Chapter 24 1/2

Author's Note : Yeah... got nothing. Enjoy.

Edited (4/28/2017) - Minor story corrections and additions.

Edit (3/22/2018) - Final formatting and minor corrections.

Edited (9/8/2018) - Minor corrections.

Russian Roulette : Reloaded

Chapter 24

(Monday the 24th of June, 1968 continued. Mafia Land.)

"I thought you Flamers were supposed to make this shite easier!"

"Do shut up, your ignorance is showing." Renato drawled out nastily to the grunt lying prone to maybe present less of a target, pressing more bullets into his recently emptied clip at a steady rate. "And it's revolting."

It wasn't like he was the only Dying Will Flame user about, the other side had a couple too.

This was not a great time to be running out of ammo, but the hitman was down to the last handful he had on him. Expectations were everything in this line of work, but it had been a long time since he got caught out in a scuffle on the streets like any common thug and needed more than three full clips and at least three reloads of loose bullets. All he had on him usually was merely enough to mow down maybe a squad of idiots, and another handful of rounds to use in hunting down any that helped said possible hit team.

In other words, a very bad days' worth.

A surprise attack, one that his admittedly badly gutted contacts on the island hadn't known at least a few hours beforehand of it occurring, meant he was a little less than impeccably armed for this.

Which wasn't doing all that much for his mood, truth be known.

If this kept up, he was going to have to resort to using his Sun Flames as ammunition instead of keeping it in reserve to heal himself of any inadvertent injuries.

Even worse was the position he was stuck in. This street was one of the few main straight ones that left little cover to be had down long stretches.

Ending up in a tight spot with two random grunts did not improve his outlook of this little situation. The second grunt didn't even had ammunition he could appropriate if needed.

It wasn't bad, but he'd likely take a few nasty hits just to get out of it before his luck ran out.

Slotting the last clip home, Renato twisted back around the storefront he had taken shelter behind and took careful aim at the damn Lightning that was giving them such trouble. The man was likely Italian by descent, if not by birth, which really was a pity.

The Sun's bullet hit but ricocheted off the Lightning's skin with a crackle of acidic green Flames and buried itself in the thigh of another standing just before the 'tank' of a man.

"Well… that's just perfect." He ducked back in a fast hurry, evading the spray of return fire that almost put a hole in his hat.

Shamal was pouty enough about his fifth birthday with no thief of Russian descent being present, putting a hole in his Christmas present from the two of them would make everything even worse the next time he went back home.

"Now what, genius?" Random grunt number one he had gotten stuck with snarled, yanking his head back behind cover as the others expressed their distaste for the recent injury on their side.

Since he was armed with knives and Renato had some damn guns, he really was a bit more than moronic to keep pressing the Sun user's buttons like this.

"Now? Plan B." He snapped back, hitting the release catch for the clip he had just loaded.

"What're you going to do with an empty gun?"

"This." Leaning out of the dubious shelter of a clothing store's corner, the Sun took careful aim as the moonstones under his hands heated up.

His Sun Flames were stronger than that Lightning's Hardened skin, the shot of pure yellow fire narrowed down by his iron pistol melted a hole through the man's will and forehead. The shot, in fact, burned through his head and the shoulder of the man behind him before impacting and melting a bit of steel shielding a window farther down the street.

Well… he really liked these moonstones. They made that easier to pull off, to say the least.

"Any questions?" The hitman asked sarcastically as he spun back around to reload his gun to conserve his Flames.

Moronic grunt number one wisely shut up, his buddy slightly less moronic grunt number two swallowed audibly but did make himself useful. He put down the opposing grunt with a thigh wound and the one with a hole in the shoulder in succession with a few shots from his own overly compensating hand-cannon of a handgun.

Unfortunately, Renato had proven himself a bit too well. The mafia men on the other side recognized the same thing and decided taking him down would be worth the deaths it would likely cost. His higher position suddenly gained the bulk of attention, bullets chipping away at the corner he had taken refuge behind with a vengeance in hopes one could penetrate concrete and steel to hit him.

