Chapter 8: LXXI-LXXX 1/2

Author's Note : Couple more things, peeps. I kinda feel like the old grandpa from Jackie Chan Adventures writing that.

One more thing! One more thing! One moorre thing! I... am a dirty, dirty liar on the subject of updates.

One: Hayato Gokudera's five Flames, Cloud Flame copy fakes, Sonya's initial multi-flame coloring and a few other questions were raised in the last round of reviews. Point being, I do know about the issues and have answers but they're storyline points for later. Can't address them yet, because one is a scene coming up next chapter, another won't be in here until the Arcobaleno days, and poor Gokudera is about twenty years from being born. In other words, if I haven't gotten back to you yet wait for the story to get there so I can explain why certain things went certain ways without potentially giving away the plot screws I have.

Other news: For my own sake, I didn't plan on this being a very long story. That's why the scenes are all thousand word snapshots of Sonya's life. That's no longer holding true and I WAS WRONG. I can barely keep up with my plan for the fic, more things keep getting added in to be their own scenes later on, and getting derailed again is very likely. It's not going to explode, the scene word count that is, anytime soon but it might in future chapters. If you don't know the Déjà vu no Jutsu story I wrote for the Naruto-verse, go to my profile page and take a look at the word count. This will probably end up being that long too, with twice the chapter count no less, and spawn it's own damn drabble continuation if it keeps on building popularity like this.

I'm not really looking forward to that, because while the number of reviews I got for Déjà vu was awesome… the harassment at the end alone made it not worth it. I was just as happy finally finishing a story as I was thankful I wouldn't have to read more irritating and condescending reviews for it by the epilogue.

Lastly, as warning. Apparently almost everyone likes the idea of a Reborn/Sonya pairing. If that is what you're all driving for, you've got a long ass wait until either of them even admit anything on their own ends. (Fong?, Fēng?, Fon? Going with the one that doesn't make me want to pronounce the name with a 'g' because I know that's wrong) Fon actually got a mention, somehow. I do kind of wonder if I should have waited until I managed to introduce more than just two canon characters before asking what you all wanted.

As for other canon characters, you all realize that except for Luce and Fon no other Arcobaleno were mafia before they joined up right? The Man in the Iron Hat/Checkerface/Uncle Kawahira isn't exactly a believer in Omertà or any other petty human security measure around Flames. I barely managed to shove Reborn in here with a believable reason for it. Verde was a scientist, Viper an illusionist/Esper probably working just as solo, Lal Mirch and Colonello are both in the Italian Army's Special Forces before they join the underworld as Arcobalenos. In this story, most of the cast list haven't even been born yet.

Err… ages? Sonya's thirteen to just shy of fourteen in this, Cherep turns fifteen just before the end, Tatiana's fifteen at the start of this, Renato's eighteen now to just-nineteen in the end, so on so forth.

(Guest)OwlFie – Yeah… and guess what? I got time, started browsing, went 'hey, that looks like some fandom someone recommended to me before', clicked on it, and now I'm a junky with my own fic. All your fault.

Edited (4/25/2017) - General story corrections and additions.

Edited (3/19/2018) - Final formatting and minor corrections.

Edited (9/6/2018) - Minor corrections.

Russian Roulette : Reloaded

LXXI-LXXX

LXXI (Tuesday the 17th of December, 1963. Arseniy & Lisa's home, Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)

Comparing results from all of Sonya's fellow Zolotov Dying Will Flame users got her several rather strange theories to ponder.

The 'Dying' part… wasn't necessary. Flame users didn't have to face death to use their Flames or find it in the first place. As seen with Mists, Dmitriy, and Tatiana, it was possible to gain the ability to use their inner fire without ever really facing the possibility of death.

Dying Will Flames were probably named such since escaping death was the way it was discovered, not because defying death with one's own will was required.

Conversely… one gaining their Flames by defying death seemed to give the best results right away.

Cherep never would have survived as a child unless he had all the Flame and power he could muster to sustain his life in the face of lethal injuries. He had next to no conscious control with them, they wouldn't train him up until they had the security the clan wouldn't get around, but Sonya wasn't nearly as strong as he was in Cloud Flames even with three years of using it instead of her own muscles.

