Alberto & Dante di Nero
Chapter 1.5: Alberto & Dante di Nero
Aglio Nero used to be a child assassin of the underground world but few knew him as a little boy named Alberto di Nero.
When he was nine years old, his older cousin was killed by a drunk driver. Once the little boy turned fourteen, he killed the driver as revenge and was graciously offered a position in Passione for his abilities where he was given the name Aglio. All who knew of his name feared him for his ruthlessness and strength.
That was the story Aglio always told when asked about his life before becoming the notorious leader of Hitman Team #47. He dared to not elaborate, but the reality was a lot more complicated than what the rumors have spiraled into. Aglio never dared to tell anyone the true details of his life— not even his closest confidants— and planned on taking it to his grave. For one, the cousin was never killed directly by the drunk driver nor was the driver assassinated as revenge. For two, Aglio was never offered a position in Passione that he accepted willingly.
Aglio had a biological mother and father, but his older cousin was adopted into the family five years before the younger boy was born. Dante di Nero, the name of the cousin who should have been Risotto Nero in Giorno’s timeline, was the only son of Aglio’s maternal aunt. She had tragically passed away from childbirth and his biological father died prior from an aneurysm. A wealthy widow ignorant of her younger sister’s hunger for money, she had Dante put into the latter’s care as well as a large sum of money that should have been more than enough to raise him. Aglio’s biological parents put up a grandiose show of adopting the little boy and promising to take care of him as if he was their own blood.
But, once Aglio was born, all the attention disappeared and Dante di Nero was cast aside. Despite only being raised with the bare minimum and ignored since the birth of his baby cousin, Dante didn’t mind the sudden shift. He was more focused on loving and caring for his new little brother that he personally named Alberto. The two were thick as thieves, always close to one another and never bickering between themselves. Aglio worshiped the ground Dante walked on and admired everything about his cousin.
What was there not to like about him? The rather large yet gentle giant was the star pupil admired by both his peers and his teachers. To the world, he was a dutiful son who cared deeply for his little cousin and meekly accepted compliments and praises for his academic achievements. He was naturally charismatic, and charming, and had a knack for winning every heart he encountered; it seemed like everyone loved Dante except for Aglio’s parents.
Aglio was his biggest supporter and often tried to mimic Dante in any way possible, whether that be his academic achievements or his appearance. It became an ongoing joke among the community to pretend the two of them were identical twins despite barely appearing similar growing up. Dante’s naturally bigger physique made him intimidating enough to deter potential bullies yet welcoming enough for younger children to open up to. Yet, despite being significantly younger and shorter, Aglio tried to emulate his older cousin’s style. Dante found it amusing when the younger boy tried eating more food to match his metabolism or trying bizarre stretching exercises a neighborhood Nonna recommended him to do to grow taller. Whenever he saw Aglio seem discouraged for not succeeding, he reminded his cousin that Aglio being his true self mattered much more than copying him. “You’re fine just the way you are,” Dante once consoled Aglio for performing lower than Dante did at his age for an exam. “I love you for being you, ragazzo. Remember that.”
Life, as Aglio knew it with Dante, was idyllic. He heard that his cousin planned on joining the local police force as a detective one day and Aglio decided he wanted to be a police officer; the younger boy had a vision of being a crime-fighting duo that protected the streets of their hometown. The two boys spent days pretending to be law enforcement and watching investigation shows under the guise that they were “training” for their future careers. They pretended to be spies, giving themselves code names while pretending to take down evil mafiosos for the safety of Italy. “Agent Aglio,” was the first time Dante ever called him that and gave him the code name to use every time they played. “We have to stop the criminals from selling drugs to kids! Pronto!”
“Ho capito, Agent Risotto!” Aglio would respond with his hands clasped together to resemble a handgun to shoot down a makeshift mound of dried mud the two agreed was their target. They never got bored of playing the same game, sometimes having the neighborhood kids join in if they ask. Everything changed when Aglio was nine and Dante turned fourteen.
The hit-and-run was supposed to not kill a fourteen-year-old; at most, it would cause a few broken bones, months in physical therapy, and limited mobility that otherwise wouldn’t affect anyone’s quality of life drastically. Yet, here was Aglio sitting next to Dante in a hospital room as the latter just came off surgery with their right foot suddenly amputated. The doctors claimed the limb got infected despite never showing any signs of it and talks are going around about putting a tube in Dante’s stomach; they claim he can no longer consume food on his own. The once husky teenager was slowly becoming a skeleton pumped up with strong medical drugs to make him too tired to question anything.
