Here We Are (Don't Turn Away Now)

Fandom: Katekyo Hitman Reborn

Summary: ''Once upon a time, Mortak saw the world's end and jumped in a well to prevent it.'' In which Skull was from Atlantis.

Disclaimer: I don't own Katekyo Hitman Reborn.

Thanks to OperaEagle IcelynLacelett for the great title prompt! This fic is also dedicated to her!

An inspiration to this was Wolfrainrules' amazing fic ''Immortal Skull'', go check it out if you like this!

Ragnarok, apocalypse, armageddon, the end of the world, it lies in the future, and he must prevent it. Time drags on slowly, yet endlessly fast. It swirls and twirls, like the makatti on the Day of the Waves.

It dizzies Skull, shakes up his head, holds him upside down until the blood in his feet has long since left. It pools in his , bloats him to the max, and by Poseidon, the pressure is crushing.

He is no kitara- has only walked the sacred halls on behalf of the Kings, the proof of the union of ten. But he knows what is coming, can feel it thrumming in his veins, as sure as the heartbeat thumping his ribcage. He has seen it in the well, and it tore him apart until he dove in, in, in.

Into the well of Atlantis, to leave his homeland.

Into the well of the Gods, to save them all.

Into the well, because the world is beautiful, and Skull is a selfish man.

Into the depths.

Fathoms below lies the future.

Before he was in the Place-Not-His in the Time-Not-Thine, his name was Mortak. He whispers it to the moon at night so he won't forget because names are power and the moon keeps many secrets.

Mortak- the framework made of calcium. Mortak, child-not-holy. Mortak, the bone that protects the brain.

Calling himself Skull makes people look at him strangely, but retaining a sliver of his past, a reminder, is exactly what he needs.

A skull is sturdy, a skull must not break, it is rigid, and mankind has had it since their race was born, a crucial memorial of what they are. That is what Skull must be.

Especially now, in this place where the buildings are not white, where pillars are gray and concrete, no marble to be seen. This is an age of technology, they say, and he laughs, laughs and laughs because the only thing close to freedom he's found is a motorcycle and even those have no wings- not like the Atlanteans.

He misses the city, misses the people, misses the elephants in the streets. If he looks far enough, he'll find elephants. If he looks far enough, he'll find people with skin as dark as his own. But nowhere does he find purple lips and ki-coloured hair, no matter how far and wide he searches.

His heart heavy and his brow furrowed, hands empty and still alive.

The others are not.

''I swear on my ki to be Mortak, protector of Worlds, of Atlantis, of the Citadel. May my breath be stolen only by the Gods, may my blood be the dye of the Weaver, for I shall serve no one King, rule over no man, and be the Proof of Ten being One, in spirit if not in body.''

Atlantis was called the city of Atlas- when it crumbled, the sky fell down. At least, that's what it felt like.

He knows he's losing memories slowly, but he can't write his thoughts, his past, down fast enough, and eventually, he forgets. Too much is lost in his passage through time, and he fears his sanity was among it.

He must preserve, he must remember. As long as he lives, Atlantis is not dead entirely. He must seek further, deeper, wander into the halls of the long forgotten, and find it. Find that corrupted remnant his home, and restore it to it's proper state.

Once he met a woman that felt like a sea storm, like ki, like King, but he turned away.

She's not real, she's a fata morgana.

Her name is Daniela, but Skull calls her a ghost.

One from the past, that is.

Wingless, a King wingless! Such abomination shouldn't exist. It doesn't exist, because Daniela is not real, no matter how much he wants her to be, with her sea foam royalty riding her carriage in the maelstrom.

When she leaves, he can breathe again.

(Her golden eyes haunt his dreams and the colour red is stained with regret.

She did not phase through him when she kissed his forehead in farewell. It was not motherly, not even remotely warm. It was cold and furious, raging in contrast with soft touch, but so undeniably human. What if- Could he have- Why did he not-

He locks her away in a box in his head, but the memory of her is too vivid to be caught, and he spends his nights staring at the ceiling and wondering:

What if?)

Once upon a time, Mortak saw the world's end and jumped in a well to prevent it. Through time, he was dragged, and spit into a world he knew not, where only the sea lay past the pillars of Herakles, and tales of sunken cities were told.

So romantic, they said. So beautiful, they cried. Such a myth, some scoffed.

Dead! Skull wailed, dead, gone and rotten in the waves! Not even Poseidon's embrace could save Atlantis, and that was a bitter pill to swallow.