The Sun using hitman could maybe take a hit or two and heal it while he keep going, but enough hot lead would still put him down for good if he wasn't careful.

Almost underneath the continuous spray of automatic gunfire came a markedly different sound, and Renato paused after slamming his clip home to clear a jam as he tried to place it.

Cracking bone?

"Fore!"

A ballistic missile of two hundred pounds of likely former human crashed into the idiots standing mid-street trying to gun down a couple loose mafia men blockading their way. Much like a bowling ball scattering a badly set up lane of pins.

Actually… ballistic missile man was still alive, somehow. Moaning in pain and trying not to clutch his badly deformed jaw, but alive. Probably was going to be drinking his food through a straw for the rest of his life, however.

Might have cracked or just broken a fair few bones on landing too, so he might not stay that way.

…was that Sonya?

She had never participated in this kind of thing before, what the hell had these idiots done to piss off the unusually even-tempered Russian Storm-Cloud?

He kept himself half hidden behind a storefront, knowing better than attracting a violence-lusting Cloud's attention by taking their targets. Even if those targets had been his before she showed up.

Clouds weren't exactly understanding of such mix-ups. Intentional or otherwise.

He might have a good relationship with that woman, but that was no guarantee of safety. It was possible she would decide the idiots scrambling around mid-street were not enough of a challenge for her and come after him for a better one.

The hitman hadn't seen her being purely Cloud in nature yet, and he kind of wanted to see where this would go.

"Gentlemen," Sonya all but purred out, steadily advancing on the still armed but disorientated men in the street gawking at their former-missile fellow, "do put up a better fight than the last group. Please."

Stomping a heel down on moronic grunt number one's chest before he could do more than open his mouth, Renato gave the less idiotic grunt kneeling beside his buddy that he was stuck with a motion to keep quiet.

That grin she had looked a tiny bit disturbing.

Especially on the lips of a woman that had seemed to only have maybe three or four facial expressions at most. As a matter of fact, he could clearly recall that grin from the Christmas Ball when she scared two middle-aged mafia wives off his case.

Glowing Cloud Flame eyes and all.

Idiots one through seven realized they were armed with automatic weaponry around the same time, and that the steadily advancing Storm-Cloud only had a very wicked looking spike and slim hammer on one end of her polearm.

The thief had accounted for that, once they swung those weapons in her direction a bounding stride had her ten feet forward and to the other side of the street before they opened fire on her. Another that took her clear over their heads got her well within range to lay about with that warhammer of hers.

Renato had to wince, because Sonya wasn't being remotely nice or neat about it. Very, very messy… but then again, that might be why the woman was so considerate of her temper.

Everyone that had a gun pointed at her ended up with broken or simply torn off fingers when she smashed a couple pounds of queerly dark metal hammer into the automatic machine guns with unreal force. A twirl of the equally dark metal pole smashed the pike end through the chest of someone attempting to ambush her back with a knife.

Off-center, likely only puncturing a lung and breaking a few ribs. If he didn't bleed out, the idiot would live.

Yanking her weapon free, Sonya clocked another man trying to tackle her to the ground in the jaw with the butt-end. One last sweep of the hammer end around, and idiots one-through-four weren't likely to wake up any time soon as they impacted the armored storefront on the left-hand side of the street hard enough to dent metal.

Leaving a crime scene's worth of blood, parts of fingers, and at least two soon-to-be-corpses. As well as a small armory of shattered rifles and handguns, most too dented and warped to be used as anything other than scrap metal.

"Renato?" The Russian called over her shoulder, hefting that warhammer over the other as she turned to see him. "You owe me a pack of cigarettes."

"I… yes, I do." From when he visited her in that circus thing she had been doing, he had forgotten about that. "Don't have any on me right now, little lady Sonya. Very sorry."

"So, you steal from me but I cannot return the favor?" She asked with a touch of annoyance, allowing her weapon to slide off her shoulder to tap the end of it on the street. "That is very rude."

Paved streets should not show crater marks from a woman absentmindedly hitting it with a pole a few times. No matter what weird metal said pole was made out of, he made a mental note to ask about that… later.