Aglio overheard his parents talk over the years about getting Dante’s inheritance but didn’t connect the dots about what they were saying until now. Dante’s birth mother had a strange clause in which her son would be given a large sum of money once he turned fifteen unless he was too incapacitated to care for himself; otherwise, the money would go to Aglio’s parents to care for him. If Dante died, the money would go to a charity instead, and Dante could have a say in altering this clause at any time. While part of the money was split and given upon Dante’s adoption, that money was quickly used for the parents’ wants. The remaining was in a trust fund that could not be challenged and the idea of simply asking Dante for the money never crossed their mind. Aglio’s parents were desperate to present and live the life of constant frivolous spending they’d grown accustomed to, especially with two boys to care for. Despite feeling like they needed more money, they had more than enough to give Dante proper medical care had the hit-and-run been an accident. Aglio didn’t know what to think when he first heard that the drunk driver that swerved into his cousin was paid to do so by his parents the whole time.
Aglio’s parents planned to slowly transform Dante into someone incapable of caring for himself fast enough to get his inheritance before he turned fifteen but slow enough to not raise any suspicion. Many would wonder whether Aglio’s parents could have just loved Dante and if the teenage boy would be willing to share his money with them as a thank-you for raising him when he became of age. Yet greed consumed their minds and hearts to believe this act of slowly destroying their adopted son was the best way to get rich.
Aglio’s parents didn’t take into account the driver, who at the last minute decided to do the act drunk, and only took the job to help pay a debt he owed to a local crime syndicate at the time. By not completely incapacitating Dante as a result, it put a wrench in things for Aglio’s parents. They decided to turn to the medical staff to help them break their adopted son down. Some refused to act out of their moral conscience or initially were on board but fell in love with Dante to the point where they now refused, but a few were willing to take the task for money. It didn’t take long before Dante became the state he was now, with a body marked with unnecessary procedures and pumped with drugs that he is now too reliant to get off from. If anyone tried to question it, including Aglio, the staff involved wouldn’t hesitate barking back to scare them from ever questioning their tasks again. Despite the new phantom limbs, the withdrawals, the poking, and the prodding, Dante acted oblivious and did his best to remain compliant. He didn’t want Aglio to see him suffer or have the young boy speak for him. He even told Aglio to look the other way despite wanting to cry in pain when one doctor decided his left femur needed to be broken because it “appeared to be set wrong” out of nowhere.
Dante told Aglio to stop visiting, but the young boy continued to see him almost daily after school; sometimes he would even skip class to stay longer. The more he stayed, the more he learned of the situation, and the more he realized there was nothing he could do to reverse it.
His parents could no longer be trusted. None of the medical staff that proved their motives were malicious could be an ally; the ones that refused to abuse Dante could only sympathized with the situation and claim their hands are tied. Aglio didn’t tell Dante that he was laughed at for bringing a small piggy bank into the nearby law office in an attempt to hire someone who could medically emancipate his cousin or about him trying to sell his toys to raise more money before his parents took it away for their own use. Even if the boys found a lawyer to fight pro-bono and win the case, it wouldn’t change the fact that Dante could never go back to normal. By the time Dante was a few months ahead of his fifteenth birthday, he was completely reliant on the strong hospital drugs and had multiple machines stuck to him. A permanent nurse would need to care for Dante constantly unless Aglio trained himself to take on the role.
This was something Dante feared the most— not just being able to care for himself and enjoy life as an able-bodied individual but forcing his younger cousin to take on such a responsibility. To Dante, he was supposed to be the one protecting and caring for Aglio and never the other way around. To Dante, there was no meaning to life if his younger cousin became his caretaker regardless of if Aglio wanted that life or not.
The talks to make Dante more incapacitated grew more desperate. There was word that more limbs will be taken out next week, in addition to more of his right leg, and that he was going to be lobotomized, or put in a permanent coma so that Aglio’s parents could gain the money they wanted. Aglio once overheard them talk about sending Dante’s body to a horrible hospice on the outskirts of Sicily, intentionally giving him nothing but the bare essentials once the hospital declares him completely incapacitated; if he ends up dying, they can easily blame it on the staff they will poorly pay to ensure Dante’s comfort. The teenager knew this would be his fate as well and dared to not die on his own terms. Before he was forced to take on a breathing tube and lose his voice, he asked Aglio to do one last thing: kill him.
