(xiv)

God, those eyes. Their faces were so close now, hers and Mukuro's.

They widened in utter shock, then narrowed intensely in but a single second. One, a startlingly pure royal blue, the other an unnatural bloody red, complete with the kanji for two. It shifted to three.

"What exactly," he hissed, low and threatening, "—does that mean?"

"Well," Atsuko began, eyes darting to Hibari's prone form. There would be no scavenging this time. She is on her own. "Fuck. I—you wouldn't believe me anyways. It's, it's ridiculous—" shit, shit, shit, what the fuck am I even saying "—just, ignore that. Pretend I didn't say anything. Go back to whatever nefarious—"

"No."

Blessedly, Mukuro stepped back, allowing for Atsuko to take a single breath of sickeningly sweet air. His lips quirked up into what anyone would consider a lovely smile, but Atsuko couldn't find it within herself to be anything other than chilled by the sight. "You can't just leave me hanging like that, honestly. It's terribly impolite, wouldn't you say? Now, continue."

Was that some kind of a defense mechanism? It was obvious for a second there that Mukuro was shaken, but then in the blink of an eye he was all smiley and terrifying.

Talk about over dramatic.

Well, it was now or never. How had she been planning on doing this again? Being honest? Sharing information?

Ha. What a joke.

Atsuko is such a joke.

"...have you ever heard of reincarnation?" Atsuko questioned hesitantly, her voice surprisingly steady.

The kanji shifted. One. "A few things, here and there," he said, almost airily. Atsuko had to bite back a snort.

A few things, here and there. Only about six lifetimes worth of experience on the subject, she supposes.

"I died, once," she says and immediately, she has to wonder how the words were coming out so easily, so freely. "I died and then I woke up...like this, I guess. A different person. A different life. I don't know, it's, it's just—"

"Prove it."

Atsuko's heart stops.

Oh, oh fuck. Of course he'd ask for proof. But this is Mukuro we're talking about and even in that ridiculously light-hearted anime, Mukuro was never one to be taken lightly.

Mukuro wouldn't be satisfied by mere words, by tall tales. No, Mukuro wanted more. Mukuro always wanted more.

Mukuro was someone who had no boundaries concerning anyone but himself. He used people as he pleased, invaded minds and bent bodies to his will.

"How?" Atsuko breathed. She… she needs this man as her ally. She knows him. She knows so much about this beautifully broken human being. He is (or will be), Vongola, regardless of what he may say. Tsuna's.

Trust. She needs to give him her trust.

"How can I do that? Words don't mean much," Atsuko said, tentatively. "Lying is… easy enough. The only real way for you to confirm that I'm telling you the truth is to let you look inside my head...and I don't think that's how splitting someone's skull open works."

She didn't know why she tacked on that extra joke at the end. It was inappropriate. It made it seem like she wasn't serious. Shit—

"And if I could do so without killing you? Would you let me?"

Oh… he's testing her? But...what is he testing her for? Trustworthiness? Pliability?

Loyalty?

"Yes."

She didn't hesitate. Couldn't hesitate. Her mind, her privacy… didn't matter. Not when she needed him, for Tsuna's sake. For Ryohei.

Surprise flickered in Mukuro's gaze. "You're quite eager, aren't you?"

"I know a risk worth taking when I see one," Atsuko retorted. "I'm not stupid enough to think that I can just walk out of the lair of a man who's literally admitted to being a killer unscathed."

"Fair enough," he returned. "This will only take a second."

Belatedly, Atsuko realized that the trident must have somehow found its way into Mukuro's hand again, because there was a slash at her wrist and—

She looked up at them. Her eyes burned. Why does her chest feel so odd?

It burns and it's cold, cold, cold.

Why is it so cold?

"W-where are you guys going?" The words are coming out of her lips and she feels them moving but she isn't the one moving them.

There are people in front of her. She can see their faces but she doesn't want to see their faces. She sees them but she doesn't process them.

