Archive of Our Own

Skull knows for a fact that he’s the interloper here.

It’s not his fault, that’s for sure — but it’s also none of the other’s fault that they see him as nothing more than an interloper. 

Skull was a weak civilian. He came to the Mafia with practically no skills. Worse, he hadn’t even known about his own flames. He didn’t even have the common sense to do research, or be the slightest bit suspicious when he stepped into that room, thinking it was just a new acting job. 

He’d been stupid then, Skull could admit that much. 

But it’s been fifty years and Skull could only hope that he’s earned a bit more merit in the last half-century. 

It’s been two years since Reborn’s student, Sawada Tsunayoshi, broke the Arcobaleno curse — and Viper and Verde’s joint research project to speed up their aging had worked wonders — enough for them to return to their previous stations as actual adults in the Mafia. 

The Arcobaleno looked to be young adults, now, or at least, all of them did - except for Skull. Skull had always been the youngest - he’d joined the Arcobaleno at just nineteen. 

As it was right now, he’d be lucky to pass as a sixteen year old when he could just as easily pass as thirteen. 

When he gets home from another day training Enma how to use his gravity-bending powers using his own experiences as a stuntman, he finds the Arcobaleno gathered in the shared living room. They’re watching one of Colonnello’s favorite films, judging by the alien costumes. 

Not that anyone’s really watching. Viper, Lal and Reborn are engaged in a very active conversation about Vongola’s affairs, while Nello and Fon are engaged in… a thumb wrestling competition with Verde as the judge?

Skull sits with the second group. “The Great Skull-sama has arrived!”, he declares with his usual boisterous voice. 

Verde flinches at his volume. Fon, at least, manages a polite “hello, Skull”.

Colonnello, though, the blonde actually hits Skull in the head. “What took you so long, lackey? It’s your turn to make dinner tonight!”. The Rain scolds.

There’s familiar indignation in Skull’s chest. “Senpai! Skull told you that he’s found a student to teach, now!” he complains.

Colonnello scoffs. To Skull’s horror, another voice joins the conversation. “You barely even pass as a student, lackey. What makes you qualified to teach?”.

Skull crosses his arm around his chest and sends an annoyed glare at Reborn. He’s lucky he’s wearing his helmet. He knows for a fact that if Reborn could see him…

“Stop glaring at me or I’ll shoot you”, Reborn casually says and the words have Skull shrieking in panic.

He runs to the kitchen and he hates it — but his body automatically starts pulling out the ingredients for dinner.

Skull loathes his own body, hates that at the slightest threat from the others he’s automatically flinching in fear and following their every command. 

Skull convinces himself that ‘it’s just not worth it’, that’s all. He convinces himself that he likes cooking anyway. And cleaning. And making coffee and tea and strawberry milkshakes. 

He hears laughter from the living room.

Lal and Reborn had joined the thumb-wrestling competition, but the game had quickly escalated to a… tickling match? 

Verde was making weird screeching sounds on the living room floor as Reborn and Lal trapped the man to tickle him. Fon had hidden behind the couch in a pitiful attempt to hide his chuckles. Colonnello hadn’t even bothered. The soldier was rolling on the floor - laughing his ass out and looking very much like he was running out of air. 

Skull looks down at the dough he’d started kneading, fettuccine for Reborn’s favorite pasta, and he feels nothing but utter emptiness.

Skull convinces himself he just likes the chores, someone has to do them after all.

He fails.

After all, Skull knows the painful truth. 

It’s been fifty years but he’s still scared of his senpais.

Skull knows with all his heart that no matter how much time has passed - they’ll always be far stronger than he is. 

Skull listens to the chaos from the living room and he slowly accepts the bitter truth.

The Arcobaleno are family. A dysfunctional and inexplicably violent family - but they’ve all been through hell and back together. They knew each other’s weaknesses, next moves, habits like the back of their hands. Inside jokes that could fill libraries. 

And Skull. He was just… Skull. 

The lackey.

There was no point including someone who was constantly the weak link, constantly messing up missions, constantly getting targeted for a shot at the others. 

Skull knew he was a liability. He tried not to be, but with his title as the weakest, people more often than not tended to use him to get to the others.

It was the unavoidable truth. 

He’d tried his best but he’s still as weak as he’s ever been, not even a step closer to finally matching up to the I Prescelti Sette. 

The laughter from the living room gets louder and Skull finally accepts the truth that he doesn’t belong with them. That they’ll never see him as family, because he’d never be their equal. 

Skull convinces himself that the onions are making his eyes water.

They don’t quite explain the heartburn.

There’s something wrong with Skull.

It’s Verde that notices it first. He walked into the dining room late one afternoon and found the stuntman sitting there, a contemplative look on his face as he stared at a worn, thin notebook.

He’s not wearing the usual helmet, and Verde notes, some of the piercings were abnormally absent from the Cloud’s face.

