Foreword: *stares at afterword on Prologue* …*Reads: …chapter will be up before the end of Summer* …..damn….

Matte Black

Chapter One: Motive

Their conversation had been short. There wasn't much to discuss aside from the flower he was supposedly seeking, the shop keeper's promise to search for it, and his reassurance to return in a week's time. Slipping past the boy who was undoubtedly still amused by his hair style, Nicolas left the building—a renovated three-story stone structure with a small garden around back. The flower shop itself only took up the ground floor, so it was safe to assume given the constant presence of the woman and her children that the second and third floor were used as their place of residence. Reaching the end of the block and rounding the corner, the pleasant façade dropped harshly as the illusion of olive green eyes dissolved only to be replaced by their true colors of cerulean and scarlet.

Mukuro's frame was tense with agitation and his jaw clenched in thought. He strode away from the merchant streets and moved deeper into the town's elapsed edges. The places where buildings lay forgotten and collapsing, the people scraped by, and anything useful was rarely seen let alone shared. Somewhere in the back of his mind he was aware of the eyes watching him from the shadows, but he was entirely unconcerned. His devilish blood red glare drove all but the most foolish from his tread…and even they were hesitant at his manner of ease and nonchalance in their territory. Their stares followed him into a crevice between two fire destroyed buildings. Had they attempted to keep up, they'd have found no trace of the man with the red eyed gaze.

"Ah! Mukuro-sa…" MM trailed off when he entered the hideout without a word, his attention unmoving from his thoughts. Instead the ruby haired woman stared silently at her leader's back as he climbed up the stairs, leaving the room as soundlessly as he entered. A perturbed look began to enter her eyes and her lips threatened to pull into a frown, but the woman huffed and with an angered stride marched over to the singular piece of furniture in the drab grey room room—a dark green couch. She flopped onto the chair and snatched up the magazine she'd been reading before she'd tossed it aside and snapped to attention to greet her boss. Forcing herself to ignore his lack of attention—as if she wasn't even there!—MM did her damnedest to focus on the steps for a long lasting polished shine. That didn't work out too well, however, when Ken decided to perch on the arm rest and ask her why it even mattered if her nails looked shiny…

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Upstairs Mukuro had shrugged off his coat and shed his outermost layer, changing from his pedestrian clothing into something more familiar, worn black leather pants and a white tee. Snatching his chair back, he sat quickly and stared at the desk in front of him. Or rather, more so, the items that littered its surface. There was a haphazard stack of documents in the corner, no longer in any particular order and the rest of the space was predominately taken up by pictures, most of them taken in the past two weeks. A few of them were of children, ranging in age from 3 to 11, but the prime focus of the photos was a woman. She was of a light olive complexion, dark haired with a mid-back length ponytail, and doe brown eyes. Not uncommon descriptions for an Italian woman, but her features were exotic in shape and depiction. Her eyes were sleek, but pleasant, almond shaped one might say, her nose, a button sized thing, and her mouth small but inviting in the childish grins seen so frequently in her photos.

Daniela Giordano DeLuca. 28 years old and of mixed heritage: an Italian father and a Chinese mother. Mukuro found himself shuffling through the reports again. A widow since her husband passed away about five years ago—an older man by about 15 years who lost the fight with lung cancer. She'd been married to the man, Antonio DeLuca for two years prior and the couple had just adopted a 6 year old child together. It was shortly afterwards that his cancer became terminal. The widow appeared to, in her grief, channel her loneliness into her children, as she'd taken the small fortune left to her by her husband and adopted four more orphans. She even sold the house where she and Antonio had lived in favor of purchasing the brick building he'd left earlier. She'd opened the flower shop just a few months later.

Dragging the photos over, he stared at the list of information pertaining to her adopted children. A stocky boy with dark blonde hair and a flinty stare in the form of dark almost black brown eyes. The kid didn't like to take pictures it seemed—though he'd seemed lively enough in person. Rocco Giovanni, age 11. After him was the only girl in the bunch. She seemed rather bookish if the constant stack of reading material near her was anything to go by. Her brunette hair always in a long plait, her glasses often sliding to the end of her nose as she peered at everyone with a suspicious grey eyed glare, she was by far the most difficult according the locals—too mouthy, they said. Donna Isabella, age 9.