She wishes she didn't know them at all.

"Home," one said. "It's getting late."

Was it?

"Oh," she says, dumbly. "Okay."

But they hadn't gone home. She saw them, at the mall, together, without her, laughing and smiling and fuck, fuck, fuck they didn't want her.

Look at her, look at her. Trailing behind them.

Pathetic. Dumb. Fat. Weeb.

Her eyes are burning and burning. She is burning. Who is burning? Who is burning her?

Me. Them. I don't know.

She is so alone.

This wasn't the first time, something tells her. But that's not surprising. She's always been an overshadowed pity case. To friends, to siblings…

What worth has she ever had?

The scene shifts. They are at the beach. She wanted to go to the beach with them, hadn't she?

She's wearing a one-piece, a pretty little number stretched over skin it wasn't made to fit, unseemly curves overflowing from an unnatural cage.

They look so good, the others. So beautiful. She remembers when they were as ugly as she was but now—

Not anymore.

"Come on! Into the water!"

She couldn't swim. She couldn't swim, but she couldn't say that, now could she? That's not cool. It's no fun.

Her legs are heavy. Her feet slip in the cold, wet sand.

She wades into the waves until she can't feel the ground under her feet anymore and she drowns.

There's a hand at her wrist and it won't let go, it's not letting go, oh god, oh god…

She's scared. She's so scared. They're letting her drown. There's laughter, all warped and watery.

The hand lets go.

She sinks.

She can't breathe anymore. The water is filling her ears and her throat and, and—

She can't hear the laughter anymore.

"Oh," Morishiba Atsuko breathes. So that's how she died. That was…

Well then.

In retrospect, it was so, so silly. All she had had to say was that she didn't know how to swim. The other kids probably thought that she was playing some kind of a weird diving game or whatever it was that children did while playing in the water.

And yet…

And yet, she can feel it. The fear. The betrayal. She had needed them, their help, and then...they drowned her?

God, what if it had been a fight? In a world as crazy as this one? What if she wasn't good enough, again, and they were supposed to help her, save her?

It didn't matter if she trusted them, it didn't matter if it wasn't water, she couldn't rely on anyone.

And, and, in that case, isn't it better to just never put herself in a situation where she had to rely on anyone at all?

To be a side character, to be so useless as to never have to fight one single bout?

To never learn at all?

"Oh."

Suddenly, her bone deep hesitation to ever learn how to throw a punch makes sense.

Atsuko shakes her head.

No, no it doesn't. Water and fighting may both flow, but they are not the same thing and there are people that she can rely on now.

But she still felt it, and it scared her. It made no sense, even with context, but then again, when did trauma ever make sense?

"So you weren't lying, Morishiba Atsuko…" Mukuro muses. His hand is at his chin, his expression thoughtful, his eyes...understanding?

"Sometimes," Atsuko says, laughter bubbling in her chest at the sheer incredulity of her mind, "—sometimes, I wish I were."

Atsuko takes a second, breathes. He lets her. "So—" another breath "—what's the final verdict? Do you trust me?"

Mukuro regards her for a moment. "You're quite interesting," he begins. "For the entirety of this life, you've avoided combat because you can't seem to trust others, and yet, here you are, hiding behind Hibari Kyoya and placing your life in his hands."

Mukuro doesn't hold still as he monologues, walking over to Hibari's doll-like body and nudging it with his foot. "Your mind tells you that you are afraid of people failing you and letting you die again, but here this boy is, laying on the ground and not protecting you from the big, bad killer."

Atsuko's jaw dropped. "You looked through this life?!" Fuck, fuck, fuck, that's not good…

"No," Mukuro dismisses. "I merely skimmed for the feelings that were connected to the memories of your other life before going in. That particular detail was practically screaming at me."

Well, he wasn't bringing up anything about Hitman Reborn, so Atsuko could breathe soundly for now. "Ah."