Skull notices his presence. “Uh, hi Verde-senpai”. Skull says almost shyly, and that in itself had Verde freezing.

Skull did not do shy.

“Are you sick?”, he asks, approaching the Cloud quickly. 

Skull looks at him in confusion. “I don’t think so”.

Verde points a thermometer at the man, trying to get a reading. The numbers come back normal.

“If you get any of us sick, there will be consequences”. Verde mutters more to himself, even as he sighs in relief at Skull’s lack of fever. Still, it might not hurt to monitor the Cloud in the coming days.

Skull only nodded silently.

Verde narrows his eyes at the stuntman but doesn’t comment. Skull was never silent.

Other incidents followed after that. Fon had been very disappointed when he had arrived at his meditation room to find a tray of freshly steeped tea as usual, but no unruly stuntman asking to join his afternoon meditation routine.

Lal had tried to drag Skull to one of her routine sparring sessions one “morning”, if three in the morning, could be called that, only to find the Cloud’s bedroom empty and Skull nowhere in sight. 

Viper had been very annoyed when instead of the usual annoying text messages asking for their company to the grocery store, Skull had simply… stopped texting or calling altogether. Viper’s mood had immensely soured when they saw their usual stash of strawberry milk in the fridge refilled which meant that Skull hadn’t forgotten their grocery run —- he had just forgotten to invite Viper.

Colonnello lost his patience quickly after the third day Skull hadn’t come home and marched to the Shimon armed to the teeth. He had found Skull playing video games with the redheaded Mafia boss, both teens in their pajamas. 

Colonnello opened-fire, unable to stop the seething anger over the idiot that had gotten them all worried. He dragged a protesting, sputtering Skull back to the base. 

“The idiot was playing games with the Shimon, kora!”. Colonnello announced.

The mood immediately darkened after that. Reborn walks forward, a frown on his face. He had thought the Cloud had gotten himself kidnapped — or sick, but no. The irresponsible idiot had been out there playing games.

“What did you think you were doing, lackey?”.

Skull freezes and Reborn can almost see the look of utter fear on the stuntman’s face under his helmet. 

“I, I was doing my job”.

It’s the wrong answer. Reborn actually snarls at the cazzone. “Job? You call pretending you’re a competent enough adult for those Shimon children a job? You, the lackey, who couldn’t even do his duties to the Arcobaleno right?”.

Something shifts in Skull and Reborn hears the others almost sigh in relief when the stuntman’s familiar indignation rises to the surface.

Skull had been far too silent, far too muted in the last few days.

“I did do my job! I cooked, I cleaned and I did your grocery runs. I made Fon his tea, I made you coffee and I never forgot anything I had to do once!”. Skull says.

Reborn scoffs at the Cloud. “And you think that’s enough? You think that just because you do those easy chores, you’re suddenly an expert and you can become the tutor of a Mafia boss?”

Skull’s Cloud flames stubbornly swirl behind him. “I worked hard. I worked harder than anyone else for years and I do think that I know enough to teach Enma something”. 

Skull’s voice cracks over his words but Reborn doesn’t notice. It’s only Lal who does, Lal, who is a second too late stepping forward when Reborn says.

“If you think that a few years of walking the footsteps of the Greatest is enough to make you one, then you really have much more to learn. You’re still just as weak as ever. You can’t even defeat a single one of us in a one on one fight. Hell, you’re just a lackey, and you can’t even do that right”.

It’s habit that has Reborn turning off his safety and shooting at Skull. It’s years of playing this strange game they’ve always had - where Reborn snaps and shoots at Skull and Skull dodges Reborn’s attacks.

Even back then, when Skull had been nothing but a mere civilian, Reborn had been amazed at the Cloud’s insane ability to dodge projectiles thrown or shot at him. 

So, it’s habit, more than anything else, that has Reborn shooting Skull dead center in the chest, expecting Skull to dodge as always.

For the first time in fifty years. Skull doesn’t. 

The bullet hits Skull in the chest and the sound makes Reborn freeze just as much as the sudden feeling of Skull’s bond cutting off from theirs. 

The feeling isn’t new. Skull’s title of Immortal Stuntman meant that his bond with the others would often cut off at random from the Cloud’s stupid adventures. 

Except, Skull had never died before from an attack made by one of them. 

Skull’s body falls with a sickening crunch and Fon immediately runs to their Cloud to set him right.

Verde isn’t far behind him, the scientist already working on taking out the bullet in Skull’s chest. Colonnello’s the one to carry Skull’s body back to his bedroom.

Reborn just stands frozen there, the image of his bullet going through Skull’s chest playing on repeat in his head. 

He can feel Lal’s hand on his shoulder - realizes that she’s pushing Rain flames into his system. 

“You couldn’t have known he wouldn’t dodge”. Lal says.

Reborn lets out a half-choked laugh at that. 

