2 am

Kyouya pauses just long enough to inform his mother by text that one of his uncles took him back to Namimori as well as mail the phone there in case she checks the GPS.

His mother is always country hopping as a full-time leader of the hunters and she won't bother to check too closely, so he has two months at the most before she notices. She tends to visit for a few hours every couple of months and they'll spar before she moves on, therefore he'll just drop in when she checks and then leave once more. Simple enough.

As soon as the phone is on its way, he steps onto a plane headed for the most supernaturally populated country. It's not because he actually wants to meet the creatures, it's more because he's been told he can't, so of course he does.

He immediately runs into trouble.

Before he was pulled out of hunter training he only had the basics down, and everything else he taught himself with the meagre information he could smuggle into Namimori.

So while it's true that Kyouya may not be able to name the biggest threats or command with words of power fluently, it's also true that he can still take a few low level herbivores whose weakness is as painfully blatant as their race.

He arrives in Italy and straight away encounters a noisy group of fallen who he then bites to death.

...

Squalo spirals out of control as he plunges through the sickly green clouds that look about to spit acid rain, his form nothing more than a dark, writhing mass of shadow as he breaks through the barrier between realms and enters the poisonous atmosphere of the Underworld.

Belphegor, Levi and Lussuria are falling along with him, all bleeding wisps of dark red shadow from their injuries.

They hit the ground and crater the rust red rocks, their fall obliterating the large hill they landed on and the shockwave washes over the land with harsh winds and dust. They all feel the few points of life scattered around the desolate landscape blink out, killed from a mixture of the Varia landing and their overwhelming rage.

"Fuck," Squalo snarls in the guttural demon language as he hauls himself up out of the deep hole his body made when it impacted the ground. "What the fuck was that?"

"An angel," Belphegor spits out, staggering to his feet as the shadows fall off him and his body solidifies. "What else could take us down?"

Lussuria rises slowly, his legs threatening to give out. "Not even angel made wounds last the trip to hell," he says through gritted teeth. "Why are we still injured?"

The worst hits they took are now heavy bruising and the lightest are completely gone, but nothing should have lasted the trip through worlds. When you cross bridges you move bodies, shedding everything that you are and becoming something entirely different.

That's why dissimilar races can only use the portals their kind can make, unless someone powerful is with them and controlling the transport. It's not often seen, both because the races don't really get along and because of the experience necessary. It also takes immense power and concentration to keep a preferred body or even just a feature, which adds to the strain.

The different forms in each world have variable strengths and weaknesses as well. If someone threw holy water on a demon in Hell, they'd laugh and crush the offender's skull. On Earth it'll burn like the strongest acid, and in Heaven more than a few drops is fatal.

Levi huffs and lurches up, but falls to a knee when his body fails. "Boss will know what it was."

The other three still abruptly. If they went to Xanxus with the news that they were beaten by someone unknown -someone not an Alpha or a Guardian- they'll get slaughtered.

The Varia are the strongest fallen in all the worlds. Their bodies hold the weaknesses of both demons and angles yet they also have the strengths of both races. The strongest of them, the Alpha fallen, is a man called Xanxus.

Xanxus, if he fights seriously, is a complete monster on the battlefield, able to take on any Alpha suicidal enough to challenge him. If he was actually serious, Squalo isn't sure the Arcobaleno would be able to take Xanxus down.

"Shit," Squalo grumbles. "We have to tell him."

"Not everything," Belphegor cuts in. "We tell him about the creature and we make guesses about its strength, but we leave out the fight."

"I can heal the rest," Lussuria chimes in. "The wounds are small."

The three turn to Levi only to see him already gone.

"Catch the asshole!" Squalo roars and his body snaps to a heavy mist, shooting up from the ground and developing a vicious spiral as he flies towards the Varia compound.

Lussuria and Belphegor take off as well but Levi moves as fast as lightning when his precious boss is involved.

They slam in through the doors, the darkness melting away into a solid form, and come to a halt as Xanxus looks up from his wine glass to pin them with a glare.

Levi kneels at the side of Xanxus' throne, gazing up at the Varia boss with an awed look. "So what was it, boss?" Levi asks. "An angel?"

Xanxus ignores the man and instead sweeps his eyes across the three, taking in the bruises and small cuts. "What did it look like?" he asks calmly, taking a sip of wine.

"Nothing," Squalo replies back. He sighs and shakes his head. "There were no defining features; no tails or sharp teeth, in fact it didn't change forms at all throughout the entire fight. No bragging about its race or its leader or becoming an Alpha either. No obvious prejudice against fallen or demons - and fuck, but I don't think it knew our names."

Xanxus stills. "How did it fight?"