Renato shot a demanding look to less moronic grunt number two, who shook his head. He did point to moronic grunt number one shakily, slowly. As if that would prevent the Russian from noticing him.

Grunt number one at least would prove somewhat useful rather than just irritating. Another stomp had him wheezing for breath, allowing the hitman to relieve him of his half-crushed pack of cigarettes without fuss to toss at Sonya.

She looked slightly amused as she caught them. "Why thank you, kind sirs."

Since the Cloud-woman didn't seem inclined to either continue with a spree of violence or try her luck against the hitman, he took a few steps to the side so it didn't look like he was hiding behind a store. She, still standing in the middle of the road, brazenly lit up the stolen cigarette with a flash of Storm Flames and tossed the pack back over to the two grunts.

"Sonya, do me a tiny favor? Since I did heal your hand?"

The thief gave him a disinterested glance, which he couldn't tell if he found insulting or relieving.

One hand, no fight with a feral Cloud he didn't want to kill.

The other?

Did she not view him as a threat too?

"Sometime today?" Sonya asked, pulling the lit cigarette from her lips.

The closer he got, the less pale her normally grey eyes became. Which answered that question, Miss Storm-Cloud didn't view him as a target but as an ally. Which was… strange.

Normally that would only happen between a Cloud Guardian and their Sky's other Guardians.

Did Sonya have a Sky?

Renato was pretty sure she would've mentioned having one before now if so. Then again, he was fairly certain the fact she could keep the existence of her foster family so well hidden after several years' worth of small-talk meant she could keep her mouth shut about whatever she wanted reliably.

He was admittedly rather nosy, he might be still a bit put out over how well she could do non-comments to him to the point he missed even the suspicion of it.

"Make me a couple handfuls more of these?" The hitman asked pleasantly, holding up one of his last few loose bullets and striding over to her as if he wasn't stepping on shattered automatic weapons, the odd bit of finger, as well as the gore he and grunts one and two had painted the streets with splattered over with her own contribution. "I'm rather uncomfortably low."

He didn't even have enough for another clip, but beggars couldn't be choosers.

"Sure." She took one from him once he got close enough, flicking the lone bullet around her fingers and ending up with a nice handful of more in a steady flicker of Cloud Flames when the original ended up between her middle and pointer finger. "How many do you want?"

"Enough to see me back to the weapons' district." Renato claimed, pocketing the first handful of Cloud Flame copied bullets. They'd work in a pinch, which this was, but they would also disappear the moment her Flames ran out. He had no idea how strong she really was, in Flame terms, so better to be careful with them. "Two more handfuls."

He'd keep one around, just to see how long it would hold in the end.

"It is over with, right?" Sonya questioned as she made the next handful. "The fighting? I did not run into very many pockets of it on my way out here."

"The fighting's probably shifted to a more central spot." Agreed the hitman with some distraction while sorting out what pocket he wanted these bullets to go in to, so he'd remember they were short-lived copies. "Maybe another hour or two before the mop-up begins."

"So…" Her head did turn in the direction he mentioned, but she turned back and flicked her cigarette instead of start wandering that way for a better fight. "…I should probably go pick up my stuff before I have to chase down some ass that decides abscond with it all."

Renato blinked at her as he un-holstered his other, empty pistol to load. Not a typical Cloud response to being pointed in a new fight's direction. Sonya actually looked unhappy about her own suggestion, too.

"Why not stay and pitch in a little bit more?" He suggested helpfully, which netted him a dubious look as the thief shifted her attention from him and the possibility of a new fight to the… rather gory results of this one.

"I did not actually intend to go very far in the first place." Admitted the Storm-Cloud, a touch sheepishly as she eyed the man clutching the hole in his chest scooting away from any weaponry to show he was giving up. "It was just… it has been a while since my last, actual fight. I got a little… distracted."

She was… embarrassed. Actually embarrassed, fiddling with the bullet she wasn't making more copies of, flicking it around her fingers and lit cigarette absently as she eyed the damage she had done with the warhammer in her other hand.