Learning that control would probably still mean defying death was the fastest way to go about using Flames if one didn't care about the side-effects, depending on how hard her best friend turned foster brother found developing control.

Tatiana showed remarkable progress catching up to Dmitriy, who was a full year and some ahead of her in using their respective Flames. The redhead Classical Sun user was very motivated, compared to the Inverted Rain who was merely going along with learning just because.

The safecracker's willpower to learn the Activation healing ability first also meant she wasn't doing too well in any other path a Sun should be showing, a mixed blessing when it came to the 'efficiency' aspect a Sun had. Exuberant without the annoying levels of peppy-ness as she was, it was getting worse and better all at the same time. Being more efficient with her energy meant Tatiana could do more, she was fast catching up to Cherep in the energy levels she had on a day-to-day basis.

If the Sun's muscle tone started fading, then they would have to give her more training to do. It hadn't happened yet in the half a year she had been learning her Flame, even with the new ability to heal small cuts and bruises the teenaged Sun just recently discovered she could finally do. Lisa was on the lookout now, so they would have to see.

Dmitriy seemed to have the most level growth of them all, if a lot slower than anyone else. Tranquility being what it was, he had grown to the point he tended to stop the engines he was working on if he got too distracted or into his work. The mere fact he could stop machinery with the ability provided him enough interest in trying to Tranquilize a living thing on purpose, but the best he could do now was put the housecat at headquarters to sleep without a gemstone in hand.

It was debatable if the Rain had managed it himself or if the feline had become bored and decided on a nap.

He had not gotten to the point of drawing out his Flames, but the chunk of blue jade he settled on as a better focus did radiate a watery kind of visible energy if he pushed it hard enough. He cracked his jade if so, and after the second time he had to come back for a replacement she had threatened to make him pay cash for his next one.

Sonya herself was halfway between her siblings in how she approached her Flames. A sharp jolt of death defying got her using them, but she poured effort into learning how to control them afterwards.

The result was a mix bag of good and bad. The half-step forward one step sideways way she was making progress was irritating, but she was rapidly getting back to where she thought she had been.

She was seriously thinking of pulling Tatiana's Lightning girl into the mix they had going but knew her limitations well enough that she'd probably botch the invitation. Galina wouldn't be going anywhere, and eventually either the redhead or the brunette herself would notice the Flame… or the group would risk death somewhere and then it would pop out.

Inverted Lightning, anyways. Galina would respond better to her gang's leader than said gang's leader's younger sister.

There seemed to be a very, very bad habit of any Flame user to think of any others around them in terms of possible Flame type. Sonya was perfectly guilty of it, having already identified the likely primary Flame of everyone around her and even got to guessing secondary possibilities.

She had a wonder if it had any impact on her greater social ability, or if her greater social grasp was responsible for her finally looking outward to the people around her.

She did wonder about her Classic Cloud nature, on the other hand. In her own opinion, she was back to being normal. As she dimly recalled being from Rachel, a lifetime ago.

Her first years as a Zolotov thief had been rather icy by choice, she hadn't known what the hell had been going on. Hadn't felt safe or secure enough to talk to others and so she hadn't and just worked up the skills to just defend herself.

To be honest, she still didn't know what the hell had happened with her biological parents. It might not have been good in Saratov with them, but it hadn't been bad either.

…

Sonya had moved.

A Classically natured Cloud, who moved from her home territory to a different one. One which might have another, older Classic Cloud in it… Aleksandr was entirely Cloud-like, in a way. To be honest, so was Arseniy.

She hadn't thought so, because everyone knew Clouds were territorial and possessive. Two in the same area would be asking for someone to die.

…ah.

Oh.

Well… old wives' tales and nature vs nurture. What happened if a baby Cloud was raised by another?

Trained by another?

Placed in their territory and expected to raise her?

Had her situation ever happen before?

More worryingly, was she going to have a problem with the vory in a few years?

Aleksandr… that would suck, she went to him for any and all weapon or fighting problems.

Arseniy… well, the man was practically her father. Especially since her biological one up and abandoned her to the Mafiya.

Sonya closed her research journal.

She needed more information, before she panicked.

