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The mountain is tall enough to swallow the night sky. Standing at its base, Skull can barely pinpoint the difference between the heavens and the rock they stand in front of.
He turns to Signore, who’s silently been watching them all with a certain intent gaze. His movement doesn’t go unnoticed, as beetle black eyes bore into him.
“Are you sure this is the place, Signore?”
“Of course. Don’t question me, Lackey.” The man finally stops looking at him, and Skull relaxes. Signore's stare always makes him feel hunted.
Signore offers Luce his arm, which she takes. She smiles reassuringly at Skull, whose nerves settle a little. The pair of them step onto the narrow trail, the man silently steadying Luce and preventing her from injuring herself in the dark.
Skull can’t help but worry a little about them doing this when Luce is so close to giving birth, but he doesn’t bring it up. No one else seems overly concerned, and Skull always says the wrong thing around these people.
Viper sails past, emanating smugness. It’ll be an easy trip up for them with their floating ability. Verde, similarly, doesn’t look at the rest of them as he steps forward onto the precarious path, head buried in his gadget. Skull kind of wishes he'd fall off the mountain.
“This is the location,” Fon confirms. “It is quite a climb though,” the man says, eyes teasing. Skull grins back at him.
“It’s nothing for the Immortal Skull!” Lal snorts. She stretches her arms above her head and flicks on her flashlight.
“Come on. We can’t keep the other waiting.” She marches forward, feet steady.
Skull looks back at the surrounding darkness. His stomach churns.
“Skull,” Fon says, voice soft but firm. The man is already above him, looking down from his perch. The lantern in his hand makes his face glow.
Skull hesitates before flicking on his flashlight. He steps onto the dusty path.
It takes hours, but none of them lack stamina. By now, the sun is nearly rising. Skull’s breath catches as the sand turns molten red around them, the dunes becoming waves. The sky is sharp and blue, and he wishes he’d brought a camera.
The cave at the top of the mountain isn’t as impressive, and Lal nearly drags him inside because he’s too busy staring at the sunrise. But once he’s inside, his jaw drops.
The first thing he notices is the carvings. The ceiling is dome-like, and the insides are covered in engravings. They seem to be telling a story, but Skull can’t pick out the beginning or end. Signore observes them with a steady gaze, and he wonders if the hitman recognizes them.
Viper, on the other hand, has floated upward and is gently tracing a particular panel. It shows a woman riding a beast. Skull is envious that they can get so close, but at least the reliefs are easy to see even from the floor. He continues looking up, eyes catching on another panel detailing a winged woman with taloned feet.
“Hm,” he hears Verde say. “Mesopotamian, Akkadian, possibly. But why are they carved here?”
The ceiling is so stunning that the columns slip past him, but a quick look around shows six huge columns surrounding the chamber.
He tears himself away from the roof and stumbles over to one of the pillars. It feels like his feet have a mind of their own.
The pillar is so wide that he cannot wrap his arms around it. From a distance, it looks perfectly smooth, but the small cracks are lined with rich purple. He touches the largest crack, wondering as the purple dissipates into nothingness. His brows furrow in confusion.
He looks down at the base of the column, where there are more carvings, along with faint imprints. They look like cirrus clouds, he thinks.
(He doesn’t notice Verde frowning at his own pillar. There are etchings on the walls surrounding it, so faint they are nearly invisible to the eye. The writing is in a language he cannot read, but it seems jagged. Rushed.
The scientist swallows, mouth suddenly dry for some indiscernible reason.)
(He doesn't see Fon trace his pillar, noticing the dark brown spots covering some symbols. He discreetly sniffs at it, smelling very faint iron. His eyes widen.)
Luce has taken a seat in the center of the chamber, on a flat slab of stone. Her face is pale. She maneuvers herself so she is in line with the singular beam of sunlight streaming through the cavern from the hole above. The light falls on her face, making her eyes burn. She inhales.
"Padre nostro che sei nei cieli," she whispers, "sia santificato il tuo nome, venga il tuo regno,come in cielo così in terra." Her voice turns even softer as she struggles to go on, choking on her own tears, swallowing some of the verses."-E rimetti a noi i nostri debiti-"
The air shifts. Signore, previously leaning against another pillar, approaches Luce.
“Luce,” He begins. There is something odd in his voice. Skull shifts forward, something bubbling up in his chest.
(Years from now, Skull will struggle to describe what happens next.
“There was this light,” he’ll tell Aria, who looks at him knowingly.
“There was this fog,” he’ll tell Mingxia while Fon stands at the doorway, face dark.
“I don’t know what happened,” he’ll admit to Tsuna, who stares at him with wide, horrified eyes.)
Skull has heard of injuries that render a person's limbs unusable. Illnesses that affect a person's spine so that they can never walk again. Sicknesses that make it hard to know what's real or not.
The light shines on Luce’s face and bounces around the room, crisscrossing from gleaming column to gleaming column. It weaves a perfect web, locking them into place.
Skull can't describe the feeling of being dragged back to the pillar, glued by some heavy, unknown force. He startles, thrashing. He looks up and hears yelling, Lal's furious voice, and Signore's wrath. Verde catches his eye from across the chamber. He sees his own fear being reflected back at him.
"Luce, what's happening?" He yells, his voice being drowned out in the cacophony.
The room is perfectly circular at first glance, but the walls are made up of a thousand straight lines. A precise polygon.
There are six pillars, perfectly aligned and equidistant. They surround the central circle. There is a flat slab there. Luce sits upon it, like a queen sitting on her throne.
It looks like an altar, Viper thinks hysterically.
There is a stream of light coming from a singular hole in the rock. It flashes silver, like mercury. The light quivers almost, giving the air a floaty, foggy quality. It feels like a dream, only his limbs burn from being tied down.
Get out, Skull’s gut screams. GetoutgetoutgetoutrunrunrunrunRUNRUNRUN-
Luce’s eyes roll back and she falls on the flat rock, blood streaming from her nose. Signore's eyes are dark and furious.
The light- sharpens, almost, into a single, powerful beam.
It strikes Fon headfirst.
He crumples to the ground.
The rest of them barely have time to scream as they struggle against their pillars, strapped to its side like two magnets.
Skull can't breathe.
Then, Signore. He stares at Luce even as he falls to his knees.
Verde, whose eyes are wider than Skull has ever seen before.
“LAL-” a voice yells out. He watches, hazily, as a blonde soldier runs, ducking past the burning beams of light as he tries to make it to her.
He’s too late.
The beam hits them both. They collapse into a heap.
Skull's vision blurs as the beam turns to him.
He jerks against the pillar, thrashing wildly as he shrieks.
It hits him head-on, like a battering ram.
His head rings.
Skull starts screaming as his bones burn.
He stares up at the smiling, smirking gods and his vision turns black.