Leilani kicked a lamppost on the way out. She had even lost her groceries! She had lost money and she had lost her temper.

This had gone terrible, way worse than she could have ever imagined and she definitely under no circumstances wanted to repeat this.

The words she had said burned in her throat but she gave her best to swallow the vile taste down.

'Just don't think about it.' she repeated constantly in her mind. it would go away. She would be able to ignore it.

She felt the phone in her hand vibrate. She wanted to chuck it somewhere. She didn't want it. She neither knew how to use it or even wanted to. Why would she? She burned the bridge and she had no plan to repair it.

Leilani was about to drop it into the next trash can when she paused. Would that work? Wouldn't they find it and go after her again? They weren't stupid. They would know.

She would need to fake it. She couldn't let them know her location.

Her feet carried her to the train station she had seen on her way to the grocery store.

A few people were waiting and to her luck one man even held a large suitcase. He would be her best bet.

She hid in the shadows as she let her magic wash over the phone. True she had never learned the incantation to the invisibility spell but that didn't stop her from trying. It took a few minutes but in the end she succeeded, a burst of indigo flames washing over the phone. Now she only needed to pull off a teleportation spell.

She needed several minutes again but managed it before the man stepped inside the train.

Sure, she couldn't be sure she actually managed to place her phone in his luggage but it had disappeared from her hand and so she counted it as a win.

She decided to not go to the grocer again. Sure, she had been in need of food but she was more inclined to get back to the forest, get her stuff and flee from the town as soon as possible. The further she increased the difference the better she would feel after all.

The phone hadn't helped the arcobalenos achieve anything. Skull neither picked up the phone nor did he even read their messages. Honestly Reborn had even apologised to Skull, same as Colonnello but nothing ever achieved any kind of reaction from the cloud.

It had been six months and they had decided to track Skull down, together this time.

After all, the phone had that purpose as well.

All of them even had an app installed for keeping track of Skulls location and the group was slowly walking towards the marker, having needed to get into an airport.

"It's supposed to be here." Verde uttered, while he tried to find the purple toddler.

But to no avail, no matter how often they scanned the room they couldn't find him.

Verde focused on his app only to see the tracker move and his eyes wandered up only to see a man with a suitcase leaving the room "He didn't.."

Fon looked up "What is it, Verde?"

The scientist pulled his glasses off to rub over his eyes "Skull doesn't have his phone."

"But it was constantly moving. He couldn't have thrown it away, kora." the rain threw in.

Reborn sighed "Apparently Skull smuggled the phone in someone else's luggage. Honestly we should have expected this."

The whole group stayed silent. No one was really sure what to do now.

Viper groaned out "I'm gonna check in with my contacts. It can't be that someone like Skull didn't attract any attention when he left. It's not possible. Alone airport security would have kept him."

Lal nodded sombre "I will check it too. Vongola has staff at almost every airport. He would have needed to go through one of them."

The group seemed disappointed but they soon parted so that all of them could go back to their research and search.

But again the Arcobalenos had no luck. Even while they had a starting point and a smaller time frame no matter where they checked or which security cameras they hacked they couldn't find Skull.

It took two more years until Viper stumbled across the cloud as Skull was once again stepping out of a grocery store.

"Skull?"

Leilani had spent a lot of her free time studying her magic. She even went as far as buying a notebook and a pen to write down everything she could remember from school. Every last spell they had researched. Even if she didn't know the incantation or much else it still left her enough information to try to figure out how to cast it.

Using magic was tiring and sometimes she barely managed to practise for an hour before she had to rest but it slowly got better.

Quite a few of the spells she had been used to casting worked differently now, they were either weaker or overpowered and it didn't help that she had no one t0 actually teach her anything. But she hadn't given up.

Living outside got easier like that. She even had cast the refilling charm on the water bottle she had purchased a while ago, which guaranteed her an endless supply of clean drinking water. Sadly it only worked for drinks but still it helped her immensely.

Warming and fire spells worked wonders as well and the weather started to impact her less and less even if she still had to wander south for the winter. It wasn't the same as living in an actual house but colder nights got more bearable, especially as her tent and other equipment started to wear down.

Another revelation she had encountered was that she didn't need to utter the incantation out loudly or even mimic the movements with her hands. Just picturing the effect of the spell and willing her magic out often did the trick. Whenever she remembered the incantation though and silently cast it in her hand it worked better. She really mourned the fact that she didn't have any kind of spellbook around but she started to use her very poor latin knowledge to try to come up with her own incantation. Sure, her magic listened without it but it made everything easier.

She had just come from another shopping trip to fill up on a few cans of thunfish and pickled vegetables. The weather had started to get colder and finding food outside had started to turn into a struggle again.

The soft "Skull?" that came from her left side made her snap around.