"'Ah', indeed. Your current life is of little interest to me," he informed her dryly, with a raised eyebrow. "As for the answer to your previous question, how am I to trust a girl who can't even stop lying to herself?"

Atsuko's eyebrows furrowed. "What do you mean?"

"That's what I was getting to, before I was so rudely interrupted," he said, moving towards her again. "You try to blame others in your head, let your subconscious tell you that your death had been their fault, but it wasn't, was it?"

But it was their fault! her mind tried to scream.

"After all, who was it that didn't say I can't swim? Who was it that waded in too far? Who was it that didn't ask for help?"

No, no, nO, ShUt Up!

Atsuko looked at him, really, truly looked at him for a moment as her emotions pounded away at her heart.

Blood. Blood and deep, deep ocean blue.

Atsuko wants to throw up.

"It wasn't them, was it? Oh, no. It was you."

The words knocked the breath out of her lungs, drowned her in what she realized was her own insincerity. Her escapism. Her stupid, selfish coping mechanism that she hadn't even realized existed.

"So tell me, why should I trust you? Why should I trust that you won't lie to me, that you won't withhold anything from me when you can't even do the same for yourself?"

He...he had a point. Fuck, this was bad. This was really bad. This...this hadn't been what she had imagined for her first time telling someone the truth about her soul.

Fuck.

"And besides that, you don't even have a real reason for wanting my trust so badly now, do you?" Mukuro questions, tilting that unfairly beautiful face just so. "Unless, of course, there's something else that you've been hiding from everyone. Did I not look deep enough, Morishiba Atsuko?"

No, no he hadn't, thank god. But that meant… Atsuko breathes again and composes herself, as best as she can. "There are assassins in my town."

Mukuro raises an eyebrow, again. "And? I took down your protector, ordered your best friend to be beaten for the sake of a goal that you don't even know of. What is your point?"

"My point," Atsuko says, slowly, "—is that things are changing. You're right, you did do those things. You're here and so are they."

They both know who they are.

"The fact is, it's becoming dangerous here. Too dangerous for the people I love, stubborn idiots that would never leave this place regardless of how scary it might be to stay," Atsuko tells him, the words coming from deep in her soul, honest and true. "Ryohei is one of the strongest people in Namimori. If your people could take him down… then you must be even stronger than that, than him, to command them."

Atsuko looks him in the eyes and remembers who he is. His goals and why she sought him out in the first place. "It was reckless and it was stupid, but I came here for a reason. I came here to see if our goals could align, if I could convince you to...change your targets from those that I care for."

"You came here to see if you could use me," Mukuro concluded, eyes narrowing. "Tell me, do you still think that to be feasible, after all that's happened?" His hand tightened slightly on his trident, probably in anger.

He was right, in a way, but… "No, I came here to see if I could work with you!" Atsuko snapped, angry suddenly, angry at herself, at him, the situation, everything. "For fuck's sake, I'm basically just a walking corpse. How the hell am I supposed to be able to use anyone when I have barely any power of my own?"

"Work with me?" Mukuro questions, laughing coldly at the notion. "Really? You thought that you could convince someone like me to help you, when you yourself have just admitted that you have nothing to offer me?"

A scavenger, Hibari had called her. Hiding behind those with true power, then eating the remains. Is that what she was? Is that what she had to be?

A scavenger would have run by now. A scavenger would never have stayed in such a dangerous, vulnerable position, baring her heart to this terrible predator.

No, she couldn't be that now.

"I said that I have no power, not that I have nothing to offer you," Atsuko corrected him, and suddenly she is not angry, she is drained, physically and emotionally, that now she could only feel… exasperated. "You've been looking for something, someone, haven't you?"

"...and if I have been?"

