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ember and wildfire ch3
To step into Loyalty is to be weighed down.
It's in the water that laps at his legs, weight to cloth, an anchor that holds them down. It's in the sky, bloated clouds blanketing all signs of a sun or what time of day it is. Or perhaps it's only in Reborn himself, the expanse of ocean a reminder of the bindings he wears that are exactly as deep.
Not all of it is water. Obviously not, considering there is something beneath his feet. A forest of coral thrives under the water's surface, pulsing with life. Reborn is certain that if he went deeper, that's where he would find Lal Mirch and Colonello, as deeply entwined as coral and sea. Yet he doesn't step between the gaps, doesn't dive into the depths. Instead, patiently, he stays where he is on only the most surface level of their realm, their home, their self.
Waiting doesn't take long. Before him, the water parts around a familiar form, and Lal's hands press down into the coral as she hauls herself up onto the surface. Her lips part, only slightly, releasing a slow exhale that whistles sharply through the air. Whether it's habit or if she's aggravated to see him, only time will tell. In the meantime, Reborn's eyes roam over her. Fon favors his red robes. Mammon drapes themself in shadows. Their most beloved prefers impossible white for Her wear. Lal Mirch, in contrast, has shed most clothing, at least here in her and Colonello's own realm. Her body is bare, water following the curves of her muscles that are in plain sight and causing her broad shoulders to shine with sea slickness. There's only two articles of clothing on her entire body. The first is a simple pale bandanna tied around her throat, her dark hair clinging to it as much as it clings to her back and neck. The second is a waistcloth, any color long since washed away, tied sturdily to her hip with thin but dependable rope. As she straightens up, throwing her hair back, a dull piece of metal masquerading as a knife bangs against her thigh. With how her fingers twitch by it, he ponders how much she's considered embedding it in his throat.
"Lal Mirch," he says calmly, by way of greeting.
She doesn't return the favor. Instead, with all the grace he's not sure he could manage in such conditions, she strides forward straight to him with water surging around her legs. Only when she's a scarce few inches from his person does she stop, her eyes bright and critical. "What are you here for?" she asks bluntly, no dancing around the issue. One would think that a regular person would be a little more wary, confronting another that has harmed them. The scars are still vivid against her flesh, staying in a perpetual blossom along her cheek and the curve from neck to shoulder. With the water still fresh against it all, they nearly seem new.
Reborn doesn't look away. Instead, he takes it in- all of it. Lal Mirch wears her battle scars like they're fine silks, even going so far as to cock her head to the side so that they're all the more exposed to his eye. He'd have to be an impressive amount of oblivious to miss the silent challenge for what it is.
"Looks like it hurts," he says.
Her eyes flash. "Not a bit," she says, and it doesn't taste like a lie coming from her mouth.
"Good."
Lal Mirch's eyebrows rise up at the response and, at the same time that Reborn can feel someone else rise up behind him. There's no need for him to look over his shoulder; there's only one other person who could form so seemlessly from seemingly nowhere in Loyalty's domain. He does so anyway, just enough to see that familiar cocky and aggressive smirk over broad shoulders. While he can't entirely be sure, Reborn is enough so to suspect that Colonello is as devoid of clothing as Lal Mirch is. In fact, he might be completely and utterly nude. While she continues to size him up some more, Reborn speaks up again. "Do you two always walk around completely nude, or is that merely luck on my part?"
What kind of luck? That part he leaves up to the imagination. Colonello slips around his side, the rope around his own hips hanging low, and knocks his head forward to grind into Reborn's own forehead. Not budging an inch, he grinds right back, even as he quirks up an eyebrow and smirks lightly. With the action returned, Colonello grins all the sharper. Is he enjoying himself? It certainly seems like it. "Got a problem with it, hey?" he asks.
The words Not at all don't get a chance to leave Reborn's lips. Lal Mirch shoves her hand inbetween their faces, flicking Colonello's nose and her knuckles bumping against Reborn's face. Ignoring her other half's protests, Lal Mirch crosses her arms. "Are you just here for a social call then?" Skepticism laces her tone, but her shoulders are lax, now. At least, she doesn't appear as if she's about to shoulder slam him.
His own shoulders roll up in a loose shrug. "Why not?" he asks. "I thought that you might be interested to know how Tsuna has turned out. He was the result of your bet, after all."
Colonello moves away from Reborn to settle alongside Lal Mirch, the pair trading a glance. What's traded in only a look, deeper than words can go? Reborn can do nothing but guess. It takes merely seconds before Lal turns away with a shrug. "Fine. Sit down. There's plenty of room."
Reborn looks out before the endless ocean and its equally endless kingdom of coral. Then he looks down at his feet, where the water has submerged most of his calves and, thus, drenched his pants into sopping messes. "I think I'll stand," he says simply.
Both halves of Loyalty pause, glancing back to him over their shoulders. "You'll deny our hospitality?" Colonello asks, teeth bared in a smirk while Lal's eyes narrow into slits.
No wonder Fon likes them. They're always so combative. Reborn bats the edge of his cloak away, so that his arms don't tangle up in it. "Is hospitality normally meant to be so pushy?" he says dryly. That's really all the justification Colonello needs. Immediately, the other man bursts forward, low to the water, and his fists jabs out to Reborn's stomach. Or, at least, the space where Reborn's stomach used to be. Children could dodge a telegraphed punch like that. For him, it's all the easier. Yet the water grasps at his legs as he twists and skips to the side, forcing him to draw his legs up higher for the same amount of speed he'd have on land. Perhaps that's why, even with a missed hit, Colonello is still grinning.
Then again, perhaps it's because of Lal Mirch coming in from Reborn's other side. Where Colonello hit low to start with, Lal goes lower with a jab of her foot towards Reborn's ankles. Water rolls upwards with the movement, slapping into his knees, and he barely manages to sidestep. Exchanging kicks,they dance together for a few minutes more than fight. Furious and fast paced, they twist and dart through the shallows. Colonello darts in now and then, his arms swiping and jabbing at Reborn. Fighting both of them takes all of his concentration.... yet he can't say he minds. Not with how his blood burns with every impact of his and Lal's legs, or how his heart aches with every near miss of Colonello's fists. It'd be a lie to say he didn't consider this a possibility of their meeting. Yet the difference between his past thoughts and what's currently happening is the tone.
Lal Mirch and Colonello don't hold back. It's not in their personalities to go easy on anyone. Yet, perhaps to the surprise of some people, there's a difference between that and murderous intent... of which Reborn is more than familiar with, coming from Lal Mirch. Neither of his opponents ever step over the fine line between the two, nor do they ever come close to it.
It's not all fun and games, of course. Reborn is reminded of that when he fends off Colonello once more. The blond isn't as much of a constant as his partner is, so it's become part of the routine for him to dart back for the right timing to come right back in again. Yet this time... Only a moment after he retreats, Reborn hears the roar of waves.
Some things can't be avoided. All Reborn can do is ground himself against the coral and sigh before his frame becomes battered with seawater.
As the water settles again, he rakes his fingers through his hair and blinks the water from his lashes. Salt is heavy against his lips as he deadpans, "Was that necessary?"
Colonello looks far too cocky and far too attractive in the way that he sweeps his fingers through his hair, tossing short blond strands back with the easy movement. Wringing the seawater out from her hair, Lal doesn't look smug, which is good, but she does look victorious, which has about the same effect as her other half. "Mad we got you a little wet?" Colonello asks, jeering and abrasive. It's crude, there's no mistaking that, but Reborn doesn't hate it.
There's almost more acceptance in that lewd tease than there had been in the invitation to sit with them.
Fighting against things now is pointless, which they're all aware of, so Reborn sloshes through the water. While he might be soaked down to the bone he can still look better than he feels about it, and so he slides down into the water with an easy elegance. The water swallows him up, chill in a way that's somehow perfect, and slips around his ribs with little fuss. In much the same way, Lal sits down besides him, and Colonello flanks her other side. "So, your little spark is finally a proper god?" she asks, sitting straight. From around her, Reborn can see Colonello press his hands down onto the coral behind him so that he can lean back.
"What took so long?"
What took so long indeed. "His domain is a bit vague," Reborn says simply, which isn't wrong. "It took some outside prodding to ignite him." And there is what he really wants to talk about. Keeping one eye on both halves of Loyalty, he continues. "It wasn't like anything I'd encountered, which is unusual considering what I am. She almost felt like a shard of Chaos, in fact."
It doesn't take long to see a reaction. Colonello stiffens up from his easy going lean, and Lal's head snaps right towards him. Reborn half expects one of them to ask what he'd done, what he'd ruined. Instead, Lal growls, "There's more of them running around!"
Not that he's surprised, but still. "There was an accomplice she was with," he says, a lot more idly than the situation warrants, "yet I have a feeling you mean even more than that."
"We found one aligned to us not long ago," Lal says, her voice dark and her eyes bright. "He thought he was something impressive."
Judging by the sharp smirk on Colonello's face, Reborn feels he can guess with some accuracy that the unnamed creature of Loyalty didn't have very long before his ego was given a blunt reminder to his place in the universe. The only question is on how long it might last. "Did you notice any others?" he asks, curious and wary both.
"Fon says he ran into something amusing, so probably something on his end," Colonello confirms. "Hey, you said there was another one. Who was it connected to?"
Xanxus? Reborn thinks on the question and draws up in his mind's eye the way he'd furiously burned and smoldered at Tsuna's supposed insolence. It'd been a furious red, but somehow, deeper within it... "Fon's as well," he says, "but with something else to him."
Lal scoffs, sharp and short. "More trouble is the last thing this world needs. Between Mammon's secrets, Verde's machinations, Skull's ineptitude, and Fon being himself, there's enough that could keep everything busy for eternity."
"He ran off before we had a chance to grab him," Colonello huffs, just as aggravated as his partner. "I don't know where. Even looking everywhere-" Reaching up, he taps underneath one of his bright blue eyes. "Even these couldn't spot him, hey. Nowhere on the mortal realm, and nowhere in ours, either. It looks like they've found a really good hiding spot, so we'll have to wait until they pop up again." For creatures such as them, that makes Xanxus and the others like him quite the mystery.
Reborn has a feeling he can untangle it... just not now. Not because he can't, necessarily, but because there's something more important to talk about for him. "Whatever they might be, at least they were useful for one thing," he says, faux relaxed even as he continues to gauge their reactions. "I have to say I'm surprised. Circumstances as they were, I thought Tsuna would take more after me since Dino is clearly Luce's, even if he was born in Her realm." Yet what do the two of them have in common? Tsuna doesn't even share the color of himself; Dino at least has those golden strands atop his head. Where Reborn is sharp and selfish and unwillingly dark, Tsuna is soft and too caring and burned bright, even if at the last possible moment.
For a long quiet while, Lal Mirch and Colonello look at him, into him.... and then she says, rather bluntly, "You're an idiot."
This is not the first time she has said as much about him, although Reborn has kept his nose out of it. Considering the marks still warped along her skin, he thinks she's earned that right. Still, if she's going to say it to his face... "Care to enlighten me on why?" he asks dryly, raising an eyebrow.
She probably didn't need the prompt, but Lal takes it regardless. "For someone who's the embodiment of blurring even the concept of neat lines and order, you're stuck on things like they can be black and white." Her lips curls. "How do you think chaos can exist?"
"That's not a rhetorical question," Colonello adds lazily.
How can he exist? It's not exactly the kind of philosophical question he'd expect from Lal Mirch of all people, so he gives it his due attention. He exists.... he supposes because She wanted him to exist. There'd been nothing for Her, and She'd wanted to see it changed. When he voices that, however, Lal and Colonello scoff in time with one another. "So there was nothing with her before any of us?" she asks, eyes half narrowed and her cheek resting in one open palm. "We didn't exist at all?"
