A/N: Chapter 7 is a series of side stories, the original plot will continue in the next chapter but please enjoy.

- Lolanthe's Story -

Lolanthe and Lilith's souls had been sisters for several millennia. As humans, as cats, as fish to even as sea urchin. They had always come back together in some way or another.

As the older sister soul, Lolanthe has typically always been born and had died before her younger sister and where ever her soul reincarnated in, her sister's would follow.

In the Shinigami case, it really was all Lolanthe's fault that they ended up there. Shinigami are not randomly chosen nor are they taken as those that commit serious sins, usually at least. The first step in the selection process for the job as a Shinigami is finding those that already are familiar with the process.

Those people being the humans and creatures that Shinigami reveal themselves to, and associate themselves with.

In Lolanthe's case, it was from the time when her soul inhabited the body of a human. She had been a very rebellious teenage girl that originated from a very religious family. Her family had been very insistent on her to be arranged to be married to her significantly older cousin for the purposes of her religion, needless to say, she didn't take that very well.

If she had gone a different path to deal with her situation, Lilith would never had been a chosen soul but Lolanthe had chosen what she did. Her first point of rebellion against her family was to reach out to the one being that her parents despised, and that was Death, the Shinigami.

To the teen's utmost surprise, the man actually appeared.

Their story was not one of love, though. The man had seen the little girl as his adorable pet sister if anything friendly. He was quite the strange person, slightly creepy, had an odd obsession with control and was irritatingly smart but Lolanthe adored him anyway.

His name was Hikari, a surprisingly Japanese name for an entity that was wandering the lands of Europe.

The time they spent together did not last very long as Lolanthe was killed after trying to prevent one of his schemes that he deemed 'rightious'. Hikari had been obsessed with creating a perfect world by killing any and all people that he, himself believed was a criminal. This included any real criminals, such as thieves, serial killers, hitmen as well as high school bullies, parent's that hit their children for the first time and teenage backstabbers. It was morbid for Lolanthe to witness and watch when these people, who still had a chance to change, were murdered in cold blood.

When Hikari killed Lolanthe, he killed himself. His position was an unsolved mystery within the Shinigami Realm and no-one knew why he was removed for doing so.

That was the end of the short human life of Lolanthe, the only life where she never reconnected with her sister soul.

Her soul was pulled from the regular batch to the Shinigami Realm as a chosen soul by non-other than the Shinigami King himself. He had been eyeing the soul for reincarnation upon reincarnation for it's unusually potent and condensed amount of pure soul flames but as much as he wanted to, it wasn't his right to take in an arbitrary soul before training.

So, she was dropped off to and sent to the Shinigami Academy a whole decade before her assigned enrolment. During her school years, she had always made herself to come out as an intimidating figure and this, of course, lead to her social life being rather dull and her friends to be rather limited.

Her first and only friend was a boy named Madara. When they first met, they were both ostracized by society for being anti-social and much too prodigious for a regular Shinigami. No-one liked it when they were shown up at all, but other Shinigami resolved themselves to becoming, at the very least, friendly acquaintances and with the occasional ambitious person, they would be allies.

Lolanthe and Madara took that generation of Shinigami by storm and proved themselves to be the brightest in history.

Within her final year of her 5-decade degree was when her sister soul finally made her appearance. The little series of chimes that alerted the older sister of the presence of the younger rung suddenly during a training workshop and Lolanthe all but bolted out of the room with Madara dragged along by an arm.

Lolanthe adored her sister, to her, she was the cutest creature that she ever laid eyes on.

Like most Shinigami, Lilith had been selected a born into the Shinigami Realm as a young toddler, so Lolanthe, who was about 500-years-old or so and physically 20, was very keen to spoil the girl to bits. Even Madara ended up growing a soft spot tumour on him because of the cheeky adorable kid.

After class, either Madara or Lolanthe or both would go to pick the girl up to drop her off at her dorms. She was ecstatic that they, being the top students of the academy, would do such a thing for a no-name first-year girl like her and she loved them for it.

