Chapter 71
Behind Black Metal Bars.
Like Chrome had known, Mukuro had come back not long after, fast asleep and remained so for days. The nightmares were the worst they had ever heard before. Mukuro seemed to hate them. He always seemed to have a sneer or a look of disgust on his face.
The green haired Science Man came in the next day, took them one by one out of their cells and gave them an examination. Checked the state of their blood, of their anti-bodies and white cell count, of their heart rates, blood pressure, lung capacity, muscle density and lots of other tests. They didn't know what any of the tests were for, they didn't know the meaning of the results Verde mumbles to himself and wrote down. All they cared about was the overall mark of good health at the end of it all.
A few more adjustments had to be made; A few more injections with chemicals to fix unbalances. It was all routine, something the children had done many times before now, after each major attack, er, experiment, the Estraneo did on them. They always felt better after a visit from Verde, they felt more normal, less weird. Mukuro got these check up's too, even whilst he was sleeping yet another day away.
But one day, Mukuro wakes up.
And this time he feels, different. Even Ken, Chikusa and Chrome can feel the difference in him. And it's scary. He felt so much more powerful now.
They hear the sound of booted feet trudging along the corridor, knowing it was their Keepers on their rounds. Mukuro quickly lies down and pretends that he's still asleep. He didn't want to deal with the Estraneo and their experimenting at the moment. The door is opened and one masked face peers in.
"Experiments 96, 69, 49 and 14 all present and accounted for. Experiment 69 is still in a dormant state." The voice reports before closing the door behind themselves.
The four wait for the sounds of their Keepers to fade before moving again.
"You're awake byon!" Ken cheers, standing as close to the bars that separate him and Mukuro as possible.
Mukuro nods, smirking that devil's smile at them. He places a hand over his cursed eye and laughs. "Kufufufufufufuf~."
"How are you feeling Mukuro?" Chikusa asks, sitting next to the bars in-between him and Ken, as close as he could get to the others.
"I am feeling good. Very good." Mukuro admits.
"So! So!" Ken bounces, jumping up and down like a dog with his hands on the bars. "Tell us! Tell us! What cool super power did you get this time?" He begs, eyes wide in anticipation.
Mukuro gives off a disgusted look, so at odds with his smirk from earlier. "I shall call it the Path of Humans. The path of the pathetic and dirty humans that only make the world a bad place to live in. I saw it all. The world outside is no better than the world here." He gestures to the bars around them.
The other three gasp in shock. It couldn't be possible! The world outside of these black metal bars had to be better than this! Nothing could be worse than this!
Mukuro looks at the shocked faces of the other three, frowning in sadness too. "The world outside is a wicked and horrible place. And the Mafia is the worst of them all." He had learnt all this from his dream, from the nightmare of his past life as a human. "People outside of the Mafia are a little better, are nicer." He admits, not willing to give them only bleak news. "The Mafia is where all the rubbish humans end up. All of the evil and bad people end up joining the mafia."
"Tsunayoshi." Chrome mumbles.
The other three look at her before nodding in consideration. That was true, an exception to the rule. Tsunayoshi lives on an island filled with the worst badest mafia men in the world. But Tsunayoshi was a good person. Mukuro agreed that the boy was a good human, one of the minority. His past life had shown very few humans like him.
Speak of the Angel and so he shall appear.
"Errrgh, hmmmmmn, ahhhhn." Came some childish grunts from the doorway. "Why is this door so heeaavvyyy?" He whines. The door is then pushed open quicker and the Angel almost tumbles in. "Ah, thanks Verde!" He sings, beaming brightly at the scientist in the doorway.
"I'll be back for you soon. I need to talk to the Estraneo Boss about something important. And make sure-"
"To always stay exactly here." Tsunayoshi says as Verde finishes his sentence. "Of course I'll stay here. The rest of this place is scary scary like a haunted house." And why would he go anywhere else? His friends were right here. Verde nods and takes a sharp look at the four Estraneo experiments before shutting the door behind him.
"Hello everyone." Tsunayoshi says, turning that bright smile onto them instead.
"Hey it's Tsunayoshi-chan byon!" Ken cheers, running up to the front set of metal bars to see the child better.
"I have a really great story to tell you! I went to the future!" he exclaims, a huge grin on his face. The others look at him strangely, not really believing him. "No, no! It's really true." He pouts at the look the others are giving him. He wasn't telling a lie!
He jumps up on a box and gets the keys to their cells down before opening them all and letting the others out. The first thing Mukuro does is go into Chrome's cell and pick the tired girl up, cuddling her close. "I'm sorry to have left you on your own once again." He whispers. The moment he had woken up he had almost shouted out for her since he couldn't feel her presence. She had nearly run out of her limited supply of Flames to support her illusionary organs with. As soon as he had realised that he had immediately increased his own illusion to take the slack back up again. In the few short minutes since then her colour had gone back to normal and she seemed willing to move. She smiles, telling him in one look that it was okay, the she was okay and that she was relieved that he was fine too.