"I forgot how much fun it was." She continued, as if she wasn't acting like a shy schoolgirl.

…alright, that was a typical Cloud response, but the shy but bright grin she flashed him wasn't a typical Sonya response.

"I should go… I broke a couple people that I did not intend to. Tats should probably have a look at them."

"Why bother?" The idiots had known what they were facing, in attacking Mafia Land. The broken and dead that resulted were par for the course, but it wasn't as if it was any real deterrent to it happening again.

"I did not mean to break his spine." She clarified with a shrug. "I intended to take the other mook's hand off, though, so I am not going to bother myself about that one."

Sonya pushed his bullet in-between her breasts, placing her cigarette between her lips, and used her free hand to pry a glittering purple stone out of the head of her warhammer.

Speaking of which… warhammers, hmm?

"Erm… Sonya?"

"Hmm?"

"My bullet?"

"I have to keep this one, if you want the others to last." The thief informed him absently as the gem popped loose. Her weapon shrank in a flash of bled off purple Flames, and she pocketed both it and the jewel. "I will give it back later."

She flicked a hand in farewell, strolling off without much care for what she was stepping on or whose body fluid she was trekking through.

Renato couldn't decide if he wanted that bullet back or not.

"So… if that yellow stuff was plan B, what is she?"

"Plan C." The hitman informed less moronic grunt number two blandly as he strolled in the other direction to get a few more of the attacking idiots. In return of the sheer affront of getting him stuck with said moronic grunts. "Plan B for Sun bullet, Plan C for intervention by Cloud."

That had been… strangely non-lethal for a Cloud's involvement.

He shot Mister hole-in-chest through the head before he could throw the grenade he picked up from one of his insensible buddies at his back.

(ooo000ooo)

(Monday the 24th of June, 1968 continued. Mafia Land.)

"Err… Sonya?"

"I broke him, fix it."

The nurse looked highly unimpressed with both her demand and the random guy she was holding up for her to see by the collar. The dim lighting around where they were probably wasn't helping much, but the guy looked pretty half-dead already when she went back to pick him up.

"He's part of the attacking group, isn't he? Who cares?"

"I do. I didn't intend to break his spine, Tats."

"You did more than just break his spine, little sis." Tatiana informed her bluntly, eyeing the bruised and distended part of the abdomen visible under the hem of the guy's wife beater tank-top. The thief's grip on his Yankee's jacket the only thing keeping him upright. "I think you might have burst his internal organs. Most if not all the digestive tract, maybe part of his stomach too. He's already dead, just not quite there yet."

…shit.

"Is this your first kill? Kind of messy of one, but it's not really a bad thing." The Sun user tried to reassure, which didn't work at all with the smirk on her face as she eyed the insensible mook likely about to die from a septic infection or organ failure from the damage her foster sister had done. "We can go get your tattoos touched up after this."

"Not my first kill, thank you very much." Sonya informed her sourly. "I just didn't want to kill him."

"So why haven't you gone to get your roses filled in?" She demanded, hands on her hips instead of healing the man her sister had brought her. "You… you really need to stop trying to shelter Cherep, you know. He's a big boy, he'll understand."

The thief crossed her arms and glared at her sister. "I was not sheltering Cherep. I just forgot, okay?"

Accidently letting go of the man made him crumble into a weird flopped half-backwards position with a scream.

"…whoops."

With a sigh, the nurse bent down to check him for anything else wrong. "You know, you probably did worst things to his damaged internal organs by dragging him around to try and find me. I'm recommending a mercy killing at this point."

Irritated, and really a bit sorry, the younger sister sighed herself. "Fine, whatever. Back up a bit."

"For?" Tatiana did give her room even as she questioned the reasoning for it.

She reached down and snapped the man's neck, wincing as he gave a jerk in response before going limp and unresponsive. Instead of weak coughing wheezes and the occasional twitch response.

It was an improvement… sort of. He was dead and out of pain's reach, at least.

"Well… I was also going to suggest overdose of painkillers, but that works too." Looking around the underground tunnels Sonya had located her within, the nurse snapped her fingers to gain the attention of a few jumpsuit wearing handymen. "Another body, boys."