Aglio’s tears flowed as Dante used his strength to smile and reassure the former. “I don’t want to lose you,” the little boy cried. “There is still hope! I can save you—”
“Please,” Dante gently stroked Aglio’s cheek while fighting the urge to cry with him. “You remember that action movie we watched a while back? The space one?”
“Star Trek?”
“Yes, that one,” it wasn’t the best example but Dante tried to reassure Aglio that his death was necessary. “Remember when that Spock guy goes to fix the Enterprise ship but he dies because he got poisoned? There was no way of saving him if he left the room anyways yet he chose the way he died because he wanted to protect the crew. I want to protect you, Aglio. The only way I can do that is by dying before it’s too late. If I die now, mom and dad won’t use me against you.”
While Aglio tried to hide it, Dante knew his parents were trying to manipulate Aglio to forget about his cousin and work against him instead. Initially, they tried to convince Dante to give his inheritance to Aglio if he died, but the teenager knew that they planned to coerce his little cousin to give his money to them once it happened. Dante squeezed his cousin’s hand after explaining all of this. “It’s the least you can do for me,” he soberly smiled. “You always talk about how I always saved you from trouble and how you wish you could do the same for me. Think of this as your final mission to defeat the bad guys, Agent Aglio. I’m counting on you.”
In between the times Dante was recovering in the hospital from his unnecessary procedures, they spent hours watching reruns of crime shows to pass the time and distract themselves from the current situation at hand. One of the episodes, which was constantly rerun due to being Dante’s favorite, talked about how a fictional serial killer in a hospital got away with murdering his patients; the scene of how the killer did it came into the younger boy’s mind when Dante said he needed to die. It seemed like the best choice when lethal injections use the same drugs found in hospitals. Aglio figured it was the most discrete and painless way to go for his cousin. After much hesitation, he accepted the task. “You got this, ragazzo,” Dante whispered when a green-haired doctor passed by in the hallway. Neither of the boys knew they were being listened.
It was easy for Aglio to figure out how to sneak around, with the medical staff carelessly placing open documentation and keys around, and upon learning that a few security cameras were simply decoys. As days passed, the young boy figured out how to go into certain rooms undetected, manipulate the outdated heart monitor to delay long enough that Dante was far from saving once it set off, and even managed to change Dante’s documentation to refuse resuscitation. All he needed now was to figure out what to inject into his cousin.
He didn’t know exactly where he was, but Aglio figured the room he snuck into was where various vials of medication were stored.
The dark room was accessed by an anesthesiologist’s key that Aglio managed to swipe that morning of Dante’s death. Despite hearing the two medications used on the episode repeated with each rerun, the young boy didn’t exactly know how to spell them or knew what they look like; how much to use was also something the show didn’t elaborate on. The room had various antibiotics, vaccines, and other fluids that had bizarre names that gave only concise descriptions of their uses. He dared to not turn on the lights but the limited vision made it hard to see what each item on the shelf was. It also made it hard for him to see that he wasn’t alone at first.
“You need to use Pavulon and Trapanal,” a voice cut through the dark silence. “Those were the drugs used in the episode you watched yesterday, was it not?”
Aglio was initially scared of being caught and assumed the worst when he heard the stranger’s voice. Once he turned around to see who was behind him, his guard went immediately down. The middle-aged man smiled in a way that dangerously calmed the young boy further and Aglio immediately recognized him as one of the doctors in charge of Dante’s care; he wasn’t sure whether he was the one working for Aglio’s parents or not. “You’re Dr. Damien Capaldi,” Aglio whispered his name as the green-haired doctor crouched down to hand him two small vials.
As luck would have it, Dr. Capaldi was the doctor that overheard the conversation and also one of the few medical staff members that refused to harm Dante. Despite his rumored reputation as a sadistic madman under the guise of being a medical professional, it seemed like Dante’s beloved personality extended to warming Dr. Capaldi’s horrific heart, and the man was the main supporter of lobbying against incapacitating the teenage boy over time. His lobbying caused him to be intentionally kept away from Dante via other busy work, but the doctor still kept tabs on the teenage boy when he could. During Dante’s hospitalization, he kept listening to the conversations between his patient and the cousin, feeling more sympathetic to their cause as time passed, and decided to find the next opportunity to do something good in his life for once. Overhearing Dante’s wish to die on his own terms, the green-haired doctor decided to help the two of them. It wasn’t the first time he aided in assisted suicide, but it would unknowingly be his last.