"Obviously we did." Reborn can still remember it: churning and half conscious and only partially "himself" as he is now.
"So?" Lal is an impatient teacher. From beneath the water where her fingers tap impatiently against coral, small waves lap outwards.
Well, he'd best not to keep her waiting. It's a bit disjointed, but so are their existences in many ways, and thus Reborn follows the pattern of her own thoughts. "I exist," he says slowly, ready in case she tries to hit him upside the head for a wrong answer, "because other things exist." No hit. He's on the right track. Yet her and Colonello watch him still, waiting for him to continue. "I exist because order exists."
Finally, that satisfies her, and it doesn't escape his notice how her hand and Colonello's are settled side by side: next to each other, pinkies lining up, skin touching skin, and yet still separate. "We can't exist on our own," she states matter of fact, solid as talking about the color of Colonello's eyes or recounting the way her scars travel along her skin. "But that doesn't mean we rely on someone else, although She is a different matter entirely."
"Although maybe not too much," Colonello muses.
Lal moves on. "We're Loyalty above all else, but we can't understand it unless there's division in us, too. Mammon has to stop wanting, occasionally-"
"Or else they would have helped bring about the end of the world."
"Your whole problem," Lal growls, jabbing a finger at his chest, "is that you got carried away. You can still get carried away. You don't think about any other part of yourself besides what gives you the most pleasure immediately. You don't even bother to remember where you come from, and that's why it was such a pain to get you to calm down."
Where he comes from, huh? "Void isn't the opposite of Chaos," he points out, and the finger nearly jabs into his face. If not for the effortless way he avoids it, then he'd probably have lost an eye. At least, he would have lost it or a minute, maybe.
"It's the opposite of everything," Colonello points out while Lal bares her teeth. "It's still a part of us too, hey, or did you forget about that?"
Some of them more than others, he reflects as his hand passes over the front of his cloak. Even in the water where any normal cloth would float, it still wraps close to his body. Ever since it was first cinched around his throat, at his chest, it's never loosened at all. Lal can say it's a part of him all she wants, but...
Reborn is certain that there's no expression on his face to give away the thoughts churning through his mind. While he might be occasionally unsteady, he's been trying to work on making his face as blank as the black cloak which wraps around him. That doesn't stop Lal from scoffing, and she slips off of the coral. There must be a smaller ledge below her, because she's still standing with the water up to her chest as she wades to the front of him. "Maybe this was doomed to happen anyway."
Warnings are flickering through his head, bright and sharp as rainforest birds taking flight. Reborn stays calm against the sensation, and instead watches as she crosses her arms against his knees. "What was? If you care to answer." That's half a joke in its own right. Lal has never bothered to hide her thoughts, and only occasionally her feelings if he recalls her right.
"A reminder." The cryptic answer isn't much. In fact, it's the sort of thing that he expects more from Fon or Luce than Lal, straightforward as she is. Still, it's hard for him to pay much mind to it. His attention is ensnared instead by the feeling of a broad chest pressing into his back, Colonello's breath on his neck. Nostalgia flows over him as easily as water. That's right... They've been in this position before. It wasn't that long ago, really. Colonello bracing himself from behind, Lal digging in from the front. Instinctively, the memory has him want to lash out. Not again, not again. They're hissed out words that come from the deepest parts of himself. Her hand settles on his thigh before he can do anything, and Reborn looks into those deep red eyes.
Red as blood flowing through every beast and human. Blue as the oceans which claim so much of the world. Together, she is part of what binds everything.
"None of us are wholly our own," she says, and Reborn remembers. Right, of course.
These two are what make up him, as well.
"You can't just tell me this?" he asks, trying to hide how reluctant he really is. That would be the easy way, he knows. This can't be easy.
Sure enough, Lal snorts at him, her eyes narrowed and unimpressed. Colonello actually laughs at him, his voice sneaking into Reborn's ear warm as anything. "Did you really think so?" he asks while Lal leans against Reborn's legs. "You need a reminder stronger than what only words can give you. It'll be good for you."
Reborn's voice is dry enough to start an entirely new landmass in this endless ocean. "Just me?"
Finding a patch of skin, Lal twists her fingers sharply to get his attention. "What's good for everything else is good for you," she growls, patience dwindling. That can't be surprising either. "So?"
So. Will he let them do it? That's the question that's being asked here, he knows. As he is, Loyalty combined could drag him down and drown him as easily as breathing. As easily as anything at all. Yet, even with Colonello at his back and Lal waiting at his front, they ask. This is something he has to choose for himself. A second chance, he realizes, sitting there. Unlike the others, he gave himself no name, gave himself no form. Those were things which had to be forced onto him before everything could be destroyed.
He can do differently, this time. He can accept the offer that's before him.
Lal's eyes haven't strayed from his face the entire time he's contemplated this offer. Finally, he looks into them properly and doesn't shy away. In the end... "I did come here for this," he acquiesces, which he knows to be true deep down. He came for this second chance. He came to see them and patch over some of the destruction that he'd wrought. If he backs out now, what will have been the point?
She doesn't smile. Not exactly. All that happens is that the hardness that's filled Lal's eyes softens slightly. "Good," she says, quiet and satisfied. When she reaches up, her touch isn't gentle at all. In fact, the way her fingers slide against his face and then grip down make Reborn think that she might be getting ready to tug his head again and smash her own against it. She doesn't do that. Instead, all she does is hold him there.
Around them, the water deepens.
"None of us are wholly our own," she repeats. They repeat; Colonello's voice is an undercurrent beneath hers, two parts of the same whole. "We were all too wrapped up when we first left. We are each other. We are all from the same place."
The water is rising. Or maybe he's sinking. It's hard to tell and mostly immaterial regardless. Here, with Loyalty, in Loyalty, it's one and the same. This is the kind of place where the destination, right now if no other time, is more important than the journey. Reborn doesn't fight against it, or leave. He doesn't take his eyes away from Lal Mirch. Instead, he watches her. He watches as the water rises up past her shoulders, meeting her hair, becoming her hair, becoming her. He's only seen her in this state once; their battle showed an entirely different part of her. In this way, she is calm and beautiful as her skin turns translucent. Her eyelashes are crystalline every time they brush against what was once a cheek. When she breathes, ice crackles along his legs as if brushed by winter's first touch, and it lingers along her lips. The water is her hands now, and her chest. She is completely bare. Behind him, Reborn is sure that Colonello must be the very same way, and there is a glacier at his back.
He's never seen them more beautiful.
Around his head, his hair curls and twists lazily in the water. He's completely submerged, now, and light only seems like a faint concept in the water with the clouds so thick way up high. Lal is still before him, her form warped in a thousand different little ways and still connected to her domain. Her hands are no longer solid. Now, they are things of concept, and he feels them more than sees them. In particular, he feels them brush down past his throat and settle around his throat. Lal is still not particularly gentle, but that doesn't take away the relief Reborn feels which makes it so sweet. When he next hears her voice, it's not the kind which is spoken from lips or originates in a throat. Instead, he feels it hum from somewhere deeper. He feels it from inside himself, too.
Give into us.
It's not a question or an inquiry. Reborn has already allowed things to go this far; he won't back out now. It's not sharp or hard enough to be a demand, either. Rather, as he slowly allows his shoulders to ease away from their tension, he considers that it's simple guidance. He's out of his depth, and in theirs, so.... Letting his eyes slide shut, Reborn parts his lips. Air bubbles past them. In their stead, water slips past. It collides gently against his teeth, curling gently around his tongue afterwards, and he observes with quiet uncertainty as it goes down to fill his lungs. It fills his stomach.
It fills him.
They both do.
Reborn is Chaos, and Chaos is Reborn. Whatever happens, it will never change this basic fact of reality. He cannot be anything but himself. That's that. Yet while he cannot be Loyalty, cannot be Lal Mirch or Colonello, he gets a taste of it, down in their overwhelming embrace. They were right, he realizes, as the water sinks into the space under his nails. Even when he was nameless and formless, he still was part of them, too. Did he not stay when they were all new and young? Did he not curl around Luce, and hold her close when they danced that first fiery dance? Water stings at his eyes as he looks back at every little memory that rests within his head, seeing things newly. It's not only Loyalty, either. Desire, and Suffering, and Innovation, and Creation, and Catalyst: they have been in his steps and in his chest.
There's been one other thing, too, that he's been oblivious to.
When Reborn opens his eyes again- black as his origin, black as their home- he's laying on his back against the surface of the coral reef again. At some point when he wasn't paying any mind, the water became shallow once more. Here, it only comes up a few inches, perhaps, tickling the curve of his ears and pillowing his head. The sky is still as gray as it ever was. Darker now, actually, as he lays there for a few moments more simply to stare. Yet eventually he must move, and so he tilts his head to look on either side of him. Both Lal and Colonello are still with him, no longer formless but absolutely without any of the scant bits of clothing that they had on when he first arrived. In exchange for that, they both seem utterly at ease no matter the tufts of blond that peek up from his pelvis or the dark blue that shows clearly when Lal has her arms stretched up to fold behind her head like they are. It takes him a moment, mind still feeling as though water is swishing through his head, to notice that both of them have more than their fair share of scars. It's more than the burns which have left their searing kisses against her shoulder and face. There are dozens of them all along their arms, scattered across their legs, stretched over their stomachs and chests.
Ah. Of course. To accept loyalty is to accept the battle wounds that sometimes come with it. Even as the realization lulls into him, Reborn glances down at himself and has to blink. The cloak he's always wore so tightly around himself... is gone. In its place is a simple tunic that falls to his thighs, strings leaving the front just slightly undone, and his legs completely bare. This would be worrying, on a normal day. Still, the ocean remains undisturbed, and the clouds hold together strong. Past them, he knows that the world is untouched, at least as it will ever be. For a while, Reborn ponders how to respond.
Well, there's only one way how. "Was it necessary to strip me?" he drawls, letting the implication speak for itself. At his sides, both halves of the pair stir into awakening.
Pushing himself up onto one elbow and resting against his side, Colonello lets his free hand sweep his hair back and grins. Reborn doesn't bother to pretend he's not looking. "Wish we'd gone a little further?" he says, voice rough as stormy waves, and he leans closer. Reborn meets him halfway.
"I'd rather be conscious in that case. Or are you only so confident when you're not getting any feedback?"
"I'm going to drown both of you," Lal mutters, and annoyance is in her expression when Reborn looks back at her. "If you're going to do anything, just do it. Or do I have to play referee to your measuring contest?" Despite her words, there's still something fond in the upturned twist of her lips. Colonello may have been made as her other half right from start, but that doesn't change the fact that Reborn can easily see why his choice wouldn't change at all looking at her right now.
It seems as though it would be very easy to lay there with the pair, the water a relief against his skin and their company a balm to his issues. Still, he thinks he's wasted too much time here as it is. Pressing his palms into the coral beneath them, he gets up to his feet and begins to adjust his clothes. Where he's going, he's going to need to have all his restraint about him. That means... It takes a little bit for him to remember the lesson he's been taught, even if it has only just finished. Even if he accepts it, the void is still suffocating and thick to his existence. So he's slow when he adjusts the front of his shirt, and only faintly quicker as he dusts his legs off until pants form beneath his swatting palms. When he finally dares to draw a cloak around his shoulders, it feels as heavy as ever.... but not so tight.
How much of that is perception versus reality?
With his toes curling over the edge of the coral platform, he looks down into the water. After a certain depth, details become lost, and all that meets his gaze is black. "Would you mind if I took a shortcut from here?" he asks, for politeness' sake. "There's more than only you I wanted to see."
