The day Skull realizes he had claimed the Arcobaleno as his starts rather nicely.
There's a nice breeze out, there's just enough cloud cover to be sunny but not overbearing, the Arcobaleno had gathered together, and for once it's going well for everyone, it's productive.
Skull is antsy as hell.
Every instinct he has is screaming at him.
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 place to place, and he keeps his back to the wall with all the windows and doors in sight. He's ready for just about anything.
He's also drawing attention to himself, but he doesn't care right now because something is wrong.
All he needs to do is find it.
So he ignores the eyes of the other Arcobaleno staring him down.
He looks for threats instead.
This focus on everyone and everything else means that he doesn't notice when the Arcobaleno stop talking, doesn't notice when Colonnello and Reborn reach for him and he automatically slips through their hands. (He had never dodged their hands before- only bullets and weapons and such)
He 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 one's that do this, but Skull had learned this trick years before he had even heard of the Mafia.
He slides to his feet, 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 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'. They responded to all the nonverbal cues he 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.
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.)
Skull heads for the bar. The route there takes him past the table the people he's watching are 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.
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.
Skull lashes out fast, hard and war trained. The one to grab his wrist goes down easily the palm strike to his nose killing him instantly. The other man dodges and steps back away from Skull, lashing out himself.
Skull expects that too.
He doesn't quite expect the wand.
Skull focuses on it like the threat it is and he is unaware of the way his face has twisted in a way 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.
He forgets the Arcobaleno are there for a moment.
He forgets, but they see.
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 Only they were allowed to do that and never like this) 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 didn't know 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. And it's a bit different then when he was younger in the sense that his rage burns cold, his eyes have narrowed, and Cloud Flames are flickering over his skin from his hands up his arms to his shoulders, and he's focused in the way only war can teach you.
The Arcobaleno freeze.
They had known their Cloud for just about 33 years. They had never seen him angry like this. They had never seen the temper all Clouds were known for having in their Cloud. 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.
They can't quite manage to explain how Skull seemed to have grown 6feet his presence swelling and filling the room and 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- their shadow flicking- a sign of extreme emotion- nor the stretching which was a sign of rage)
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- "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 staring at nothing, his eyes wide and unseeing despite the fact that he's still blinking and it's something they had only ever seen after Viper destroyed somebodies 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 him angry.
He erupts into a purple bonfire of Flames and snarls.