“I shouldn’t have been shooting him at all”. Reborn admits with a mutter, more to himself than to anyone, but the admission still hurts.

Lal just nods, there’s no point denying the truth and she’s always been no-nonsense. 

“You can make it up to him later”.

Reborn nods, calms himself down with his own breathing. Feeling much more himself, he searches for Verde. 

If there was anything wrong with Skull, the scientist would definitely be the first to know.

The Arcobaleno are all inside Verde’s lab, watching the scientist as he ran tests on Skull’s blood. 

By the end of it, there’s a frown on Verde’s face, “everything’s normal”. He says, the corners of his mouth tilting downwards.

“So the lackey was just acting out, kora?”, Colonnello asks, the usual annoyance back in his voice.

Lal Mirch actually hits the blonde in the head. “You idiot!” She says, before turning a bit more hesitant “Do you think it’s possible Skull is feeling… sad?”.

There’s looks of amazement from the others at the question. Lal had been the person they least expected to bring up the stuntman’s emotional state.

Viper sighs. “Mou, it could be a possibility. I haven’t heard Skull be as desperate as he was earlier”. 

Fon nods, before offering up. “We have been living together for… a year. In the end, Skull is a Cloud. He might be craving some distance from the rest of us”. 

Reborn doesn’t look the slightest bit happy about the proposal. “No. He’s going to stay here with us”. The hitman is insistent, but Verde sends him a sharp look.

“Your temper tantrums would not make Skull forgive you, if that’s what you’re planning, Reborn”. The harsh words make Colonnello wolf-whistle, and the scientist’s glare is on the Rain, next. 

“And if you’re going to be that childish around our already twitchy Cloud, I could always use some company down here, Colonnello”.

Verde’s rare use of his name and the barely-concealed threat in the scientist’s voice has Colonnello sputtering and losing his composure.

The others laugh at the sight, until they simultaneously feel Skull’s bond with them flare back to life.

Reborn’s almost immediately out the door. But Lal grabs him just before he escapes.

“Reborn, he’s already as cagey as it is. We can’t corner him further”.

The request doesn’t make Reborn happy, that much is sure, but he also surprisingly listens and plops himself down on one of the lab chairs, eyes covered by the rim of his fedora.

.

.

.

Upstairs, Skull wakes up to the suffocating feeling of his own helmet. He takes the damn thing off, flinching at the pain that ran through his body.

The bullet is gone, at least — his body healing itself while bullets were still lodged inside him had always been utterly painful after. But his clothes were still soaked in blood and Skull could only sigh as he carefully took them off.

The silence in his own room is deafening. The emptiness gnawing at his entire being is even worse. 

He’s alone. 

He died and he woke up all alone.

What a stupid thing, to think that even fractionally - they cared for Skull. 

He thinks about his future self. The damn idiot that had tried sacrificing his life for Colonnello to run away, only to fail and Colonnello to die anyway. 

Skull curls in on himself and just shakes as he finally breaks down on his bedroom floor.

He’s useless. So utterly useless.

He can’t even die a useful death.

Shame creeps up on him until it’s the only thing he feels. Skull lets himself cry.

Something inside him breaks.

Things are different after that. 

The others stop bothering Skull, stops seeing him, really, or reaching out to him.

A tiny part of Skull is sad - he hates the physical confirmation that they all see him as useless, not even worth enough to be the Arcobaleno’s lackey. Especially when he couldn’t even dodge one of Reborn’s bullets that anyone could have seen coming. 

Reborn had… started avoiding him too, and while that had definitely lessened the mini heart attacks of fear Skull got on a daily basis, it also left the stuntman with the bitter taste of disappointment. In the end, if even The World’s Greatest Tutor deemed him a lost case, then a lost case Skull probably was. 

So, Skull started doing the most rational thing. He started packing. 

He’s surprised to realize that there’s nothing much in his room that he’d like to take with him anyway. He’d never bothered decorating the room - he always spent more time at the Shimon’s anyway. He gathers up the motorcycle tools and chucks them all in the garage where they belong. He stuffs his stuntman suits into a backpack and throws them in a fire away from the house. 

Skull wouldn’t need them where he’s going. He’s come to the conclusion that he couldn’t be Skull, again. Not ever. 

There were a few pictures in his drawers, a handful from the fifty years he’d spent with the other Arcobaleno. 

Skull burns them too. He doesn’t think anyone would mind.

He stuffs all his books and games and manga into his suitcase - he’d mail them to Enma, later. 

He leaves Oodako’s tank in the room…

Oodako really is the only friend he’s ever had and Skull almost hesitates to leave because of him. He’s hugging Oodako tight, crying underneath his helmet, muttering his apologies and goodbyes. 

Oodako shuts him up with a hug of his own, one of the octopus’ tentacles signing a single word: go.

Oodako had always listened to Skull. Had always seen him underneath all the layers and disguises he wore. 

“I’m sorry”, he says.