Rising up into a sitting position herself, Lal raises an eyebrow at him. "I guess," she says, noncommittally, pulling her hair away from her back. "Who do you plan on seeing exactly?"
"Someone good at finding and keeping secrets." It's not a detailed answer. It doesn't have to be. Even before he turns away, he can see understanding flash through the pair's eyes. Reborn doesn't stick around to see much more. Instead, he takes a step off of the platform... and sinks.
They were right. In many ways, things that may seem opposite are integral to one another. It shouldn't be a surprise that the same remains true for the Void. A shallow look would say that it exists only as something outside of the world, and inbetween the realms that the Arcobaleno and the young gods have created. Ridiculous, really. There's a part of the Void within the world, too. Reborn can feel it, lessened but no less itself, the deeper he sinks into the water. At some point, he's left the realm of Loyalty. Telling exactly when is impossible, and doesn't matter. All that matters is when it feels as though he has gone as deep as is possible... and he slows down to a still float.
This isn't the realm of the one he's looking for... but he knows it's where they've decided to hide out.
Around him, there's nothing but darkness. Light is completely absent here, and he can't see even the faintest grasps of it from over his head. In another time, before he went to see Lal and Colonello, he doesn't think he'd be able to handle it. There'd be no hesitation before he would have railed against it all, and tried to set it ablaze from anger and panic both, although he would have never admitted to the latter. Now, however, he just takes in a long slow breath. There's nothing here that he is not already familiar with, that he is not already carrying in himself and on his shoulders.
A face jolts out from within the darkness.
In such deep blackness, anything would look pale by comparison, and this counts for Mammon as well. In fact, he would almost say that his fellow Arcobaleno looks unnatural in this light, or lack of it... but that is by far the least warped thing about their appearance. Their eyes are too large for their skull, and their jaw too long with a mouth that stretches far past its regular limits. Surely their body must be different as well, hidden away down in the abyss as they are, but he can't see any of it. Part of it must surely be the surge of bubbles that is around their body and which clusters at their shoulders. Something lurks within all of them, life waiting to stir as well as any nest of eggs; Reborn can sense that with only a glance. The downside, however, is that trying to see past it all to Mammon's body is impossible.
He can certainly see their hands, if nothing else. It's hard not to, when they're reaching forward to flick at the opening to his cloak to send it fluttering. Fingers too short, and the webbing between them far too high. "Well," says Mammon, the brilliant gold reflection of their eyes unblinking, "I have to say that you're the last person I would have ever expected to see down here."
"And you're the first I would think of," Reborn answers back smoothly. Both of them know the reasons why behind their prospective statements, but he won't dignify their own statement with any focus. "You were the last one to be tugged out from the Void. It definitely kept a tight grip on you, didn't it?"
"Ha." As their lips part, he can see a hint of the rows and rows of needle-like teeth which hide in the shadows of their mouth. They're monstrous. It's beautiful. "Well, one of our number has had to remember what things lurk far away and down below." Tilting their head to the side, they consider him. Down here, no pupils rest within their gaze. "Still, I know you didn't come down here for idle chatter." Their eyelids lower, lazy and predatory, and their lips shift into a faint smirk. "I can taste the desire to know off of you."
What other things pass over that tongue of theirs? He's sure the answer would be interesting, but that's not the one he's seeking today. "While I was talking with some of the others before the bet and before you arrived," he says, casual as anything, "they mentioned you had been something of a recluse. I thought I would see how you were fairing." He tilts his head towards them as well. "See how you were doing with those new creations of yours."
Mammon doesn't so much as blink at the thinly veiled accusation. Perhaps they've made themselves unable to. "Now what makes you think I had anything to do with that?" they murmur, their hand rising up to cradle one cheek. It's not a denial.
"There's no way to hide from any of us," Reborn says matter of factly. "We make up this world. If anything strange happens on it, and within it, then one of us would take notice. The only exception to that... is if it's somewhere far away from most things. If it's too dark for our gazes to see." Their eyes meet, black to gold, and he quirks up an eyebrow. "Most gazes, anyway, if they're not used to the darkness. Yet since you've been absent for so long, and are always drawn to things like this anyway..." Lazily, he rolls his shoulders in a shrug. "Even if you didn't create them, I knew that you would have at least seen something."
Something like a huff slips out from between their pouting lips, even though no bubbles follow the sound. "There's no getting things past you," they mutter, trying not to sound sulky and failing. "Still, there's something you're wrong about, you know." A smirk again. "I wasn't the one that created them."
Disbelieving, his eyebrows raise up. "What?"
"Is it really that surprising?" They slump over the mass of bubbles that billow around their body and fills the space behind them. "What would I have gotten from making creatures like that? Or do you think I made them on purpose for some reason?"
"Your reason is usually enough if it's 'you want to'," Reborn points out dryly.
Mammon shrugs carelessly. "Be that as it may," they continue on, "it wasn't me." There's that wispy smirk again. "Do you want to know who is responsible? I'll tell you." They lean closer, pressing over the bubbles. "It was the humans." His surprise must show in his face somehow, because Mammon laughs quietly to themself while leaning back again. "They're surprising, aren't they? I bet not even Verde could have imagined that they were capable of something like that. Still, they didn't do it on purpose. All they did was feed into something that was simply waiting for a chance to emerge."
"So you're saying they existed before now."
"In a way." Their gaze flicks up at him, focusing a little more. "Tell me... Do you think that our birth came with no consequences?" They nod pointedly down to his torso. "Do you think your clothes did?" Mammon's voice dips lower and quieter, fitting the dark space they both speak in. "Neither of those things were done neatly. The scraps that were left behind to be forgotten... They were something of their own too. Just not strong enough to be."
"..But humanity gave them something. What?"
"Fear." It's a simple answer, accompanied by a simple shrug. "They're so weak, and they know it. Their skin is soft, and their legs don't carry them nearly fast enough a lot of the time. Plenty of creatures can outdo them in one area or another, small or large. Yet even more than that, their greatest weakness is in their own heads. When night is on them, and they're left looking out into the darkness where their lights can't reach, well..." Smugness drips from Mammon's smile. "They realize how little they really know. And they realize how that feeling can be found in even each other. The better parts of such feelings are what feed those sons of yours, and any other gods that exist now or will exist in the future."
"And the darker ones," Reborn finishes, realization having struck him long before they finished speaking, "are what fed Xanxus and the others like him."
"That's right." Mammon finally deigns to move their hand, spreading out out to the side, and the darkness gives way to movement. Somehow, the shadows around them shifts into something material. His vision has to adjust to make out the specifics, but he realizes there are six tiny figures gathered neatly before both Arcobaleno. Dolls, each in the shape of something new. Two, Reborn can recognize. "Monsters in the trees and in their hearts, who they can blame all of their ills on. Who they want to blame. How convenient for them."
No judgment laces their words. It's a matter of fact, and Reborn finds himself agreeing. It's hard to face one's inner fears.... no matter what they might be. Besides, this answers one other thing for him. "No wonder Xanxus is so annoyed at some of the gods that are around." It's mixed insult and compliment, depending on how much one revels in strength over anything else, to only be viewed as something to be feared rather than worshiped in public under the light of day. He nods down to the cloak of bubbles that Mammon is lazying against. "Is that one more to be added to their numbers, then?" That could be a problem, if so. Dino, Hibari, and Tsuna are the only gods so far that have stepped foot into this new world. Xanxus' number is already a little more than that, and that's only the ones that Reborn knows of. Who knows what could happen to the balance of the world if its gods fell? Reborn tries not to think about his own feelings on the idea of Dino or Tsuna being cornered, specifically.
With a slow blink, as if they had to be reminded, Mammon glances down at themself. "Oh, her." Shapes that might be their shoulders rise up in the mass of bubbles, a sort of shrug. "No, no.... On that note, you don't have to get so worked up. She arose from fear, too, but it's of a different sort. At least-" Their hand waves dismissively through the air, a movement which has the small shadow figures they created vanish into wisps. "The result they want is different. Thus, she'll be different."
Reborn takes in a breath through his nose, nostrils twitching, and recognizes the scent that filters through. "So she's a god." One that Mammon already seems quite confident in their knowledge about.
Mammon is all pride and smugness in the way they look up at him. "You think your sons are so encompassing and powerful? Well, be prepared to lose that title, because this one is going to be just as good, if not better."
Reborn could say a lot of things in response to that. He could point out that he never particularly wanted children, so it's not as if he's trying to slight Mammon's pride on purpose. (It's an amusing bonus, to be sure, but it's not purpose.) He could mention that child rearing isn't exactly supposed to be a competition, of all things. There's always an opportunity to see if he can get those loose lips flapping a little more, if only to see how much Mammon really knows and what kind of god it will be that takes form here in the depths, embracing the entity of Desire so closely.
Later, maybe. Right now, he doesn't particularly care.
Instead, he says, "Good luck with that." The response has Mammon's eyelids droop and their lips pout in disappointment, which is possibly the best result he thinks he could have gotten. Much like Fon, the key to winning against Mammon is to simply not care, at least when one can afford to do that. "At any rate, that's all I wanted to ask about. Try to remember there's a world beyond these depths instead of getting caught up in all of your watching, won't you?"
He doesn't need to hear what they say after that. With a tug of his cloak, he twists away, darkness and void taking him somewhere else. Taking him to land, and the sun. It's a set of cliffs somewhere, towering high over the waters and sweet smelling grass decorating its topside. For a long moment, he stands there and looks over onto the horizon. From here, this simple vantage point, the ocean seems as endless as his existence. On some level, it is. At that line where sight can no longer go any farther, he knows that's the point where the waters ships can sail disappears and are instead replaced by those with brilliant coral platforms waiting just beneath the surface... and then, past that, depths that not even most Arcobaleno save one make themselves at home in.
Elsewhere, clouds roll across the sky, carrying suffering with them, and occasionally lightning and storms crackle through their masses as much as innovation and catalysts do through people and creatures.
Underneath it all, underneath the sky, things are created.
Above, the sun burns, and chaos shines just as bright even in places where light can't reach.
Reborn closes his eyes, feels all of it thrumming throughout his body and his essence, and breathes. That's right. None of them are wholly their own. All of them are connected. It's a lesson that he needs to keep, as much as the clothing which rests across his body. He can't afford to forget.
With his eyes open, Reborn turns on his heels and goes to find his family.
It's easy to pick up on where they are. Gods, he's found, change the air and the world around them simply by being on mortal earth. His own especially call to him, fires that burn brightly and signal to him where his sons lie. It's a different thing than sensing the other Arcobaleno. With them, it's a lot more subtle but easy to find if one knows where to look. Like realizing that clouds have changed direction, or the tide has risen up. As it turns out, and as far as he can tell, they're right where he left him: in the small little town on the edge of the lake.
Reborn takes his time in getting there. Already around him, he can sense the world is still changing. Gods, and Xanxus' kind, and things lesser than both of those: they're filling the world and dwelling within all that fills it. Amazing how much has changed in what feels like only the blink of an eye. The town itself, when he gets there, is both the same and very different. There's still the same kind of buildings, constructed in the way that its inhabitants know best, and he sees familiar faces when he emerges from the forest onto the path that leads into it. At the same time, there's no missing its changes. With its previous incarnation having become nothing but ash and ruin, it's only to be expected that some things have had to be rearranged. To his interest, they're clustered further along the waters edge now. No one massive building lays claim to it. As he lingers, eyes wandering, he finds that they're still building. People, those likely skilled in the craft of making buildings, are all along the water with the sound of chatter drifting from their direction and their arms gesturing wildly. Having homes on land is good. Seeing if they can drift further into the lake is potentially better, if a challenge.
