The sound of a young girl panting for breath echoed across the dark graveyard. Her hands were calloused, and she was very skinny. She had no excess fat, and most of her weight was pure muscle. Her clothes were all second hand, but well cared for.
In her right hand was a wooden stake, which considering her appearance didn't really fit the situation.
This girl was the Slayer, and she hated everything that came with it. It wasn't the vampires or other dark creatures that made her hate being the current Slayer suck so much. She could have lived with that.
It was the Watcher's Council and what they did to her that made her absolutely loathe the "honor" of being the Slayer. If she could have pulled it off, she would have killed them a long time ago.
She just wanted to go home. Home, where her mother and her life was.
Not likely to happen, considering she was in Europe and home was in Japan. Especially with her Watcher, who was an abusive bastard that took out the fact she was extraordinarily clumsy and sometimes not that quick with coming up with the right answer to whatever question he barked at her. Who treated her more like a tool than a person and took great pleasure in making her life hell.
Some might have considered suicide.
She wouldn't give those old bastards the satisfaction, and if she died then some other poor girl would be ripped from her home and forced to fight.
Besides, she still wanted to see her mother again.
So she ran. She did her "duty", despite never wanting it or asking for it, and kept her head down.
It didn't take a genius to figure out she was surrounded. One stake wasn't going to cut it, but her Watcher wasn't stupid enough to give her a real weapon. He rightly knew she'd eventually use it on him the first chance she had.
Bastard.
Himeno stared at the vampires around her with a set grimace. She despised being the Slayer and she loathed the Watcher's Council with every fiber of her being.
As she started dusting vampires, she quickly realized she was about to be overrun.
That bastard had probably known this would happen, which was why he let her go solo.
Seeing the fangs about to descend upon her neck, she reached out and grabbed the vampire's face with her free hand. The remaining ones took it as a signal to surge forward and kill her...or turn her, whichever came first.
She was not going to die here. She was not giving those English bastards the satisfaction of using up another girl until there was nothing left, after they ripped her from her home.
She was not going to lose, even if it meant she slowly bled out.
Inside her soul, something slammed forward, breaking something that had been worn down from all the life and death situations she dealt with almost every single day.
Ever since she was young, she always felt cold. To say nothing of how her brain always felt like it was trying to wade through snow that had turned into a wet slush that had yet to figure out if it would refreeze properly or not.
But right now? Now she felt properly warm for the first time in far too long. Fire, pure and bright, sprang forth from her body, incinerating every vampire in the graveyard.
She gasped, taking deep breaths as she tried to understand what the hell just happened. The fire slowly died, and she almost fainted.
Except she didn't trust her Watcher as far as she could throw that sleazy pig. She managed to remain conscious long enough to make it to her room, which she promptly slammed shut and locked so tightly it would take far too long for that man to get through it. At least, not without waking her up first.
Things were different now. It was like a filter had been forcibly removed from her body and she could think.
She was actually able to defend against that pig she was stuck with, and the look in his eyes made her want to shudder in revulsion. She was almost sixteen, and she knew he was a pervert. She had to clean up after him before, enough to know that locks were always a must in whatever city they were stuck in.
It was as she was cooking dinner that it happened. The second she felt the hand on her waist, she didn't even think. She just reacted.
Hot oil slammed into her Watcher's face, followed soon after by the hot skillet. Hearing his howl of pain, she proceeded to hit him hard enough to make him think twice about getting up.
This was her only chance. She had to get out of her and run, otherwise she'd never be able to escape this hell. She grabbed her emergency travel bag, some of the real weapons like the knives thanks to the key she stole, and all the money the pig had in his wallet.
She was out the door before the man recovered enough from the concussion she just gave him to follow.
Himeno didn't let the sudden freedom go to her head. That man might be a pig, but he was very good at tracking people down.
She needed to put several countries between him and her before she even remotely relaxed. Seeing a cruise ship about to depart, she managed to slip into the cargo bay just before the door closed and hid from view.
She didn't even care where it was going, so long as it was far, far away from here.
Apparently she was heading to an island, one she didn't recognize. The primary language spoken was Italian, which she thankfully knew.
Somehow, she had the feeling a lot of things were about to change. She just hoped it was for the better for once.
Five hours later...
Himeno was running, but she was used to that. What she wasn't used to was the fact that the only ships off the island were all being closely watched and she didn't have any money left to bribe the captains into getting her out of her.
It wasn't her fault that the asshole Watcher trained her to treat anyone getting into her personal space without permission as an attack on her person! Or that any attack should be dealt with lethal force!
God she hated that man.
To be fair, she had no idea what was even going on until someone went to grab her shoulder roughly and she knifed the idiot responsible.
The howl of pain was so human that she barely managed to hold onto her knife as she bolted. Except that was apparently the signal to give chase, which meant she now had to dodge security on top of whoever was stupid enough to grab her.
She found an empty alley with a manhole, and managed to get that open and close the hole before she dropped several feet into a tunnel system. There was limited light, but her gut told her to follow a specific direction.
Then she heard voices behind her, shouting about finding the "idiot girl who knifed 'so-and-so'", and she started running. She had a lot of experience in running from things faster and stronger than her.
And ran almost head first into someone who was toddler sized, carrying a rifle bigger than he was, with blond hair and a blue pacifier around his neck.
"So you're the one who's been causing a fuss, kora. Drop the knife and you might not get kicked off onto the mainland."
Considering the closest "mainland" she could think of happened to be the same one she just came from, there was really only one reaction she had to that announcement.
She attacked, and the "toddler" was far more skilled than her Watcher ever was.
Then she flared whatever that fire was, and the toddler's eyes widened. Especially since he managed to damage her thin shirt to the point several of her scars were exposed, along with the usual bruises her Watcher gave for not being quick enough when he quizzed her. Which was every other night.