The octopus just gives him a look that tells Skull, Oodako would always understand.

Fon finds them like that hours later, cuddled together out in the forest near the lake. The Storm had been searching for Skull just to make sure he’s doing alright, and just to ease Reborn’s pacing back in the house when Skull hadn’t returned at the usual time. 

“Skull, is everything alright?”, he calls out to the Arcobaleno. 

Skull startles, and Oodako immediately flees to hide.

“Ah, Fon-senpai! We didn’t hear you coming”. Skull says, his voice slightly stuffy but Fon thinks it’s because of the helmet and just gives the Cloud a gentle smile.

“Oodako is very jumpy”, he comments, trying to start a conversation. He notes Skull’s slight wince at the question.

“The other familiars always beat him up, that’s why”. Skull softly explains, and there’s unmistakable sadness there that has Fon frowning. 

“I’m sure they’re all just playing, Skull”.

Skull doesn’t react to that. “Would you make sure Oodako doesn’t get beat up by the others, when I’m gone?”. The Cloud asks.

There’s something in Skull’s voice that has Fon freezing, a small fear creeping up in the Storm.

When I’m gone, Skull had said, not while I’m gone. He ignores it, dismissing it as some sort of translation issue.

Still, it’s strange that Skull is so worried. As if he doesn’t know that the others would automatically care for Oodako while he’s away…

“Of course, Skull”. Fon says.

“Thank you”. Skull whispers but Fon hears it anyway. 

He realizes, belatedly, it’s the most sincere he’s ever heard Skull be.

Skull finally manages to corner Viper on their own, at last. The miser frowns at his approach, but Skull resolutely sits in front of the Mist, even though he was panicking inside.

“Whatever it is, it’ll cost you”. Viper says, already annoyed at the job of having to probably-destroy another famiglia going after their Cloud. 

“I need you to take care of Oodako for me”. Skull says instead oddly serious and silent, and Viper just stops and stares at the Cloud wondering if he’d left his head somewhere. The others had always taken care of the others’ familiars - verbal agreement or none.

Still, Viper decided to humor the stuntman. “That would cost you”. 

To Viper’s surprise, Skull actually hands them a black credit card without hesitation. “This should be okay for a while and if it isn’t…”

Well, the idiot was actually serious. “Where are you going and for how long?”. Viper couldn’t help but ask because the stuntman’s behavior in the last week had been very suspicious.

“Just a while”. Skull carefully says. “Any more information and it would cost you”.

Touché. Viper frowns but they pocket Skull’s card. If the stuntman was going to be stupid… well, Viper wouldn’t hesitate to benefit from that, at least.

Skull sighs in relief. “Thanks, Vi”. 

The Mist watches the Cloud turn away and scurry back to whatever he was doing with a pure look of confusion on their face.

Skull leaves on a sunny Wednesday afternoon, the Arcobaleno watching a film on the living room television — one of Reborn’s favorites, judging by the dinosaurs eating people on-screen. 

Viper is watching with actual interest this time, and Skull knows for a fact that the Varia kids would be haunted by gargantuan reptiles in the coming weeks.

Reborn actually turns to Skull as he opens the door. 

For a fraction of a second, Reborn actually looked like he wanted to say something, before turning away.

Skull smiles. 

“Bye, everyone”. He softly says. 

He doesn’t hear anyone else say goodbye back.

It’s an unsatisfying end to half a century of his life, but Skull isn’t even surprised. 

Not even worth the privilege of a goodbye, that’s all he amounted to for the Arcobaleno.

He steps out the door from the house and takes the first steps away from the only life he’s ever had — ever known, really.

.

Five hours later, Skull is on a plane to California, the city where he became a stuntman.

Three weeks later, he’s driven a motorcycle from California to New York, taking in the views of his own adolescent adventures, trying to map the places he became Skull, the World’s Greatest Stuntman.

At the end of his journey, he rents a cheap hotel in the middle of New York City, a huge hotel spilling out with budget traveling families and their children.

In his tiny room, Skull thinks of the Future that Never Was, thinks of the feeling of his flames finally draining away.

Dying Will Flames were the manifestations of one’s own resolve and Skull’s massive Cloud flames had always been the manifestation of his stuntman desire to defy death through his massive stunts.

But Skull was a stuntman no more, and the show has come to an end.

He lets his resolve go — feeling nothing but peace as the Cloud flames drained off of his body, his hair, his eyes.

He lets go, shoulders losing their tension when he finally feels the familiar bond with the others slowly dissolve into nothingness.

When it’s over, Skull looks at himself in the mirror and for once, recognizes the reflection staring back at him.

Szmul, a Polish teenager with blonde hair and brown eyes, the faintest wisps of Sun flames surrounding his being. 

Long ago, before Szmul drifted from his home and learned to yearn to defy death, he was a sun with a heart of gold that yearned to help those he loved. 