A year after the lady, she picked up two brothers, Luca and Alessandro. Luca, age 7, the oldest of the two had light blond hair and lacquered brown eyes. He was spacing out in the picture Mukuro had of him, staring dumbly off into the distance, while his younger brother, nearly identical if not for his brown hair looked as though his photographed actions might suddenly move—easily notable as being the most energetic of all her children, Alessandro, age 6. Then, finally, there was the most recent addition to her brood, Sergio, 3. She'd adopted him as a newborn, dark haired and blue eyed, in nearly every photo he had of the boy, he was in the woman's arms.

Glaring at the images of a happy family, he tossed the photographs back onto his desk without a care for organization. For someone who'd lived a life as fractured as his own, he found theirs to be sickeningly pleasant. His subjects were so infuriating that he had to remind himself why he even cared. Staring at the empty expanse of water stained wallpaper, he recalled their arrival two weeks ago. They were supposed to just be passing through, on the hunt for a new hideout. Any small town would do really, but they had been thinking about one further out of the way. They, were himself, Chikusa, Ken, and MM.

At the time he was teetering on the precipice of amusement and annoyance—a common occurrence when accompanied by both Ken and MM. What with the latter complaining about the former's sweat falling too close to her and the former in response throwing out a crude if not childish insult in turn. He held in a sigh and turned his attention elsewhere, just thankful that they were all under his illusions. If not, their cover would've been blown the moment they stepped foot in Italy again…if not miles before.

The town had none of the grandeur of the famed cities of Italy, but it certainly wasn't without its charm—plenty of old architecture with only the barest hint of modernization. He was studying an old brick building, built at least fifty years ago, when he took note of the people exiting from its front door. It was flurry of motion—five children all taking off with breathless laughter. The youngest one, a toddler, was caught quickly and giggled in delight when the boy's mother—he could only assume—scooped him up and pretended to toss him over her shoulder. She must have felt his stare, because she turned to meet it…and the moment she did Mukuro was lost. Lost in an emotion, he thought he'd abandoned so many years ago in the remnants of a laboratory. …Fear.

It trickled down his spine and seized his mind. Adrift in the depths of eerily familiar brown eyes, he stared at her—studied her. Yet, there was nothing even remotely similar to remembrance as he watched her…no…it was just her eyes. There was something there, something that haunted him in the shrouded corners of his mind…something that surfaced the moment the weight of her gaze laid upon him. He was so transfixed that it was only upon feeling his illusions slip that he shook himself free. Mukuro gave the woman—who was giving him an uneasy but wiry quirking of lips—an embarrassed smile, relieved that he'd chosen to disguise himself as a young teenaged boy with no particular memorable features.

The woman gave him a full grin then, probably amused at what seemed to be a young man caught staring at an attractive woman, and proceeded with her business: playing tag with her children. Looking away from her, he caught up with the others easily, his attention having strayed for only a moment. Ken and MM hadn't even noticed beyond their bickering. Chikusa, however, stared at him for some time before looking back ahead—not speaking a word and he probably never would.

He'd tried not to think much of it and found things to distract himself. It worked for the most part…that is until they stopped at an inn for that night. It would be lying if he said he didn't dream much and even more so if he said he didn't have the occasional nightmare still—the vindicare prison hadn't helped—but that night his dream was unlike anything he could ever recall. The fear had wrapped itself so tightly around him that he swore he felt it's crushing grasp on his lungs. He only awoke do to being out of breath and amongst gulps of air, he snatched at the bits of his dream that he could remember clearly…a flash of silver, blood…lots and lots of blood…and a pair of hauntingly familiar brown eyes.