LXXII (Tuesday the 17th of December, 1963 continued. Arseniy & Lisa's home, Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)

Arseniy listened to her recent wonderings blandly, chewing through what was for him his breakfast even if it was high noon. "So, what happens if I don't use your Flame stuff?"

Sonya dropped into a chair across the kitchen table from him, wondering the same thing.

Dying Will Flame use was kind of like opening Pandora's Box. You got a mess of good and bad all jumbled together depending on how you went about opening the damn thing… but that was only after you started using it.

Apparently the better you got at it, the more it affected you. Worse, it started slowly and snowballed from there.

"I… don't know?"

A lot of people never activated their Dying Will, simply because they never needed it or knew it was possible if they had. An equal measure of the same people might but might never again use if after one or two occasions and merely think it a 'miracle' or a 'coincidence'.

A fraction of that might end up in the underworld trying to understand, along with the children of their predecessors and other mafia members.

Then everyone got sucked into Omertà and very few ever got out again… barring their own death.

"Then stop panicking about it. If it happens, it happens." The vor shrugged the issue off almost callously. "So far as I'm concerned, this just means in ten or so years after you move out you won't be the one to come back asking for room and board."

She stifled the probably hysterical giggle, because that was not something she was used to doing.

"Pack off, girl. You've got Aleksandr's this afternoon."

"Yes sir… um…"

"What?"

She slunk back into the chair she had almost slipped out of, cringing slightly. "What, um… happened to my parents?"

Arseniy sighed at the question, lowering his fork instead of taking his next bite of food, then scowled heavily into the air over her head. "I regret to inform you that your mother is dead. Very dead. Sorry."

He didn't sound it.

Sonya eyed him warily. "That's nice… you didn't get her then?"

"For trying her hand at child slavery? With her own daughter?" The expression on his face twisted darkly, and from how he was gripping his fork it almost seemed as if he really had wanted to stab her mother. "She's lucky it wasn't me. Her own problems caught up with her. No, I caught up with your father."

"…is he alive?"

"Define alive."

She probably shouldn't ask, the asshole abandoned her without a backwards look, but… "Among the living?"

"Yes."

"Actually living?"

"In a way."

Her foster father didn't want to tell her, obviously. The man was alive, and Sonya was morbidly curious if she had to watch out for him or not. "In one piece?"

"Nope."

That was way too cheerful for the topic. Especially for his prior expression.

"In what way?"

"…missing the family jewels." Arseniy stabbed his eggs a couple times as his left eye twitched irritably. "He had an emergency vasectomy done to save his miserable life."

…Sonya didn't want to know. That whole mess was painful and rather screwed up to begin with, what with her life as Rachel preventing any connecting she could've done with them.

Then… apparently her mother tried to sell her to cover her debts. Not to the Zolotovs obviously, but she hadn't known that at the time.

Which was baffling and rather sore subject matter the blonde didn't like to think on often.

What the hell had she done to deserve that?

"Aw hell. Don't cry." Dropping the fork on his plate and running a hand roughly through his hair in frustration, the vor eyed her closely. "We weren't going to tell you until much later on. He's… okay, he was a whiny little shit when I was dealing with him. Might have been the subject matter, that. But he got you somewhere safe first before running, it… counts?"

If she had been feeling better, or the subject was different, that would've been funny. No wonder Lisa dealt with the girls more often than he did back in the beginning, he sucked at being nice.

Sonya… kind of wanted to go hit things. It sounded nice, mindless destruction and maybe a spar or two with Ziven.

"He's alive, and you're the only kid he'll ever have. You get to decide if you want to see him, but I'm insisting on being there for that."

This was the most she had ever heard Arseniy say all at once if it wasn't Mafiya lesson oriented. "Okay."

He eyed her yet again, only a touch warily from what she could tell. Probably making sure she was alright like she claimed.

She hadn't been the best daughter ever in either life, really. There hadn't been a lot of expectation in her first one as Rachel and nothing done as Sonya.

She had tried?

A little at least, staying out of the way had seemed to be what they wanted.

…no, she wasn't going to dwell. The thief had things to do, she could think on what-ifs and the like much, much later. Probably end up thinking on it in the middle of the night, as it was.

It wasn't like she could demand answers out of her mother now.

"I'm… going to go, then."

His response was a rather pained sounding sigh. "You sure you don't want to talk to Lisa? First at least?"