The two initially stood facing each other in silence after their awkward introductions in the dark. The door then opened, bringing bright hospital hallway lights into the room and Aglio felt the doctor kneel down to immediately cover his mouth before maneuvering the young boy to a corner of the room out of sight from the entrance. The shelves of medical drugs helped limit the view from whoever opened the door to see who was also in the cramped supply room. Aglio complied to avoid both their covers being blown but wondered who was at the door. He swore his heart was beating too loud yet the doctor appeared composed. He noticed the older man act like he was calmly looking through various medicines.
“Dr. Capaldi,” a male voice called out, “are you in here? I swore I saw you go in. I was told you’re needed in the east wing and to come to get you.”
“In a minute,” Dr. Capaldi responded and pretended to look like he was cataloging a nearby shelf by himself, muttering some medical terminology that the younger boy did not understand. His hand was still on Aglio’s mouth during the whole conversation. “You know you can just call me Damien, Amadeo. No need for formalities.”
“Right,” the male nurse replied before shutting the door quickly. “I’ll see you soon then. Hurry, though.”
From Aglio’s limited perspective, he saw what looked like a young man wearing hospital scrubs and a surgical mask that obscured most of his face. Aglio swore the nurse looked very young, only slightly older than Dante, but assumed the man just had a baby face and youthful appearance. His thoughts on the matter stopped once he heard the door shut and his attention turned back to the doctor. The older man’s hand still covered his mouth but slowly released after a few seconds. Aglio looked at him to indicate that he wouldn’t cause any more trouble.
“You can trust me,” the green-haired doctor reassured the young boy. “I just want to help you and your cousin, okay? Would you let me do that?” Aglio silently nodded, fully trusting the man. Dr. Capaldi sighed in relief before going through his pockets again to fish out a small packet that contained an unused syringe.
“Your cousin suffered too much and I wish I could have done more,” he gave the packet to the younger boy by tucking it and the vials into the latter’s inner coat pocket. “What I just gave to you should be more than enough to help and you don’t need to calculate anything. The Trapanal will put him to sleep and the Pavulon will stop his heart. Just make sure you use the Trapanal first, wait a minute, and then the Pavulon. Instant, painless death. I promise.”
To Aglio, the moment was too good to be true. Before finishing their interaction, Dr. Capaldi taught him how to fill the syringe and where to inject it. “Between the toes,” the doctor advised. “No one would know it was there compared to an arm or a leg injection. Make sure you throw the vials and syringe away outside of the hospital. Don’t leave any trace by wearing gloves that you can dispose easily, okay?”
“Grazie, doctor!” Aglio thanked him graciously, embracing the man before leaving the latter alone in the room. Had the doctor realized what he had done, Aglio would have not met him again years later and the latter wouldn’t have suffered a worse fate as a reuslt. The younger boy didn’t consider it when he entered his cousin’s room with the materials given to him soon after; he was only glad that Dante would no longer have to suffer.
The morning Aglio came with his materials to do the deed, Dante was in the worst state he possibly could be in. Unable to speak anymore with tubes stuck into his mouth, Dante only nodded when his younger cousin told him the plan. Using his eyes and limited movement from his neck, he motioned the younger boy to his remaining left foot and watched Aglio’s shaking hand insert the filled syringe in between his toes. Within a few minutes, Dante was peacefully dead. Aglio rushed to hold his hand as soon as he could and felt a weak squeeze before it slowly became cold to the touch. The younger boy hastily put the now-empty vials and syringe into his coat so he could discard them later and waited for the heart monitor to go off. He took the gloves that were too big for his fingers to fill off and tucked them deep into a nearby trashcan.
The chaos that ensued once Dante supposedly flatlined allowed Aglio to slip away undetected. His parents screamed at the staff for not resuscitating the teenage boy while the staff tried to explain how he managed to die on their watch. The toxicology report simply indicated he had slightly higher concentrations of Trapanal and Pavulon, which could be excused for medical malpractice. Aglio only heard that a doctor was dismissed for the apparent mistake and had his license revoked as a result of the investigation, but that was all he knew. What mattered to Aglio at the moment was how he did what Dante told him to do.