She cursed silently she maybe shouldn't have started to cover her pacifier to stop herself from thinking about the curse and the group. "Ah Viper. I always knew you were one of my fans. Couldn't help but to stalk me here, right?"

"Mou Skull, you can stop pretending. I know who you really are."

"Do you? I wonder… honestly I can't even tell anymore." she shrugged her shoulders.

"Yes, I am. this is not you."

"I wouldn't be so sure. You know betrayal does fuck one up."

"Skull… we should have told you. We know. We are aware. Let's talk it out alright?"

"But I don't have any interest in that?"

"Please."

"Not good enough." she shrugged, already casting a silent colloshoo, a tiny blue flame sparked off her fingertips. "Was not nice to meet you again. Do me a favour and tell senpai and the others to finally leave me alone, right? The great Skull-sama is way too awesome for your presence."

Viper tried to move towards the cloud to stop Skull from leaving only to notice that they were stuck. The miser looked up in horror, seeing Skulls retreating back but even when the stuntman left their visions their shoes didn't part from the ground.

Another year passed until Lal encountered the cloud. She had taken the day off and had used it to run a small errand when her pacifier lit up.

She knew that none of her bondmates were currently in Italy and so she immediately turned around to follow the signal. While her own pacifier barely lit up in comparison to the non corrupted ones the light was still noticeable for her.

It took a while and she had to go deeper into the forest only to finally come across Skull who was sitting at a lake, a backpack that was clearly too big on his back and completely lost in thoughts.

She silently creeped closer only speaking up when she was directly behind him. "You've gotten skinnier, Skull."

The cloud very obviously flinched, before glancing back "I'm doing a juice cleanse. All the fabulous people do it."

Lal raised an eyebrow "Isn't it time you stop running away from us?"

"Well did you find out anything about the curse?"

She hesitated "No… no, we didn't but.. maybe we could help you get home. It was our original plan after the missions ended."

The cloud sighed "You can't."

"Why? Did you lose your memory? Viper would probably be able to find it. They and Verde were certain that no forgotten memory is truly lost."

"That's not it."

"Then what is it?"

"It's just not possible. I have accepted it. I'm stuck here forever."

"I don't understand."

"You don't have to, Lal. Would you be so kind to leave now?"

"Skull… please. We are all worried."

"Lal, I might not…" the cloud paused, slowly standing up before turning around "I don't want to be around any of you. I might have accepted the situation but it doesn't change it. It doesn't change what you did and that I don't trust any of you. Honestly the only reason I indulged you so long is because it's my birthday and well… even though I thought some company might be nice especially as you and Verde remind me of one of my best friends… but I realised it's not true. I would rather be alone."

"It's your birthday? Let me take you out for cake at least."

Skull shook his head "No, I'm leaving. I stayed for too long already."

"Skull."

The cloud started to walk off but Lal spurted forwards trying to catch his wrist only to get immediately thrown backwards, green electric sparks accompanying it and when she looked up again after standing up the cloud was already gone.

Lal was about to follow the light signal again but it had already expired. She had no clue how but she still pulled out her phone to give out an update.

Leilani had messed up. She had been too late, had completely lost track of time and she didn't know how she would manage to get to a warmer country for the winter. Sure, she had her fire spells but it would still be terrible. She really didn't want to do it and so she was trying to check out one of the abandoned houses at the corner of the last town she had come across.

She was still testing if it would be warmer to stay inside here and already realising that it was pointless as way too many parts of the building had holes and it would be too noticeable if she tried to fix them up. She wasn't even sure if she would manage too. She hadn't tried many repair spells and even mending her tent and other equipment didn't work too well. It wasn't her forte at all.

She was about to turn around again to leave when she felt a gun pressed against her temple.

"Hello Lackey."

"Senpai. I didn't know it was a custom in Italy to greet someone with a gun. Not very gentleman of you in my opinion. In Britain we usually bring flowers."

She turned slightly to look at him.

His gaze was untelling as always "I did it especially for you. For old times sake. I figured you would have to stay for a little chat if you feared for your life."

Leilani raised her eyebrow "Charming."

"That I am."

"But senpai you forgot to consider two things."

"And they would be?"

"First I still have no interest in talking to any of you." She raised her finger in the air " And second… I'm not the same as when you first met me."

Casting Everte Statum was probably not the nicest thing, especially as the fact that Malfoy had used it on her in the duelling club in her second year was enough indication that it wasn't a nice spell but she still did it.

Not even waiting to see how Reborn stumbled backwards, inhaling loudly and doubling over at the temporary sharp pain aided by the red flames.

Still it was enough time to use another burst of storm flames to cast Finestra.

The windowglas burst into dust and she jumped through.

But still she couldn't stop the satisfaction from rising at finally escaping Reborn straight under his nose.

World's greatest hitman her ass.