Mio Famiglia, Mio Scudo

Episode XVII

He was running, but he didn't know where to, neither was he aware of where from. Or from what nor who. All he knew is that he was running. There was danger, horrifying danger, that he knew he couldn't beat on his own, his family wouldn't be able beat it on his own. His feet carried him over to a room, a ballroom of all things, with light, almost see through curtains.

There were ashes on the floor.

And mixed within the ashes were the clothes and rings.

He felt his legs give in. This couldn't be true. Those piles of ash.. Those.. Those..
Cain
Haruka
Heiji
Nyx
Taran
Xia

It couldn't be.

He wanted to scream, but he had no voice to scream with, his pain and loss was left unvoiced. And the fire in his veins was burning brighter and brighter, hotter, hotter than it should. His hands reached for the two swords on his sides, tied to his hip, as he heard the thing laugh, as it drew closer. Naoki turned around, a cape following his lucid movements. The fire was burning his feet, his shoes were already smoking. Whatever it was that the intruder had done to him, to them, it was already taking effect. And it worked fast.

His tears were boiling in his eyes, burning him to blindness, his body combusting, fire coming off of the seams of his clothes, his tongue tasting the ash he was turning into. He attacked.

And became the fire.

Hazel eyes zapped open as their holder felt the cold feeling of loss and grief seeping into his heart. That was too real to be just a dream. From around him, he sensed the rest of his people move, waking up with the same ache in their hearts. Those who were staying with him soon found their way to his bedroom, one by one climbing into his bed with tear stained faces, those who lived away sent their flames to him. Spoke to him.

"Nao... I held bodies of two kids, twins, I think they were mine. I even knew their names, Elias and Elisa, and I failed. I couldn't protect them..." Naoki closed his eyes, hearing the sore whisper of Heiji, his flames relying the speech to him. All around him, he heard them whisper. "I was pregnant", "I... I... You.. I couldn't..", "It burns.. It hurts so much", "So scared", "He got me"
All he could do for now was to extend his area of effect, how far his aura, his flames could reach, and attempt to soothe down the people he sensed to be in pain, to be sad.

At this point, he didn't even care if he was found anymore. He had to help someway. He had to do SOMETHING.
Sure, it was just a nightmare, nothing out of the ordinary, but it was also too real. The aching was too real.

As he kept sending off his flames to the world like a hotspot, he touched something that he hadn't felt before.

It was a sky flame, that was for sure, but it wasn't exactly the same as the ones he'd encountered before.
Most skies were friendly flames, even Nana's flame was even if it was unpredictable and dangerous to flames around her, they wanted people to come to them, to establish a bond or hierarchy.
But this one? Not so much.

This sky flame was actively giving off a signal of danger to people around it, warning them to stay away from the source. It was unwelcoming and brash. Violent and destructive.
Very much different from the Vongolian flames Naoki had learned to know rather well as courtesy of every now and then brushing against Sawada Nana and her son. It was the opposite of the soft flames that Valentino had, unbalanced unlike Tetsuya's, not too controlled unlike Baku's flames were.

They lacked the soft flame component completely, they were just hard flames. And hard flames were more proun for destruction than the soft flames were. They didn't bond the same way either. Hard flames required inverted flames to be in their set. And even then, it wasn't the sky flame that ruled over that specific set. Oh no. It was the cloud. Clouds in general had the potential to develop a harmony factor would the cloud in question be nourished enough and given certain conditions, inverted clouds were born with this ability. But it begged for a very peculiar set and even then they didn't exactly require a set like their sky counterparts did.