Chapter Text
“Mou.” He twitches as Mammon fades into view on his desk. (It’s Xanxus’s desk, and the cold threatens to swallow him all over again.) “There was a hit on the search you paid for, Commander.”
“Voooiii?” He tries to inject the comment with as much of his normal … enthusiasm as he can into the response, but it sounds pathetic even to him.
“I should charge you.” He makes a face. “Consider this a freebie. Your wallowing is irritating me.” The Mist Arcobaleno drops a police file on his desk, and then vanishes; he prods at it apathetically.
Eventually, he gives in and opens it properly; he sits up as he sees the crime-scene photos (with unsubtle Mist Flames that didn’t belong to Mammon obscuring the details) and flicking through the folder with much more interest. He recognised those wound patterns.
“Voooiii! Get me the fucking jet!”
“The main house has sequestered it, Squalo-darling. We’re not even allowed commerical flights right now.”
“Voooiii! Make them fucking miserable. Put Bel on an economy coach for a visit home unsupervised, Luss.” The femminiello Sun bounces. “I’ll go by fucking train. Bet the fuckers didn’t think of that.”
He steps foot in Japan just under a month later, itching for a fight, but somehow less numb than he’d been when he’d left Italy.
(Mammon has been ‘facilitating’ him doing the fucking paperwork, so he’s been unable to escape things entirely, but the change of environment and the enforced routine’s actually helped.)
Getting into the ass-end of Hokkaido takes another full day, and he debates with himself over whether to go hunt down the swordsman who’d very neatly disembowelled and decapitated his wife’s murderers immediately, or wait for the morning.
(As someone had covered for the man in the police records, he decides to try his hand at patience; he clearly needs to investigate.)
Given the child-sized bloody handprints in some of the crime scene photos, he waits until mid-morning - well after the start of both the Japanese kindie and elementary school days - to step into Takesushi.
(It had taken him several days to match up the crime scene photos with the actual location where it had happened; he’d also identified the half a dozen Flame Actives in the local police force, including of all things, a Sunny Cloud - which was an abomination of a Flame combination.)
The restaurant is cool, dark, ridiculously traditional, all bamboo and lacquered paper and low tables, Rain Flames soaked into the building’s fabric and an impressive selection of swords mounted like trophies on the walls.
(He recognised some of the swords. He’d been looking for some of them for years to test himself against.)
“Voooiii! You planning to serve food today Autumn Rain, or just mope like a civvie?” He blinks. Inhales. Shit. It was all of eleven am, and the man was drunk. The sort of drunk that took hard work and determination, and that left one’s Flames ragged and out of control. His sword hand flutters, itching for his blade, his nerves twanging - the man had a sword-tsukumogami; it was entirely possible the blade could wield its bearer as the hell-rings did - and he takes a small step closer, trying to figure out what the fuck he should do next.
“Going to put me out of my misery, Sword Emperor?” The question is slurred. “Shigure Kintoki won’t let me perform sepukku. Wasn’t there. Takeshi killed one of his kaa-chama’s attackers himself. Called Himself right off my back to do so -” he makes a face and uses his own sword to nudge the sake bowl away from Tsuyoshi’s hand, “- he’d be safer in his cousin’s nursery than with me.”
“I don’t fight drunk old men.” Stormy Rain Flames lash and flare around him, and he raises an eyebrow; as far as he’d been aware, Autumn Rain had been an Arcobaleno candidate with a fairly ‘pure’ Flame. “At least not when they’re drunk. If you want me to put you out of your misery, Autumn Rain, you’re going to have to sober up and work for it.”
(He can’t bring himself to just kill the human version of Ame-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi. It feels like a form of sacrilege.)
He sighs and dismisses his own blade, then touches the bamboo shinai that was on the table in front of Autumn Rain warily, half expecting to get bitten; he’d made the comparison to the hell-rings himself, and he’d watched a Giglio Nero swordsman lose himself after stripping one carelessly from the hand of a would-be assassin of his Donna. The sword almost purrs, shedding its outer skin briefly to reveal ornate steel, before settling back its more innocuous form.
“Traitorous blade.”
“I doubt he’d let me wield him. I can’t tell the difference between the two of you.” He picks the shinai up warily. “He’s just not in a mood to bite.” He has a couple of Mist sheaths anchored to tattoos, and he slides the shinai into one carefully. “Now. Are you going to take a fucking cold shower willingly, or do I need to get creative?” Tsuyoshi looks at him with a degree of confusion and he sighs, pulling on his Flames slowly and showily, stilling the air until the moisture in it starts to condense.
Tsuyoshi shrieks when the cold water drips down his neck. It’s more amusing than it should be. He keeps up the steady drip of icy water until the other Rain shakes himself like a wet cat and looks more alert - albeit sorry for himself, too - and his Flames ache, and then stops.
“The pity party stops, trash.” His heart twists as Xanxus’s epitaph of choice slips out. “You killed the bastards who killed her, and your brat needs you. Sepukku would be cowardice; it’s the reason your shitty-sword -” it vibrates in the sheath he’d slid it into, “- won’t cooperate. Do you really think that he’d be happy in your mini-me’s hands before puberty?”
Tsuyoshi makes a broken sound.
“Yeah. So what’s the excuse, trash?”
“She was my ikigai, Superbi. My cousins would keep Takeshi safe … I just want to be with her again.”
He makes a face. He clearly need to corner one of the man’s cousins and ask what ikigai meant to them; it was one of those untranslatables, he suspected. (Though given the context … if the man had been a Lightning, he’d call it fixation. Cause. Reason to live. If he was right though, why the fuck wasn’t the man’s clan supervising him until he was less self-destructive?!)