Sonya didn't even know what she felt about the mess, talking about it just yet probably wouldn't help. "I'm going to go destroy Aleksandr's floor again, then maybe."

He didn't say anything as she slipped out of the kitchen, but she knew perfectly well he was probably still watching her.

To top off her rather bad day, Tatiana and Cherep were waiting for her in the living room looking way too guilty. It was harder to catch now, but her foster sister's smile was brittle looking and while her best friend might look less like a girl at fourteen… the wet-cat looks were still a dead giveaway.

"We're not talking about it until I've decided what I feel about it."

"Fair enough." Tatiana spoke up quickly, flashing a guilty look to the doorway behind her to where a vor might lurk if shadowing her movements. "So… combat practice. Yay."

She palmed her face, not even needing to look to know her foster brother was trying to say something but coming up blank with what it should be so he was just leaving his mouth open like a beached fish. "Let's just go."

LXXIII (Sunday the 5th of January, 1964. Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)

Hormones were terribly nasty things, especially when it came to little girls.

Sonya supposed she qualified for young teenager now, again, but her thirteen-year-old self was just as short and gangly as her twelve-year-old one. She maybe did a bit of growing in a vertical sense, but she was growing like Cherep did in beginning.

All sharp elbows and knees for the first bit.

At least her unbalanced body chemistry picked a semi-decent person for her to develop the world's most awkward crush upon.

Tatiana developed a crush on Dmitriy way back in the day, when the girls had still been sort of frosty as sisters. Her subconscious picked Arseniy to have her first crush on.

The vor, who very probably was the one to mutilate her father for abandoning her to the Mafiya and running for it when his wife got herself into more than just a bit of trouble. The same man who patted the foster siblings on the head when they had another birthday or did something remarkable, the same way someone would pat a dog on the head for doing a trick.

That man.

The one who was pretty much the foster father out of their ragtag little family unit.

Lisa at least thought it was sweet and amusing. It really was the only highlight of the younger thief's rocky start to her developing years, the fact the vor's actual lover didn't seem to mind too much. The older woman could be scary sometimes, and entirely sadistic when she thought she had to prove she could be a terrifying person to oppose.

Well… that, and the fact she hadn't ended up crushing on Sinclair. That bloody bastard would've been insufferable if he caught on, he still flirted with the waitresses when they had coffee.

Cherep would've been awkward about any crush on him too, now that she thought about it.

Of course, that would be if it all wasn't a little awkward already between the younger generation in the house. Added on top of her development problems, the atmosphere in their home got strange quickly when she was included.

Really, she just wanted to crawl into bed and pretend the next year had gone by already. It had started out rather badly, didn't look to be getting better anytime soon, and if she didn't have things she had to do she might have tried it anyways to avoid Arseniy.

Terribly timed crush or not, the news the vor gave her about her parents had been depressing.

Sonya still couldn't make out what the hell she felt about it all, the fact her mother ran afoul of her own plans backfiring or her father's response to it… or the way he ended up afterward.

Vor were not nice people. They did try to safeguard the children around them and could be a little more than just sexist sometimes.

A not even five-year-old girl getting abandoned on the doorstep of their recruiting efforts?

She wasn't remotely surprised with what Arseniy had done. If she had been more vindictive or violently inclined she might have thought to do it herself if she had ever caught up with her fath- with Nikshin Mikhail.

Curled up on her bed, she was currently trying to put the whole situation out of her head as she tried calling up her Flames without a gemstone. Sonya could and tended to do it every spare moment she could, but the multi-colored fire hadn't showed up again after her first breakthrough with them.

It was either a small wash of violet tinted fire on her palm, a tongue of red fire that licked up her fingers, or a couple fitful yellow sparks spat at her. The more she worked with one the less response she got from the others, which she had no idea how to counter.

The Sun was nearly gone as it was, the last reaction she got from it was a flash of a spark. Only the one, and it refused to pop again no matter what she tried.

Holding the working Flames steady and in place was proving rather difficult. Her first attempts to do it intentionally had proved herself to be a bit of a fire hazard. There was a charred mark on her bedroom desk when her left hand had lit up and not her right like she expected. Which only reminded her that will-Flame or not it was still a fire-based ability and fires was a hazard to watch out for.