Three days later was Dante’s fifteenth birthday; he would have been considered a legal adult who could handle his finances and medical decisions if he lived a bit longer. The bizarre clause in Dante’s inheritance didn’t give Aglio’s parents any money since Dante passed away first; it was donated to the halfway house Dante was put in between his mother’s death and his adoption. Aglio didn’t care about the money and didn’t join in on his parents’ crocodile tears when they learned that their efforts were in vain. He had them quickly dealt with, killing them swiftly a month later in their sleep, and ran away from home soon after. Sometimes, he wondered whether he should have tortured them more to hear their true intentions himself or to satisfy his vengeance further. He later learned more information about the driver being finally charged and how he was expected to be released in a few years. Street life was difficult to adjust for a rather sheltered, middle-class young boy, but Aglio managed and hardened his mentality to endure it. He carved a name for himself as a stealthy killer over time; after all, no one suspects a child to be capable of murder.
Aglio stopped going to school once Dante died and the former’s parents were dealt with. While the school also showed grandiose support for his older cousin’s journey to recovery, it all ceased once the news of Dante’s passing spread. The neighbors simply thought Aglio ran away from home to be a delinquent once his parents supposedly died in their sleep from a heart attack; the young boy managed to save and find a black market dealer who gave him more Pavulon and Trapanal to use at his pleasure. He would never touch a syringe again, and took nothing but a small backpack with him when he left.
After the death of his parents and running away from home, Aglio began making a name for himself as a freelance child assassin for those who didn’t want to be tied down with mafiosos to do their bidding yet needed a hitman to do a job. Aglio tried to stick to his morals by only killing people he deemed worthy of death and told himself he would stop his assassinations once he is able to kill the driver; he used those few years to train and plan the best way of attack. The underground criminal world knew him by his calling card: a brand new polished Lire coin. The senior assassins made stories about how the coin represented a child’s choice to use it to pay for death instead of ice cream or sweets; others consider it a payment to be made to Charon the ferryman.
The driver that hurt his cousin years ago would eventually be released from prison when Aglio turned fourteen, but Aglio never killed him despite the retellings. A few days after the release, the now-teenage boy found the driver in an empty alleyway full of yesterday’s garbage yet to be picked up. Aglio was initially there trying to cut though some streets and intended to not stay for long. But, the driver’s presence caught his eye and he decided to take the opportunity. The man himself looked homeless, walking aimlessly and muttering to himself as he openly sniffed a noticeable packet of drugs in between his words. The teenage boy decided to approach the man with his trusty killing knife, but the driver immediately noticed him.
“Dante? You’re… alive?”
The man was haggard, wearing clothes that barely clung to his dangerously thin body, and hearing his cousin’s name made Aglio stop in his tracks. “Dio mio,” his bloodshot eyes stared at the teenager in disbelief. “Dante di Nero is here to take my soul.”
“I’m not Dante,” Aglio tried to correct him but the driver continued rambling.
“I should have never taken the money,” the driver dramatically got onto his knees. “I am so sorry, ragazzo. Forgive me and my wretched soul, Dante di Nero. Have mercy!”
“I’m not Dante,” Aglio interjected. “Prepare to die—”
“What would you have done if you were in my position,” the man’s words made Aglio hesitate. “It was wrong but… I owed so much money. My children were starving, the youngest is two… Your parents asked me to just hit him enough to send you to the hospital… they told me it was to teach you a lesson, not whatever they put you through! The mob… the people I owe money to… they just wanted me to kill a kid… they wanted to jerk themselves at witnessing a child get mauled by a car and said I wouldn’t owe them anything if I did what they said. I didn’t know what to do… I thought if I did it drunk, fate could decide for me.” Every time he spoke, he wailed, he flailed his arms, alternating between kneeling, standing, sitting, laying down, and leaning against the walls. The neighborhood they were standing in was extremely poor and poverty-stricken, so the noises he made were rather the norm in the area and brought no other attention.
“Enough,” Aglio snapped out of his hesitancy and began approaching him, ready to immediately execute the man with his knife.