“Tsch. They might keep him safe, Autumn Rain, but he’s what seven, and already blooded?” The man nods. “So if you let yourself get killed, what’s he going to assume, trash?” The other Rain’s confusion shows in his eyes. “He’s not going to see it as you reclaiming your ‘honour’; he’s going to assume he wasn’t enough … that if he’d just saved his mama -” he twists the knife, and the colour drains out of the other man’s face. “Yeah. And then combine that with your damn sword.”
He catches Tsuyoshi as he drops, and slings him over his shoulder with a grumbly sound. He wasn’t a bambinaio.
“Shhh. Your o-tou-chama is probably just napping, ’Keshi-tan.” The soft Japanese startles him and he twitches his hand reflexively, calling one of his blades into it. The external door to the space eases open, and he and the Sunny-fucking-Cloud end up staring at each other; the litle Rain has a brain; he slides back behind his adult-companion and there’s a ‘tug’ on the blade in his hand, which forces him to look down and twitch as he realises he’s trying to threaten Autumn Rain’s damn son with the man’s damn tsukumogami. “Itaria no Ken Kōtei, what have you done with my jūtei?”
He blinks stupidly and drops Shigure Kintoki, who ‘jumps’ into the baby-Rain’s hands with a sensation best translated as the ‘my human, mine, all mine’ of a cat twinning between their favourite person’s legs.
“Voooiii! He’s sleeping off his attempt to drink his damn restaurant dry.” The Sunny Cloud looks amused. “And who the fuck are you, trash, and what the fuck are you doing in the damn police?”
“Hibari Touma. And I’m the local Keishi-sei, Itaria no Ken Kōtei.” The Cloud’s lips curve into something that’s about as much of a smile as his normal expression is. “The role meshes well with my instincts.”
He shudders and the little Rain peeps around the man’s legs. “Voooiii! If you’re his goddamn cousin, why isn’t he under supervision?!”
“Who says he isn’t?” The man ruffles Takeshi’s hair. “Go and get changed into your gi, oi-kun. I think we need to wear you out if your tousan is so … tired.” Touma’s eyes flash wickedly. “I think your otousan’s ‘guest’ knows at least some of Shigure Soen Ryuu; perhaps he’ll show you the first few forms then help you with your footwork?” He glares at the man, but the little Rain is so maliciously cute as he bobs and bounces past them both that he can’t hold onto his irritation. (The little menace resheathing the tsukumogami on the way past is unsettling; it suggests he can see Flames.)
“He’d drunk enough of his sake stock to be acutely flammable.”
“He’s been doing that since Eiko was killed.” The Sunny Cloud rolls his shoulders. “He’s managing when he’s got his son to focus on; I’ve just been making a habit of bringing Takeshi home from school and sobering him up.”
“Voooiii. That’s not sustainable.”
“It doesn’t have to be.” He makes a rude gesture at the man. “We’re just buying him time, Superbi; he’s already halfway through creating the mental construct to survive for my cute little oi-kun.”
“… he talked about just wanting to be with his ikigai again.” The Sunny Cloud makes a face that says he’s guessed right.
“Why are you the Itaria no Ken Kōtei, Superbi?” He doesn’t follow. He’s tempted to snap at the man, but Clouds didn’t obfuscate like that; they just hauled off and smacked you, so there was clearly a point, and he shrugs. He was the Sword Emperor because he was a swordsman, and he had a Sky who wanted his Guardians to excel … but Autumn Rain didn’t have a Sky. Notoriously didn’t have - or want - a Sky. The man had told every Sky who’d asked him to be their Rain to fuck off.
“But she wasn’t a Sky. We’d have heard, even in Italy, if a Sky had been killed! You can’t hide the ripples of disHarmony -”
“- she wasn’t a Sky.” The Sunny-Cloud’s lips twitch. “I understand why you’d make that assumption, but there are bonds that are soul-deep without a Sky being involved, Superbi. They’re especially important when there are tsukumogami in play; they provide an extra point of stability.” The other man’s expression turns serious. “I’m hoping Takeshi finds one soon if Shigure Kintoki is going to be so -”
The tiny form of Autumn Rain’s brat tumbles out of his bedroom, wearing indigos and a grin has the Sunny Cloud cutting himself off.
“- I should show you where Asarigumi is.” The Cloud crouches and taps the little Rain’s nose gently. “What’s the rule of mine that Kyōya keeps breaking, oi-kun?”
“No waving weapons around outside the dojo, ji-san.” His lips twitch. “He gave two Nami-koko students concussions today.”
“And I’ll talk to him about that later. He’s getting better at having a valid reason for his actions, oi-kun.” The little Rain’s scooped up and snuggles into the Cloud’s arms. “Now. Can you remember how to get into Asarigumi, ’Keshi-tan?”
“Keshi-tan wriggle his nose and concentrate on feeling like Kintoki-sama.” He doubted that was actually how to get into what was probably a private dojo suitable for Rains to practise swordsmanship in, but was a fairly good explanation for a kid that had to be seven at most. (He acted younger than their bratty Prince, but that didn’t say much; Tzaphkiel was an outlier for a whole variety of reasons. The brat’s Family routinely hothoused their brats with Cloud and Sun Flames.) The Sunny-Cloud’s lips curve, and there’s a burst of Sun Flames; a door - with a genkan, so to the outside - appears. “Or Touma-ji does that. Is lots of ways to get in.”
“I’m sure you’ll find your own.” The other man’s lips twitch.
“Voooiii! Who says I’ll be staying long enough to need one?!”