Prologue
"Do not move."
The voice is low, a not-quite-whisper of a sound… but the threat is loud and clear.
Colonello feels a shiver run down his spine.
Those that are new to the world of violence generally see the need to be loud. They yell their threats at the top of their lungs, hoping that the added sound will intimidate the listener. They roar about all the horrible and torturous things they will do to you. They generally like to keep it rather broad, going on about how they'll rip you in half with their bare hands, about how you'll regret every defying them.
But this voice… this voice holds quiet knowledge of what it is capable of. It needs no volume, no yelling, no threats. It has nothing to prove. There is only the knowledge of what it can do. What it will do.
If you do not obey, you will die.
That is all there is to it.
And so, Colonello does not move.
The knife that bites into the skin at the back of Colonello's neck also serves as an apt persuader.
If the speaker were an amateur, Colonello might have tried to disarm the man and escape. As it stands, however, there is absolute certainty in the voice that can only belong to an experienced professional. Were it any other professional, Colonello might still try (He isn't called one of the Strongest Seven for nothing), but…
But he recognizes this voice.
So he freezes.
It takes him a while to place it, as he's never heard it use that specific tone before. He's heard the voice be baselessly boastful, be fearfully meek, be embarrassingly pathetic.
He's never heard it contain such calm, deadly steel.
So it takes him a few seconds, and once he recognizes it, it takes him a while longer to fully believe it.
"Sit down. All of you." The voice speaks again, and Colonello realizes this is no fluke. It is the same voice, the same cold, harsh tone from the previous threat.
Colonello wonders if perhaps the poison from the mission he has just come back from is affecting him after all, because there is no way that the person with such a chilling presence could be-
Skull.
.
.
.
Reborn's first thought upon seeing Skull staring down at them so coldly is that the lackey has been possessed – the thought of betrayal never comes to him, and he wonders how long he has trusted Skull not to betray them without realizing it.
It also helps that these eyes that stare so intently at where he and the rest of the Arcobaleno stand hidden by Viper's mist flames (Immediately upon Colonello being attacked, Viper had wordlessly made them invisible and they had all tensed for an ambush. Of course, an ambush requires the enemy to be surprised, and this is obviously not the case) do not belong to Skull. They are in his white-painted face, they are adorned by his flamboyant purple make-up, they are the same arresting shade of deep mauve.
But those eyes are not Skull's, cannot be Skull's. For those eyes possess a coldness Reborn is all too familiar with, a void of loss and tragedy and pain and getting up one more time after you have been knocked down for the thousandth time.
They are also, Reborn notes, the eyes of a killer.
More than that, they are the eyes of a survivor.
"You are a fool indeed if you think I cannot sense you. If I feel so much as a spike of energy from you, then your blonde friend will lose an eye." Skull says, his eyes not so much as flickering from where the rest of the Arcobaleno stand in the corner of the room, the knife he holds at the back of Colonello's neck never wavering. "It's awfully painful to lose an eye, you know?" Skull informs them, looking almost helpful. "I've seen it done before. The guy was screaming and thrashing so bad, three people had to hold him down in order for the eye to be taken out just right. It was carved out so perfectly, it looked as though the pupil was still moving even after being removed form the eye socket. It was called a work of art for how beautifully it was cut out." Skull's grin turns cruel, "I've never had the patience for art though, so you'll have to forgive me if it's a little messy when I do it."
Together, the Arcobaleno stand frozen. Whether it is because one move on their part means Colonello might lose an eye, whether it is because this Skull in front of them looks perfectly capable of defending himself and killing his hostage if they attack, or whether it is because the way he says it they cannot help but truly believe that Skull – their useless, pathetic, Skull – has not only witnessed an eye being carved out of a live human, but is willing to and capable of replicating the act.
"Now, tell me." Skull looks at all of them, and his eyes are cold and dull.
"Who are you?"