In a tiny room in the middle of New York City, Skull, the stuntman, the Cloud Arcobaleno died and Szmul was reborn.

Six hours later, an ordinary Polish teen takes a flight back home and nobody pays him the slightest glance.

The house is silent, but that’s a given, seeing that Skull had been gone for a total of three weeks now. Reborn was growing steadily uneasy, as it was. 

He wasn’t alone. Fon and Viper had been excessively worried too, especially when by the end of the first week, after a very lively play date with the other familiars, Oodako had disappeared and did not return. 

Apparently, the stuntman had specifically requested that those two take care of his octopus, and the Storm and Mist were both growingly anxious over their failure to keep the promise within the first week. 

“I’m sure with our influence we could rent out the Nürburgring Nordschleife racing track for a week”, Colonnello lightly suggests when Lal brings up the topic of cheering the stuntman up when he next returns. 

“A racing track? I could name about fifty ways off the top of my head the idiot could kill himself if we brought him to a racing track”. Verde mutters and Reborn nods along.

“The Aquariums in Chimelong might make Skull happy”. Fon suggests, but Viper immediately vetoes.

“Trigger-happy hitmen and assassins in a place kept up by glass tanks? Mou, I’m not paying for the damages”. 

Lal nods at that, pointing to the very fresh bullet wound on the kitchen door from when Colonnello and Reborn were arguing ten minutes prior. 

They’re all sitting together, having lunch, lamenting over the lack of tasteful meals due to the lackey’s absence, when they simultaneously feel their bonds with their Cloud disappear.

Again, it’s not unusual for Skull’s bond to suddenly cut off and disappear but they’ve all been edgy over his weird silence in the last weeks they’d see him and the tension had only grown in the stuntman’s absence. 

At the feeling of the bond disappearing, Verde bolted straight to his labs to check on the trackers he has on the stuntman, while Reborn does the same on his phone and his ‘insect’ spies. 

Viper immediately tries to track Skull through their thoughtography, the anxious faces of the others watching the scene before them.

Colonnello and Fon trade grim looks with each other when they’d both opened their phones to check Skull’s Life360 location, the faint annoying voice of the stuntman in their memories asking them to join his circle.

Both the Rain and the Storm had conceded easily enough, especially due to the added bonus that they’d get notifications when the Cloud went to either the Carcassa or Shimon bases.

Fon and Colonnello had known for a fact and told the others as much, that Skull had not stepped foot in any of his usual territories in the last three weeks.

Instead, the stuntman had caught a plane to California, of all places and judging by the travel trackers on the app, went driving cross-country. 

The last recorded location was some town called Julesburg in Colorado.

Verde’s trackers survived, at least, until Saint-Louis, Missouri. Those records were more than a week ago. 

The lack of information unsettles everyone. 

“I can’t find him”. It’s the panic in Viper’s voice that pushes everyone into full on alarm. Viper’s thoughtography tracked bodies. For Skull to not even register…

Reborn’s running to Skull’s room the next instant. All color drains out of the hitman’s face when he finds Skull’s outrageously purple room repainted to look exactly as it had when they first moved in. 

There was nothing in the room. Nothing that anyone could connect to the former stuntman. Empty closets. Empty drawers. The others file in after Reborn, each one gasping when they saw the startling lack of purple. 

“It’s Skull’s pacifier, kora”. Colonnello says, pointing to the tiny object on top of the wooden desk in the corner of the Cloud’s room.

Underneath the pacifier is a passbook that Viper immediately grabs. “This is all of Skull’s money”. The Mist shakily says, seeing the numbers. They’d always had a rough estimate of how much the Cloud had saved but the amount on the small booklet was larger than even they could anticipate. 

Viper browses page after page after page. Payment for the Arcobaleno jobs fifty years ago. Payment for the Carcassa jobs Skull did. Every damn thing, every cent the man had made throughout his Mafia career was left unspent in a goddamn bank account. 

It’s the note on the last page that has Viper dropping the booklet to the ground.

For Oodako.

Fifty years of work, Skull had decided to invest as a retirement fund for his goddamn octopus.

An octopus that the Arcobaleno had managed to lose in a single week. 

The guilt and despair that fills Viper is enough to bring down mountains.

The other Arcobaleno aren’t doing much better. There’s a small note underneath the pacifier. Colonnello runs his finger over the curled g’s of the familiar handwriting he’d once teased Skull about - 

Even Verde chokes at seeing the familiar i’s, still uncapitalized, that he’d once called Skull out on for being illiterate.

i’m sorry i couldn’t be good enough. 

The message is clear. 

Skull had left. 

For some reason the stuntman had gotten it into his head that he wasn’t a part of the I Prescelti Sette, never mind the fifty years they shared together.

Never mind that the Arcobaleno would have burned to the ground anyone that tried to hurt their Cloud.

There’s a sinking feeling in each of them that says that the rest of the world wasn’t quite the issue — that Skull hadn’t left for just some reason. 