Balanced on her bedside table was a cup of water, which Lisa had informed her would be present any time she tried the Flame calling exercise. Partially in response to scenting the smoke before the thief could inform her of the problem and being very unamused at the firebug she had suddenly turned into.

She was really waiting for Cherep to decide on if he wanted to try talking to her or not. He had been dithering over the decision outside her bedroom door. In the meantime, she played with her Flames because it was ridiculously soothing thing to do with a spare moment.

"Err… Sonya?"

"You done being awkward yet?"

"Me?" He squawked, both looking and sounding offended as he edged into view. "I… erm… yes?"

Her dork of a foster brother fidgeted, the blonde thief sighed.

Then she wondered… if she slapped her face with a palm full of Flames would it burn her?

Maybe just singe her hair?

…that would be bad if she burned her eyebrows off. Eyelashes too.

Huh.

Did hair count as 'no personal harm'?

It had to, right?

Otherwise there would be a lot of bald Flame users wandering around.

"How am I any different from last month, pray tell?" She asked him flatly, trying to get the colors she had to appear at the same time and go up different fingers.

The Cloud Flames in her left obeyed her fine, the tiny amount of Storm Flames in her right spluttered all over the place. No yellow sparks at all.

Damn it.

It wasn't like she really understood how she did it. It seemed as if she wanted hard enough the Flames appeared and if she didn't they just went away. There wasn't any grasping for some fire power she never noticed or finding something internally that correlated to the ability.

Her Flame just was, and conversely it wasn't, at the same time.

Want, willpower, seemed to be the only controlling factor. Thought didn't do jack but distract her.

That was, once past the whole issue of 'being on fire and not getting burned is impossible' mental roadblock… or the whole 'internal rainbow-colored fire power' thing.

Why the hell were Dying Will Flames named after weather-related phenomena?

"Um… you're not?"

"So why are you still standing in the doorway?"

Cherep considered the question, looking backwards at the hallway wall behind him. "Fire safety. You're a little… combustible right now."

Sonya suddenly didn't miss her best friend as much as she thought she had. "You… are a brat sometimes."

"And you're on fire. Really, Sonya. Safety first you know."

He stopped looking so smug when she tossed her cup of water into his face.

LXXIV (Thursday the 23rd of April, 1964. Mafia Land.)

Sonya came to a stupid, utterly belated realization that Flame-resistant metal actually meant it was Flame resistant. Not just resistant to the damage Flame users tended to cause.

She felt like a moron for half a minute.

Then she decided that if Propagating Flame resistant metal drained her of Cloud Flames so fast, it was a pretty decent control exercise anyways. She didn't feel as moronic after that.

It had taken her about half a year to realize it, and by then she was already really attached to her Bec de Corbin and its miniature-super sized party trick.

Sonya might still be popping spinel jewels like batteries every time she used one of the mini-polearms she had. It was a decent price to pay for a staff weapon she could carry around on her in plain sight, in broad daylight, and never be arrested over.

As her three original mini Bec de Corbins were all made out of Flame resistant metal they'd do as a weapon against other Flame users. Rather expensive weapons, but decent.

Now she needed a semi-decent metal to make a little less Flame-resistant polearms out of but one that still wouldn't shatter under her hands, in hopes she wouldn't be buying or stealing spinel jewels for the rest of her life. If she could find a better alloy or metal mix, maybe she wouldn't need nearly as many jewels to regulate her Cloud Flames through one.

Problem was… she knew more about jewels, crystal formations, and such more than she knew about actual metal, minerals, alloys and their properties. Aleksandr didn't know anything about Flames and what they could do, only slightly about weapons and their makes as he did more makeshift combat teaching, so his help had been limited. That stumped them until she decided to see what Mafia Land had in stock and if she could get any without being questioned too closely.

While she was at it, maybe some way to carry around her mini-polearms in easy reach?

Like a… necklace, or something less likely to choke herself. Bracelets… pocketed bracers?

A magnetic pin maybe?

…was Flame resistant metal magnetic?

If this questioning thing kept up at the rate she had been going, Sonya was going to need a damn shopping list.