There's no surprise in Reborn's breast when he sees his Dino right in the thick of it all, unseen and grinning as he nods along to the conversation. This is his specialty as much as anything else with horses might be. As long as people work, then he thrives. It doesn't take long before his eldest sees him, and Dino carefully extracts himself from the group to come jogging up to him. "Reborn! You look-" A pause as Dino does a quick glance over at him. It's not as subtle as he'd probably like.... Or maybe Reborn's eyes are just too good. It's likely both. "Well."
"The conversations I had were good," Reborn says, explaining nothing. He likes having his secrets, even from his own sons. "It seems like they've recovered quickly here."
"Ha." Dino's smile is a little proud as he looks over the village and the people still working through it. "Well, we have focused our attentions here sometimes, although we've gone to other places that have called for us. Nearby towns heard and offered their help as well, although maybe they just wanted to hear the rumors."
"Let me guess: Tsuna."
Laughing under his breath, Dino starts to head further into the town, or at least the parts of it that are on land. "Let me show you what they've been making for him." Reborn can guess, simply because he remembers what happened when Dino and then Hibari first started to be known among mortals. Still, the details are what can't be the same, and he can't deny his curiosity for that in particular. So he follows after Dino laxly. As he does so, a quiet meow at his feet draws his attention downwards.
A black cat blinks up at him with amber eyes, and small bits of twine colored in some sort of dye are wrapped around its throat in a collar. It's pleasantly fat. It's also far from being alone, a fact that becomes all the more apparent the closer Dino takes him to the center of town where the shrines lay. His eldest son's is there as it was from when they first visited, rebuilt and decorated as always. Yet what's interesting is that small little thing that's attached to it. It's much smaller than Dino's, and not anywhere near as lavishly decorated. If anything, it's really just a fancy torch. Black cats of all sorts surround it, basking in the sun or ducking beneath what shadows can be found there. Every time someone passes by it, a cat almost inevitably is given some sort of attention. Sometimes that means a scratch behind the ears. Other times that means a nice long stroke down their sides. Every now and then, even as Reborn watches, a bit of food is left out for them.
"I see they have a decent idea of what's been touched by the divine," he says dryly, amused.
"Well..." Dino laughs, folding his fingers behind his head. "It was a little hard to miss when all the cats in town suddenly became black, and nothing they tried could make them go back to the color they were. Everyone views them as good luck. Personally, I think Tsuna is prefers that to being worshipped to himself." He nods to the minuscule addition to his own shrine. "He's had to tell them repeatedly throughout the seasons that he doesn't want anything too big for him. When some people dismiss that as just a dream, well, it's taken some doing."
So his latest son shies away from attention, huh? That's interesting to note. So is one other thing. "How many seasons have passed, exactly?" He'd known that time would be a bit strange in the realms of the Arcobaleno compared to the world of mortal lives, but how much is hard to guess at when he's right in them...
"A full cycle, at least- a year, you know." Dino glances at him, and some of his jovial mood ebbs back a little bit to make way for concern. "...Everything's going to be fine?"
Really... "You don't have to be so concerned," Reborn says, more careless and less grateful than he truly feels. "So where's Tsuna?" They've certainly been talking about him a lot, yet the young god himself has been nowhere around.
Being reminded of his brother snaps Dino out of it, and he looks around. "Oh, last I saw, he was over near some of the healers. This way, I think." It's not a far walk from the center of town to the large building that's been constructed for the injured, or sick. Not as many fill it as they would have some time ago, in the immediate aftermath of Xanxus' visit, yet there's still a few in there being tended to.
Finding Tsuna is easy. It's impossible to miss his wild hair, still so messy from Reborn's touch no matter the passage of time. Despite his father and brother both coming into view in the entryway, Tsuna doesn't pay them any mind. Instead, he's besides a girl who shares his youthful look, and who has all of his attention. The discarded sticks and cloth to the side tell a story, as does the way one of her legs trembles violently. With a god on one side of her and the unsurprising presence of Nana helping her balance on the other, she seems to be learning to walk all over again. It's a struggle, even with help, and all too soon she sinks back down onto the blankets and cushions set aside. Her shoulders slump, dragged downwards just like her gaze, and it's then that Tsuna quietly reaches over to brush his fingertips across her shoulder. His hands are still scarred and weak, every inch of them, but that's all she needs before the girl looks up against with a weary smile that belies the light in her eyes.
"Hey, Tsuna!" Dino calls over to him, and grins brightly to meet the startled look his little brother gives him. "Look who came back!" As if Reborn could ever really leave.
Reborn isn't an easy person to miss either, with his absence of color and imposing height, and yet the flabberghasted expression that spreads across Tsuna's face says he's been completely oblivious up until Dino had pointed him out. "You're okay!" he exclaims, getting up to his feet and hurrying over. His concern is a little bit of a mystery until Tsuna stops before them and keeps talking. "Dino said you weren't feeling well, and I thought you seemed-" His youngest comes to a stop, possibly at the way Reborn glances in deceivingly casual fashion at his eldest.
"Did he now?" he says, and only feels a little bit of satisfaction when Dino can't meet his gaze and instead just smiles with mingled nervousness and sheepishness up at the ceiling. Apparently, he's inherited his mother's tendency to say things Reborn would really rather not be said. Considering Tsuna's aborted sentence, he's just as bad. Well, he can harass his sons later about it. For now, Reborn steps around the subject neatly as he returns his attention down to Tsuna and says, "You're doing better as a god now?"
"I guess?" Tsuna grimaces a little, even as he raises his hands to start gesturing along with his words. "It's still too much, honestly, and I'd kind of like it to stop?"
"It's not going to," Reborn says bluntly, and his youngest huffs out a breath out air.
"Still," he whines. "I'm still aching from what happened with Xanxus, and it feels so weird-!"
His hand flaps through the air, stopped only when Reborn grasps it quite suddenly. Tsuna gives a small surprised yell, but Reborn pays it no mind. Instead, he focuses on carefully inspecting the hands that, up until now, have only been things which he's seen in passing instead of up close like this. For a normal human, he doubts they'd be able to use their hands at all in such a state. No longer soft and fidgety, Tsuna's hands have been practically burned to a crisp. That they can retain any sort of flexibility is impressive in its own way when everything has been made brittle and charred, with each crack telling stories of pain more horrific than most know or would ever want to know. Of their own accord, they twitch sometimes, sharp and stiff.
Underneath Reborn's piercing observation, Tsuna fidgets only a little in silence. It's Dino who leans in close and begins to murmur, "We went to see Her not too long after you went off. Aria said he did it to himself."
That makes sense, Reborn supposes. This, too, might be a consequence of what happens when a god is kept from their dominion for too long, and finds their power and purpose all at once in the face of life and death. "Will it heal?" he asks simply, keep his voice simple and to the point.
Dino makes a faint noise in the back of his throat that isn't much of an answer at all. "It might? It's too soon to tell." Underneath his words are the unspoken reminder for all of them that they're far different from mortals. Their lives will go on for much longer, surpassing generations of that which thrives on this earth. In the same way... Perhaps any wound deep and powerful enough to affect them at all will take some time of its own to fully heal. There's only one way to find out.
"They especially hurt," Tsuna whines at long last, unable to hold himself in for much longer. Indulgently, Reborn lightly baps the side of his hand against Tsuna's. There's so much hair there that he doubts it's really painful by any stretch of the imagination, but Tsuna still whines a little more.
"It could be worse," he reminds him. "Xanxus did want to kill you." With that said, he turns on his heel and steps back into the paths of the town.
"Don't remind me," Tsuna groans, tagging along with his older brother who laughs at him and ruffles his hair. "I don't want to see him ever again!"
Reborn smirks at him over his shoulder. "Then you'll be disappointed that, besides Lussuria, there are four more things just like him." It's not that he takes any particular pleasure from watching the melodramatic despair cross both of his childrens' faces. Really, it's for their own good. They should know that their lives are only going to be all the more excitable from here on out.
It just happens to be a small side bonus.
Ignoring how his sons feel about the idea of more Xanxus or anything like him, Reborn continues on. "So, what do they pray for when it comes to you?" he asks, passing by the twin shrines again and glancing over them. Some of the cats are stirring in interest as they sense Tsuna's approach, with a few getting up to stretch and follow after him. It's the aftermath of that battle all over again. Reborn hopes they don't get an entourage, if only for the sake of not having to wade through a small army of cats. "For that matter, what have they come to call you?"
For creatures like the Arcobaleno and gods themselves, the names they have can be plentiful when it comes to that which is known among humans. Every village, every traveling group, has something different that they call the beings they know of but have never interacted directly with. For Dino alone, Reborn has heard a few different titles: the gold rider, the bucking horse, the first child, light and labor. He could go on for a year just reciting them all. In that same year, he's not sure if Tsuna's influence has really been felt. How many stories could really be told about such a fledgling god with his small shrine? Yet that there is a shrine at all says that, surely, there must be a name attached as well.
Being asked about it at all draws a flush onto Tsuna's face, and he drags a hand across it as though that might help block so much blushing. He looks, to Reborn's amusement, embarrassed. "Ember and Wildfire," he mutters, practically having to shove the answer out from between reluctant teeth. Insistently, his older brother nudges him in the side all the harder with a grin on his face that reminds Reborn that they truly are related. Tsuna shrinks even harder in on himself. "Dino passed on the story of how I was born."
"I kept out the really embarrassing parts," Dino says cheerfully. Whether it's to reassure Tsuna, the more blatant option, or Reborn, the more subtle one, is hard to say even for the Marksman. "And they pray to him for all sorts of things. Mostly when they're at their lowest, honestly. Weak as weak can be, when there's nothing else for them. It's impressive how well he can fire them up."
Impressive, or expected? Reborn glances back down to Tsuna, who's still suffering quietly from his older brother's antics and teasing. Maybe the answer was in front of his face all along, ever since Tsuna had first come to being within the ashes of something which Reborn had so carelessly destroyed.
Maybe it's not so strange, either, that a god that knows weakness and strength together was born from something of Chaos. Faintly, Reborn thinks of the words his amber-eyed son spoke of in the ruins of this town.
Lal Mirch, as usual, continues to be a source of unexpected wisdom.
"Then you don't need to be babied any longer," he informs his youngest. Tsuna perks up at that, hopeful, only to immediately turn wary as he glances over Reborn.
"Wait... Does that mean I'm going to not be watched all the time anymore, or you're not going to go easy on me from now on...?"
Reborn just smirks and turns on his heel. "I'll see you both some other time," he says in farewell, and chuckles at the sound of Tsuna's alarmed yell at his back. All too quickly, it's swallowed up by nothing as he goes from one shadow to the next. From one world to the next.
Her realm welcomes him back with open arms.
No one else is there with Her- not Skull or Verde or Fun or anyone else. Still, Luce is seated very much where She was before, although the surroundings have changed slightly. Everything is in bloom, the poignant scent stifling the scent of decay that he knows is beneath it. Her fingers are still at work as if he had never left, with the only sign of change being the variety of flowers now making the chain. Nothing is said between them as Reborn comes closer, and She only looks up when he is close enough that their legs brush. Smiling indulgently, She finally puts Her work to the side before reaching up for him. Her fingers curve along his jaws in a way much different from Lal, and he lets his knees crumple underneath himself to be all the closer. With his arms folding onto Her lap, he closes his eyes.... and becomes at ease.
"Ember and Wildfire," he murmurs into Her legs. "He's like you."
Her laugh is sweeter than a breeze. "And he's like you in all the ways you don't admit." Her fingers flick through his hair lightly, trailing down his neck and resting just at where his cloak meets his skin. "Now... That wasn't so bad, was it?"
Faintly, he wonders if She means raising Tsuna, or having form, or allowing himself to not suffocate under the weight of what he wears. Does it really matter? "I suppose not," he agrees quietly, and leaves it at that.
