Disclaimer: Katekyo Hitman REBORN! was created by Akira Amano.

Claimer: I own the plot and OC. Nothing more, nothing less.

Warnings: insane Belphegor. One-shot might not make any real sense. No real plot. Not in any place in the main story line in Katekyo Hitman REBORN!

Pairing: BelOC

The Manipulator and Marionette

Was he dreaming again? It felt so real—he couldn't tell anymore. Sometimes insanity made a person lose touch with reality. It's not like he minded.

He has a precious toy. It's a puppet with strings. The prince had no idea how to work the thing, so he decided to take just a few simple classes—demand an old guy, more like it—on how to be a manipulator of the marionette. When he had the hang of how to move the limbs in a more realistic fashion, he had a new favorite toy.

How unfortunate for the marionette.

Boredom soon followed when the blond had become rather good at making the female marionette move so easily; as if a little person with funny jerky movements. He left it alone for the longest time—until it was put up in the attic in a box filled with other forgotten toys without his permission. It was usually hanging right beside his dresser, and it was gone one day.

The teenager went mad looking for it. Seeing the puppet hanging beside his dresser was such a normal sight, that when the little girl was gone it felt like something was forever out of place in his life. He needed to see that little face with the mud-colored eyes and the wavy brown hair with light tan hued skin and those plain clothes.

He'd taken to calling it Aria not too long after he got it.

"Aria, my favorite little toy, why don't you come on out? Ushishishi, you won't be happy if I find you!" he calls as he stalks through the attic.

A large manic grin plays with twitches on his face at the rage that would have been seen in hidden eyes since he'd spent all day looking around the castle. He kicks over a miniature grandfather clock and the glass face cracks, a shard of glass falling to the ground noisily.

"Ushishishi, where's my toy?!" Belphegor calls out a bit louder than he wanted to. His increasing anger was making it hard to control.

There's a soft rustle. Prince the Ripper rears his head to a corner where there are opened boxes he searched through already. But somehow a cross with strings had made a sound since it had appeared to have fallen out of the box. The blond stomps forward, grabbing the familiar wood and yanking it up violently a few times since the marionette at the end seems to be caught.

When he pulls it out, he realizes it's because the tip of an ax has been buried into the chest as he was pulling too hard. Belphegor is instantly careful, his body stiff and his grin decimated by a frown that formed on his face. He tries to be gently as he yanks the tip of the ax out, but it comes out with a slight crack as the wood moved closer together from the wound.

The prince mutters a few curses under his breath as he swiftly leaves the attic.

A toy maker was able to help the blond with his toy's little predicament. It took a little longer than he wanted it to, but needless to say it was like his old favorite toy was back to normal. The cut in the shirt is barely noticeable, and looking under the shirt there's a misty substance—glue—that manages to somewhat make the stab from the ax look like a scar.

Belphegor chuckles as he drops the marionette, letting the wooden girl be held up by the strings attached to the wooden cross. He twines his fingers in some of the strings and makes the girl come to life as he makes her look up at him, those lifeless brown eyes revealing gratitude—only in this crazed gaze of his—as she bows, groveling to royalty.

"You went through a lot," the puppet says. The blond chuckles in response as he shrugs and says, "It's my duty as your owner, ushishishi!"

He couldn't tell if he was making the voice or if it was just in his head.

The puppet stands up, looking up and Belphegor's instantly reminded of mud as per usual. Her head tilts as she says, "I was getting rather tired of hanging by your dresser. I thought it would be nice to have a change of scenery, but look where that got me. The hospital was no fun. I thought I couldn't be fixed."

The prince crouches down in front of the puppet, its head following his hair—what else could Aria look at?—as he tilts his own head and says, "Change scenery again and I'll break your limbs off. That would definitely be fun, ushishi~"

"I want an accessory. Think you could get me a red sucker and a gun?"

"Masters don't take orders from their toys! Toys do what their owners want! But I don't see how you wouldn't be more fun with a sucker and gun~"

Had she never spoken to him before because she didn't like the way he handled her before? Either way, she was talking now. She didn't often say nice things, she seemed wary of his presence, and never said anything as she hung beside his dresser when he had to go on missions for his boss.

But it happened again. He thought she seemed to sound and look rather unhappy.

"Ushishi, Aria, where are you~?" Belphegor sings as he searches around his room, being slow and enjoying the hide-and-seek game he's playing as he looks underneath the bed for the brunette marionette.

This is the fourth time he's looked as he moves over to the closet for a seventh time. His anger is bubbling up in the pit of his stomach again, his searching coming up fruitless. He felt the sting of betrayal eating his mind away as he stabs his third silver knife into his bed. The covers are shoved on the floor, completely disorderly from his four times of searching through them for his toy.

