broken

Mukuro claws open a gate, the fallen portal looking like a glowing crack in mid-air which soon expands in violent, jerking twists. The edges seep black and through the opening, an entirely different place is seen, partially blurred like heat waves off a road.

Mukuro gestures the other two through to the city-scape and they oblige, melting into vague outlines as they pass through the gate. He leaves Chikusa and Ken to gather information on the state of the supernatural, generally the major changes with an emphasis on the Vongola and Hunter clans.

While Mukuro would love to simply kill the entirety of the angelic race, walking in blind would be a stupid idea. Fun, but stupid.

He lets the gate snap closed and pulls apart the atmosphere once more, this time the other side showing a quiet street with apartments sprinkled about in between small shops. He remembers the place clearly from how many times he had visited before.

He shifts his weight in the tall grass, hesitating. He can see the cake cafe that Chrome would always insist on eating at. He takes a calm breath and steps through.

The sound of wind and faint murmurs of animal life cut off when he passes into the fallen portal. The world distorts uncomfortably and he has to close his eyes for a moment until he steps out, the gate blinking out of existence behind him.

The street is small, just a one way road with no pedestrians. Apartments rise like walls at either side and Mukuro turns to take in everything. It's nostalgic but new, everything subtly shifted from what Mukuro expects. Enough is the same to put him at ease but he can't relax fully.

It makes sense considering how long he was gone for, in fact he's rather surprised it's this similar, but he still finds it disappointing. He strides down the street, heading for where Chrome's tree had been. He's prepared for what he sees, really, but when he gets to the turn he freezes.

The apartment block is large and tall, with shiny steel balconies and large windows. The bottom floor boasts a magnificent restaurant and Mukuro reminds himself to start the fire there. Not in the kitchen, because people might assume it was an accident.

He climbs the front steps and enters the glass double doors. The flooring is marble and the main part of the restaurant is blocked off by a wall -with a confusing modern art mural- where the patrons are supposed to wait to be seated.

It looks ugly compared to Chrome's tree.

Everything looks ugly compared to Chrome's tree.

He passes two staff members who are blankly smiling at nothing in particular and moves around the corner, coming to a halt when he sees the middle of the dining area, only a small number of people scattered about. The marble flooring in one portion is built up to make four short walls holding in dark brown earth, and bright overhead lights shine down on the spot.

The Dogwood tree is in full bloom, the almost black bark contrasting sharply with the thousands of pure white flowers. It's beautiful, made all the more so because that is a nymph's tree.

"Would you like some help, sir?" a kind female voice offers from behind, a teasing quality to that lovely voice.

Mukuro whips around, staring wide eyed at a woman, the nymph smiling fondly up at him. "Chrome," is all Mukuro can say, but she knows.

Chrome throws her arms around Mukuro and the fallen melts into her, clutching the deep green fabric of the staff uniform she wears.

"I'm sorry," she murmurs. "I never stopped trying to get to you. You must have been so sad trapped away."

"It's fine," Mukuro chuckles, amused at how she was the one trying to save Mukuro when all along he had been hoping to rescue her. He sighs in contentment, squeezing her tighter. "I'm fine. It wasn't so bad, we'd play in the games arcade and make forts with the furniture."

...

Ken and Chikusa sprint along the rooftops to where Mukuro would inevitably be. The informant on the other side of the city was willing (after a few broken bones) to explain the changes to the supernatural hierarchy. Big surprise; there are barely any. Supernatural tend to move slowly with how long their lifespans are.

They're both in full shift so Ken was three times the size of a human and looking like a monstrous wolf, while Chikusa has a mouthful of fangs and glowing red eyes.

Both moved too fast for people to see, hurrying because they wanted to join in and destroy the apartments with Mukuro. They locked onto the building and leapt off a nearby roof, their forms returning to human as they land hard and make cracks in the road.

They share a glance of confusion, because no one is screaming inside the building. Surely, there would be screaming?

They cautiously enter, but even with a closer view the humans are just casually going about their business, no sign of an angry Mukuro. They both pass the front wall and come to a stop when they catch sight of the restaurant.

Despite the brightly shining runes carved into the marble floor and the small scale tornado around the tree, no one is making any fuss, clearly unable to see the ritual.

"No, turn clockwise," Mukuro says, standing at the north point of the rune hexagon and holding a thick pile of papers, more scattered around his feet, most of which is whisked away by the tornado and thrown about the room. He flicks through the heavy stack and finds another piece of paper. "Wait, no, it is anti-clockwise. I was right the first time."

Chrome sighs and gracefully twirls, hovering at the east point of the hexagon. She soon catches sight of them and smiles happily. "Chikusa, Ken! It's so good to see you again!"

"Um, hi," Ken says slowly. "Good to see you… alive, apparently."

Chikusa rolls his eyes and elbows the werewolf for that amazing show of tact. "Are you two transferring the fey link from the tree?"

Mukuro bites his lip and flips through the papers again, speed reading.