They’re not ready to accept that yet.

With nothing but a dull purple pacifier and a note as a lead, the Arcobaleno sets the world on fire to find their missing Cloud.

Three weeks later, and Skull’s bond still hasn’t flared back to life. 

A month later and the dread turns to grief.

They weren’t stupid. 

They knew, even then, that Skull was never coming back.

Eighteen-year-old Enma was sent to Poland to threaten a Polish famiglia to cease transporting their weapons through Vongola territory or face repercussions. The last few years as a formal Mafia don had been difficult for the teen, and honestly, it had been the Cloud Arcobaleno’s expert lessons about communicating and negotiating with different Famiglia that had Enma going as far as he did.

Skull, while never the best combatant, was an amazing strategist and actor. In the two years he had been the young boy’s tutor, he had taught Enma how to recognize different types of people in the Mafia and how to deal with them. 

The lessons helped Enma carve out a niche as a reliable ally of the Vongola, and the Shimon soon came out with the reputation of a neutral Famiglia that can broker peace even between the most volatile of organizations.

Skull’s lessons had helped Enma remove the Shimon’s reputation of violent, feral children, and allowed them to reintegrate themselves in the Sicilian Mafia without much repercussions. 

Enma would forever be grateful to his Arcobaleno tutor. His precious friend, he’d never even gotten the chance to say goodbye to. 

The only thing Enma had of Skull was a note thanking him of his friendship and an apology that the stuntman couldn’t say goodbye in person, never wanting to risk the Arcobaleno’s ire falling upon Enma and his friends. 

Once, after an evening of playing games, Skull talked about his past, long before he became an Arcobaleno, long before he even became a stuntman.

Gdańsk, he called his home, and laughed when Enma couldn’t even pronounce the word. 

Enma walks the streets of Skull’s city and finds himself surprised at how much it actually reflected Skull’s personality - the true Skull that would never hesitate to drag Enma out for ice cream or walk through flea markets just to find the best deals. 

He walks into a tiny grocery store to avoid the rush of tourists walking the Kołodziejska street. Enma quickly grabs a bottle of sparkling water to the counter and pauses in shock when he meets familiar, kind eyes.

They’re caramel and the teen’s hair is definitely blonde now instead of vivid purple but Enma could see recognition in those eyes and that familiar adoration and warmth and kindness Skull had always had-

“Skull?”, he whispers, still gaping in shock.

The teen in front of him chuckles, before pointing to his name tag. “Well, that’s a horrible pronunciation of my name”, he says — and it’s definitely Skull’s voice and Skull’s smile and Skull’s wink.

But the name tag reads Szmul, and Enma actually smiles.

“Oy! Szmul! I’m trying to run a business here, kid. Would you stop flirting with every cute man that walks into the store?”, an older man shouts at Szmul with an amused grin. 

“But Jacek, I was born in May! I am meant for love!” Szmul shrieks in a high-pitched tone so reminiscent of Skull it has Enma gasping. Jacek shakes his head and disappears back to the storeroom.

“Sorry about that, Enma. Anyway, just this bottle?”. Szmul asks.

The confirmation hits Enma like a train. He’d never said his name to Szmul. But instead of hugging the other man like he desperately wanted to, Enma just nods. 

“Yes, please”.

There’s silence between them as Szmul rings the item in. 

“Are you happy here?”, it’s the question Enma asks in the end. 

Szmul smiles and it’s so familiar, Enma’s chest aches. “Of course I am, this is home”.

Enma nods, putting on a weak smile. He takes the bottle handed to him. “Thank you”. I miss you and countless stories behind the only two words Enma could say right now. 

“Take care, kiddo”. Enma stops the tears lingering behind his eyes from falling.

He wants Skull back, wants the Cloud Arcobaleno to spend more time with him back in Namimori, back in Italy. Yearns for afternoons shared over milkshakes and reading manga and watching anime together.

“Goodbye, Skull”. He says instead.

“Still a horrible pronunciation of my name, kid”. Szmul says and that’s the last Enma hears from him before he nods and walks out of the store. 

The Shimon boss takes the next flight out of Poland, silently making a promise that he’d never step foot in Gdańsk again for the rest of his life.

The goodbye echoes in his head, in his chest. Finally, Enma mourns the Cloud Arcobaleno he had known.

Skull was dead.

The Arcobaleno’s search for their Cloud becomes a horror story told in the Mafia for decades to come.

Grieving, the Arcobaleno had torn apart Famiglia after Famiglia for a single trace of the Cloud they had lost. 

No one was safe from the Arcobaleno’s wrath. Not even the Vongola. In fact, the only reason the Vongola was still standing was due to Reborn’s relationship with his student, Vongola Decimo, who had gone head to head against his own tutor to save the rest of Sicily from burning to the ground. 

The Ninth Generation, Timoteo and his guardians had not survived the attempt to reign in the Arcobaleno from tearing apart Italy for their Cloud. 