She beamed at the hedgehog haired man from where she stood at the front doors of the first-decade building. Madara was currently hovering around the wired and spiked gates when class for the children had ended.

"Madara!" She called out to him brightly, her eyes shining with glee and delight when he scooped her up and dumped her on his shoulder.

The girl was much too bright and happy for this kind of life and it made him rather irritated that she was stuck in the place.

Lolanthe had never told him that it was because of her that her sister soul had followed her to the Shinigami Realm and Madara would not be informed of the fact until shortly after Lolanthe's unfortunate passing.

The older sister made it her duty to make sure that Lilith had the best possible life within possible reach and would do almost anything to achieve that.

After graduation, Lolanthe and Madara were assigned their own separate worlds to work in and their small little dysfunctional fell apart. Despite this occurring, the newly graduated pair always came back to visit year after year to visit her on her birthday.

"Happy birthday, little sister!" Her cheerful voice echoed through the dorm hallways.

Multiple students poked their heads out into the hallway to see what was going on but after it happened again on the same day, every year, they had long gotten used to it and barely reacted with more than an exasperated eye roll.

"Lola, welcome home!"

It was that very reason why the passing of Lolanthe made such a powerful impact on the student body.

It was within her 4th decade at the academy when the bells fell dead, and the beautiful and peaceful chimes never sounded again.

Lolanthe didn't come back that year and Lilith was distraught. She was not the only one, her peers had eventually wandered to her room to ask her what had happened, knowing that if any student knew, it would be her.

It wasn't long before rumours had gotten around that the eccentric ex-dux and student body president of the 475th generation had been killed and removed.

Madara was the one to confirm her suspicions of her sister's passing and it was also the same man that had pulled strings within the higher powers to assign the younger sister to the same world.

Whilst it pained him to know and to have to accept the fact of his best friend's passing, he knew he had to.

It was his duty as her friend to respect and honour her memory, his heartfelt duty to the eccentric tomboy asshole that he struck back his feelings for.

Her legacy would fall to her sister and her memory would remain a joyful one for the 476th to 480th generations as the woman who always brought light into the dorms every year.

Her Shinigami life would forever be etched into history as the anonymous protagonist that would guide all the generations to come.

- Talbot's story -

Now, this story is a story about adventure and the gathering of knowledge.

Talbot had always been a constant within the Shinigami society, his long life and adventurous achievements making the old man very famous and often sought for.

His adventures were not mindless explorations or particular material farming for his inventions, he sought knowledge and a place to call home, but his travels were placed on pause when an unusual summon, directly from the Shinigami King, was sent through to him.

One does not simply ignore such a summon, so Talbot promptly responded to it.

The Shinigami King was the only other constant that remained across the generations and Talbot considered him a very powerful and rather close friend. In response to such, the King found it within his abilities to do the same for the equally as old other man.

The King had never taken on a humanoid form, rather, he preferred to take on a much more intimidating position as a skull-based entity. His body was attached tightly his surroundings by chains and what looked like to be, elongated and screaming spirits and souls. His head was that of a single giant skull and his body was littered with significantly smaller skulls, it was a terrifying sight, but Talbot had seen it so many times that it didn't affect him anymore.

"...What have you called me here for, old friend?" His aged and unused voice came out as rather lightly hoarse but clear enough to the naked ear.

In complete contrast to the crackly voice, was the Shinigami King's booming and clear voice of authority.

"The world of the humans that use the ideal amount of soul flames, have you been there?"

The old man tilted his head, "You mean of Lolanthe's world?"

"The world that Lolanthe had been assigned, yes."

Talbot frowned, he had a feeling that he was not going to like what he was going here. "Lolanthe has passed, Talbot. Madara of one of the more difficult soul flame overuse worlds has requested that young Lilith, a 4th-decade student, to be assigned to the same place."