"It's kind of obvious, with the way you've just been randomly going through people," Atsuko admits. "The thing is, I have connections. I know things. My family owns one of the biggest businesses in Namimori and honestly, who better to confide in than the girl who's helping make it easier to look at your loved ones dead bodies? The mourning have loose lips and sometimes they say...interesting things. Who pissed off who, who committed what crime… even if they don't tell me personally, people keep forgetting to keep their voices down in the waiting room. And now… I know that's not all I can offer you."

Mukuro was good at maintaining his expressions, but he didn't have much control over what his eyes said. The shifting numerals were especially telling. "You overestimate your own usefulness. I doubt that the whispers you hear in a funeral home are helpful to my task."

"Maybe," she allows. "But there is something else that only I can give you, isn't there? I understand."

"You understand nothing," he snaps and she knows that she struck a nerve. "How dare you suggest that you understand me, that you understand any of the things that I have been through when you do not even know my name?"

"Don't I?" Atsuko wonders. "Why did you make me verify that I had once died? Why was it so important that I let you into my head to make sure? It was such an offhand, impossible comment… unless you knew that I could have been telling the truth. Unless it wasn't just a few things here and there that you knew. You've died before too, haven't you?"

Mukuro doesn't even bother hiding it. "I have. However, you presume too much. I don't need anyone to understand me, I—"

"Yes, you do." Yes he does. Yes, "—I know you do. I know I do. It's so lonely, being the only one who's died. Not having anyone else understand why it doesn't even feel like I'm really alive. And it hurts, it hurts all the time, when I look at the people who love me as they try to help, as they try to understand it but they can't. They don't know! And I, we, can't really put it into words, can we?"

At the end of the day, even people as invulnerable seeming as Rokudo Mukuro were human. Had feelings. Needed comfort.

She could see it in Mukuro's eyes, the downwards curve of his sly lips as she spoke. He opened his mouth to retort but she didn't let him interrupt her. This entire time, he's been in control of the situation. Prompting her to give him more, to bare her usefulness to him, to give him any information she might have that pertains to his goal.

He doesn't have control now.

"Maybe you aren't completely alone. I know I'm not. But no one can complete you the way that I can, just as no one will ever be able to complete me the way that you can."

That was it. The core of the matter. She had let him see her, had let him see everything. She let this man, no, this boy in in ways that she hasn't even let Ryohei in.

They had only been talking for half an hour, at most, and yet their relationship was already more intimate than almost any other she has ever had.

"We share only one thing in common," Mukuro says, acid dripping from his honey-smooth voice. "That is it. You are privileged. Innocent. You understand death, yes, but you do not—ah."

Mukuro pauses and his expression changes completely. The vulnerability she coaxed out is gone and his lips curve up. "It seems that my trap has finally been sprung… this conversation will have to wait for later."

A trap…?

Wait, this is the Kokuyo arc… and since Hibari's already knocked out cold and has therefore already been missing for a while then… Tsuna and the gang must have come to investigate at some point. Which means…

"Oh, shit."

A/N

I have to say, I absolutely loved reading all of your responses to the last chapter. Thanks everyone! Hopefully, this one hasn't disappointed you guys either. The next one will be at least partially written in Tsuna's POV.

Mukuro has always been my favorite character, but I feel like very few authors ever get present!Mukuro right. Particularly, they tend to confuse him with TYL!Mukuro—a flawless actor of whom, by now, is much better at hiding his insecurities. However, fifteen year old Mukuro, in canon, is a fifteen year old that's angry at the world, who feels like no one understands his pain, with grandiose, nigh suicidal plans and quite frankly? Judging by his first interaction with Tsuna? Can't act for shit, lmao. Honestly, if Tsuna wasn't so trusting, I doubt it would have worked— the whole thing felt very forced when I rewatched it, and obviously put upon. Which was fine when he was like nine, since his malevolence could've been easily written off as him being a traumatized kid, butttt it really doesn't pass now. Hence, the hopefully acccurate way that I have written him.

I'd love to hear what you guys think of my interpretation of him, as well as your own thoughts on Mukuro's character.

Ciao!