“He seems like a good kid,” the sudden change of pronouns caught the teenage boy off guard. He suddenly began sounding sane, standing up with his back straight before pulling out a pistol that had its safety off already; how it didn’t fire off the whole time was a mystery. Aglio was prepared to fight but watched as the driver simply played with his gun. “I did my best to keep tabs on little Dante,” he continued, “praying he makes it out alive, hearing what the doctors and his parents ordered to do to his body. I didn’t realize how beloved he was, how his funeral was full of his former classmates, how he wanted to make the world a better place… For a second I thought he was still alive when I looked at you, ragazzo. But… alas… You’re not him, and you would never be him.”
Aglio didn’t know how to process the entire situation. It was so strange to hear the thought process of the man and it was enough to distract him from the distant dogs barking and the smell of garbage filling his nose.
“I did my time,” the driver explained. “I wanted to serve it properly, stay as long as I could. If they let me be executed, I wouldn't hesitate to die for my sins. But the mob… they lied about me paying my debts if I tried to kill him in the end. They made me be released earlier and made me watch them kill my family once I got home… I did all of this to make sure they had food on the table… What has my life become? What would you have done if you were me?”
Aglio didn’t answer. He was trying to figure out what to do or say when the man suddenly pointed the pistol at his own temple. The teenage boy tried to stop the driver from pulling the trigger. But, it was all in vain. “I know you’re not him,” the driver repeated his words. “I was hoping though… Hoping that kid was still alive and was staring at me. But, I’m actually talking to his now-grown-up cousin, right? You went by Agent Risotto or was it Agent Aglio? I remember my nephew used to play with you two once. Has anyone told you how much you look just like Dante?”
Without warning, he aimed the gun at his own temple and pulled the trigger. Aglio jumped when the gun was fired, leaving a clean hole where it was fired. He could see a sizzle of smoke burning its outer edges and the bullet coming out on the opposite side. Blood and brain matter splattered in the wall next to the exit point, and Aglio watched as the body slumped onto its knees and fell towards the wall, smearing the gaping wound as it dragged itself down. Aglio swore he saw some bone bits in the mix too, but he didn’t want to dive further into what that mess contained. Either the cops were going to come by soon and clean the mess or some hungry animal would find its next meal first. After a few seconds of shock, Aglio left the alleyway and the driver alone that day and didn’t dare look back at the body. He missed his chance to get proper closure, but at least he didn’t have to think about the man anymore. Without much thought, Aglio left a single Lire coin near the body.
He thought about retiring, taking on a few more hits over the years before thinking about running away to some island to live the rest of his life in obscurity. Aglio considered various next steps, as he no longer had the motivation to live, but began wondering if he should start earning money to accomplish what Dante always wanted to do. He recalled Dante wanting to travel the world, possibly going to Japan as an example, and once told Aglio he wanted to take the younger boy along on his gap year. Aglio only took hits when he needed money and thought killing his next target would be enough for a one-way ticket to Bulgaria to start anew. What Aglio didn’t realize was that it was the last hit he would have become a member of Passione.
Aglio initially didn’t know who his target was beside the commission’s orders. The description told him of a corrupt medical practitioner who was torturing and killing innocent patients and a name. “Dr. Dolcio Cioccolata,” Aglio read the name on the paper out loud the night he received it before burning its contents to destroy any implication of his future mission. He didn’t realize the whole commission was set up by the doctor himself to inact revenge and it was too late for Aglio to turn back once he recognized who his target was supposed to be: Dr. Damien Capaldi himself.
The doctor seemed like he didn’t age a single day since the last time they were together and was accompanied by a man Aglio swore he recognized but couldn’t recall how. The scuffle they got in was a blur to Aglio; he only remembered being badly beaten by an unknown force and subdued before initially believing this was the moment he was going to die. He asked the doctor to just kill him then and there. At this point, the teenage boy could barely breathe with his throat being pinned down by the older man’s weight. The only thing that he could distinctly memorize was how much the doctor smelled like fresh dirt; the rotting scent was different from the dirt Aglio was currently pinned on the ground against.
“Kill you,” Dr. Dolcio asked with the same calming smile at the hospital years ago. “You think after what you did to me for helping you kill your cousin that I would just end your life? No, ragazzo. I have much more planned for you.”