It's in the water that laps at his legs, weight to cloth, an anchor that holds them down. It's in the sky, bloated clouds blanketing all signs of a sun or what time of day it is. Or perhaps it's only in Reborn himself, the expanse of ocean a reminder of the bindings he wears that are exactly as deep.
Not all of it is water. Obviously not, considering there is something beneath his feet. A forest of coral thrives under the water's surface, pulsing with life. Reborn is certain that if he went deeper, that's where he would find Lal Mirch and Colonello, as deeply entwined as coral and sea. Yet he doesn't step between the gaps, doesn't dive into the depths. Instead, patiently, he stays where he is on only the most surface level of their realm, their home, their self.
Waiting doesn't take long. Before him, the water parts around a familiar form, and Lal's hands press down into the coral as she hauls herself up onto the surface. Her lips part, only slightly, releasing a slow exhale that whistles sharply through the air. Whether it's habit or if she's aggravated to see him, only time will tell. In the meantime, Reborn's eyes roam over her. Fon favors his red robes. Mammon drapes themself in shadows. Their most beloved prefers impossible white for Her wear. Lal Mirch, in contrast, has shed most clothing, at least here in her and Colonello's own realm. Her body is bare, water following the curves of her muscles that are in plain sight and causing her broad shoulders to shine with sea slickness. There's only two articles of clothing on her entire body. The first is a simple pale bandanna tied around her throat, her dark hair clinging to it as much as it clings to her back and neck. The second is a waistcloth, any color long since washed away, tied sturdily to her hip with thin but dependable rope. As she straightens up, throwing her hair back, a dull piece of metal masquerading as a knife bangs against her thigh. With how her fingers twitch by it, he ponders how much she's considered embedding it in his throat.
"Lal Mirch," he says calmly, by way of greeting.
She doesn't return the favor. Instead, with all the grace he's not sure he could manage in such conditions, she strides forward straight to him with water surging around her legs. Only when she's a scarce few inches from his person does she stop, her eyes bright and critical. "What are you here for?" she asks bluntly, no dancing around the issue. One would think that a regular person would be a little more wary, confronting another that has harmed them. The scars are still vivid against her flesh, staying in a perpetual blossom along her cheek and the curve from neck to shoulder. With the water still fresh against it all, they nearly seem new.
Reborn doesn't look away. Instead, he takes it in- all of it. Lal Mirch wears her battle scars like they're fine silks, even going so far as to cock her head to the side so that they're all the more exposed to his eye. He'd have to be an impressive amount of oblivious to miss the silent challenge for what it is.
"Looks like it hurts," he says.
Her eyes flash. "Not a bit," she says, and it doesn't taste like a lie coming from her mouth.
"Good."
Lal Mirch's eyebrows rise up at the response and, at the same time that Reborn can feel someone else rise up behind him. There's no need for him to look over his shoulder; there's only one other person who could form so seemlessly from seemingly nowhere in Loyalty's domain. He does so anyway, just enough to see that familiar cocky and aggressive smirk over broad shoulders. While he can't entirely be sure, Reborn is enough so to suspect that Colonello is as devoid of clothing as Lal Mirch is. In fact, he might be completely and utterly nude. While she continues to size him up some more, Reborn speaks up again. "Do you two always walk around completely nude, or is that merely luck on my part?"
What kind of luck? That part he leaves up to the imagination. Colonello slips around his side, the rope around his own hips hanging low, and knocks his head forward to grind into Reborn's own forehead. Not budging an inch, he grinds right back, even as he quirks up an eyebrow and smirks lightly. With the action returned, Colonello grins all the sharper. Is he enjoying himself? It certainly seems like it. "Got a problem with it, hey?" he asks.
The words Not at all don't get a chance to leave Reborn's lips. Lal Mirch shoves her hand inbetween their faces, flicking Colonello's nose and her knuckles bumping against Reborn's face. Ignoring her other half's protests, Lal Mirch crosses her arms. "Are you just here for a social call then?" Skepticism laces her tone, but her shoulders are lax, now. At least, she doesn't appear as if she's about to shoulder slam him.
His own shoulders roll up in a loose shrug. "Why not?" he asks. "I thought that you might be interested to know how Tsuna has turned out. He was the result of your bet, after all."
Colonello moves away from Reborn to settle alongside Lal Mirch, the pair trading a glance. What's traded in only a look, deeper than words can go? Reborn can do nothing but guess. It takes merely seconds before Lal turns away with a shrug. "Fine. Sit down. There's plenty of room."
Reborn looks out before the endless ocean and its equally endless kingdom of coral. Then he looks down at his feet, where the water has submerged most of his calves and, thus, drenched his pants into sopping messes. "I think I'll stand," he says simply.
Both halves of Loyalty pause, glancing back to him over their shoulders. "You'll deny our hospitality?" Colonello asks, teeth bared in a smirk while Lal's eyes narrow into slits.
No wonder Fon likes them. They're always so combative. Reborn bats the edge of his cloak away, so that his arms don't tangle up in it. "Is hospitality normally meant to be so pushy?" he says dryly. That's really all the justification Colonello needs. Immediately, the other man bursts forward, low to the water, and his fists jabs out to Reborn's stomach. Or, at least, the space where Reborn's stomach used to be. Children could dodge a telegraphed punch like that. For him, it's all the easier. Yet the water grasps at his legs as he twists and skips to the side, forcing him to draw his legs up higher for the same amount of speed he'd have on land. Perhaps that's why, even with a missed hit, Colonello is still grinning.
Then again, perhaps it's because of Lal Mirch coming in from Reborn's other side. Where Colonello hit low to start with, Lal goes lower with a jab of her foot towards Reborn's ankles. Water rolls upwards with the movement, slapping into his knees, and he barely manages to sidestep. Exchanging kicks,they dance together for a few minutes more than fight. Furious and fast paced, they twist and dart through the shallows. Colonello darts in now and then, his arms swiping and jabbing at Reborn. Fighting both of them takes all of his concentration.... yet he can't say he minds. Not with how his blood burns with every impact of his and Lal's legs, or how his heart aches with every near miss of Colonello's fists. It'd be a lie to say he didn't consider this a possibility of their meeting. Yet the difference between his past thoughts and what's currently happening is the tone.
Lal Mirch and Colonello don't hold back. It's not in their personalities to go easy on anyone. Yet, perhaps to the surprise of some people, there's a difference between that and murderous intent... of which Reborn is more than familiar with, coming from Lal Mirch. Neither of his opponents ever step over the fine line between the two, nor do they ever come close to it.
It's not all fun and games, of course. Reborn is reminded of that when he fends off Colonello once more. The blond isn't as much of a constant as his partner is, so it's become part of the routine for him to dart back for the right timing to come right back in again. Yet this time... Only a moment after he retreats, Reborn hears the roar of waves.
Some things can't be avoided. All Reborn can do is ground himself against the coral and sigh before his frame becomes battered with seawater.
As the water settles again, he rakes his fingers through his hair and blinks the water from his lashes. Salt is heavy against his lips as he deadpans, "Was that necessary?"
Colonello looks far too cocky and far too attractive in the way that he sweeps his fingers through his hair, tossing short blond strands back with the easy movement. Wringing the seawater out from her hair, Lal doesn't look smug, which is good, but she does look victorious, which has about the same effect as her other half. "Mad we got you a little wet?" Colonello asks, jeering and abrasive. It's crude, there's no mistaking that, but Reborn doesn't hate it.
There's almost more acceptance in that lewd tease than there had been in the invitation to sit with them.
Fighting against things now is pointless, which they're all aware of, so Reborn sloshes through the water. While he might be soaked down to the bone he can still look better than he feels about it, and so he slides down into the water with an easy elegance. The water swallows him up, chill in a way that's somehow perfect, and slips around his ribs with little fuss. In much the same way, Lal sits down besides him, and Colonello flanks her other side. "So, your little spark is finally a proper god?" she asks, sitting straight. From around her, Reborn can see Colonello press his hands down onto the coral behind him so that he can lean back.
"What took so long?"
What took so long indeed. "His domain is a bit vague," Reborn says simply, which isn't wrong. "It took some outside prodding to ignite him." And there is what he really wants to talk about. Keeping one eye on both halves of Loyalty, he continues. "It wasn't like anything I'd encountered, which is unusual considering what I am. She almost felt like a shard of Chaos, in fact."
It doesn't take long to see a reaction. Colonello stiffens up from his easy going lean, and Lal's head snaps right towards him. Reborn half expects one of them to ask what he'd done, what he'd ruined. Instead, Lal growls, "There's more of them running around!"
Not that he's surprised, but still. "There was an accomplice she was with," he says, a lot more idly than the situation warrants, "yet I have a feeling you mean even more than that."
"We found one aligned to us not long ago," Lal says, her voice dark and her eyes bright. "He thought he was something impressive."
Judging by the sharp smirk on Colonello's face, Reborn feels he can guess with some accuracy that the unnamed creature of Loyalty didn't have very long before his ego was given a blunt reminder to his place in the universe. The only question is on how long it might last. "Did you notice any others?" he asks, curious and wary both.
"Fon says he ran into something amusing, so probably something on his end," Colonello confirms. "Hey, you said there was another one. Who was it connected to?"
Xanxus? Reborn thinks on the question and draws up in his mind's eye the way he'd furiously burned and smoldered at Tsuna's supposed insolence. It'd been a furious red, but somehow, deeper within it... "Fon's as well," he says, "but with something else to him."
Lal scoffs, sharp and short. "More trouble is the last thing this world needs. Between Mammon's secrets, Verde's machinations, Skull's ineptitude, and Fon being himself, there's enough that could keep everything busy for eternity."
"He ran off before we had a chance to grab him," Colonello huffs, just as aggravated as his partner. "I don't know where. Even looking everywhere-" Reaching up, he taps underneath one of his bright blue eyes. "Even these couldn't spot him, hey. Nowhere on the mortal realm, and nowhere in ours, either. It looks like they've found a really good hiding spot, so we'll have to wait until they pop up again." For creatures such as them, that makes Xanxus and the others like him quite the mystery.
Reborn has a feeling he can untangle it... just not now. Not because he can't, necessarily, but because there's something more important to talk about for him. "Whatever they might be, at least they were useful for one thing," he says, faux relaxed even as he continues to gauge their reactions. "I have to say I'm surprised. Circumstances as they were, I thought Tsuna would take more after me since Dino is clearly Luce's, even if he was born in Her realm." Yet what do the two of them have in common? Tsuna doesn't even share the color of himself; Dino at least has those golden strands atop his head. Where Reborn is sharp and selfish and unwillingly dark, Tsuna is soft and too caring and burned bright, even if at the last possible moment.
For a long quiet while, Lal Mirch and Colonello look at him, into him.... and then she says, rather bluntly, "You're an idiot."
This is not the first time she has said as much about him, although Reborn has kept his nose out of it. Considering the marks still warped along her skin, he thinks she's earned that right. Still, if she's going to say it to his face... "Care to enlighten me on why?" he asks dryly, raising an eyebrow.
She probably didn't need the prompt, but Lal takes it regardless. "For someone who's the embodiment of blurring even the concept of neat lines and order, you're stuck on things like they can be black and white." Her lips curls. "How do you think chaos can exist?"
"That's not a rhetorical question," Colonello adds lazily.
How can he exist? It's not exactly the kind of philosophical question he'd expect from Lal Mirch of all people, so he gives it his due attention. He exists.... he supposes because She wanted him to exist. There'd been nothing for Her, and She'd wanted to see it changed. When he voices that, however, Lal and Colonello scoff in time with one another. "So there was nothing with her before any of us?" she asks, eyes half narrowed and her cheek resting in one open palm. "We didn't exist at all?"