He looked far and wide, but there was nothing but heartbreak to find, so in the end, he decides to wait. The Kings must come, and spread their wings, to spin the wheel of the world and save it by existing.

In the meantime, he amuses children with skills from times long past, defies gravity with a bike the way he once did with the wings he can't bring himself to stretch because by the maw of the Kraken, to fly alone is worse than never leaving the ground.

So of course, they're the ones that find him.

Or, well, Checkerface did. The man who shuts the shackles around their wrists, without any of them knowing- except for Luce, the seer, which seems to be some sort of mix between kitara and makatti that Skull for the life of him cannot understand. Kitara and makatti are not meant to be mixed- his throat burns, bile rising.

But Luce is kind and Luce is sweet and her ki shines so brightly. He melts in her presence, her song like a hymn the Kings sung in the olden days.

So he stays.

That she has no wings despite having ki is something he has come to accept. He pities her, child of the wind, cast aside forever. But he loves her more and calls her his sister, as Yiken did to Rai in the Chronicles of the Kings.

The others, oh, they astound him too. Who would've thought he'd finally find ki-users in the mafia, of all places? Their lips don't possess the faintest trace of lilac, but their eyes and hair tend to let their ki bleed through in displays of colour.

They're not his people, but they're familiar, and it's much harder to think of them as tainted when they are so adamant they are not. When he knows them.

He dreams of a city full of water, of salty breeze and waves breaking, but for once smelling fish does not make him homesick, and it's all he can ask for these days.

They're cursed, and disguise the squabbling among them as hate and indifference, but are a family all the same.

(Still, there is not a single person with a feather on their back)

Luce dies and her daughter Aria appears. She sings the same song, the olden hymn, and has eyes too knowing. She's too much like her mother, sees too much and feels too much, young and old at the same time.

Aria is her own person, yet not, and this must be what a mingling of kitara and makatti brings forth- the dying undying, reborn in each other, destined for a tragic end indeed.

Aria is Luce, but Luce was not Aria, just as one day, Aria's daughter will be Aria, but Aria, not her daughter.

What a curse indeed.

Atlantis is not dead. Atlantis lives, ever shape-shifting as she is.

She lives in the veins of the Vongolean boy- the youngest one, he has the potential. But he moves too rash, too lost in his anger, screams too much to hear the world sing.

He is no King, not yet, perhaps never, but what a court he has.

He loses to the Sawada boy- who swings his fist like prayer, who pleases the gods with every breath, a King in motion.

But he's a sea that wants to be a flame, and it doesn't work that way.

Skull mourns for innocence he scarcely can remember having.

The future was a strange place, where a man had wings of ki again, and forced Sawada to be a flood, washing a man attempting to become King of what was not his away with one great bellow.

Skull does not understand Byakuran- who can stretch his wings but ignore the earthen oath of Ten Kings ruling only.

Ten Kings must be One, for One cannot be Ten.

Elementary, is it not?

…Sawada must find his companion-kings quickly.

The makatti survided as well- their ways ever strange, refusing to enter the heaven's temple but claiming the earth for their own.

Their King has a crumbling mind, fragile, lost in a black hole hungry. Revenge drains and drains and drains, even Enma Kozato.

Makatti may never be Kitara- A mix between the two will belong to the wind, banished from heaven and earth both, as Luce and her kin.

Sawada saves Kozato, Kozato saves Sawada, and their ki melts together in the only way it may- and something deep down purrs, because they are One even without proof, and Skull smiles when asked to help.

Representative battles- forced to fight against each other. (But lips pressed and fingers slid, and ki was one again. They're entangled, limbs and spirit, hearts beating to the same drum.

….Maybe this new Atlantis needs only two Kings to be whole).

Perhaps he should learn how to look at things the way they are, instead of the way they used to be.

The Ki of a King surges to a crest in Sawada Tsunayoshi and Skull want to see him become a sea. There may be rocks and his waves will break, but he will form and form again until rock has been worn away with time. Sea and river will feed land, make it fertile as ever, land cultivating the trees that purify the sky.

Sky-Sea and Earth embracing- Kitara and Makatti. The forbidden being One.

Boy Kings become man Kings, and these Kings give Skull hope.

Once upon a time, Mortak saw the world's end and jumped in a well to prevent it. His city still sunk, but Atlantis rises again, for its spirit is no rock, and it has joined a new body.

As the sun rises and heaven and earth are one, Skull knows he saw not the world ending- He saw the birth of a new one, in all of it's glory.

Poseidon, what a dawn of an new age.