When Mukuro puts her down she crawls over to Chikusa and curls up in his lap, facing Tsunayoshi and ready for a story. Ken circles a small spot a couple of times before sitting down too, his knees up, looking like a puppy. Mukuro sat opposite Chrome so that he could keep an eye on her. That left Tsunayoshi to sit at the bottom of their circle, opposite Ken.
"I really did go to the future! I was walking past the Bovino house and suddenly 'poof' there was this huuuge cloud of smoke. When it all went away I was inside some strange house." The four had heard about the weird experiments the Bovino did from Tsunayoshi and sometimes from Verde. They knew enough that time was something the Bovino liked to mess with. "And then, and then there's this person there and it's Hayato, but a really big Hayato who was all grown up! I met lots of the others too, like Kyoya and Takeshi and even you and Chrome! Chrome is really really pretty when she grows up!" Tsunayoshi turns another beautiful smile in the girl's direction. She smiles back, happy with the compliment.
Tsunayoshi thinks back to the future Chrome, or Kiri as they had called her. She hadn't liked it when he has spoken about the Estraneo, she seemed really shocked for some reason. Maybe she had bad memories of this place? Looking at Chrome, now, she didn't look too well.
He then turns back to Mukuro. "And it just had to be you since he went Kufufufu~ all the time" Tsunayoshi explains, doing his best impression of Mukuro's chuckle. "And he had the same eye. No one else I know has your eye Mukuro." That was conclusive proof in the child's eye. "And everyone acted the same too. Kyoya even tried to hit me with his tonfa like he does whenever he sees me. But Kyoya is really fast and really strong in the future. He almost hit me lots of times. But I didn't get hit! I was all like zoom zoom pow and was jumping and escaping and he didn't get even one hit on me. Reborn would have been really proud!" Tsunayoshi dramatizes his adventure, jumping around the room and his arms gesturing all over the place.
"Oh Wow! That sounds exciting byon, like an adventure! You're really strong because the Arcobaleno are. Even we know that they are the strongest in the whole wide world!" Ken agrees, nodding his head in satisfaction. The Arcobaleno were so cool!
"You learn a lot from them." Chikusa adds in, watching all the dramatic movements the boy was making. "You should be careful though since the Estraneo want to keep you."
Everyone else turns to look at the branded boy, eyes wide in shock. "I heard it during my last experiment. Since you're Verde-sama's pet and trained by the other Arcobaleno, they think you will be very strong. They want you to be one of their experiments, get stronger and fight for them. However they are too scared of the Arcobaleno to take you." There is silence for a few seconds. This was the first any of them had heard of that.
"After what happened last week they aren't going to take you. Everyone knows what the Arcobaleno did to those naughty people who took you to Spain" Mukuro counters, the others nodding soon after. The Estraneo would be nothing more than a smouldering house if the Arcobaleno went after them. Oh yes, the Arcobaleno were very protective over their little Angel. They would do anything to keep him safe… or to keep him happy. Mukuro smirked at that thought. It was clear from the visits that the Arcobaleno would do almost anything that Tsunayoshi said. He had them wrapped around his little finger and he didn't even know it.
Perfect.
"And Tsunayoshi could kick their asses anyway!" Shouts Ken, punching the air.
"I met the future Arcobaleno too," Tsunayoshi starts, hand to his chin in thought, just like Verde did. "And I could dodge them as well."
"Haha, you can be a superhero when you grow up Tsunayoshi. That would be sooo cool!" Ken dreams, staring into space with a grin on his face.
"And Ken can be your faithful pet sidekick." Mukuro remarks, a sly smirk in place. The others all laugh at the joke whilst Ken pouts and protests.
"Only if Mukuro is the Pineapple in distress!" Ken jokes, sticking his tongue out at Mukuro. He yelps when Mukuro retaliates before running around the room and hiding behind Tsunayoshi. They all laugh at the play fight, enjoying themselves whilst they could.
Suddenly the door opens, so everyone goes quiet, wondering whether it was Verde or one of the Estraneo instead. However it is none of them. Instead it's Viper.
Mukuro and Chrome perk up, looking towards their teacher. All wondered what she was doing here. Ever since Verde had taken over their experiments, Mammon had stopped teaching them illusions. They needed to save their strength for getting better and withstanding the changes, rather than on illusionary control. Apart from the one time when Tsunayoshi was kidnapped and she asked Mukuro for help, she hadn't been back since.
"Vi-Mammon," Tsunayoshi says, catching himself just in time- he wasn't sure if he'd ever stop doing that. "What are you doing here?" He asks, walking over and immediately grabbing her robe as if to stop her from escaping.
Viper walks to the middle of the room and sits down with the other children.
"Verde called me here to restart your lessons." She explains briefly.
The four Estraneo Experiments look at each other, eyes as wide as possible.
Mukuro is the first to realise what this truly means and starts laughing. The others are soon to follow and start cheering and giving out high-fives.
They were finished. Over with. Done.
No more experiments.
They were complete.
Phantom Hitman 1412
First Published 17 January 2013