The day Skull realizes he had claimed the Arcobaleno as his starts rather nicely.
He spent the early hours of the night cleaning and managed to sleep decently until morning. There was a nice breeze out, just enough cloud cover to be sunny but not overbearing. Fresh air, birds singing and all in all a pleasant morning. The Arcobaleno had gathered together at a bar and grill that was very familiar with them and their need for privacy and odd requests. For once it's going well for everyone. There's no violent demonstrations of superiority, no vicious arguments or continued fights. It's productive and there's nothing wrong.
Skull is antsy as hell.
Every instinct he has is screaming at him. Cold fingers of a long buried fury crawling up his spine and he can feel his Flames rising in his chest. Only it's not a mafia, it's not a Skull problem that is triggering this response. It's different and terrifyingly familiar and that's when the anger comes.
Some of 'Harry' bleeds through into Skull.
He's tense and quiet. Anything he says is stilted and it's obvious he's not really paying attention. His eyes dart from windows to exits, lingering over faces and hands, and he keeps his back to the wall with all the blind spots and doors firmly in his line of sight. He's ready for just about anything.
He will not be caught off guard when there's something so painfully familiar about what's setting him off and he hates this.
Skull's also drawing attention to himself from his fellow ex-Arcobaleno, but he doesn't care right now because something is wrong.
All he needs to do is find it so he can get rid of it.
So he ignores the eyes of the other Arcobaleno staring him down. There is confusion and suspicious as they look at him and aren't recognizing the man who first sat down at the table with languid body language with grand gestures and a loud voice. If Skull were looking, if he was paying attention to his fellow Elements, he would see the irritation, the annoyance and the sharp edges in their eyes as they look at him, but he isn't.
He looks for threats instead.
This focus on everyone and everything else means that he doesn't really notice when the Arcobaleno eventually stop talking, doesn't notice when Colonello and Reborn's frustration with him builds until they both reach for him and he automatically slips through their hands. He doesn't catch the way Reborn's lips curl into a smirk, barely restrained from violence or the way Colonello turns his entire body to stare where Skull's eyes are lingering.
(He had never dodged their hands before- only bullets and weapons and such.)
In that moment, before any make a single move, Skull notices them first.
It's something that had to be trained into the body- relaxing at the sight of danger. It not only puts the people who are causing the danger off center, but it allows for greater reaction on Skull's side. It's an assassin thing- hitmen are usually the ones that do this, but Skull had learned this trick years before he had ever heard of the Mafia.
He slides to his feet with a sudden gracefulness, never letting his eyes focus on the people he had finally pinpointed as the source of his unease for more than a fraction of a second. He glides forward on silent feet, shifting from the walls and around tables until he reaches them.
Skull doesn't notice how his movements have put the Arcobaleno on guard. They were the best of the best- they recognized the way Skull went from quiet, scanning everything to that near invisible fraction of a second miss-it-if-you-blink stillness followed quickly by his body relaxing into a ready-for-anything causal-at-a-glance stance.
They had never seen these instincts and movements from their Cloud, but this was Skull (no one else had Cloud Flames like his, no one could fake them so they knew it was their Cloud) and they trusted him even if he was what they considered the 'weak link'. Colonello keeps his gaze on Skull's path and Reborn's smirk tugs downwards into a frown, but he stands with Leon in his grip. They each responded to all the nonverbal cues their Cloud was giving off by mimicking them- their bodies relaxing into that ready state, their eyes casually sweeping the area for what was setting their Cloud off.
At first, it's for information, for scientific curiosity, for boredom or even interest, but...there's nothing. It upsets more than a few of them that they don't see whatever Skull sees.
And they know it's something serious which makes it worse because this is Skull. Skull who is their weak link, who doesn't have their strength or skill level, who is walking into danger they can't sense.
Skull heads for the bar. The route there takes him past the table the people he's watching are casually sitting at.
He's glad it's not too crowded, a few groups scattered through the bar (most had fled upon seeing the Arcobaleno come in) and not much else. The staff know not to bother them, know enough to keep out of their way when things go down.