He furrowed his eyebrows together, "One does not simply graduate at 4th"

"I know, that is why I am requesting you to watch over the passing of souls for the meantime. I have decided to honour Madara's request in light of Lolanthe's achievements."

"…That will not be a problem."

"Thank you, old friend. Please watch over the girl."

Lolanthe had been successful during the decades that she ruled. She established the effectiveness of automated passing and had heavily lessened the workload for all current and future Shinigami. For those worlds that were less than overused, her teachings would be considered priceless.

"We all owe Lolanthe much more than we can provide. This is the least I can do to repay her for her noble works."

To him personally, she provided him with a place to call home. Nothing could be enough to repay her for that.

It was not the first time that Talbot has inhibited this world and it certainly would not be the last.

He had been with Lolanthe during her time over coursing the life of Vongola Primo and his generation and had left shortly after. It felt rather empty knowing that the energetic girl was now lost to the Shinigami forever.

One decade, he reasoned to himself. The young soul was nearing the end of her 4th decade of schooling, she would be to take over after her 5th. He only had to maintain the wayward souls for barely over a single decade.

He thought that it would be simple, but he soon discovered the reasons for Lolanthe's passing. It infuriated the typically calm old man when he discovered the cause. It had honestly been several centuries since he felt this furious with a single soul, a single unusual soul that ruined everything.

Whilst Lolanthe had such a successful life as a Shinigami, she had so much more potential that she didn't have the chance to act upon in the time she was provided with, it just felt unfair that such a person was left alive.

A swindler with power was dangerous and Lolanthe was so… so naïve that it was bound to occur. It was unfortunate that she fell to such at all.

The day that young Lilith had arrived in the world was a day of peaceful relaxation for the old man. The past decade had been full of disastrous fake soul flames and misuse of power that it was very difficult for the non-shinigami to withhold.

The Vindice were an issue that Talbot had only scraped the surface of and as such had left alone. Parallel world travellers and time travellers were beginning to bloom within humans, and he was completely occupied in finding out why.

The reason came in the form of supernatural jewellery and machinery much to Talbot's delight and despair. It was something he could work on and control but it was a gigantic and time-consuming project on its own.

The bounding of souls to rings formed hell rings and were disgusting forms of power. Over the decade, Talbot had been able to swipe 5 of these rings and dismantle the attached souls, the rest remained untouched and trapped to their respective owners.

That owner was too powerful for him to extract the rings from. With the power of the powerful souls that were bound to those pieces of jewellery, he needed to find another way.

When Lilith came to him with regards to the world-holders of the world, he was beginning to feel the light of hope shine upon this world. With the young Shinigami's help and the enlistment of the Vindice under her thumb, creating a device to substitute the human batteries known as the arcobaleno should have been a possible task, in fact, it shouldn't have been difficult at all.

If he were to complete such a task, having the arcobaleno and ex-arcobaleno along with Lilith on his side, it would be possible to free those compressed and trapped souls.

When she returned to report that she had gone to see Checker Face, it was not unexpected that he had denied helping him in the task. He appeared to have a rather hate-filled relationship with humans, yet he had married several of them and was taking care of the world-holder for the said humans.

He showed very mixing signals and Talbot vowed to keep an eye on the man and his movements.

As the owner of both soul-bounders and world-holders, the creature was much too suspicious to be left alone.

- Renato's story -

Despite the horrid actions of his parents, Renato really did love them to a point but there was no cure for insanity.

From when he was born, to until he was about 4-years-old, he never saw his father. Renato's mother was a kind and caring soul to him and he fully believed that he would live a happy and comfortable life with her.

This all changed when his 5th birthday hit.

"Scream." His father demanded with a hiss, assaulting him with a slap when he refused to do so. His mother sat in a luxurious-looking chair off to the side with a pleasant smile on her face, she was enjoying the show.

Tears were welling up in his eyes that he barely held back upon command.