Having long since lost her high from actually getting herself into a full-out fight, the thief now felt a little mopey and depressed. Which was also irritating her, because of one slip of control that killed someone she hadn't intended to kind of ruined the whole fight for her.

Now she had to figure out if not feeling all that bad for killing someone was something she could live comfortably with, or if she was thankful she at least felt sorry for it in even the most remote way.

…or irritated that she still had that hang-up over killing.

He had tried to shoot her, she wasn't wasting much pity on him when he likely wouldn't have held any for killing her. Same for mook with a clunky grenade launcher she smashed the jaw of in and launched backwards a couple yards.

Who the hell brings a grenade launcher to a floating island?

…did she kill that guy too?

She had been pretty sure she hadn't hit him hard enough to kill… just maybe shatter bones, but that had been his head… and there was that guy she slammed a few inches of pick into the chest of.

"Is this really that much of an issue? So he's dead, why do you care?"

"With my strength, Tats? Losing control isn't much of a good thing."

"Oh." Tatiana bit her lower lip as she considered that, and probably some of what Sonya had been like as a freakishly strong little girl who could occasionally splinter the furniture when she tripped and grabbed hold too hard. "Ooh… I get it now. Shit, sorry Sonya. But my healing him wouldn't do anything about your self-control, just hide the results for a few until you slip again."

Yeah, that was… the Storm-Cloud either needed to gain a grip somehow or get herself in a lot of fights and try not to go overboard at the same time. She could also resign herself to killing part of any group she fought, instead.

Which… what was better?

Leaving her opponents alive but broken, or removing any and all future attempts at revenge by killing everyone that tried to kill her?

"Hey, don't stress over it. You didn't kill anyone too important, and at least now you know. Right?"

"I suppose." Sonya's fingers itched for her cigarettes, but she abstained simply because she was trying to cut back. Giddy post-fight smoke break included.

"There's a tattooist on the island, we can get your roses painted red here. Or you can wait until we can see Boris about them." Her older sister suggested, edging herself so her little sister wouldn't get distracted by her latest dead body. "Or… when was your first kill? Do you qualify for pink?"

"I don't, actually. I just haven't really thought about my tattoos enough to recall I had to get them… adjusted." The thief would probably just go with red anyways even if she could get pink. Legally fifteen on her paperwork or not, she had really been fourteen when she killed those grunts in France. "We can do it here, if you want."

"They're your tattoos, Sonya." The nurse reminded her with a touch of exasperation. "What I want shouldn't matter."

(Wednesday the 3rd of July, 1968. Thieves' Guild Hall, Mafia Land.)

Sonya's bad mood lasted all through her next Mafia Land contract.

A pirate's treasure hoard?

Those were still things?

Which made her not appreciate the uniqueness of her latest contract and merely complete it with minimum fuss involved.

She'd likely regret that later. Pirate treasure hoard. How often would she get a contract that involved stealing that outlandish before an actual archeological team managed to find it?

…hopefully those holes in the cavern system would be overlooked as natural damage from both time and the tides. Not a thief checking for false walls or getting fed up with half-rotted traps she might set off if she wasn't wary.

It wasn't really much of a hoard, more like a very heavy chest of gold, papers, and trinkets. The fact the chest broke was because it had been waterlogged for years and most of the wood had started rotting, the treasure spilling out had just been part of that.

When turning in the job, because she had to get the treasure smuggled in, she turned the slip from the Mafia Land agent in Haiti and her contract paperwork to the lobby receptionist of the Thieves' Hall.

"You were requested to retrieve it intact, not in pieces." The snooty receptionist informed her, not even looking up from the papers before her as she stamped, filed, and marked up a new set of post-heist paperwork for her files. "If there isn't a damn good reason for this, we're going to have to count this as a half-completed job."

"Yeah… about that," Sonya dumped a couple planks, a plank with a broken lock still lodged in it, and a pile of rusty metal on the woman's desk, "seventy to a hundred years of water damage, corrosion, and all sorts of things eating the wood kind of ruins the container. It. Broke. In-transit."

