Chapter Text
"You!" Reborn scowled, so unlike himself.
He didn't know why or how things came to this.
"Me?! Look at yerself!" Mammon huffed in retaliation.
At this point, it's better just accepting it.
"Oya. What an interesting turn of events." Fon chuckled into his fist.
Or pretend that it's just their normal, everyday thing.
"You seeing this sh*t, brother?" Lal nudged Colonnello.
"Yes, unfortunately." The blonde sighed with his hand on his forehead.
Ignore the elephant in the room, Skull. Do whatever you must to keep what's left of your sanity intact.
"What even is this plot twist?" Verde mumbled next to him. "Don't tell me you go to Night Raven too, Skull-shi."
"Skull-sama doesn't know what that is, and at this point, he's too afraid to ask."
"Did you just quote a meme, Skull-shi?! I knew you weren't uncultured like the rest of them!"
The Cloud didn't know what to think of this Verde.
It's been 33 years they've known each other since the Curse, the nonexistent extra ten notwithstanding. 40 years was the time it took for Skull to muster up enough courage (and certainty that the others wouldn't kill him -or try to- on the spot for his deception) to come clean.
The surprise came in the form of the others offering to share their secrets too. Even Mammon!
Look how well that turned out.
He sat next to the scientist wishing for a bowl of popcorn as the riot rose in intensity.
Apparently, it all started with some cliché reincarnation plot of all things.
For however long he could remember of his childhood, he was an orphan. And no matter how much he hoped it would change someday, it never did.
[August 8th (1898) - Somewhere in July (1914)]
Born in the slums of Berlin and abandoned by his birth-givers, a baby was found shrieking by the dumpsters in a cold, dirty alleyway, grimy black hair tussled by sweat and puffy dark brown eyes overflowing with tears.
To the adults, his cries fell on deaf ears.
He was picked up by kids not much older than himself, and raised by children who could barely scrape by.
Despite that, he was loved.
And he loved them.
He had brothers and sisters of varying ages, those who were there when he spoke -babbled, more like- his first words. They were there when he fist bobbled his baby steps. They celebrated many of his firsts, and the others' too.
(They weren't there when he first died.)
They named him "Schädel", for the birthmark he had on his belly, just over his liver, that was in the shape of a skull. It was believed that birthmarks are 'scars' left from how you died in your previous life. They had a field day speculating about his, while pick-pocketting and stealing bread.
Their lives certainly weren't easy, but they were happy with one another.
Until it all went down the drain sixteen years later, when war was brewing in the horizon and all men capable are to be drafted for the army.
You can see how tempting street kids are in this situation.
Schädel and some of his older brothers were finally caught. In fear of the corrupt authorities harming their siblings, they were forced to play by the rules.
They were branded with numbers and given training for a few weeks before they were literally shoved onto the battlefield.
Days of marching exhausted their strength, they had little left to stand when the war truly starts.
War makes people desperate. For money, for fame, and so on. Schädel's own stemmed from his inextinguishable need to protect his family, to give them a peaceful life free of pain and suffering, free of worries and despair.
Barely lucid and barely functional, he could only watch as his brothers were gunned down trying to protect him in their last moments.
He watched as his other teammates who he'd only started to acquaint himself with became little more than target practices.
And that's when his control -which he'd held on for all his life- snapped. Schädel saw red.
Enemies and comrades alike, he tore through them with no mercy, no rationality to care for which cause the opposing sides were striving for.
When he came to, he was looking up at the sky.
The battle raged on around him, but all he could hear was silence.
Belatedly, he recalled having been shot multiple times, either by bullets or by tank rounds, and flattened by a tank when it was clear that he wasn't going down.
So why does he still taste the bitterness of smoke and burnt bodies on his tongue and see ashes in the clouds, even though he should have joined his brothers in the cycle of rebirth?
The stifling quietness was suddenly broken by a ripping, squelching sound not dissimilar to tearing flesh. He blinked when part of his vision returned to him, along with the nerves on the side of his head, and then screamed.
