great somethin' grandson they took."

Reborn didn't say anything as he took Fon's place infront of the man who had dared to take something from him. Not talking unnerved the enemy more than any death threats could. The unknown was far more scary than the verbalised. Reborn places a hand on Martillo's neck, squeezing harshly enough to almost strangle. Reborn has seen the hand-shaped bruise on Tsunayoshi's neck.

Martillo's eyes widen as he sees a bright yellow light coming from Reborn's hand and a warmth fill the veins in his neck. What was the hitman doing?

No Reborn was not healing the captive. Okay he was. But his healing isn't like a normal one. Martillo at first relaxes due to the warming heat of the Sun Flames involuntarily. But then the pain started. His nerves fizzed and screamed as they repaired themselves. The bones in his shoulder grinded and trapped nerves as they went about restoring themselves. His ankle was on fire as it healed the damage Lal had caused when she snapped it. The bullet wounds were pure agony as the flesh repaired around the intrusions, the burns heating up almost as much as when they were first inflicted. Every scratch itches and felt like someone was running a knife down his flesh.

It felt as if he was reliving every attack all over again.

Reborn gives one final harsh squeeze before letting go, leaving the man half healed. The man sends Reborn a death glare, promising something painful if he was released. Reborn just smirks back, the smirk of a playful devil. Raising one foot, he kicks the underside of the chair, causing it to fly backwards, onto its side and skid along the ground. Following, another foot places the chair so the captive was now facing the ceiling instead of a wall.

Martillo gets a good look under the fedora from this position and sees a possessive sadistic light gleam in the Hitman's eyes. It's downright scary. Even for a proclaimed Devil like him. Reborn reaches into his jacket pocket and brings out a thick metal box. Lifting the lid off, Reborn produces a something that makes Martillo laugh.

A piece of cake.

First the hitman had half healed him and now he was going to make Martillo eat cake? How crazy was this guy?

Some of the Arcobaleno, Skull in particular, turn green and all cover their mouths and noses to stop the chance of breathing in fumes. Viper pulls her robe over Tsunayoshi to protect him too. A slice of cake made by Bianchi was not something to take lightly.

Eyes locked with the man below him, Reborn continues to smirk as he slowly gets go of the cake and lets it drop onto Martillo's face. The man splutters and closes his mouth to stop himself from being choked by the cake. But instead he finds his eyes burn from the fumes. They blur as tears start to form to remove the foreign substance, but that just makes the burning even more painful. Taking a breath in through his nose also means inhaling the purple gas that was rising from this dessert. Feeling like they are on fire, Martillo's lungs scald with every breath he takes in. He coughs up blood as the poisoned cake starts to disintegrate and destroy the lungs.

Reborn looks to the side, eyes sparkling as he sneered at Bermuda. Anyone could tell that Bermuda must have been poisoned earlier on, so it was only fitting that the boss received what his subordinates dished out.

Reborn pulls out a bottle of water and upends it on Martillo's face. He didn't want the fun to end already. Another syringe flies towards the hitman, but Reborn easily plucks it out of the air.

"My latest formula to counteract the poison Bianchi creates. I have to keep on changing it since she's still developing her poisons." Verde explains, walking over to where the others were.

The Arcobaleno take a look over to the computer terminals to find the strange woman tied up in computer leads, her pigtails chopped off and in some sort of chemically induced coma. Luce bounces over and takes out her coloured markers from earlier before drawing all over this woman's face too.

After Reborn administers the antidote, he sits down and grabs one of the captive's hands, before slowly starting to hammer in splinters underneath the man's nails. These hands were the ones use to take Tsunayoshi away from them, away from him. These hands had hurt Tsunayoshi. "Well Verde, is there anything you'd like to do before I turn this man into a statue?" He'd place that man somewhere in Spain where everyone could see him and know not to mess with the Arcobaleno ever again. He'd become an example.

"No. Go ahead. He can just donate his body to science after he dies." Verde says, waving a nonchalant hand in the air.

Martillo continues to grunt and scream as more and more splinters are inserted.

Reborn stops and takes out two different vials, shaking them up. Slowly, eyes locked with Martillo's the entire time, he removes the corks and goes to pour one into the other…

"STOP!"

Before Reborn knows it, Tsunayoshi is standing infront of him, between him and his prey, arms spread out defensively. Viper is only a few steps away, arms outstretched as she chased the boy.

Tear studded eyes move from one Arcobaleno to another. "Isn't anyone going to stop him?" Tsunayoshi asks. "What happened to the promise you all made me?!"

None of the Arcobaleno can look Tsunayoshi in the eyes.

None except one.

"I need to."