Reborn, Colonnello and Lal Mirch had razed Italy to the ground and wiped out hundred of Famiglias that had ever spoken ill of Skull in the two years following the stuntman’s disappearance.

Tsunayoshi’s intervention had saved the Mafia from the worst — total annihilation. 

To those in the know, the battle had been less a battle of flames and more a singular ultimatum. 

“You can blame the rest of the world all you want, Reborn. But it wasn’t us that pushed and pushed Skull-san until he was at his lowest”. 

Tsunayoshi had said, burning in Sky flames and indignation, calling for justice for an Arcobaleno he’d never really known personally - but had heard enough of from Enma and the Shimon.

Reborn had walked out and for a month, the Arcobaleno disappeared and the killings stopped. When they emerged later, the Arcobaleno were equipped with Verde’s inventions - scouring the world for familiar Cloud flames. 

It’s been three years since then. Five years, since Skull disappeared. 

It took five years. Five years for the realization to finally sink in and settle in the Arcobaleno’s soul. Skull was gone and he was never coming back.

They didn’t even have a body to bury.

I Prescelti Sette, what a joke, when they couldn’t even protect their youngest, the bright civilian of their group that had always been there for them at their darkest.

Colonnello remembers it clear as day. The day after the curse when Lal Mirch could barely look at him, and Reborn and the others saw him as nothing more than the intruder that had hurt their rain. Only Skull had walked up to him. “My name is Skull. What’s yours?”, the purple-haired infant had asked. 

Colonnello had been so confused but he had answered anyway. Skull had forced him to join the meals. Skull had asked for his favorite dish and learned to make it from scratch even as an infant with barely any motor skills.

Skull forced Colonnello to get up in the worst of the mornings he was feeling utterly demotivated. Skull pushed him to relearn how to use a gun in his infant form. Forced him to train everyday with him and Reborn until slowly, the blonde grudgingly earned the respect of the others. Until he was one of them for his strength and his skills - until he was on the other end too, teasing Skull for being weak when the stuntman had never really had the training the rest of them did, had he?

Viper remembers it too. The day they decided could no longer be Viper and became Mammon instead. Skull had broken the door of their hotel room open with a kick. “I felt distress through the bond, Vi, was all he said”. Skull had listened to Viper’s deranged rant, listened to the Mist’s less-than-coherent story. Their childhood dreams of following a bright Sky, and the Sky that they had finally found, Xanxus. Skull had made them strawberry milkshakes that night and the Mist and Cloud spent all night watching stars at a hotel balcony in the middle of France.

By the end of it, Skull had offered to drive Viper to the Varia base himself. Viper had almost said no, because motorcycles had never been their preferred method of transport, but the anxiety that threatened to eat them alive had disappeared in the hours they spent with Skull. Viper said yes, and Skull had driven the distance between France and Italy in three days. Every single day, they made sure that the Mist slept in the finest beds, had the finest meals, free of charge. At the end of the journey, Skull had not even demanded payment, but left Viper at the gates with a single sentence. “Give them hell, Mammon”. Skull had said, without missing a beat, without any question or judgement. How many times had Viper done the same for Skull?

Verde’s at a loss. He hadn’t known when it started but he had actually considered Skull to be his preferred companion among the other Arcobaleno. Skull had been very smart, smarter than Reborn, honestly — and if Skull had just gotten the proper education young, he could have easily been like Verde, himself. As it was, Skull was the only one who could understand the intricacies of building machinery from scratch, like Verde. Reborn and Lal Mirch understood theory, but they would never understand the exhilarating feeling of screwing pieces together themselves.

Verde had kidnapped Skull various times through the years to help with his projects and each time, Skull had helped Verde without a single complaint, even when the Lightning was certain he’d kidnapped the Cloud at inopportune moments. And every single damn time, when the project was over, Verde would just kick Skull out of his laboratory without a single word.

Verde would destroy the world for a single chance to thank the stuntman for everything. For all the favors throughout the years. Skull had never asked him for a single thing despite, and Verde wonders. Had Skull known Verde would have dropped everything to help him if he had just asked?

Fon couldn’t even drink tea anymore. It seemed so utterly absurd to enjoy his favorite cup of tea, when it had been Skull that searched Taiwan for boxes and boxes of his favorite, rare oolong tea. It had happened after one of the Arcobaleno missions long ago, when Fon, unable to sleep, had told Skull, the only other one awake of the story of his family. Of his family fleeing to Taiwan, and of Fon’s childhoods in the mountains of Formosa and the oolong tea his grandmother would make for him.

He told Skull of the attacks. He told Skull of being taken by the Triads and being trapped in China for the rest of his adolescence and adulthood. 