The gun and sucker were left on the nightstand. She always had one or the other with her.

He would search another two times before looking in the attic a total of twenty-seven times. He checked once more before starting to hunt through the castle.

Losing one of his things brings out the worst in Prince the Ripper. If someone thought his room was messy before his rampage, now they must have thought he lived in some sort of pig-sty.

Prince the Ripper had torn up his mattress and sheets as if someone had a swordfight with them. The mirrors in his room were broken, only a few shards along the framing still where they are. Drawers were torn out and thrown at the walls to leave dents and the drawers lying in multiple pieces. Patches of the carpet were cut out and litter the shower and bathtub—the bathtub being three quarters full of water. Wire strings act like unfinished spider webs, a few knives hanging from the ceiling on the wires as if the creator lazily decided not to make another connection.

After his tantrum, Prince the Ripper leaves the room to go into town.

"I might end up happy I left."

Belphegor's head rears to his left. He doesn't know how he heard the voice, but he did. He sees the words "USED TOYS" painted in blocky red letters at the top of a window. The place looked run down, but either way hidden eyes zone in right on the marionette hanging by the corner sitting in an antique and Victorian era chair—fashion from the United Kingdom or America, judging from the looks of the wood carvings and fabrics.

The blond storms into the shop, taking out a few knives as he sees a middle aged man reading a book behind a counter. He looks up when the bell on the door's handle had rang out, and was stock still in terror as Prince the Ripper came at him at a frightening speed and a terrifying aura about him with his morose grin out in the open. Belphegor grabs the man's collar, pulling him almost across the counter and putting a knife up against his neck as the man sputters.

"Why did you steal my toy?" he asks with a low and dangerous tone.

"S-Steal your-what are you t-talking about?" the man asks as his voice shakes, trying not to let his Adam's apple graze the tip of the silver knife against his neck. "Y-You came in here and g-gave it to me, d-don't you—"

"Don't bother telling me such useless lies!" Belphegor says with a laugh afterwards. "Give her back to me! Aria is mine; she's not something to be sold! She belongs to royalty!"

The man nods stiffly, making a hand motion that signaled the blond that he could do as he pleases. Belphegor lets go of the man, shoving him into his chair as the fearful male falls to the ground. He hitman goes up to the store window and gently untangles some strings attached to the wooden cross, giving him the ability to take his marionette from the window and away from prying, wanting eyes.

The prince was gone just as quickly as he came.

"Belphegor? Aren't you a bit too old to be playing with puppets?" Mammon asks as he passes by the twenty-six year old blond.

He doesn't get an answer. The Arcobaleno turns around as he watches the blond drag a puppet along the ground, the other old-looking one he cradles as he turns a corner where his room would be.

"Ushishishi! Shishi, ushishi, ushishishishi!"

He couldn't stop the laughing. The normally unused fire place in his room is now in use. The fire crackles as it eats away at clothes and there's the warm popping sound as wood is burned. Prince the Ripper continues to laugh as he runs his hands through his hair, moving blond locks out of his eyes to better see the fire.

"Ushishishi, I told you you'd regret getting a change of scenery again!" he continues to laugh.

"Is this a threat because I'm made out of wood?"

The blond turns around, blinking at the marionette sitting on his torn-up bed and propped up by a pile of remains of his sheets and pillows. He couldn't remember that he had grabbed another puppet. He couldn't figure out how his old toy has managed to "move" from being in the fireplace to sitting on his bed. He slowly moves forward, putting a hand on the marionette's small and wooden cheek.

"If I could have a moment to doubt you wanted to get rid of me, this would be it," the marionette tells the blond, her mouth un-moving and eternally set in an almost disappointed slight frown. "I never knew how much you loved me to the point you hate me. Such an odd situation and an awkward way of showing love—perhaps we're the same in that aspect. You try to break me so you don't want to get rid of me, and I want to leave because I know you'll find me."

"Ushishishi, don't you know me at all?" Belphegor asks.

"I'm sure you know that I know you better than you think. You already figured that out since I come to life only when you're around. Shouldn't that be more than enough, Belphegor?"

"Shishi, it's almost like you're in my head," he mutters as he hugs his limp and lifeless marionette.

"More than you let yourself on to think."

This is one of the random one-shots I mentioned I would make for this story and for this pairing. I wanted to play around with the insane part of Belphegor's character. I hope you guys understand that when marionette!Aria goes missing, it's actually Belphegor's own doing but his mind doesn't remember doing it and I wanted to do this sort of in his perspective, slowly revealing to you guys that he's crazy and doesn't know what he's doing.

I made this one-shot rather quickly, but I enjoyed it. Let me know if this sort of one-shot was alright by leaving reviews.

Thank you for reading!