"No words of power," Lussuria speaks up. "It didn't say much at all, in fact. No chants or symbols or spells or summoning. It moved fast but not like a vampire, and gracefully but not like a fey. All it had was two metal batons, but they weren't even made of titanium."

Titanium, all those aware of the supernatural know, is the one substance that will affect all non-humans. It could turn a simple, pesky bullet into something that actually pierces skin, and could burn the fey while it purified spirits.

Most weapons are made of titanium with a different substance for the grip. Squalo's sword, Lussuria's knee plate, Bel's knives and Xanxus' bullets - all of it is titanium.

The fact that it didn't need the metal to forcefully send the Varia commanders on retreat meant its threat level rose exponentially.

Xanxus uncrosses his ankles from the footstool and sits up in his chair, placing the glass on a side table. "How old?"

"I don't know," Belphegor shrugs. "It didn't have the aura of age or supernatural power. It had no traditional markings or decorations to prove how old it was either. It didn't use fighting moves that could be traced to a specific era or race or country or dimension, and it didn't speak enough for me to get a read on its competency with colloquial speech."

Xanxus growls and stands, stalking over to them. "You keep saying 'it wasn't' or 'it didn't have'. What do you know about it?"

"It was a boy," Levi says, still kneeling beside the chair.

Xanxus whips around. "Excuse me?"

"It looked like a boy," Levi corrects. "Maybe seventeen, wearing clothes like it just stepped out of school and had a red armband with a bird sown in gold thread. Belphegor accidentally cut the armband and it said 'I'll bite you to death' before taking out its weapons."

Xanxus stares for a moment before turning to the other three who nod in confirmation.

"And boss," Squalo begins quietly. "It had the face of the Arcobaleno Fon and the Vongola Alaude."

The Varia boss grits his teeth. "Hunter then?" he snaps out.

"He didn't use any hunter tricks," Belphegor says with a head shake. "We said before, no chants or symbols, and even hunters have a supernatural aura because they're using the creatures they capture as steroids."

"Are you telling me that it was a fucking human?" Xanxus snarls. "That it was a little boy without anything to help but two fucking tonfa that aren't even titanium?"

No one replies.

"Get out," Xanxus says quietly and then roars. "Get the fuck out!"

They jolt and immediately make their way outside. The door shuts without anyone touching it and the symbols on the wood grow dark and give off wisps of shadow. No sound gets through and the four give each other looks.

"Well, you all messed up."

They whirl around to find Fran standing there with hands in his pockets and a bored look on the man's face.

...

Xanxus flicks his hand and the door slams behind the four, the symbols awakening according to his command.

He exhales out a slow breath and lets the smirk show on his face.

Arcobaleno's Fon and Vongola's Alaude are hunters from the Hibari family. Stretching all the way back to when the supernatural first stepped on Earth, the Hibari were right there as strict enforcers.

Hunters use whatever they can get their hands on to get a boost over their opponents. Symbols and words of power from demons and angels, injections of pure werewolf strength or glasses made of fey eyes to see past illusions, clothes drenched in dead man's blood and weapons of titanium.

Hunters are just as dangerous as the supernatural, they have to be to keep up. In fact more than twelve centuries ago they were officially classed as supernatural, too warped by their tricks to be classed as human with how much the bodies change during their training.

However, until the Alpha hunter's sons, everyone thought them barely able to keep up with the more powerful races, simply not good enough to push past that barrier into the big leagues.

Then Fon stepped in one day when one of the strongest demons got loud on Earth and he actually forced them back. Then another Arcobaleno goes up top to see and Fon pushed them back down. Again and again, every time, he could match up.

It caused a tidal wave in the supernatural circles.

The demons are different from most supernatural hierarchies since it's not just one Alpha that rules them but eight equally strong monsters called the Arcobaleno. So of course everyone was sceptical but the stories spread and soon Fon actually joined the Underworld.

There was a sudden influx of spying missions, hundreds of creatures sent to observe the hunters, all trying to answer the same question: were they holding back their strength or was Fon just a different breed altogether?

The Vongola right hand got a bit too slack in his discretion and strayed too close to the other brother, promptly getting his ass handed to him. Alaude was suddenly there, just as powerful as his older brother, and once more stories spread.

There were whispers of a third brother, much younger and barely able to speak without a childish lisp, but no one could find any record of him much less catch a glimpse and the rumours died down.

The eyes of the Otherside tracked the two brothers, watching them take on bigger roles in the Arcobaleno and Vongola. Over time, with how much angelic and demonic magic used by them, their bodies started to be converted.

They're half hunter and half supernatural at this point, and they're only growing stronger with the change, developing supernatural strengths with none of the weaknesses. The two men are both feared and looked up to for their insane strength as well as genius minds.

And now Xanxus has a lock on the unknown third brother.

The Varia boss throws back his head and laughs.