"That is not-" Miss snooty sneered at the mess and looked up, then blanched bone white as she shot to her feet. "Miss Bazanova! I didn't know it was you. No, of course you couldn't have met the requirements, they were very unrealistic."

…okay… what?

"I'll have a word with the agents, you won't be penalized for this." The receptionist tried for a smile, but it just looked painfully faked and mostly fear-inspired as she slowly back up to the wall behind her.

Sonya gave her a searching look, which strangely made her cringe.

"…don't kill me?"

"What?" This was… very different.

"Look, I'll mark it down complete. See?"

"Are you trying to set me up to be killed?"

Bribing, coercing, or just threatening the administrative workers of Mafia Land to fudge their work earned everyone involved an automatic hit. The Russian had no intention of ever getting Renato on her ass, because that would end up all sorts of awkward for them. However, she also had no idea whatsoever of what was going on.

"NO! I would never! I just don't want to die."

Much to the thief's alarm, Miss snooty now seemed on the verge of crying.

"Um…"

"Miss Dillard, take a break." Gentleman with some idea of what seemed to be going on suddenly ordered from behind Sonya, looking very reproving over the woman's behavior.

He gave her an equally disapproving look, which made the thief raise her hands in innocence as the receptionist hoofed it with respectable speed out of there. "Look, I have no idea what is going on. She was fine until she looked up, then started practically hyperventilating."

"We did not know you were a Cloud, Miss Bazanova." He informed her as if that would make some kind of difference.

"…and?" What was with people making comments that had no obvious responses?

Sonya never quite got the hang of these kinds of conversations. Not even in her last life.

He gave her a level look. "Are you implying it will not impact your work?"

"I have been a Cloud Flame user since I was nine. If you checked my records, you would know I have worked for this island even since I was eleven." The Russian pointed out flatly, feeling confused over the entire situation and not appreciating the fact. "It has not impacted my work here yet, and I do not appreciate the accusation that I would let anything like that happen in the first place."

That had not, apparently, been what he had been expecting to hear.

"Could someone just please explain what changed from two weeks ago?"

Miss snooty had been… well, snooty and prissy then. Not tearful and in fear of her life. She didn't feel any different, maybe a bit tired and travel worn.

Certainly not nearly as bad to have someone afraid of her murdering them out of the blue. She wasn't even really all that mad, just a bit mopey and a bit introspective for the last couple weeks.

What the hell was going on?

(ooo000ooo)

(Wednesday the 3rd of July, 1968 continued. A Mafia Land Ferry.)

Renato about burst a rib laughing when he heard.

"It is not that funny." Sonya snapped sourly, glowering at her cigarette over just glaring around in general.

With her luck, the ferry operator will take a dive off the side of the boat if she did.

The hitman had, rather courteously, catered to her dislike of flying on airlines and was taking the ferry with her to Italy to see Shamal. Again.

They had done this last winter too, for the Vongola Ball.

It was warmer this time, at least.

He tried to stop laughing, and indeed managed it for all of a second. Rolling her eyes, the thief made a dismissive gesture to inform him he could carry on without risking reprisal.

That shit-eating grin on his face made any attempt to be serious kind of moot.

"Sonya… you are a very unusual little Cloud." The Italian informed her as if he didn't tend to call her that usually, trying desperately to regulate his breathing. "You aren't like all the little horror stories of Hard Flame Clouds and their terrifying behavior, and frankly you're doing these people a disservice by that."

"How so?" Wouldn't it be better?

Sonya wasn't really bothered by much, and to be honest she hadn't thought twice about how she behaved in respects to all those storybooks for mafia brats she once devoured whole said Clouds behaved.

"They meet you, and once they realize you are always this way, they think 'oh, not so bad'. Then they end up meeting a less even-tempered Cloud, and instantly get brutalized for trying something you'd ignore but they won't due to whatever." Renato explained with a dismissive flick of his hand. "Frankly, you behave yourself better than a Cloud does under their Sky's eye. Almost as well as Visconti does. I've been wondering about that, actually."