Her latest Mafia Land heist, a semi-decent one that asked her to steal the emblem of a rival business out of the owner's office, hadn't been too bad. It had a security force internally, so it wasn't so easy a rookie thief could do it and for all that she stole one thing it at least warned her she wasn't getting a sign-on bonus to pay her way there or back.

It had paid rather well after the fact anyways, so in a good mood and with money to spare the baby Cloud Flame user was not terribly surprised or upset when the invasion alarms sounded.

The reason she never tended to stay in Mafia Land long was entirely due to the fact it was an island of mafia related businesses that cohabitated. Eventually now and again, someone realized there wasn't one owner of the whole island and it was possible that if he/she/they took over the manmade moving island then everyone would have to pay them to use it as the black market/connection point/haven it was.

The fact there still wasn't one internal mafia family that ruled the island was because every time it happened, everyone else on the island not affiliated with the moron-flavor of the month tended to protest.

Violently.

Whichever mafia syndicate that did it also got banned for a year by the conglomeration of mafia groups that ran the island together, so the results of trying typically were their own kind of deterrent.

If they survived in any number, anyways.

The fact it still happened to the point it was an actual draw type of attraction nowadays?

She sometimes wondered about the intelligence of some of the people around her.

Sonya sighed as a cheer went up around her in response to the announcement of free-violence allowed against whichever attacking group, ducking into the closest shop before the bulletproof window shields could lock down to prevent looting from happening during or after the fighting. With little else really to do, she went back to shopping around.

The actual shops in Mafia Land were connected by slightly subterranean tunnels for that exact reason.

Entrances were at the back of the shops and ran nearly the whole length of the merchant and residential areas. You could only get out of the tunnels during an attack by certain station exits with revolving one-way doors that peppered the streets, and only the other store/hotel entrances when inside the buildings before lockdown. The service tunnels that led further down into the island's command center got closed off once the alarms blared out a warning, and the individual sections below that became remotely secured in their own ways.

According to Lisa, anyways.

The street vendors that sold weapons typically made a killing no matter who tried to grab their stuff, they stocked weapons and ammunition specifically just for these kinds of occasions. The cost of it all would be refunded by the island's staff after everything was over, and generally the vendors got highly popular afterwards as well.

She was not surprised to run into Sinclair not too long after reaching the tunnels either. All Mafia Land employees used the tunnels very often too, especially when they lived on the island.

At least, she was pretty sure he lived here for the time being. She saw him way too damn much.

"Sonya." Renato had been pawing through a couple boxes he slipped into a pocket, ammunition for a small caliber pistol or something of the sort.

The thief was only mildly interested in what his hand were doing when she caught his nod of greeting, instead she was trying to read the painted notes on the wall of which shops were in what direction. There was a Cyrillic translation in there somewhere, she just had to find it in the mass of scrawled notes. "Sinclair. Know any decent Flame channeling metal? Or at least a decent metal that won't melt under my hands?"

He shot her a questioning glance then flicked his eyes to what she was trying to read, pocketing a handful of loose bullets and pulling a revolver out from the small of his back to load with his other handful. "The only one I know of is titanium, but if that's because it's just harder to melt or dent than steel is questionable. I can occasionally melt it in a firefight."

"Actually, that makes me think of tungsten." She sighed as she considered it.

It had a ridiculously high melting point too, and maybe what she was looking for. She had just stolen a chunk of that metal not too long ago.

The hell was up with her luck?

"Thanks."

Renato's right eyebrow cocked up, and he gave her the bulk of his attention and not the loaded handgun he had. "Why ask, Sonya?"

"I need a less Flame-resistant metal for my day-to-day weapons." She gave the shiny silver revolver a smirk. "Playing into the stereotype a little much there?"

Hitmen and handguns. They were like the penny-dreadful staple of mafia people everywhere.

"Weapons, as in plural?" He asked leadingly while ignoring her question, sliding the barrel closed and a smirk or his own curling the corner of his mouth up. "Any chance I will get to see them sometime soon?"

They both ignored the muffled explosion that shook the ceiling over their head, the lights embedded into the walls not even flickering in response. Mafia Land was well built to cope with that kind of damage, especially after all the times morons had dropped the explosives they were trying to buy in the middle of the weapons market.

"Not today. Go shoot a couple idiots in the leg for me while I finish my shopping."