They took pictures of him and his mother took some with him when he was beat-up and near unconscious. It was revolting and Renato didn't realise when he finally started thinking that maybe this wasn't normal.

His saving grace was when his father got bored with his lack of response, his physical pain tolerance had increased by tenfold and his throat hurt so much that he could barely speak.

Even though his mother enjoyed his pain, he could help but drown in guilt as she was turned on as the next target. He watched the woman scream in pleasure and pain as the head maid carried him away, he wanted to vomit.

The old lady that served the rich household as the head maid was threatened into secrecy. She was the only one that took true care of Renato, helped him bathe, cleaned his wounds and fed him what she could find.

If it wasn't for her, Renato was positive that he would've died.

The old lady gathered the trustworthy staff into the basement kitchen, one night when she picked up Renato after being given permission.

The owners of the house knew nothing about this meeting and nothing about their plan. The maids were all required to wear rather long dresses and they would use their clothes to their advantage.

That night, they had all unanimously agreed that they would set their young master free. Young Renato at age 7, understood and agreed to their plan as well, despite being rather beat up at that current moment.

He was done with the beatings and just didn't want to be here anymore. The staff sympathised with him and wanted to leave the place as well, but their contracts were changed and they were locked in for life.

Contract changes were illegal in the government scheme, but this was the mafia and there was nothing to protect mansion staff from internal contract changes. The most reinforcement that occurred in the mafia was between families or contracts with freelancers, if those were tinkered with, the person in the wrong would be promptly eliminated.

"We will get you out of the gate, young master. However, we cannot do anything further for you." The old lady presented him with a familiar sack of coins.

His secret stash of pocket money that he had collected over the couple of years, it was noticeably heavier than he remembered.

The younger maid to his left smiled kindly at the boy, "We all put in a little bit to help as much as we can."

He nodded in understanding.

The head maid kneeled in front of Renato to be at eye-level, she was holding back tears.

"I wish we could help you more, young master… Once you get out, you need to find a freelancer that looks like they would help you, okay?" He nodded. "I know that this is selfish of us, but please place a hit on your father."

His eyes widened before turning hard barely a second later. His eyes filled with determination, no-one else, not him, not the staff that were the only ones that were nice to him would need to suffer anymore.

He stiffly nodded once more.

Tears ran down the woman's cheeks as the echoing gratitude from all the people present, bounced off the walls.

"Thank you, young master. Good luck."

One of the guards by the gate presented the boy with a bingo book before they split ways. He gave the boy a comforting grin, "A list of all the strongest fighters in the underworld are in there, good luck, young master."

Renato let out a staggering breath. The moon was bright and high in the sky, and the residential streets were borderline pitch black. When he found the first street light, he lingered around in the shadows near it so that he wasn't completely blind.

He leaned behind the pole and peeled the bingo book open.

As he flicked through the pages, dread was starting to pile up in the pits of his stomach. All these people looked terrifying and as if they would've just shot him for looking at them.

But then, the pages started showing the strongest of the strong. The top-ranked fighters with 'flee on sight' remarks and noticeably higher ranks seemed much more, friendly and accepting to him. It was mind-boggling that it worked out that way.

- Vongola Ottavo, Daniela di Vongola and a compiled list of her guardians were present on the back pages as the highest-ranking individuals of the underworld associations.

- The Reaper, name currently unknown.

Those were the ones placed on the far back pages of the book and some of the nicer looking people. He would just hope that he would find someone that would help him before his father sought out assassins to kill him or take him back. He wouldn't let the old maid lady and the staff at the mansion down.

It was clear that luck was on his side when the face of The Reaper walked down the very residential street that he was sitting in. He had to act fast and he placed himself boldly in front of her, blocking her path.

A risky move both in her opinion and in his own, but he couldn't risk being ignored.

He huffed and puffed to re-catch his breath before presenting the woman with his money and his request. His heart dropped in defeat when the woman handed it back to him.

He felt like a failure.

Renato was startled when the scooped him up onto her shoulder, mumbling something about food before killing.

