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Takeshi doesn’t pay much attention to them at first.
The Italian is easy enough to recognize through his distinctive silver hair. He wonders briefly if it’s colored naturally or if it’s gone premature grey from the stress of being in the mafia. The man seems agitated and gestures loudly with his arms; a crease between his eyes a permanent mark on his face. His companion, a witch with a black-yellow-toad on her left shoulder, snaps bitterly about payments and takes out a white handkerchief from a small velvet bag at her side. She forcibly blows her nose into it.
Koujiro stuffs his face with fruits, surreptitiously wiping his bony fingers against Takeshi’s back. The man pays him no mind and continues to study the party of four out the corner of his eyes. The daemon curls a possessive tail around the man’s arm.
‘Think they were sent here too?’
“Hibari Kyouya should relax; I will pay him back soon enough.”
“Is that what you told yourself when you gambled away 3.7 million US dollars last night?”
“How did you...?”
His answer is the slide of metal and laughter as Takeshi unsheathes his sword.
It’s supposed to be a simple hit-and-run; a minor drug lord in Thailand who’d stepped over Hibari’s toes one too many times.
And it had been simple.
Life drains out of him quickly as it had so many others.
It was a swift death, a painless and almost peaceful death.
Not something the man necessarily deserves as Koujiro so succinctly points out.
What he doesn’t expect is for the man to have a witch for a lover.
A very vengeful witch
One intent on taking his head as a prize
There is an arrow stuck in his shoulder.
Takeshi supposes that he should be thankful it isn’t a crossbow bolt or something worse. The witches had evolved alongside mankind as technology developed. It isn’t that unusual to see a witch totting about with 21st century accessories at her side. He knows that Vongola—the family that the silver-haired man from earlier belonged to—had several witches under their employ, most well-versed in firearms. But even without guns, a witch was a deadly foe.
They duck and weave as a white shadow pass over their heads. A gull cries harshly, taunting them for their weakness, berating them for their cowardliness and goading them for a fine chase. Any other time, Koujiro—his stubborn, obstinate Koujiro—would have answered the other daemon’s call. But Takeshi is slowly slipping into shock. His legs shake so much that he can barely stand. He leans against a tree and presses his forehead against the crooked limbs. The lemur lets out a keen and buries his face behind the man’s ear.
“We have to keep moving.”
“Hah, that’s a witch hunting us you know.”
“She sucks. Her daemon’s missed us about a dozen times. All those years of hide-and-seek must have been good for something.”
“Hibari always finds us though.”
“Hibari has Tamizuki.”
Koujiro feels the twinge of amusement through their bond and leans down to look at the arrowhead buried in his counterpart’s shoulder.
“Can you get it out?”
“I’ll do more damage than good. It’s buried deep.”
“Snap off the end at least, it’s going to get in the way.”
Koujiro digs his claws awkwardly into Takeshi’s arm. The man and the daemon slip into the shadows as the witch’s daemon circles over their heads. Green feathers spread flush against Takeshi’s clammy face as Koujiro nibbles on the arrow shaft. He stifles a hiss but the daemon feels it anyways.
‘Sorry, sorry...’
Takeshi looks up instead of replying. The gull flies over them again, this time with the witch following closely.
With a soft snap, the wooden arrow breaks off leaving only the tip still buried in Takeshi’s shoulder.
They stumble into what passes for a crawl against the thick undergrowth. Koujiro hop from branch to branch, complaining loudly across their bond that it was unbecoming of them to be trawling through a jungle of all places. He adds in a snide undertone that Hibari will be more than happy to take the laundry bill out on his hide.
‘But then he’ll have to pay for the medical expenses.’
They leave a visible trail behind them, of upturned earth and torn leaves. It isn’t long before the witch’s gull, with his keen eyes spots them through the trees. He shrieks with premature victory, his witch on her cloud-pine terrifyingly beautiful.
But Takeshi and Koujiro hadn’t survived this long without a few tricks of their own, tricks that they should have never had.