The next time they met, Skull gave Fon boxes of the rarest Oolong tea he could find in Taiwan. The stuntman had filled his blimp to the brim with boxes and boxes of tea. “I hope at least one of the boxes would taste like your freedom, Fon-senpai”. Skull had said. The boxes of tea Skull had given him had been Fon’s favorite ever since. It’s with despair that Fon realizes, he never even got to ask Skull what the Cloud’s favorite drink was. He would never know.

Lal Mirch is shattered. Skull had always been her favorite. Skull, with excessive false bravado and an annoying obnoxious voice, but the kindest smile she had ever seen on a person. Skull had been the only person to call her flames beautiful, as damaged and as broken as they were after the curse. Lal had felt rejected, broken and dethroned — unfit for her place among the I Prescelti Sette when the pacifier had gone to Colonnello instead of her. Skull had been the one to pull her up from that oncoming depression — Skull had been the one to ask her if she could use mist flames instead of rain for her bullets. Taught her how to use Cloud flames to heal herself and how to shield herself from the worst damages. 

And in the Future-that-Never-Was, Skull had saved Lal Mirch’s life. Skull had sacrificed his life so that Colonnello could warn the others. She and Colonnello had had a moment, could share the luxury of goodbyes, only because of Skull’s sacrifice. In the end, Colonnello had gone back to retrieve Skull - his idiotic bleeding heart, but Lal Mirch’s survival had been the reason the Vongola, Cavallone and Varia were left standing. They had never even praised Skull for that, had they?

Reborn is haunted. Fifty years with Skull and the most vivid memory he has is of the stuntman’s body crumbling to the ground soullessly. Skull, their youngest, the civilian, his Cloud, falling to the ground from his own bullet. It’s an unspoken agreement among them all that Skull would be Reborn’s responsibility. He was the strongest, after all, it only made sense he took care of the runt of their Famiglia. 

And Reborn had taken Skull in. He called Skull his lackey, but behind the harsh words and the training, he’d been immensely proud to see the ways Skull had grown from a lost and confused civilian to an arguably strong Mafioso, with a sharp mind, flexible combat skills and durable body. He still couldn’t stand against them in a battle, but that was a given already - he’d started on far too different grounds. But Skull was just as strong as any of them in his own field. He may be the weakest Arcobaleno, but an Arcobaleno nonetheless.

Reborn had thought that Skull knew that. Reborn thought that they’d made it clear when time and time again they included Skull in their meeting and made him stay with them as they aged back into their adult forms. Reborn had thought Skull knew they admired him for all his annoying quirks — Reborn should have known better than to expect their Cloud to know something that they never actually told him straight to his face.

Wasn’t that one of the first lesson, he always told his students?

Communication is the heart of a Famiglia’s good relationship, dame-Tsuna.

He had told his student once. Reborn wonders when he’d stopped speaking to Skull and learned to shoot him with bullets instead. Stopped listening to the one person who paid enough attention to Reborn, enough to figure out how to make his favorite espresso from watching his habits alone. 

Skull had always been there for all of them. Skull had always shown up when they needed him to. Regardless of whether he wanted to. 

And what had they given him in return?

Insults. Disdain. Indifference. Dismissal. Physical Pain.

The empty coffin they’re burying for Skull’s funeral glares back at them, reminding them of their utter failure.

Because that was the truth wasn’t it?

For five years, they had searched the world for the cazzo that had stolen their Cloud. They looked for signs of capture - signs that their Cloud had fought and lost because that would have been far more preferable to the glaring truth.

They had found nothing, of courses

Because Skull hadn’t been taken or hurt. He had planned this. Had wanted this outcome with all his heart. 

Skull had chosen to take himself out of the Arcobaleno’s life, thinking that it was what they wanted from him.

Skull couldn’t have been more wrong. But how was he supposed to know that? When their harsh words, their silent dismissals and the painful bullets were all Skull ever got from them…

They’d made him believe that he was worthless, hadn’t they?

Skull’s letter had been damning proof of that but they had all been in-denial. 

They had no one but themselves to blame.

They bury Skull on an annoyingly sunny day, much like the day he’d walked out with a single goodbye.

What any of them would give, for the opportunity to just say goodbye to him right back.

Somewhere in Gdańsk, Szmul just finished the last of his final exams for the semester and was walking the streets with his friends for a drink at some small pub.

There’s a pout on Szmul’s face. He’s not sure he had written the calculus part of his equations right. “If I fail my finals, I’m leaving university to join the circus and become a famous motorcycle stuntman”, the teen tells his friends, earning him amused chuckles. His friends tease him for his overactive imagination. 

Much, much later, with too much alcohol in his system, Szmul would say, “When I get tired of it all, I’ll join the Mafia and become a Mafia stuntman”.

His friends would roll their eyes and they would ask him what he’s smoking to get such insane ideas.

Szmul would only shrug, but there would be a knowing glint in his eyes. 

He’d wear an expression on his face that makes the others think their friend is far, far more older than he seems.

“A past life, maybe”. Is the only answer Szmul would give.

——-