Aglio couldn’t do anything about it. He learned that the doctor that was thrown under the bus for the death of Dante was Dr. Capaldi himself, that he had supposedly spent years trying to find Aglio after suffering from a heart attack shortly after. Along the way, Dr. Capaldi was hired by Passione and worked his way into Father Diavolo’s personal unit of mafiosos before being known now as Dr. Dolcio. He was accompanied by a seemingly frail-appearing man who didn’t hesitate to point his camera at the now-young man every time he showed signs of distress or pain. All Aglio could do was resign to whatever fate the doctor had in mind to pay back what he did. It was a harsh life lesson that began when he was turned to Passione’s custody by the doctor and greeted a Caporegime in Naples who later became his boss.
The Caporegime at the time forced the Stand Arrow on him, as the protocol for any new members wanting to join Passione, and Aglio was then placed into Hitman Team #47 as soon as he received his Stand「Black and White」. Once a calling card for his potential customers, the Lire coin now serves as a reminder of his eternal servitude to the doctor; it was a reminder that no money or offer of similar value could change the situation he was forced into. Only a good chance, a coin flip to some, could free him.
Number 47 was merely an identifier used to differentiate all of the Hitman teams scattered across Italy and Europe under Passione’s control and it was a relatively new team that was given the privilege of personally choosing its new members. Aglio started as a mere lackey but eventually, he found himself a mentor under his team’s leader Sorbetto. He quickly gained the respect of the members that began coming in and was granted the name Aglio Nero as his code name. “I had a young neighbor that used to pretend to be a secret agent with his little cousin once,” Sorbetto began reminiscing about his childhood one day while choosing the new name. “I was way too old to join in the fun at the time, but the older kid out of the two reminds me a lot about you. I think his code name was Aglio, right? Or was it Risotto?”
“Aglio is fine by me,” he wanted the conversation shut down as quickly as possible. He knew who Sorbetto was referring to. Once again, the memories of Dante haunt him.
By the time he got used to his life as a mafioso slave and its grueling work conditions, Aglio and Sorbetto were the only two surviving members left since the former joined. The two were tasked to find brand new members to fill in the gaps once again, with their Caporegime’s blessing to personally choose their members. Sorbetto helped Aglio develop his skills to be a better Stand User and leader and Aglio began opening up about his life to the older man. The team grew from two to ten people, a few more came and went, but the other six he has now were the longest people he got to know under Team #47. Despite Aglio himself being bound to Passione and forced to be a killer for the rest of his life, he began to see his new team as his family and saw their company as a way to distract him from his reality. He saw Dante in each of them in some way, feeling to protect each one of them while beaming with pride when seeing his members excel beyond expectations. He nearly forgot about how bad it was being a part of the mafia and saw his members as the brothers and sisters he always wanted in addition to his cousin.
Dr. Dolcio never disappeared from his life. In addition to his duties with Team #47, Aglio was Dr. Dolcio’s personal lackey tasked to do missions that are often difficult and degrading for even the lowest lackey to consider. The doctor’s assistants, as Aglio and many similar mafiosos were called but not known by, were an open secret in Passione rumored to be indentured servants of Dr. Dolcio made to be his cronies and either pity or distain was given to those who were forced into it. One was at the mercy of the mad doctor during such tenure and it was best that one dies by his hand to end it. If Aglio dared to talk back or didn’t do the orders to Dr. Dolcio’s expectations, it would end up hurting Team #47 back. Giving a quick death to a team member was considered a lighter punishment.
Sorbetto eventually learned of this arrangement and tried his best to be accommodating and understanding, but the deaths of the first few team members, prior to what Team #47 would eventually be know as, were blamed on Aglio’s failure to please the doctor and was a source of initial resentment. It was the few hiccups in the otherwise friendly relationship the two mafiosos of Team #47 had with each other.
As Aglio grew older, he realized he was looking exactly like Dante; it was something his younger self wished for and his current self now dreaded. Dr. Dolcio made an effort to constantly remind the young man of his appearance and use it to degrade the latter further. Aglio began hating his appearance, anything that resembled the cousin he loved was removed from his life as soon as he could; if he could, he would be willing to surgically alter his face and body so no remnant of Dante remained. He began covering up, transitioning from a simple surgical mask he wore during his missions to a full mask that now became part of his infamous appearance. He detested mirrors and any compliment from people in the past that now recognized him as Dante di Nero’s little cousin from years ago; he refused to show his face to anyone but the few people he trusted or did not know of his cousin to make the comparison. He refused to elaborate more on why he wears his mask often and grew anxious when anyone, ally or enemy, tries to take it off. Most of Aglio’s new team members had only known him with his mask and no one dared to ask him to show what was underneath, and many never knew what he actually looked like in the end. Only a few were granted the privilege to see his face and know why he hated it so much.