"I do not have a Sky." She had… actually, thinking about how she used to be compared to how she was now… Sonya had a Cherep.

Everything, her more social behavior to the relationships she had now with her foster family, all happened after she met a Czechoslovakian boy with bright purple hair and eyes and enough Inverted Cloud Flames to defy death itself indefinitely.

…huh. That sounded a lot cooler than just saying the purple dork she found with no sense of self-preservation or the inclination to get any.

"You really should have expected this."

The Soviet Storm-Cloud shot him a sideways look. "Really? I should have expected to terrify the secretaries and random pedestrians for something I have been for years and which had never made an impact on my work before?"

"Well… yes. You could not hide it for the rest of your life."

"I was not hiding it. I just did not go about announcing it to all and sundry."

"Call it what you will," the hitman waved off her tart reply, "fact of the matter is it would've gotten out eventually. If not this past idiotic invasion attempt, then in future ones to come. Take some advantage of it, Sonya. They're going to realize you're probably the most even-tempered Cloud in existence sometime."

"I am not." Cherep was, not her.

Renato blinked, then shot her a queer look. "Repeat that?"

"What? I am not the most even-tempered Cloud in existence."

"…and you know that for sure."

"Yes?"

"…huh." Shoving a hand up under his hat to scratch at his head, the Mafioso smoothed both his spiky hair and the fedora back down with a puzzled expression. "Odd. Sonya? Do you… normally speak whatever crosses your mind?"

"Usually. Most of the time yes, unless it is sensitive information I should not be sharing." The thief replied, a bit bemused at the sudden subject change. "What would be the point of not?"

"To not give offence, or to… right, forgot who I was speaking to."

…that was possible?

How?

She was standing right next to him. The only other people around were giving them a wide berth, and they were right next to the ship's railing in order to provide that berth everyone wanted to keep between the Storm-Cloud thief and themselves.

"It just is, alright?"

"Renato? I did not say that out loud." She was pretty sure of that, actually.

He opened his mouth, likely to snap something at her, but paused as he seemed to realize something else. "…oh."

That was inane, and not very helpful. The man looked alright, a bit dazed but well enough.

Sonya tentatively decided not to ask, unless he said something else about it.

Maybe he read the question off her face?

If so, that was new.

"…never mind." The hitman muttered, a frown now pulling his mouth down at the corners.

…okay. "So, what has Shamal been up to since this winter? Pouty Mist behavior since I missed his birthday and all?"

"Ah… that." Renato started smirking again, which she decided was an improvement. "Nono would like to request you don't give the brat any more turquoise to terrorize his staff with."

"Any more." Sonya repeated slowly. "So… just replacing what he shatters is still an option?"

"…yes, yes it is."

(Friday the 5th of July, 1968. The Iron Fort, Italian Republic.)

"I am so sorry I missed your birthday, brat. I was unavoidably working for it." Sonya informed Shamal honestly, trying not to wince at the baby Mist pout aimed at her.

That was scarily effect, even better than Cherep's wet kitten looks. He looked like a kicked puppy, instead of an offended cat. There might be Misty things at play to make him seem more pitiable but he was entirely entitled to pouting at her, so she ignored that.

"…you forgot-" Renato cut his mutter off when she glared at him over the brat's head, adopting an innocent look instead of the smirk.

It wasn't working too well for him.

The thief swept baby Mist up into her arms, turning her back on the hitman pointedly and gave her attention instead to the brat. "Renato only managed to get ahold of me this summer, like barely a month ago, so I didn't know you wanted me to show up to it. I finished up what I have to do, and the rest of the year is mine, so I can totally spend a week or two here if you really want me to. To make up for missing your birthday. We'll do whatever you want."

"You can't miss my birthday again, Miss Sonya." The kid in her arms insisted wetly, placing tiny hands on her collarbone to give her his most serious look possible through his puppy pout. "And you have to be here for Christmas too."

"…just this year for Christmas?" She would get bored of the Ball thing if she did it too many times. There was only so much snark one could amused themselves with before it got tedious, and she didn't really know that many Italians.