Snippet #2513246

Alastor enjoyed seeing Cain go through the motions. First: confusion, as he realized he'd been assaulted. Next: fear, as he realized he'd been virtually decapitated. Then, cold hard realization. Ah, yes. Alastor could see it in the boy's eyes, his revelation. The Vongola boss had just confronted the reality that he was engaging someone on an entirely different level than himself.

Cain leveled a fiery glare upon his enemy. Alastor responded with practiced arrogance. A raised chin. A faint smirk.

The boy didn't comprehend just how close the boss of the Rizzo had come to actually decapitating him. If not for the sanctity of the timeline, perhaps he would have forgone invoking Underhand—his box weapon's ability to phase through matter—entirely.

"I don't know who you are," the Vongola said, "but you are going to regret not killing me with that attack."

Suddenly, Cain streaked forward, brilliant red Sky flames flowing in his wake. The Vongola arced his trajectory, encircling Alastor in the flames. In response, Alastor simply turned his wrist, bringing the Minute Hand down by his side at an angle. When Cain made his first strike, bursting through the circle of flames like a speeding bullet, Alastor shifted in his stance ever so slightly, parrying the maneuver in a barrage of flame and sparks. The boy's momentum carried him past his opponent and back out into the ring of flames.

Alastor got the sense that Cain was annoyed with him, the way he kept streaking back and forth. So accelerated had the Vongola's movements become that he began leaving wide streaks along the ground as he attacked, forming a pentagram-esque pattern. Again and again he struck, and again and again Alastor parried, only moving his body just enough to catch and repel the attacks.

Alastor nodded to himself, closing his eyes and sighing softly. This was not at all going as he'd expected. Slowly, he raised his arm into the air, and once again snapped his fingers. This time, however, instead of a benign soundwave, a blue-black distortion saturated the immediate area, expanding outwards like a nuclear explosion. So foreign was this phenomenon that it could only be described as unearthly, the blue-black energy racing outwardly in all directions. Eventually, the distortion came into contact with Cain's ring of flames... and blew it away, as if it'd never existed in the first place. Cain could do nothing but guard against the dark energy and look on in awe as his flames were annihilated.

Alastor lowered his hand, a look of disappointment fresh upon his face. "Don't tell me that this is the full extent of your abilities, King of Flames," Alastor exclaimed, his condescension rolling over the area like the waves of a hurricane. "Surely I did not travel all this way to fight a novitiate?"

Cain didn't understand what the man meant by novitiate, but the way it sounded made Cain feel like he was questioning his experience, which wasn't really odd considering he had no fighting experience. Though he still smirked, figuring that he might as well. He was not the type to fret over a situation, not the one to ever give up. If the man wasn't going to go down with his pentagram strike, then maybe he'd fall if he used his ace. "Okay buddy, let's see if you can withstand this," he said rolling once again around the man. Though, this time he was skating backwards. He once again made a circle of flame, but this time he jumped up to the air, spinning as if he were a figure skater. The flames followed his body and a circular barrier of sky flames twirled with him. It wasn't seen by the naked eye, but inside the circle he kicked out his right leg, flinging flame balls at his enemy. "Spitfire revolution," he called.

Alastor sighed once more at the boy's words. He surely had a smug enough hubris to be the legendary King of Flames, that's for sure. However, Alastor began to believe he'd appeared too early in the boy's timeline for him to be of any challenge. He saw before him not a mythical king, but an insolent child. He had to be insolent, to come at one such as Alastor and then have the audacity to miss.

Maybe he was just getting a little too old for these games.

The man closed his eyes, flowing around each ball of flame like a leaf in a gentle wind, his body moving to and fro in curt practiced strides. By the time the Vongola leader landed after flinging his spectacular attacks, Alastor had managed to close the distance between them.

He opened his eyes, leveling a somewhat disgruntled glower at the boy. "You disappoint me," he uttered, bringing his sword to bear. "You are no king of flames."

Cain's eyes grew large, their spunky edge replaced with a look of shock. That was the best thing he had and he couldn't even hit the guy with it. He was also letting the mans words creep into his very well being. There was no way he could fight this guy. That much had became apparent. Still, he tried his best to throw one more punch towards the man. Heavy thoughts were starting to put weight on his mind and chest. For once in his life, he felt further from the sky than he had ever been before.