"Obviously we did." Reborn can still remember it: churning and half conscious and only partially "himself" as he is now.
"So?" Lal is an impatient teacher. From beneath the water where her fingers tap impatiently against coral, small waves lap outwards.
Well, he'd best not to keep her waiting. It's a bit disjointed, but so are their existences in many ways, and thus Reborn follows the pattern of her own thoughts. "I exist," he says slowly, ready in case she tries to hit him upside the head for a wrong answer, "because other things exist." No hit. He's on the right track. Yet her and Colonello watch him still, waiting for him to continue. "I exist because order exists."
Finally, that satisfies her, and it doesn't escape his notice how her hand and Colonello's are settled side by side: next to each other, pinkies lining up, skin touching skin, and yet still separate. "We can't exist on our own," she states matter of fact, solid as talking about the color of Colonello's eyes or recounting the way her scars travel along her skin. "But that doesn't mean we rely on someone else, although She is a different matter entirely."
"Although maybe not too much," Colonello muses.
Lal moves on. "We're Loyalty above all else, but we can't understand it unless there's division in us, too. Mammon has to stop wanting, occasionally-"
"Or else they would have helped bring about the end of the world."
"Your whole problem," Lal growls, jabbing a finger at his chest, "is that you got carried away. You can still get carried away. You don't think about any other part of yourself besides what gives you the most pleasure immediately. You don't even bother to remember where you come from, and that's why it was such a pain to get you to calm down."
Where he comes from, huh? "Void isn't the opposite of Chaos," he points out, and the finger nearly jabs into his face. If not for the effortless way he avoids it, then he'd probably have lost an eye. At least, he would have lost it or a minute, maybe.
"It's the opposite of everything," Colonello points out while Lal bares her teeth. "It's still a part of us too, hey, or did you forget about that?"
Some of them more than others, he reflects as his hand passes over the front of his cloak. Even in the water where any normal cloth would float, it still wraps close to his body. Ever since it was first cinched around his throat, at his chest, it's never loosened at all. Lal can say it's a part of him all she wants, but...
Reborn is certain that there's no expression on his face to give away the thoughts churning through his mind. While he might be occasionally unsteady, he's been trying to work on making his face as blank as the black cloak which wraps around him. That doesn't stop Lal from scoffing, and she slips off of the coral. There must be a smaller ledge below her, because she's still standing with the water up to her chest as she wades to the front of him. "Maybe this was doomed to happen anyway."
Warnings are flickering through his head, bright and sharp as rainforest birds taking flight. Reborn stays calm against the sensation, and instead watches as she crosses her arms against his knees. "What was? If you care to answer." That's half a joke in its own right. Lal has never bothered to hide her thoughts, and only occasionally her feelings if he recalls her right.
"A reminder." The cryptic answer isn't much. In fact, it's the sort of thing that he expects more from Fon or Luce than Lal, straightforward as she is. Still, it's hard for him to pay much mind to it. His attention is ensnared instead by the feeling of a broad chest pressing into his back, Colonello's breath on his neck. Nostalgia flows over him as easily as water. That's right... They've been in this position before. It wasn't that long ago, really. Colonello bracing himself from behind, Lal digging in from the front. Instinctively, the memory has him want to lash out. Not again, not again. They're hissed out words that come from the deepest parts of himself. Her hand settles on his thigh before he can do anything, and Reborn looks into those deep red eyes.
Red as blood flowing through every beast and human. Blue as the oceans which claim so much of the world. Together, she is part of what binds everything.
"None of us are wholly our own," she says, and Reborn remembers. Right, of course.
These two are what make up him, as well.
"You can't just tell me this?" he asks, trying to hide how reluctant he really is. That would be the easy way, he knows. This can't be easy.
Sure enough, Lal snorts at him, her eyes narrowed and unimpressed. Colonello actually laughs at him, his voice sneaking into Reborn's ear warm as anything. "Did you really think so?" he asks while Lal leans against Reborn's legs. "You need a reminder stronger than what only words can give you. It'll be good for you."
Reborn's voice is dry enough to start an entirely new landmass in this endless ocean. "Just me?"
Finding a patch of skin, Lal twists her fingers sharply to get his attention. "What's good for everything else is good for you," she growls, patience dwindling. That can't be surprising either. "So?"
So. Will he let them do it? That's the question that's being asked here, he knows. As he is, Loyalty combined could drag him down and drown him as easily as breathing. As easily as anything at all. Yet, even with Colonello at his back and Lal waiting at his front, they ask. This is something he has to choose for himself. A second chance, he realizes, sitting there. Unlike the others, he gave himself no name, gave himself no form. Those were things which had to be forced onto him before everything could be destroyed.
He can do differently, this time. He can accept the offer that's before him.
Lal's eyes haven't strayed from his face the entire time he's contemplated this offer. Finally, he looks into them properly and doesn't shy away. In the end... "I did come here for this," he acquiesces, which he knows to be true deep down. He came for this second chance. He came to see them and patch over some of the destruction that he'd wrought. If he backs out now, what will have been the point?
She doesn't smile. Not exactly. All that happens is that the hardness that's filled Lal's eyes softens slightly. "Good," she says, quiet and satisfied. When she reaches up, her touch isn't gentle at all. In fact, the way her fingers slide against his face and then grip down make Reborn think that she might be getting ready to tug his head again and smash her own against it. She doesn't do that. Instead, all she does is hold him there.
Around them, the water deepens.
"None of us are wholly our own," she repeats. They repeat; Colonello's voice is an undercurrent beneath hers, two parts of the same whole. "We were all too wrapped up when we first left. We are each other. We are all from the same place."
The water is rising. Or maybe he's sinking. It's hard to tell and mostly immaterial regardless. Here, with Loyalty, in Loyalty, it's one and the same. This is the kind of place where the destination, right now if no other time, is more important than the journey. Reborn doesn't fight against it, or leave. He doesn't take his eyes away from Lal Mirch. Instead, he watches her. He watches as the water rises up past her shoulders, meeting her hair, becoming her hair, becoming her. He's only seen her in this state once; their battle showed an entirely different part of her. In this way, she is calm and beautiful as her skin turns translucent. Her eyelashes are crystalline every time they brush against what was once a cheek. When she breathes, ice crackles along his legs as if brushed by winter's first touch, and it lingers along her lips. The water is her hands now, and her chest. She is completely bare. Behind him, Reborn is sure that Colonello must be the very same way, and there is a glacier at his back.
He's never seen them more beautiful.
Around his head, his hair curls and twists lazily in the water. He's completely submerged, now, and light only seems like a faint concept in the water with the clouds so thick way up high. Lal is still before him, her form warped in a thousand different little ways and still connected to her domain. Her hands are no longer solid. Now, they are things of concept, and he feels them more than sees them. In particular, he feels them brush down past his throat and settle around his throat. Lal is still not particularly gentle, but that doesn't take away the relief Reborn feels which makes it so sweet. When he next hears her voice, it's not the kind which is spoken from lips or originates in a throat. Instead, he feels it hum from somewhere deeper. He feels it from inside himself, too.
Give into us.
It's not a question or an inquiry. Reborn has already allowed things to go this far; he won't back out now. It's not sharp or hard enough to be a demand, either. Rather, as he slowly allows his shoulders to ease away from their tension, he considers that it's simple guidance. He's out of his depth, and in theirs, so.... Letting his eyes slide shut, Reborn parts his lips. Air bubbles past them. In their stead, water slips past. It collides gently against his teeth, curling gently around his tongue afterwards, and he observes with quiet uncertainty as it goes down to fill his lungs. It fills his stomach.
It fills him.
They both do.
Reborn is Chaos, and Chaos is Reborn. Whatever happens, it will never change this basic fact of reality. He cannot be anything but himself. That's that. Yet while he cannot be Loyalty, cannot be Lal Mirch or Colonello, he gets a taste of it, down in their overwhelming embrace. They were right, he realizes, as the water sinks into the space under his nails. Even when he was nameless and formless, he still was part of them, too. Did he not stay when they were all new and young? Did he not curl around Luce, and hold her close when they danced that first fiery dance? Water stings at his eyes as he looks back at every little memory that rests within his head, seeing things newly. It's not only Loyalty, either. Desire, and Suffering, and Innovation, and Creation, and Catalyst: they have been in his steps and in his chest.
There's been one other thing, too, that he's been oblivious to.
When Reborn opens his eyes again- black as his origin, black as their home- he's laying on his back against the surface of the coral reef again. At some point when he wasn't paying any mind, the water became shallow once more. Here, it only comes up a few inches, perhaps, tickling the curve of his ears and pillowing his head. The sky is still as gray as it ever was. Darker now, actually, as he lays there for a few moments more simply to stare. Yet eventually he must move, and so he tilts his head to look on either side of him. Both Lal and Colonello are still with him, no longer formless but absolutely without any of the scant bits of clothing that they had on when he first arrived. In exchange for that, they both seem utterly at ease no matter the tufts of blond that peek up from his pelvis or the dark blue that shows clearly when Lal has her arms stretched up to fold behind her head like they are. It takes him a moment, mind still feeling as though water is swishing through his head, to notice that both of them have more than their fair share of scars. It's more than the burns which have left their searing kisses against her shoulder and face. There are dozens of them all along their arms, scattered across their legs, stretched over their stomachs and chests.
Ah. Of course. To accept loyalty is to accept the battle wounds that sometimes come with it. Even as the realization lulls into him, Reborn glances down at himself and has to blink. The cloak he's always wore so tightly around himself... is gone. In its place is a simple tunic that falls to his thighs, strings leaving the front just slightly undone, and his legs completely bare. This would be worrying, on a normal day. Still, the ocean remains undisturbed, and the clouds hold together strong. Past them, he knows that the world is untouched, at least as it will ever be. For a while, Reborn ponders how to respond.
Well, there's only one way how. "Was it necessary to strip me?" he drawls, letting the implication speak for itself. At his sides, both halves of the pair stir into awakening.
Pushing himself up onto one elbow and resting against his side, Colonello lets his free hand sweep his hair back and grins. Reborn doesn't bother to pretend he's not looking. "Wish we'd gone a little further?" he says, voice rough as stormy waves, and he leans closer. Reborn meets him halfway.
"I'd rather be conscious in that case. Or are you only so confident when you're not getting any feedback?"
"I'm going to drown both of you," Lal mutters, and annoyance is in her expression when Reborn looks back at her. "If you're going to do anything, just do it. Or do I have to play referee to your measuring contest?" Despite her words, there's still something fond in the upturned twist of her lips. Colonello may have been made as her other half right from start, but that doesn't change the fact that Reborn can easily see why his choice wouldn't change at all looking at her right now.
It seems as though it would be very easy to lay there with the pair, the water a relief against his skin and their company a balm to his issues. Still, he thinks he's wasted too much time here as it is. Pressing his palms into the coral beneath them, he gets up to his feet and begins to adjust his clothes. Where he's going, he's going to need to have all his restraint about him. That means... It takes a little bit for him to remember the lesson he's been taught, even if it has only just finished. Even if he accepts it, the void is still suffocating and thick to his existence. So he's slow when he adjusts the front of his shirt, and only faintly quicker as he dusts his legs off until pants form beneath his swatting palms. When he finally dares to draw a cloak around his shoulders, it feels as heavy as ever.... but not so tight.
How much of that is perception versus reality?
With his toes curling over the edge of the coral platform, he looks down into the water. After a certain depth, details become lost, and all that meets his gaze is black. "Would you mind if I took a shortcut from here?" he asks, for politeness' sake. "There's more than only you I wanted to see."
Rising up into a sitting position herself, Lal raises an eyebrow at him. "I guess," she says, noncommittally, pulling her hair away from her back. "Who do you plan on seeing exactly?"