When she took him with her, he was so relieved to the point where he almost started sobbing, but as a person with plenty of practice in the ways of emotion suppression, he sucked it up.

He couldn't be more grateful that lady luck was smiling down upon him for this one time.

I decided to give a little backstory with regards to some of the important characters but after I finished, I found that the chapter was a little short in comparison to the others (by like 1.5k or so). I wanted it to make it somewhat consistent so I added in a little special for curious souls such as
kuu mochizuki. (I hope this answers your question too ^^)

- A glimpse into the far future – Tsuna -

It had been decades since Lilith left Renato to his own devices in favour of completing her own tasks concerning research. She had collaborated with Talbot and he had assigned her the task of observing, overseeing and collecting difficult-to-find abilities and materials needed for the project.

Lilith had positioned her home base in Mafia Land and had purchased a lengthy pre-paid hotel room at the same hotel she had been loyal to for the past few decades.

The same counter lady that had greeted her and Renato that one night, still continued to do so as a significantly older lady. The old woman may have raised a few eyebrows at her due to her still remaining youthful looks but chose never to comment about it.

Whilst she never stayed in one place for long, but for this particular trip, she couldn't help but drag her palm down her face and sigh in exasperation when she took her first steps out of the hotel the next morning.

It—it was just so Renato, to have balloons up of his baby face and welcome signs to greet him at the docks. It made her think back to the time where she was terribly famous, not that she got all the loving attention, but rather most people feared her which was even better.

It was a bright and sunny summer day and Lilith didn't have much planned, so she decided to dress rather casually. It basically consisted of a plain black u-neck sleeveless-shirt tucked into a magenta midi skirt, simple and more comfortable for a hot day.

She had this odd urge to eat sugar that morning so her first stop was going to be that cute little candy floss stall near the front of the theme park.

After she paid and begun to walk away, nibbling on her purchase she was halted by a familiar voice.

"Ah— it's Mama." She turned to face the voice and was most surprised to see Ren with a group of teenagers and one of their mothers.

"Eh?! That's your mom?" The brunet boy yelled in disbelief, and in Japanese?

She blinked curiously at the group before a smile split across her face, "Ren," she greeted, "And… friends."

The same boy's shoulders sagged. "He beats me up and calls it tutoring, I don't think we're friends." He tried to explain.

Lilith snorted and Ren smirked, "No pain, no gain, right Mama?"

She grinned at him brightly.

"Exactly!"

The fluffy haired boy sighed in defeat, but Lilith waved him off.

"…Tsunayoshi-kun, right?" Reborn nodded and toddled over to her before raising his arms to be picked up. She rolled her eyes, some things you never grow out of apparently.

She scooped him up with one hand and lifted him to sit on her shoulder, as he was too small to sit on her hip. He reached out for her sugary treat and she brought it closer to him so he could grab some.

"From left to right, that's Yamamoto Takeshi, Gokudera Hayato, Dame-Tsuna, Ranking Prince Fuuta, Sawada Nana-san, Miura Haru and Bianchi. The brats are Lambo Bovino and I-pin." The sun explained.

The Shinigami smiled a greeting to the group, having passed the remainder of her candy floss to her son to finish for himself.

Nana walked up to her happily and grabbed both of her hands, "Mah~ It's so nice to finally meet, Reborn-chan's Mama! You're so young too, you can call me Nana!"

Lilith sweat dropped awkwardly, trying to piece together Japanese honorifics in her head before she messed them up. "A—ah, yeah. It's nice to meet you too Nana-san. You can call me Lilith."

Ren snorted in amusement causing her to send him a half-hearted glare.

The little girl in a bright lime dress hopped along to greet her as well.

"Hahi! Reborn-chan's Mama, it's a pleasure to meet you!"

All this social interaction was making her uncomfortable, she didn't know when the last time she was surrounded by so many happy and eccentric people. Maybe, when Ren was still a kid?