When Sorbetto died due to an event called The Incident, Dr. Dolcio went out of his way to admit his role in it to anyone who listened and mercilessly taunted Aglio for being indirectly responsible for the brutal death of his former leader. Despite the team wanting to enact revenge against the doctor, Aglio shot down the idea and endured a brief backlash from his subordinates as a result. His words haunted his new subordinates the last time they tried to push for it:
“Sorbetto never existed. Get that in your fucking head.”
He didn’t mean to sound harsh or diminish Sorbetto’s existence at the time, but he had to do what he could to avoid losing more of his men at the doctor’s hands. Dr. Dolcio continued to taunt and make life difficult for Aglio and his team after the latter was made the new leader of Team #47. Any indication of having any solace or way to cope with his situation could be used against him. Through it all, Aglio bore the humiliation and pain in private for the safety of his men. He had no one to hear his struggles, no one to tell about his situation; he feared he would cause more harm than good if anyone heard his troubles and tried to ease his situation in any way. If Aglio could, he’d love to end that man’s life once and for all. If Aglio could, he would end his life to free himself from this permanent servitude. As much as he wanted to die, staying alive would guarantee that he could continue protecting his found family and witness justice prevail one day. Many of them came to Passione in hopes of justice for themselves or as a result of trying to achieve it, and Aglio wanted to do what he could to help them achieve it too.
The leader of Team #47 did what he could to keep himself busy enough that he would not have to think about his past and troubles. No matter how hard he tried, there were still nights when he could barely sleep as these thoughts crept in against his will. Alone or silently if he is around company, he ponders the life that would happen if he never killed his cousin. The hit-and-run replayed in his mind and Aglio grew up realizing he was a few steps away from being the victim instead. The hit, although it injured Dante, would have immediately killed the much younger and smaller Aglio instead. He wondered what would have happened if Dante watched him die or even been the one that performed the assisted suicide. Aglio tried to be optimistic, thinking that Dante would have lived a longer happier life had the former died, but he realized that maybe Dante would be where the current leader of Team#47 was now instead. He once joked to himself that Dante would take on the name Risotto like he took on the name Aglio from their days of pretending to be secret agents.
To Aglio, all of that was speculation.
He would never know of a man named Risotto Nero and the team he led to betray Passione. Risotto would never know of Aglio Nero either.
Translations:
Nonna: grandmother. It is used as a term to describe an elderly woman who may or may not be a grandmother.
Ragazzo: boy.
Pronto!: quickly. In Italy, phone calls are also answered with "pronto" but in this case, it is used in a literal sense.
Ho capito: I understand.
Grazie: thank you.
Dio mio: my God.
Name Meanings:
- Alberto di Nero
- Alberto: Latin variation of the name "Albert", meaning "noble, bright, famous". In reference to Alberto Scorfano from Luca.
- di Nero: Italian for "of Nero". In reference to Risotto Nero.
- Dante
- Dante: From Italian verb "durante", meaning "steadfast, enduring".
- Damien Capaldi
- Damein: Greek name for "to tame, subdue".
- Capaldi: Italian surname from the Italian word "caput", meaning "head". In reference to actor Peter Capaldi and musician Lewis Capaldi.
- Dr. Dolcio
- Dr. Dolcio: Italian word for "doctor sweet". In referene to Docio Cioccolata from JORGE JOESTAR.
- Sorbetto
- Sorbetto: Old Italian word for sorbet. In reference to Sorbet.
CHARACTER INFORMATION:
Name: Aglio Nero (Alberto di Nero)
Occupation: Leader of Hitman Team #47 (Roma-Naples division)
Birthday: November 4th, 1977 (23 years)
Family:
- Mother and Father, biological parents (dead)
- Dante di Nero, cousin and adoptive brother (dead)
Stand: Black and White (Mixtape #000000 & #FFFFFF by The Neighbourhood)