The blond's eyes soften, and there was a feeling of overwhelming peace and tranquility before she blacked out. Something caught her, but she had no idea what.
Colonello POV...
Well this was a mess and a half. The female brat who stabbed a Flame Active idiot from a moderately high up familigia turned out to be a Sky herself. An abused Sky, from the looks of it.
The girl had looked openly terrified of the mere mention of being sent back to the mainland, and from the bruises alone he could tell she must have been running from something.
He wasn't a doctor or anything, but he knew multiple healing bruises when he saw them. And that wasn't even getting to the scars he could clearly see under those.
He was lucky he managed to catch her.
It took a few seconds to clear up the mess with security...though he wasn't placating the idiots who set her off to the point she knifed them. It was a bigger pain relocating the girl to the main hospital on the island. Fortunately that's what new recruits were for.
"Oi, Bomber brat. Got a job for ya, kora," said Colonello.
Gokudera Hayato was a part time hit man who used most of his money paying for lessons from the Rain Arcobaleno. He had taken pity on the kid and given him a discount, since he didn't bitch about the work.
"Who's this?"
"None of your damn business, but I need your help carrying her into the barracks until I can arrange for her to be taken to the hospital discreetly. The last thing we need is for the idiots to find out what she is, especially considering her wounds," said Colonello flatly.
A potentially unattached Sky with all the signs of long-term abuse? That was just asking for trouble and Colonello wasn't stupid enough to invite it.
Hayato managed to pick the girl up and frowned almost immediately.
"What is it?" asked Colonello.
"She weighs less than those bags you always have me run with every morning. And she's bony as hell."
Colonello's frown deepened. As if he didn't need more evidence the girl had been through hell.
An hour later she was quietly relocated to a private room. Skies were treated like royalty, so she at least wouldn't have to pay for anything. Especially if she attracted the eye of a powerful familigia to pay the bill.
As it was, Colonello found himself in an odd position. He felt a strange, desire to protect and take care of the little Sky that had somehow managed to slip into Mafia Land.
It wasn't until he was essentially called in by one of the doctors that he found out why.
This bruised and battered girl was his Sky. During the moments they were fighting and she did everything in her power to avoid being sent back to the mainland, their Flames had mingled to the point that his Rain had latched onto her Sky. The fact she didn't have any Guardians yet (save for him) was a pretty big clue she was either recently active or kept from them.
The doctor (which Colonello vaguely registered as Trident Shamal, a friend of Reborn's) looked downright pissed.
"Where the hell did you find this girl?"
"That bad?" he asked.
Shamal gave Colonello a look that said volumes. This wasn't the Mist who enjoyed the ladies and was always flirting with anything female. This was the hit man who declined an invitation to join the Varia and he was pissed.
"She has bruises on top of bruises, there are scars almost literally all over her body...most of which look like something tried to claw her open or were made by a sharp blade, and the less said about how underweight and malnourished she is, the better. As if that wasn't bad enough, there are several indications that she forcibly broke through a seal on her Flames."
Colonello stared, looked at Shamal and then at his new Sky. He had figured she was abused and neglected, but the evidence Shamal had found through a single physical was pretty damning. And to add a seal on top of all that...
It was a miracle she was even ALIVE.
Hearing a groan, the two immediately looked at the unconscious Sky starting to wake up.
Seeing them, her eyes widened in fear. It was pretty clear she was terrified of being sent back.
Colonello followed his instincts and made sure she saw him removing his gun and put it to the side.
"Easy, kora. We're not going to hurt you or send you to the mainland," he said gently.
She was clearly confused about that.
"Why?"
Colonello looked at Shamal.
"You're in a hospital right now. In a suite specifically designed for certain...people. I just need to ask a few questions," said Shamal, his voice low and soothing.
Her eyes narrowed at them both.
"You're not with the Watcher's Council are you?"
The two of them shared a look.
"That does explain a few things, like where those claw scars came from..." muttered Shamal. "The sooner you answer a few basic questions, the sooner you can eat and properly rest. Let's start with something simple, like your name."
"Himeno."
"Birthday?"
"October fourteenth."
"Age?"
"Almost sixteen."
Shamal decided to ask a slightly more difficult question.
"How long have you been an active Slayer?"
"Since shortly after I turned nine. The Council found me when I was nine and a half. They spun the whole thing like I had somehow earned a fully paid scholarship to a boarding school in England and tricked my mother into letting me go. They wouldn't even let me contact her after, and ever since I've been stuck with the same Watcher who treated me as nothing more than a tool," she said, shivering. It was clear that whoever was her Watcher terrified her. "There was this fire, in the graveyard. It always felt so cold until that fire came. I knew if I didn't run, something terrible would happen."
She didn't even realize she was crying, or that she was hugging Colonello tightly to her chest like a teddy bear. For once he wasn't cursing his small size, because it was clear the poor girl needed something to hold on to.
"Easy, kora. The Watcher's Council can't come onto Mafia Land, and any vampires stupid enough to come here usually end up dust because of bored mafioso. You're safe here," said Colonello gently, letting his Flames calm her down.
Shamal felt very pissed off with the Watchers now.
"Do you remember your home address or old phone number?" he asked slowly.
"Vaguely. But I'm terrified that if I go home now, he'll track me down and force me to fight again. He might even hurt Mama..." said Himeno, her voice trembling.
Shamal handed her a notepad and a pen. She wrote down her old address and the number she could remember.
"What about your father?" asked Shamal. He had noticed she made no mention of him when the Watchers came.
Himeno's face went completely flat.
"My father is either dead or a deadbeat who left my mother and I when I was five. If he is still alive, then the mere fact he left us along long enough for the Watchers to take me means I don't even want to know who he is."
Colonello snorted in agreement.