"Someone good at finding and keeping secrets." It's not a detailed answer. It doesn't have to be. Even before he turns away, he can see understanding flash through the pair's eyes. Reborn doesn't stick around to see much more. Instead, he takes a step off of the platform... and sinks.
They were right. In many ways, things that may seem opposite are integral to one another. It shouldn't be a surprise that the same remains true for the Void. A shallow look would say that it exists only as something outside of the world, and inbetween the realms that the Arcobaleno and the young gods have created. Ridiculous, really. There's a part of the Void within the world, too. Reborn can feel it, lessened but no less itself, the deeper he sinks into the water. At some point, he's left the realm of Loyalty. Telling exactly when is impossible, and doesn't matter. All that matters is when it feels as though he has gone as deep as is possible... and he slows down to a still float.
This isn't the realm of the one he's looking for... but he knows it's where they've decided to hide out.
Around him, there's nothing but darkness. Light is completely absent here, and he can't see even the faintest grasps of it from over his head. In another time, before he went to see Lal and Colonello, he doesn't think he'd be able to handle it. There'd be no hesitation before he would have railed against it all, and tried to set it ablaze from anger and panic both, although he would have never admitted to the latter. Now, however, he just takes in a long slow breath. There's nothing here that he is not already familiar with, that he is not already carrying in himself and on his shoulders.
A face jolts out from within the darkness.
In such deep blackness, anything would look pale by comparison, and this counts for Mammon as well. In fact, he would almost say that his fellow Arcobaleno looks unnatural in this light, or lack of it... but that is by far the least warped thing about their appearance. Their eyes are too large for their skull, and their jaw too long with a mouth that stretches far past its regular limits. Surely their body must be different as well, hidden away down in the abyss as they are, but he can't see any of it. Part of it must surely be the surge of bubbles that is around their body and which clusters at their shoulders. Something lurks within all of them, life waiting to stir as well as any nest of eggs; Reborn can sense that with only a glance. The downside, however, is that trying to see past it all to Mammon's body is impossible.
He can certainly see their hands, if nothing else. It's hard not to, when they're reaching forward to flick at the opening to his cloak to send it fluttering. Fingers too short, and the webbing between them far too high. "Well," says Mammon, the brilliant gold reflection of their eyes unblinking, "I have to say that you're the last person I would have ever expected to see down here."
"And you're the first I would think of," Reborn answers back smoothly. Both of them know the reasons why behind their prospective statements, but he won't dignify their own statement with any focus. "You were the last one to be tugged out from the Void. It definitely kept a tight grip on you, didn't it?"
"Ha." As their lips part, he can see a hint of the rows and rows of needle-like teeth which hide in the shadows of their mouth. They're monstrous. It's beautiful. "Well, one of our number has had to remember what things lurk far away and down below." Tilting their head to the side, they consider him. Down here, no pupils rest within their gaze. "Still, I know you didn't come down here for idle chatter." Their eyelids lower, lazy and predatory, and their lips shift into a faint smirk. "I can taste the desire to know off of you."
What other things pass over that tongue of theirs? He's sure the answer would be interesting, but that's not the one he's seeking today. "While I was talking with some of the others before the bet and before you arrived," he says, casual as anything, "they mentioned you had been something of a recluse. I thought I would see how you were fairing." He tilts his head towards them as well. "See how you were doing with those new creations of yours."
Mammon doesn't so much as blink at the thinly veiled accusation. Perhaps they've made themselves unable to. "Now what makes you think I had anything to do with that?" they murmur, their hand rising up to cradle one cheek. It's not a denial.
"There's no way to hide from any of us," Reborn says matter of factly. "We make up this world. If anything strange happens on it, and within it, then one of us would take notice. The only exception to that... is if it's somewhere far away from most things. If it's too dark for our gazes to see." Their eyes meet, black to gold, and he quirks up an eyebrow. "Most gazes, anyway, if they're not used to the darkness. Yet since you've been absent for so long, and are always drawn to things like this anyway..." Lazily, he rolls his shoulders in a shrug. "Even if you didn't create them, I knew that you would have at least seen something."
Something like a huff slips out from between their pouting lips, even though no bubbles follow the sound. "There's no getting things past you," they mutter, trying not to sound sulky and failing. "Still, there's something you're wrong about, you know." A smirk again. "I wasn't the one that created them."
Disbelieving, his eyebrows raise up. "What?"
"Is it really that surprising?" They slump over the mass of bubbles that billow around their body and fills the space behind them. "What would I have gotten from making creatures like that? Or do you think I made them on purpose for some reason?"
"Your reason is usually enough if it's 'you want to'," Reborn points out dryly.
Mammon shrugs carelessly. "Be that as it may," they continue on, "it wasn't me." There's that wispy smirk again. "Do you want to know who is responsible? I'll tell you." They lean closer, pressing over the bubbles. "It was the humans." His surprise must show in his face somehow, because Mammon laughs quietly to themself while leaning back again. "They're surprising, aren't they? I bet not even Verde could have imagined that they were capable of something like that. Still, they didn't do it on purpose. All they did was feed into something that was simply waiting for a chance to emerge."
"So you're saying they existed before now."
"In a way." Their gaze flicks up at him, focusing a little more. "Tell me... Do you think that our birth came with no consequences?" They nod pointedly down to his torso. "Do you think your clothes did?" Mammon's voice dips lower and quieter, fitting the dark space they both speak in. "Neither of those things were done neatly. The scraps that were left behind to be forgotten... They were something of their own too. Just not strong enough to be."
"..But humanity gave them something. What?"
"Fear." It's a simple answer, accompanied by a simple shrug. "They're so weak, and they know it. Their skin is soft, and their legs don't carry them nearly fast enough a lot of the time. Plenty of creatures can outdo them in one area or another, small or large. Yet even more than that, their greatest weakness is in their own heads. When night is on them, and they're left looking out into the darkness where their lights can't reach, well..." Smugness drips from Mammon's smile. "They realize how little they really know. And they realize how that feeling can be found in even each other. The better parts of such feelings are what feed those sons of yours, and any other gods that exist now or will exist in the future."
"And the darker ones," Reborn finishes, realization having struck him long before they finished speaking, "are what fed Xanxus and the others like him."
"That's right." Mammon finally deigns to move their hand, spreading out out to the side, and the darkness gives way to movement. Somehow, the shadows around them shifts into something material. His vision has to adjust to make out the specifics, but he realizes there are six tiny figures gathered neatly before both Arcobaleno. Dolls, each in the shape of something new. Two, Reborn can recognize. "Monsters in the trees and in their hearts, who they can blame all of their ills on. Who they want to blame. How convenient for them."
No judgment laces their words. It's a matter of fact, and Reborn finds himself agreeing. It's hard to face one's inner fears.... no matter what they might be. Besides, this answers one other thing for him. "No wonder Xanxus is so annoyed at some of the gods that are around." It's mixed insult and compliment, depending on how much one revels in strength over anything else, to only be viewed as something to be feared rather than worshiped in public under the light of day. He nods down to the cloak of bubbles that Mammon is lazying against. "Is that one more to be added to their numbers, then?" That could be a problem, if so. Dino, Hibari, and Tsuna are the only gods so far that have stepped foot into this new world. Xanxus' number is already a little more than that, and that's only the ones that Reborn knows of. Who knows what could happen to the balance of the world if its gods fell? Reborn tries not to think about his own feelings on the idea of Dino or Tsuna being cornered, specifically.
With a slow blink, as if they had to be reminded, Mammon glances down at themself. "Oh, her." Shapes that might be their shoulders rise up in the mass of bubbles, a sort of shrug. "No, no.... On that note, you don't have to get so worked up. She arose from fear, too, but it's of a different sort. At least-" Their hand waves dismissively through the air, a movement which has the small shadow figures they created vanish into wisps. "The result they want is different. Thus, she'll be different."
Reborn takes in a breath through his nose, nostrils twitching, and recognizes the scent that filters through. "So she's a god." One that Mammon already seems quite confident in their knowledge about.
Mammon is all pride and smugness in the way they look up at him. "You think your sons are so encompassing and powerful? Well, be prepared to lose that title, because this one is going to be just as good, if not better."
Reborn could say a lot of things in response to that. He could point out that he never particularly wanted children, so it's not as if he's trying to slight Mammon's pride on purpose. (It's an amusing bonus, to be sure, but it's not purpose.) He could mention that child rearing isn't exactly supposed to be a competition, of all things. There's always an opportunity to see if he can get those loose lips flapping a little more, if only to see how much Mammon really knows and what kind of god it will be that takes form here in the depths, embracing the entity of Desire so closely.
Later, maybe. Right now, he doesn't particularly care.
Instead, he says, "Good luck with that." The response has Mammon's eyelids droop and their lips pout in disappointment, which is possibly the best result he thinks he could have gotten. Much like Fon, the key to winning against Mammon is to simply not care, at least when one can afford to do that. "At any rate, that's all I wanted to ask about. Try to remember there's a world beyond these depths instead of getting caught up in all of your watching, won't you?"
He doesn't need to hear what they say after that. With a tug of his cloak, he twists away, darkness and void taking him somewhere else. Taking him to land, and the sun. It's a set of cliffs somewhere, towering high over the waters and sweet smelling grass decorating its topside. For a long moment, he stands there and looks over onto the horizon. From here, this simple vantage point, the ocean seems as endless as his existence. On some level, it is. At that line where sight can no longer go any farther, he knows that's the point where the waters ships can sail disappears and are instead replaced by those with brilliant coral platforms waiting just beneath the surface... and then, past that, depths that not even most Arcobaleno save one make themselves at home in.
Elsewhere, clouds roll across the sky, carrying suffering with them, and occasionally lightning and storms crackle through their masses as much as innovation and catalysts do through people and creatures.
Underneath it all, underneath the sky, things are created.
Above, the sun burns, and chaos shines just as bright even in places where light can't reach.
Reborn closes his eyes, feels all of it thrumming throughout his body and his essence, and breathes. That's right. None of them are wholly their own. All of them are connected. It's a lesson that he needs to keep, as much as the clothing which rests across his body. He can't afford to forget.
With his eyes open, Reborn turns on his heels and goes to find his family.
It's easy to pick up on where they are. Gods, he's found, change the air and the world around them simply by being on mortal earth. His own especially call to him, fires that burn brightly and signal to him where his sons lie. It's a different thing than sensing the other Arcobaleno. With them, it's a lot more subtle but easy to find if one knows where to look. Like realizing that clouds have changed direction, or the tide has risen up. As it turns out, and as far as he can tell, they're right where he left him: in the small little town on the edge of the lake.
Reborn takes his time in getting there. Already around him, he can sense the world is still changing. Gods, and Xanxus' kind, and things lesser than both of those: they're filling the world and dwelling within all that fills it. Amazing how much has changed in what feels like only the blink of an eye. The town itself, when he gets there, is both the same and very different. There's still the same kind of buildings, constructed in the way that its inhabitants know best, and he sees familiar faces when he emerges from the forest onto the path that leads into it. At the same time, there's no missing its changes. With its previous incarnation having become nothing but ash and ruin, it's only to be expected that some things have had to be rearranged. To his interest, they're clustered further along the waters edge now. No one massive building lays claim to it. As he lingers, eyes wandering, he finds that they're still building. People, those likely skilled in the craft of making buildings, are all along the water with the sound of chatter drifting from their direction and their arms gesturing wildly. Having homes on land is good. Seeing if they can drift further into the lake is potentially better, if a challenge.