"It's my pleasure as well, Miura-san…"

Having recognised her from the beginning, both Bianchi and Gokudera sent the Shinigami respectful bows to which she smiled pleasantly and awkwardly in response.

Too many new people in such a short period of time was borderline exhausting.

When the group was finally ready to disperse, Ren informed Tsunayoshi that he needed to complete the paperwork to be allowed into the island. Lilith narrowed her eyes at this claim but zipped her lips up and threw out the key when she saw Ren's pleading 'please-hush' look that he was sending her.

Bidding the rest of the group goodbye, Lilith lead the Vongola heir to the information counter to drop them off before parting ways with them.

She raised an arm to gesture them through the glass doors. "The receptionist lady in there can help you with your paperwork. I'll have to leave you here, though."

She turned her head to the side, sheepishly mumbled under her breath and shrugged, "I'mnotactuallymeanttobehere, but whatever."

Reborn let out an exasperated sigh and she sent him a look, "Hey, they didn't require passes to enter the island when I first came here so I'm sure it's fine anyway."

He rolled his eyes and kicked Tsuna through the door.

"Hurry up, Dame-Tsuna!"

"HIIE, aren't you going to say bye to your mom?" he whined as he dragged his feet through the glass doors.

"I'm not going with you, Dame-Tsuna. Good luck." The poor boy was left in disbelief.

"EH?!"

With Ren on her shoulder, Lilith sauntered over to the hidden subway that lead to the training grounds she used to use long ago. Now, she believed Collonello, the rain arcobaleno, was taking care of it.

The train was still stationary, so she let her son down on one of the seats and dragged open one of the windows.

He eyed her suspiciously, "What are you doing, Mama?" She simply smiled.

"I like the feeling of the wind, so I'm going to sit on top."

"Ah—"

"—Ugh!" Tsuna grunted as he was tossed into the train. By this time, Lilith was long gone from his sight.

"Reborn!" He complained, "You knew this would happen all along didn't you?!"

The arcobaleno smirked, "We're going to the hidden Mafia Land, you'll find out about it once we get there."

As the train pulled to a stop, the tutor-student duo hopped out and observed the rocky terrain. Lilith slipped off the roof of the train and moved to analyse her old favourite training spot.

Collonello was seemingly taking good care of it, the plants that surrounded the area were still nice and alive, even the whirlpool of doom was still going.

"Nice of you to show up, kora!" Collonello greeted the Vongola heir, "State your name!"

Lilith grinned at the sight of him, "Collonello!" she called over to him with a wave. His grin wavered slightly in surprise, "Oh, Lilith! I hope you found the training grounds to still be in good condition."

She gifted him with a closed eye smile, "Yeah, good job. It's just as good as it used to be."

Tsuna stared at the pair in bewilderment. "You know each other?!"

Reborn made a noise, affirming his question.

"This used to be Mama's favourite training spot. She bought this whole portion of the island so she could let loose."

The Vongola heir gaped at her to which she responded with a peace sign and a grin.

"Use it well, Tsunayoshi-kun."

"Wait, use it—?!"

He was interrupted by a pair of lethal dropkicks to the face, sending him flying into the whirlpool.

"Yeah, as my toy, I mean as my student, you can't go around not properly utilising my Mama's training grounds."

Tsuna flailed in the water trying to stay afloat.

"You're toy?!" He cried out.

Lilith smiled, visibly very amused but an air of sadness lingering in her eyes.

"Grow strong and pursue Dani's legacy, okay young Vongola?" she whispered.

Ren patted her knee in comfort, "Don't worry, Mama. I'll train him into a good boss."

She lightly patted the top of the fedora he had treasured for a long, long time.

"I know you will, Ren."

To Tigaier: Thanks so much for your support and I'm glad you like it! I hope it's not at all creepy that I checked out your profile but I'd be super keen to read that Angelo delle Rose story of yours~ Can't wait till you get around posting that. No rush, though xD;