He is expecting it when, as he passes the table, a hand darts out. He's expecting it when they grip his wrist and try to jerk him around to attack him. He is expecting the other hand reaching for his head. It's not. That other hand is holding something else, something he can't quite see.
It doesn't matter in this moment.
Skull lashes out fast, hard and with war trained reflexes that he has done nothing to dull, not allowed to dull even during his stint in the mafia, over the decades. The one to grab his wrist goes down easily, the palm strike to his nose killing him instantly as bone sinks into delicate brain matter. The other man dodges and steps back away from Skull, anger twisting his expression as he lashes out himself.
Skull expects that too.
He doesn't quite expect the wand until there's familiar words beginning to shape this one's mouth and it's the end of an era and the past comes screaming through the front door.
Skull focuses on it like the threat it is and he is unaware of the way his face has twisted in an expression none of the Arcobaleno have ever seen- rage and pain and how-dare-you and a bit of horror (he was done- he wasn't Harry why were they here why were they here) and a smidgen of fear because he did not want to go back.
They're going to make him go back.
He forgets the Arcobaleno are there for a moment.
He forgets and it's not quite Skull anymore, because he's been Skull for so long but Skull isn't magic. Harry Potter is magic, will always be magic and he's the one they've come for. Everyone sees.
They see the rage (that had never shown up on their Cloud's face before) they see the pain (who was this son of a bitch to cause pain to their Cloud?) they see the horror (and the man's grave just keeps getting deeper- that had never shown up on their Cloud's face before either- not like that. Not actual horror) but the fear…the fear so unlike the fear he showed them, this fear that said he knew what was coming and he was scared of it- that pissed them all off.
And then the man lifts his wand and suddenly Skull remembers the Arcobaleno are behind him and then Skull is gone and in his place is Harry Potter: Man-Who-Conquered and he's angry.
It's been years, so it's a bit different then when he was younger. But only in the sense that now his rage burns long and cold, his eyes have focused solely on the enemy in front, and Cloud Flames are flickering over his skin from his hands up his arms to his shoulders, and he's sharpened in the way only war can teach you.
The Arcobaleno freeze. Stuttering breaths and stumbling limbs. It's surprise and shock and oh fuck.
They had known their Cloud for just about thirty three years. They had never seen him angry like this. They had never seen the temper all Clouds were known for having in their Cloud. (Not really). The fact that this man- whoever he is- has pissed off not just an Inverted Cloud but Skull to the point that his Flames flicker over his arms up to his shoulders is telling. Skull has skipped over irritation, anger, and that breaking point and gone straight to rage.
They can't quite manage to explain how Skull seemed to have grown six feet, his presence swelling and filling the room as his shadow- a left over from the curse, something their flames actually cause now, not a curse- flickers and stretches. (That had never happened with Skull either. Neither their shadow flicking- a sign of extreme emotion- nor the stretching which was a sign of fury)
Skull gives the man one warning- simply because he knows the Arcobaleno are behind him and he doesn't want them to see this in him, this one secret thing that isn't Skull-
"Get out."
The man doesn't listen. He fires a Bombarda instead.
Skull's Flames blind everyone in the room when they flare in response and no one, no one but Viper, can sense the magic that flares with them, but they all hear the low guttural snarl that escapes their Cloud, the sound of splintering wood and a choked off wheeze.
When their eyes clear of the purple afterimages, the man is hanging limply in Skull's grasp, feet barely brushing the floor, staring at nothing, his eyes wide and unseeing. The Cloud's fists open and the body falls. It's somewhat recognizable, what's been done as it's something they had only ever seen after Viper destroyed someone's mind, but this time it's Skull leaning over the body of the braindead man.
Skull had dived into the man's head to see why he was there.
What he finds isn't good.
It makes his blood burn and the memories he's spent so long learning to live with come back with a vengeance in all their blood-stained glory.
Skull erupts into a bonfire of amethyst Flames and snarls.