There's no surprise in Reborn's breast when he sees his Dino right in the thick of it all, unseen and grinning as he nods along to the conversation. This is his specialty as much as anything else with horses might be. As long as people work, then he thrives. It doesn't take long before his eldest sees him, and Dino carefully extracts himself from the group to come jogging up to him. "Reborn! You look-" A pause as Dino does a quick glance over at him. It's not as subtle as he'd probably like.... Or maybe Reborn's eyes are just too good. It's likely both. "Well."
"The conversations I had were good," Reborn says, explaining nothing. He likes having his secrets, even from his own sons. "It seems like they've recovered quickly here."
"Ha." Dino's smile is a little proud as he looks over the village and the people still working through it. "Well, we have focused our attentions here sometimes, although we've gone to other places that have called for us. Nearby towns heard and offered their help as well, although maybe they just wanted to hear the rumors."
"Let me guess: Tsuna."
Laughing under his breath, Dino starts to head further into the town, or at least the parts of it that are on land. "Let me show you what they've been making for him." Reborn can guess, simply because he remembers what happened when Dino and then Hibari first started to be known among mortals. Still, the details are what can't be the same, and he can't deny his curiosity for that in particular. So he follows after Dino laxly. As he does so, a quiet meow at his feet draws his attention downwards.
A black cat blinks up at him with amber eyes, and small bits of twine colored in some sort of dye are wrapped around its throat in a collar. It's pleasantly fat. It's also far from being alone, a fact that becomes all the more apparent the closer Dino takes him to the center of town where the shrines lay. His eldest son's is there as it was from when they first visited, rebuilt and decorated as always. Yet what's interesting is that small little thing that's attached to it. It's much smaller than Dino's, and not anywhere near as lavishly decorated. If anything, it's really just a fancy torch. Black cats of all sorts surround it, basking in the sun or ducking beneath what shadows can be found there. Every time someone passes by it, a cat almost inevitably is given some sort of attention. Sometimes that means a scratch behind the ears. Other times that means a nice long stroke down their sides. Every now and then, even as Reborn watches, a bit of food is left out for them.
"I see they have a decent idea of what's been touched by the divine," he says dryly, amused.
"Well..." Dino laughs, folding his fingers behind his head. "It was a little hard to miss when all the cats in town suddenly became black, and nothing they tried could make them go back to the color they were. Everyone views them as good luck. Personally, I think Tsuna is prefers that to being worshipped to himself." He nods to the minuscule addition to his own shrine. "He's had to tell them repeatedly throughout the seasons that he doesn't want anything too big for him. When some people dismiss that as just a dream, well, it's taken some doing."
So his latest son shies away from attention, huh? That's interesting to note. So is one other thing. "How many seasons have passed, exactly?" He'd known that time would be a bit strange in the realms of the Arcobaleno compared to the world of mortal lives, but how much is hard to guess at when he's right in them...
"A full cycle, at least- a year, you know." Dino glances at him, and some of his jovial mood ebbs back a little bit to make way for concern. "...Everything's going to be fine?"
Really... "You don't have to be so concerned," Reborn says, more careless and less grateful than he truly feels. "So where's Tsuna?" They've certainly been talking about him a lot, yet the young god himself has been nowhere around.
Being reminded of his brother snaps Dino out of it, and he looks around. "Oh, last I saw, he was over near some of the healers. This way, I think." It's not a far walk from the center of town to the large building that's been constructed for the injured, or sick. Not as many fill it as they would have some time ago, in the immediate aftermath of Xanxus' visit, yet there's still a few in there being tended to.
Finding Tsuna is easy. It's impossible to miss his wild hair, still so messy from Reborn's touch no matter the passage of time. Despite his father and brother both coming into view in the entryway, Tsuna doesn't pay them any mind. Instead, he's besides a girl who shares his youthful look, and who has all of his attention. The discarded sticks and cloth to the side tell a story, as does the way one of her legs trembles violently. With a god on one side of her and the unsurprising presence of Nana helping her balance on the other, she seems to be learning to walk all over again. It's a struggle, even with help, and all too soon she sinks back down onto the blankets and cushions set aside. Her shoulders slump, dragged downwards just like her gaze, and it's then that Tsuna quietly reaches over to brush his fingertips across her shoulder. His hands are still scarred and weak, every inch of them, but that's all she needs before the girl looks up against with a weary smile that belies the light in her eyes.
"Hey, Tsuna!" Dino calls over to him, and grins brightly to meet the startled look his little brother gives him. "Look who came back!" As if Reborn could ever really leave.
Reborn isn't an easy person to miss either, with his absence of color and imposing height, and yet the flabberghasted expression that spreads across Tsuna's face says he's been completely oblivious up until Dino had pointed him out. "You're okay!" he exclaims, getting up to his feet and hurrying over. His concern is a little bit of a mystery until Tsuna stops before them and keeps talking. "Dino said you weren't feeling well, and I thought you seemed-" His youngest comes to a stop, possibly at the way Reborn glances in deceivingly casual fashion at his eldest.
"Did he now?" he says, and only feels a little bit of satisfaction when Dino can't meet his gaze and instead just smiles with mingled nervousness and sheepishness up at the ceiling. Apparently, he's inherited his mother's tendency to say things Reborn would really rather not be said. Considering Tsuna's aborted sentence, he's just as bad. Well, he can harass his sons later about it. For now, Reborn steps around the subject neatly as he returns his attention down to Tsuna and says, "You're doing better as a god now?"
"I guess?" Tsuna grimaces a little, even as he raises his hands to start gesturing along with his words. "It's still too much, honestly, and I'd kind of like it to stop?"
"It's not going to," Reborn says bluntly, and his youngest huffs out a breath out air.
"Still," he whines. "I'm still aching from what happened with Xanxus, and it feels so weird-!"
His hand flaps through the air, stopped only when Reborn grasps it quite suddenly. Tsuna gives a small surprised yell, but Reborn pays it no mind. Instead, he focuses on carefully inspecting the hands that, up until now, have only been things which he's seen in passing instead of up close like this. For a normal human, he doubts they'd be able to use their hands at all in such a state. No longer soft and fidgety, Tsuna's hands have been practically burned to a crisp. That they can retain any sort of flexibility is impressive in its own way when everything has been made brittle and charred, with each crack telling stories of pain more horrific than most know or would ever want to know. Of their own accord, they twitch sometimes, sharp and stiff.
Underneath Reborn's piercing observation, Tsuna fidgets only a little in silence. It's Dino who leans in close and begins to murmur, "We went to see Her not too long after you went off. Aria said he did it to himself."
That makes sense, Reborn supposes. This, too, might be a consequence of what happens when a god is kept from their dominion for too long, and finds their power and purpose all at once in the face of life and death. "Will it heal?" he asks simply, keep his voice simple and to the point.
Dino makes a faint noise in the back of his throat that isn't much of an answer at all. "It might? It's too soon to tell." Underneath his words are the unspoken reminder for all of them that they're far different from mortals. Their lives will go on for much longer, surpassing generations of that which thrives on this earth. In the same way... Perhaps any wound deep and powerful enough to affect them at all will take some time of its own to fully heal. There's only one way to find out.
"They especially hurt," Tsuna whines at long last, unable to hold himself in for much longer. Indulgently, Reborn lightly baps the side of his hand against Tsuna's. There's so much hair there that he doubts it's really painful by any stretch of the imagination, but Tsuna still whines a little more.
"It could be worse," he reminds him. "Xanxus did want to kill you." With that said, he turns on his heel and steps back into the paths of the town.
"Don't remind me," Tsuna groans, tagging along with his older brother who laughs at him and ruffles his hair. "I don't want to see him ever again!"
Reborn smirks at him over his shoulder. "Then you'll be disappointed that, besides Lussuria, there are four more things just like him." It's not that he takes any particular pleasure from watching the melodramatic despair cross both of his childrens' faces. Really, it's for their own good. They should know that their lives are only going to be all the more excitable from here on out.
It just happens to be a small side bonus.
Ignoring how his sons feel about the idea of more Xanxus or anything like him, Reborn continues on. "So, what do they pray for when it comes to you?" he asks, passing by the twin shrines again and glancing over them. Some of the cats are stirring in interest as they sense Tsuna's approach, with a few getting up to stretch and follow after him. It's the aftermath of that battle all over again. Reborn hopes they don't get an entourage, if only for the sake of not having to wade through a small army of cats. "For that matter, what have they come to call you?"
For creatures like the Arcobaleno and gods themselves, the names they have can be plentiful when it comes to that which is known among humans. Every village, every traveling group, has something different that they call the beings they know of but have never interacted directly with. For Dino alone, Reborn has heard a few different titles: the gold rider, the bucking horse, the first child, light and labor. He could go on for a year just reciting them all. In that same year, he's not sure if Tsuna's influence has really been felt. How many stories could really be told about such a fledgling god with his small shrine? Yet that there is a shrine at all says that, surely, there must be a name attached as well.
Being asked about it at all draws a flush onto Tsuna's face, and he drags a hand across it as though that might help block so much blushing. He looks, to Reborn's amusement, embarrassed. "Ember and Wildfire," he mutters, practically having to shove the answer out from between reluctant teeth. Insistently, his older brother nudges him in the side all the harder with a grin on his face that reminds Reborn that they truly are related. Tsuna shrinks even harder in on himself. "Dino passed on the story of how I was born."
"I kept out the really embarrassing parts," Dino says cheerfully. Whether it's to reassure Tsuna, the more blatant option, or Reborn, the more subtle one, is hard to say even for the Marksman. "And they pray to him for all sorts of things. Mostly when they're at their lowest, honestly. Weak as weak can be, when there's nothing else for them. It's impressive how well he can fire them up."
Impressive, or expected? Reborn glances back down to Tsuna, who's still suffering quietly from his older brother's antics and teasing. Maybe the answer was in front of his face all along, ever since Tsuna had first come to being within the ashes of something which Reborn had so carelessly destroyed.
Maybe it's not so strange, either, that a god that knows weakness and strength together was born from something of Chaos. Faintly, Reborn thinks of the words his amber-eyed son spoke of in the ruins of this town.
Lal Mirch, as usual, continues to be a source of unexpected wisdom.
"Then you don't need to be babied any longer," he informs his youngest. Tsuna perks up at that, hopeful, only to immediately turn wary as he glances over Reborn.
"Wait... Does that mean I'm going to not be watched all the time anymore, or you're not going to go easy on me from now on...?"
Reborn just smirks and turns on his heel. "I'll see you both some other time," he says in farewell, and chuckles at the sound of Tsuna's alarmed yell at his back. All too quickly, it's swallowed up by nothing as he goes from one shadow to the next. From one world to the next.
Her realm welcomes him back with open arms.
No one else is there with Her- not Skull or Verde or Fun or anyone else. Still, Luce is seated very much where She was before, although the surroundings have changed slightly. Everything is in bloom, the poignant scent stifling the scent of decay that he knows is beneath it. Her fingers are still at work as if he had never left, with the only sign of change being the variety of flowers now making the chain. Nothing is said between them as Reborn comes closer, and She only looks up when he is close enough that their legs brush. Smiling indulgently, She finally puts Her work to the side before reaching up for him. Her fingers curve along his jaws in a way much different from Lal, and he lets his knees crumple underneath himself to be all the closer. With his arms folding onto Her lap, he closes his eyes.... and becomes at ease.
"Ember and Wildfire," he murmurs into Her legs. "He's like you."
Her laugh is sweeter than a breeze. "And he's like you in all the ways you don't admit." Her fingers flick through his hair lightly, trailing down his neck and resting just at where his cloak meets his skin. "Now... That wasn't so bad, was it?"
Faintly, he wonders if She means raising Tsuna, or having form, or allowing himself to not suffocate under the weight of what he wears. Does it really matter? "I suppose not," he agrees quietly, and leaves it at that.