[TW: Explicit Depictions of Gore]
Gunfire and explosions assaulted his ringing ears, but it was trumped by painpainPAIN burning his nerves like tossing him alive into a tub of potent acids, increased tenfold by what he felt was harpoons continuously shooting into his innards to rip them out one by one, tearing them up like piranhas fighting for their share.
He howled in agony, at one point losing his voice, but the pure terror in his face persisted. His throat was dry. He was choking up on mucus, spit and blood. His body spasmed, and his eyes were blown wide, bloodshot and dilated while tears just won't stop streaming.
When the torment simmered down into numbness, he could still feel the phantom sensations of the evidence of what future him would realize to be his first, brutal end.
[Explicit Gore ends, Warning: Blood]
Sitting up, he saw his pants missing some parts at the knees, torn off and bloodied though only a long, faint scar that spanned the width of his calf was left. His shirt was also shredded and riddled with bullet holes, but no wound remains. He felt nothing.
Schädel crawled to his knees -with significant struggle- to try and hide away from the ongoing bloodshed, and hopefully, return to his family in the slums of Berlin where it wasn't bitterly cold and bring his siblings far, far away from there, to somewhere safe.
His brothers were dead and he's yet to mourn them, but he knew them well enough to know that they'd shank his ass if he doesn't save himself first. That's why they died after all, despite how in vain their deaths have been, they'd do it again and again.
That's what brothers do, he supposes, wiping the tear tracks. I'd die for them too.
(And he did, all the while killing their killers, because that's the least he could do for them.)
On a hitchhiked train heading out of the country, the last one in who knows how long, he told them. The remaining members of their ragtag family. Still wearing the partly-destroyed military garments on top of stolen clothes. Still bathed in blood, whether his own or others'.
They grieved together.
He never quite felt lonely.
[1918]
They lived like they did back in Berlin: always on the move, avoiding the cops, and 'scavenging' for food.
Life had been going relatively well for them.
Until Schädel was caught in the act by the people whom he had been stealing from.
'This is the end' was what he'd thought, but the old couple didn't hand him over.
In fact, the woman in charge had offered him a place in their circus. "Put those cat-like reflexes to good use" she'd said, "then you won't have to go hungry."
"A circus, in the middle of war?" He'd scoffed with a healthy amount of suspicion, accentuated bt his slightly accented English. They weren't offended. In fact, her husband had laughed.
"Give it a try, sonny." He said in response to the teen's doubt. "Who knows, maybe you'll see the beauty in performances the way we do."
Reluctant as he was, he tested the waters anyways, figuring that if he gets paid he could get more things for the younger ones. It's not like he had anything to lose anymore, because as far as he was concerned, he never told them about his family.
To his affrontment, he found out that it was actually fun.
[1920]
War was coming to a close in Europe and its surrounding countries. At the same time, acrobat and stuntbiker Crane's popularity was rising in the US.
To avoid having to explain why he still looks so young after some years of being twenty-ish, his siblings insisted he wears makeup when he's at the circus.
(Ever since he died, it was like his body has been slowly going through metamorphosis.
His hair has been steadily turning mauve from the scalp. Everytime one of his older sisters cut it, she would always comment on how he's transforming into an eggplant, to his exasperation.
He ignored how she still treated him like a baby, because he looked so young.
He would look into a mirror and see the creeping purple in his irises while his pupils shrunk more and more every few years.
He was also abnormally strong for someone with sticks for limbs. That strength was what allowed him to ride a bike in the first place.)
That year, that very year believed to be cursed by the Gods themself, the damn '20's where everything goes to sh*t, he lost his family a second time.
There was a terrorist attack in their state. The circus' tent burned down taking along with it the lives of everybody present.
He was among those killed.
Schädel returned to his siblings, burnt rubber and leather still sizzling, eating into his flesh, scorched hair fully a bright violet and eyes glowing like purple nightlights.
It was the second time he'd died.
'Crane' was placed next to the number he used to go by, another name to mourn the lost.