"We're trying to," Chrome says. The woman holds up a beautiful gold locket on a delicate chain. The cover is embossed with the tree of life symbol that humans seem so shallowly interested about, each 'branch' actually a series of runes in different languages. Most are there for protection and to make the item porous to fey energy.

Both men splutter in embarrassment when she opens the jewellery to show a picture of all four of them. The vampire and werewolf look away shyly and pluck at their sleeves, mumbling vague things about the locket looking nice.

"Okay," Mukuro says with confidence. "Now move to Algiz and crush a flower from your tree inside the locket." He looks up and finds Chrome staring at him blankly. "The demented trident rune," Mukuro deadpans.

Chrome floats over to the rune in question and before she does as instructed, Mukuro once again interrupts.

"Wait, I don't think that should be done with Algiz," Mukuro mumbles and starts flipping pages once more.

"This is going to take a while," Chikusa mutters to Ken. "Do you want to get some ice-cream?"

"Fuck it," Mukuro snaps, frustrated. The pages burst into flames in his hands and quickly fade into not even ash. He strides forward and snatches the locket from Chrome, pouring his intent and energy into forcing the unnatural shift.

His body gives off waves of smoke, the dark grey falling to the floor and spreading, cracking the flooring of the restaurant where it touches and shrivelling the wooden tables and chairs when the furniture is engulfed.

It shouldn't work.

From the start, before Mukuro was even trapped, the concept of transferring a nymph's link to the fey world from their home tree to something else is simply not done. It's wrong to move such an important part of the nymph - it would be tampering with their very core being.

Fey need to be supplied with energy from their dimension to survive. Tree nymphs do this through their home tree which is technically considered a stationary portal to the fey world, constantly open and feeding energy directly into the nymph.

If anything went wrong in the extremely delicate process of moving, the nymph would lose their powers at best and die in agony at the worst. Even despite the risks for the fey supernatural, the power necessary and the information that is needed is immense.

This isn't the first time in history that a link would be forcefully ripped from the home tree, it's just that all other times are due to power hungry supernatural who wanted the energy to power whatever doomsday device they had. That makes it harder because the fey are expecting an attack now.

For this to work, Mukuro would have to cut the home tree link, which is arguably the easiest thing.

He would also have to act as a temporary home tree, attaching a thread of his power to the fey world in order to pull energy out and give it to Chrome. To get the energy he'll have to bypass the barriers and then fend off attacks by the fey, which is no small task in any manner, especially considering only fey can pass through the shield.

Mukuro has to destroy the millennia old defences that have been added to by every generation of fey and forcefully tear energy away from the dimension, keeping it concentrated and protected enough that it doesn't fade in Earth's atmosphere, right up until he can give it to Chrome.

While this is happening he would need to make the new home tree/locket into a permanent portal, which means deliberately attracting attention to his first power thread so they don't notice him slipping through security a second time and implanting the gateway.

Realistically, it can't be done.

However, Mukuro was never one to bow to limits.

Every item of glass inside a fifty meter radius abruptly shatters as a shockwave explodes outwards, setting off car alarms and causing a fierce rush of freezing cold wind.

...

Xanxus' eyes snap open, the fallen Alpha waking in his chair when his senses pick up something interesting.

He stands gracefully and makes his way out of the room, flaring his own power enough to call for his Varia. They fall into step with him and when they reach the front entrance, they throw off their solidity, launching into the sky as violent spirals of shadow.

...

Mukuro gasps for air, only standing because Ken and Chikusa are holding him upright. The locket in his hand pulses with warmth like a beating heart, the energy coating it feeling like Chrome.

The illusion over the humans has most definitely snapped and they're screaming loudly and running, flailing about the place.

"Let's- let's take a break," Mukuro pants raggedly.

Ken ducks and picks up Mukuro bridal style. Chrome takes the locket from the fallen's slack hand and puts it around her neck, before grabbing a handkerchief in her pocket and dabbing gently at the heavy flow of blood from Mukuro's nose. Chikusa cuts his thumb on an extended fang and the blood disperses into mist, feeding a suggestion into the air to not look, to forget, as they make their way outside.

Mukuro rests his head on Ken's shoulder, a half-numb hand keeping the cloth over his nose, and watches Chrome closely despite his bone deep exhaustion. The barriers around the fey dimension are what really took his effort. Their automatic defences are fast and painful and Mukuro will never, ever do that again.

Chrome looks fine, no discomfort at all as they get further away from her previous home tree. The average distance a tree nymph can go is only a few hundred meters, so evidently it worked.

Mukuro lets out a tired chuckle, rather proud of himself. He knew he could do it of course, he wouldn't dare risk Chrome otherwise, but it's still a rush of glee at how insanely strong he is.

Do you see how pathetic you are compared to me, brother? Do you really want to fight me, you fuckface?

As the only portal maker of the four is currently unable to stand, much less open a gate, the four of them find a quiet backstreet and Ken gently sets Mukuro down on a plastic crate. The plan is to rest and then find somewhere more secure.

Unfortunately, a fallen portal opens rather abruptly.