Alastor's frown only deepened as the Vongola's Sky guardian came at him with his fists—like some common brute. After everything that had just transpired, this brat had the gall to challenge him in bare hand-to-hand combat? As if that would win it for him? Of everything, it was this that finally managed to vex the Rizzo boss. Of all brands and breeds of combat, it was melee in which Alastor excelled.

In fact, it had become his specialty.

Cain was within striking range, his fist bared, a look of final determination ingrained in his features. Taking a stance, Alastor made a wide lateral swipe with his weapon, passing the blade through the boy's midsection and up across the chest, its cold black edge exiting clean through the side of his neck, the movement as fluid as a fish through water.

Cain stopped his punch halfway, once again going into a slight shock at the blade passing through him. His eyes widened in the fear of knowing that at any moment, this man could have killed him if he desired it.

There was no blood, or even the semblance of a wound, but Alastor had gotten the reaction he'd been seeking.

With a single offhanded kick to the shin, he sent Cain fumbling forward, his skates grating and rasping across the ground like a beleaguered old man gasping for breath. The dissonance of it all brought a terse grin to Alastor's face. To him, Cain's noisy failure sounded like music. This boy was the diametric opposite of the historic figure that shared his namesake. Perhaps that man would never exist in this timeline.

A shame.

Alastor dismissed his box weapon with the flick of his wrist, using his newly free hand to assist the other in straightening his tie. The motion was two parts suave, one part robotic.

Being stirred off of his feet, Cain barely managed not to fall face first on the ground behind his opponent. Turning around, the boy gritted his teeth, angered at the fact that he was being toyed with. "Don't fuck with me," he yelled, once again charging his skates and using the friction to torque himself into a powerful roundhouse kick. Alastor watched unamused as the Vongola head's flaming foot came his way. His moves were too predictable for the experienced man to even want to lift a finger against them. However, if he were to play defensively with the kid gloves all day, he would not only prolong his mission, but also stretch the time he had to be in the presence of such a wanting fighter.

The truth was, Alastor had become hopelessly bored of this banality. He resolved himself to finish the fight quickly and leave the boy to wallow in his own misery. Cain's kick was directed at his face—something the man had seen far too many times before. It was an easy counter. In one swift but smooth motion, he raised his left arm to block the attack. On impact, he immediately slid that arm up the boys shin, placing a vice grip on his calf. Cain reacted as expected, with quick and forceful tugs in an attempt to escape the mans grasp, but it was to no avail. The man had him trapped.

Giving an irksome half-yawn, Alastor moved his right hand onto the boys thigh and yanked backwards, bringing his opponent further off balance. With his left arm still coiled around the boy's leg, he positioned his wrist so that the back of his hand rested on the side of Cain's knee cap. In that instant, Cain and Alastor met eyes, the moment spanning lifetimes. It was the Rizzo boss that moved first, raising his elbow and smashing it into the outward side of Cain's knee.

It snapped like a twig.

Alastor followed it with a rapid jerk to the side, snapping the appendage once more but in the opposite direction, staring the boy dead in the eyes the entire time.

"Agony," Alastor muttered, a malicious smirk worming its way onto his face as he unceremoniously released Cain from his vise. As the boy careened towards the floor, Alastor snatched at his wrist, grabbing him and summarily tossing him to the side, sending him to crash painfully to the ground, his skates doing him no favors.

Cain went into a frenzy of tormented screams as Agony took effect, causing the same sequence of painful events to replay themselves again and again and again, the pain just as explosive as if it'd happened for the first time.

Smash to the side of the knee. Snap. Jerk to the opposite side. Pop.
Smash to the side of the knee. Snap. Jerk to the opposite side. Pop.
Smash to the side of the knee. Snap. Jerk to the opposite side. Pop.

Even as Alastor walked away, his forearms returned to their positions folded behind his back in sage-like formation, Cain's suffering continued.

"Aaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!! AaaHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!" By this time, the boy was on the floor, tears streaming down his face as he writhed in sweet passionate torturous agony, his high-pitched screams filling the hall to the brim before he went silent completely.

To Alastor, even this—no, especially this—sounded like the most harmonious of musics. The Rizzo boss continued his unhurried pace, tossing a small twinkling object up and down in his hand as if it were a toy ball. Judging by the silence at his back, Alastor surmised that Cain had fainted from the agony of it all. Hah. After yet another toss, he caught the object between his index finger and thumb, eyeing it. It was the Vongola Sky ring alright. 100% genuine. Worn by ten generations of Vongola heads.

Until today.