He didn't go back to sleep that night and when the others dragged themselves from their bed, they were promptly commanded to find a place. It took them a few days to get themselves situated, but even with those days to think on it, Mukuro found himself growing more certain. He knew her…whoever she was…he knew her. Like an itch beneath the skin, it drove him mad that just the sight of her eyes could pull such dread from his heart! She was hardly terrifying! Instead, she was a good natured woman who'd gone out of her way to adopt five children. It ate at him, the mystery surrounding this seemingly ordinary woman and himself. Somehow, she was connected to him. He didn't know how, but he would find out…because there was simply no way in hell that he'd allow himself to be frightened—frightened by some slip of a woman!

And so his hunt for information began in the following days. Digging up anything he and his small, but loyal group could find. There wasn't much, but then again, you couldn't expect to find much on a woman who'd successfully legally adopted five children. It wouldn't have added up…and yet…to Mukuro, it was only more suspicious. Her history was remarkably uninteresting before age 20, something that wouldn't be all that strange if not for the fact that she gotten married at 21. He couldn't help find it a bit unusual for someone who'd willingly committed themselves in marriage at such a young age to have been so inactive prior to.

Of course,…he wasn't an idiot and had in fact considered that there could be any number of factors in her life that simply weren't documented that had led to her early marriage…but…any time he thought on that path he'd only be drawn to one thing. He recognized those eyes of hers… and he wasn't recalling something from recent years, that he knew for sure, so it could only be something from his past. …which meant…there was something in her past. He just had to find it.

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He was still sitting at the desk when Ken entered the room and found him boring a hole into the desk with his gaze. Upon moving closer, the blonde realized that it wasn't the table he was staring at, but rather a picture. He was almost hesitant to speak, but did so anyway, "Mukuro-san?"

Ken hid a flinch when his long time boss and occasional friend narrowed his eyes in his direction. Forcing himself to relax, he answered the unspoken demand, "There's food ready." He scratched at his head and looked away, "MM cooked this time so I doubt it's all that great, but hey," he shrugged, "at least it's edible…I think anyway," he muttered off to the side.

Mukuro was anything but ignorant of the relief radiating from his subordinate when he waved him off. Saying, "I'll be down shortly."

He waited until Ken had left before standing, dragging the woman's picture off the table as he did so. He studied it one last moment before tossing it back onto the table and headed downstairs. All the while his mind swimming with one thought, …if she wants to play innocent, let her. I'll just have play at the game myself. The smirk came unbidden to his face as he descended down the darkened staircase, his chuckles echoing about him. "Kufufufu…"

Afterword: Firstly, I would like to say thanks to all of my original readers who've returned to read this chapter…and I apologize for my great delay. If you're willing to read on, you'll learn the reason for it.

Originally, life had just put a massive block on my time and motivation…and then two…almost three months ago….life sucker punched me…. My father passed away from heart failure. I lived with my dad, we shared the bills, and was preparing to move out in August, however…when he passed my father's life insurance was contestable on account of this particular policy having not been in place for two years. So…I had to shell out my savings in order to pay for everything. Without my father, I had to quit my job and move out of the house we were renting for the last three years…because even if I kept my job I couldn't afford to stay there. I am essentially homeless and currently staying with family until my financial situation is resolved and I am able to move on with my life.

My loss has hurt me in a lot of ways…while I have family…no one in my remaining family is truly close to me. My mother passed when I was 12, my grandfather, the second closest person to me in my family passed when I was 20 and now at 24, my father has passed. My father being the one who raised me and successfully played both parents for me won't be here to see all the greatest changes and achievements in my life…and that hurts me. And as if that wasn't enough, his passing has greatly affected my living circumstances, my finances, and even my goals in life. This probably seems like a bit of a robotic and choppy message…but that's because I've gone over it so many times with others and hate having to say it again.

I will continue to mourn my father for the rest of my life, not because I can't cope—I've already done that as I had to make all the decisions—but because my life has only just begun and the one person I wanted to see me live it is no longer here.

But anyway…the only reason I'm telling you all this sad chunk of bleh….is because I want you guys to know that despite this and my absence, that due to my current situation I may not always be able to update like I want to (only hotspot internet from my phone), HOWEVER, I am most certainly still writing and that I have no plans to give up on any of these fics.

In fact…Tooth and Nail will be coming soon.

-S.T.