The bird swoops down eager and Koujiro snatches him out of the air.
They stare at the stranger’s daemon in disbelief.
“He...”
“Shifted...”
The spotted leopard swallows down a gulp of air, her amber eyes uncertain as she paces before her human.
“What are you?”
Takeshi winces and Koujiro lifts his lips, his mouth full of feathers as the gull struggles feebly between his teeth. How dare they imply that there was something wrong with them—how dare they?
“He’s not like you.”
Viper comments, her daemon climbing on top of her head to get a better look.
“Yeah, no shit.” Gokudera spits in disbelief.
“He’s different.”
The witch insists, then mulls over what’s she's saying and shuts her mouth.
The drug lord’s lover lands, the hands at her bow quivering. She notices the others in the background and recognizes them from the small paradise that turned into a nightmare in less than an hour after their arrival. She lays her bow down, too panicked speak the ancient words to assure them of her intentions. She is young this witch, they all realize, her eyes comically large against the round frame of her face.
“Please, don’t hurt him.”
Her daemon shrieks in denial, pleading for her to flee.
Takeshi kneads his knuckles against the front of his shoulders to ease the ache.
“You were trying to kill us.”
“I loved him!”
“Where’s your family?”
Her sisters should have taken care of her; they would have dissuaded the girl from pursuing a man who was to die in a blink of an eye. Where was her family that should have protected her until he was ready?
“He was my family; he said he’d take care of me.”
“He lied.”
Koujiro snorts, pushing himself into the largest available form. He becomes a stallion, neck arched and nostrils flaring. He kicks out with his hooves, warning them not to stray near. His teeth are still clamped around the gull’s wings. The witch pales immediately.
“Go home. Your sisters will welcome you back.”
“He was my lover, I must avenge him.”
“He doesn’t deserve it,” Takeshi reasons, tendrils of desperation clutching at his stomach. His emotions are echoed in the half-nervous lines of his daemon’s eyes. “He didn’t deserve you.”
“But I loved him.” She answers, resolute. “And if I cannot avenge him, may Yambe-Akka take me!”
Her daemon shrieks once more and digs its webbed feet into Koujiro’s face. The stallion rears back and roars, letting go of the bird’s shattered wing. The bird falls to the ground and flaps his wings towards his witch, his feathered belly trembling with exhaustion. Just as he reaches her, she takes her dagger and plunges it deep beneath her ribs.
“You told the idiot that the kid you found was different.”
“You must be more specific Reborn,” Viper demurs, turning away from the esoteric hitman. “There are so many fools within the family these days.”
“Don’t be coy. Tell me what you said to the Storm Guardian.”
“I don’t recall...”
Reborn makes a small choking noise at the back of his throat before reaching into his suit to pull out a thin gold chain with a jade pendant. Viper snatches the bauble away greedily, checking it this way and that in the sun to see how it looks best in the light. Fantasma croaks in approval and she closes her hand into a small fist, hiding the trinket from the prying eyes of others.
She clears her throat, the dark blue triangles on her cheeks stark against her skin. She stares at the man with glittering violet eyes, “I’m not sure. I went to see him last night because I was curious. I couldn’t sense anything different from him though. The feeling has disappeared.”
“Are you sure you weren’t just imagining it?” Reborn asks sarcastically, feeling cheated out of 78 euros. Viper narrows her eyes, if there is one thing that’s certain, it was that the Italian witch always kept the end of her bargain.
“I was not. Fantasma concurs; he was—felt—different when we found him.”
“Can you elaborate?”
“It could be that his daemon hasn’t settled.” She says sullenly, grudgingly.
“Really?” This was a new piece of information. The one he would make sure to choke out of the Storm Guardian next time they crossed paths.
“Odd isn’t it? Even a witch’s daemon settles around this point.”
“What does it mean?”
“It is not the daemon who decides but the person.” She repeats in a monotone, as though recalling a memory from the distant past. Fantasma blinks, his red eyes bulbous. “Either you have a child in a man’s body or a man who has chosen to remain a child.”