Those were the only words Reborn said.

"J-just promise me…That you'll only kill people who deserve it. The only people to disappear are people who you have to. Okay? I-I understand that you kill to keep me and the others safe. I d-don't like it, not at all. But you have to, right?"

Tsunayoshi freezes up before violently shaking his head. "No you don't. You don't need to kill someone because they took me. I'm still here, I didn't disappear, I didn't DIE! There is no need to." Tsunayoshi pleads.

He wasn't worth killing someone over.

"But you are." Says Reborn, doing that weird mind reading thing he did. Tsunayoshi couldn't believe those words had just left Reborn's lips. Reborn cared about him that much?

"You are worth it, kora." Colonnello adds in.

"The Great Skull-sama would even swap Heaven and Hell for you!"

"I'm not even going to charge a fee for this."

"Just this once, for you brat."

"Aww, Lal that was sweet."

"Shut up idiot!"

"Would I leave my family for someone who wasn't worth it?"

"For you I'd change the laws of Science."

"Wow, can Verde really do that?" asks Skull. Everyone else just ignores him.

"Family first Tsunayoshi. That's the way of things."

"Would you feel better if we said it was to protect everyone in Mafia Row too?"

Tsunayoshi turns to look at Fon, a man who hated killing almost as much as Tsunayoshi did. "He was going to kill you before hurting the Italian Mafia. That's what he said to me." Tsunayoshi mumbles.

"He had never even tried to negotiate with the Italians. He went straight to violence." Luce explains.

"But-But, But killing is wrong!" Tsunayoshi protests. It was wrong, people shouldn't need to disappear. But it was, it was normal here in the mafia. N-naughty p-people needed t-telling off… right? "You promised." He mumbles, tears filling his eyes.

"Fine." Viper huffs before kneeling down next to the man. She hisses as she does so, her ribs protesting against the movement. As she moves her hands to be on the captive's temples, he attempts to bite her, so she slaps him. The air around Viper glows, her hands especially. Within seconds of the contact, Martello let's out the loudest shriek he's done yet.

"Viper NO!" Tsunayoshi runs around and pulls at her hands.

"Stop it." She hisses, trying to focus on her illusion instead. But Tsunayoshi only pulls harder in fear-filled determination. "I'm following your damn wishes so let me be!" Tsunayoshi stops, he had never heard Viper use that tone on him before now.

"W-what are you doing?" Tsunayoshi asks, tears finally falling down his cheeks in a combination of shock from Viper's shout and from being worried that Viper was about to kill someone infront of him.

"I'm going to make him so scared of the Arcobaleno that he won't ever want to come and kill us or the Italian Mafia ever again. If he tries peaceful negotiations then he'll be fine. But if he ever raises a hand unjustly towards one of us, he'll remember these images and stop immediately." She explains in a breathless whisper.

Lal walks over and picks the stunned Tsunayoshi up. "C'mon brat, let's go home." She says.

Bermuda, not knowing the state of the rest of the abandoned church- it was highly possible a few deaths had occurred- decided that a portal would be the best, and quickest, way home. He was going to regret it later since his Flames were the only thing keeping him standing at the moment, but it would be worth it. Everyone but Reborn and Viper enter and leave for home.

Viper stays working on her illusion. She too was going to end up paying big time for this, two Flame drains in one day was not a good thing, but she continued on regardless. She had to make this illusion perfect or else she would have failed Tsunayoshi. She wouldn't get his tear filled gaze out of her head.

Reborn stands there and stares at the vials in his hands. He could do it. He could pour these two vials all over the scumbag that had started this whole mess, turn him into a statue. Tsunayoshi would never know. Viper could be paid into silence and it wasn't like Tsunayoshi would ever see this man again. In three seconds it could all be over. So easily. He could and he should. But…

Reborn clicks his tongue in anger and looks away for the pathetic scrap of a man on the floor.

He could… and he should… but he won't.

There we go! Not as gory as some of you were suspecting, but this is supposed to be a cute fic and I don't want to change styles totally. I'm not sure if the fic will ever get this dark again- or at least include another torture scene. Fights scenes are a given though, can't avoid those. But they'll be more… normal.

Anyway, has anyone guessed what's happening next arc? I've placed some clues in there for you. Not in this chapter particularly, but there have been two chapters with clues in it.

And it's time for our sentence, which for once perfectly summarises what happened in this arc:

When something important has gone missing, you ask everyone, look everywhere and do all you can to find it again and deal with whoever had dared to steal it from you.

I hope you enjoyed this change of pace. If you didn't, let me know, okay.

See you all next chapter!

Phantom Hitman 1412

First Published 02 December 2012.