1 Redo

*-*-*-*-*

Skull died, unchained, free and screaming in defiance at the maniac set in the face of a brat. It's a long time coming really, he's lived long enough, enough where he stopped counting at the hundreds and even forgot the first name he was given. Skull had rewritten himself more than enough times, relishing in creating a different story for every life, from their climax to their endings. After all, what entertainment could an immortal being have in his long life other than his own and the mortals around him. 

And this time, it's not only the ending of Skull's story, it's the denouement, the time where the period would finally be brought down to his continuous lifetime.

Really, the brat did him a great favor for ending him. After what, centuries? Three, four, five millenia? 

Whatever, it's been too damn long. He has been trying and waiting for all of it to end, finally, the opportunity arose and here is Skull, taking the initiative to meet the end of his immortal life. Chains that had always held him back to the mortal plane.

(But really, this brat has nothing on Skull during his own reign of madness for several decades. Gosh, looking back at it, this pasty bastard is laughable in terms of violence, blood and chaos. Like a child throwing a tantrum, oh wait, the bastard is a child throwing a tantrum after too many looksees through different dimensions.)

Skull broke through the cage of limitations, free, boundless and laughing as the world burns beneath his bloody fingertips. Just like old times.

(It's liberating.)

The fear in the brat's eyes disappeared to give way to the smugness of an asshole who just won by being a fucking coward when Skull finally falls. Finally falters at his self-imposed mission to put the fear of God to the megalomaniac marshmallow scaredy cat. And yep, Skull calls it. That brat is a fucking coward, because why else would he fear someone like Skull, declared to be the weakest of the Arcobaleno.

Someone who's supposed to be just a stuntman.

Well, to say the least, he has been many things other than a stuntman.

(An emperor, mother, warrior, king, priestess, slave, assassin, crusader, witch doctor, cult leader, actress, queen and so many more. Skull has always been more than he seems.)

Huh, Skull smirked through blood and pain and Goddamnit he feels so fucking alive, he looked so proud for a cheating bastard. 

"Any last words, Skull de Mort?"

How pretentious, and they call Skull the dramatic one. 

Skull glared through blurry and spotty vision, his flames unable to keep up after a month and a half of constant fighting and self-healing, now finally succumbing to the effects of that damn radiation. 

Soon enough, he would stop breathing, die and stop existing.

But Skull is free, boundless, liberated and that's all he fucking wants.

Death does not scare Skull, he's danced with Death in multiple points of his life, always leading it on but unable to follow through because Life had chained him to her. Until this moment that is. Skull managed to break the chains and chose to take Death's hand with the grace of a true performer, to follow its lead for a round of wild saucy salsa.

Skull grins, bares his teeth and watches in glee as the cloak of fear enters that man-child's eyes.

 "You don't deserve to wear purple." Skull says evenly, even with half of his lungs burnt off and throat almost crushed, the smirk on his purple painted lips mocking. "It doesn't suit you."

Being King doesn't suit you.

Purple is the color of kings, of rulers, of power, yet this third rate clown tries to wear it like it is his. He even have the fucking audacity to tattoo it on his face, an upside down crown to mark his claim.

Even the crafted persona of Skull, who only wears it as a symbol of his eccentricness and showmanship wore the color better, decked out as he is from head to toe. 

What a joke. What a sadder clown than all of Skull's circus friends could ever be.

From the looks of it, the bastard understood what he meant. The look of utter rage is a sprinkle of confetti in Skull's stuttering heart, his vision a swirl of kaleidoscopic colors of muted shades of gray, white and ash.

It's coming.

Skull didn't manage to hear the brat's indignant reply, because before orange could overthrow his sight, he was already drowning in the sea of black.

Until then, Skull knew no more, he was finally free of any shackles holding him back. 

Skull died, content and happy and most of all free. He has regrets, yes, but that's useless now, all that matters is that he's liberated and untethered.

Boundless.

*****

Itadori Yuuka woke up with a pounding headache and tons of memories that shouldn't be hers but she knows are hers.

It's all hard to explain and complicated for six-year-old Yuuka but she instinctively knew that the man in that memory, one Skull de Mort, is also Yuuka or who Yuuka used to be. The man had gone by many names but none of them is as easy to grasp and Skull had been the man's last identity.

So for the sake of making her head hurt less, Yuuka will refer to the man as Skull.

Skull is Yuuka, and Yuuka is Skull.

(Can't say that Skull is disappointed, maybe a bit miffed, but not disappointed. It seems like Life loves keeping Sku–er, Yuuka in her embrace.)

And now that the Skull part of her has been awoken, she would need something to entertain her in this immortal life. Boredom is a thing to be faced when you've experienced different versions of lives. Yuuka does not want to be bored at all. She has seen the result of it from that marshmallow brat after all. Yuuka might be callous in regards to death but there's no need to involve the mortals. She loves freedom, and humanity has been bestowed the gift of free will. It's mostly fun to watch them do their own stuff on their own, and if she ends up eradicating them then she would end up in an even more boring mess.

Human lives are free entertainment.

They might be boring most times, but they can also be surprising in the least way you'd expect.

So yeah, Yuuka needs a goal so she does not get bored and hypothetically kill everyone out of boredom.

Yuuka has decided that she will live a life as free and as boundless as Skull, maybe someone from the entertainment industry again because it was so much fun having people fawn at you for every little thing and then bash you for the smallest of issues. Humans are so funny like that. Maybe she could even have annoying paparazzis and obsessive stalkers! Not that she liked having them as Skull but that's part of the thrill and entertainment.

Maybe she could become some kind of popstar? 

Wait, isn't she Japanese now? 

And from her features, the pink hair and wide amber eyes, she's someone who is pretty cute right?

Maybe she can become an idol in this life! Her life as Skull almost took a whole century because of the curse he consciously took on himself. Skull had been eyeing that idol life for a while back.

Oh, oh, and then after becoming a star idol she can die by some sort of mystery tragedy that would be one for the books that youtubers and documentaries would cover about.

Wow, that sounds like a swell plan. A nice goal if Yuuka says so herself.

But first,

Yuuka stared at the hideous drooling creature crawling on top of her cabinet, its color a nasty puke green with many legs and bulging eyes. There were also tinier versions in different colors flying or crawling about in her room which are just as ugly as the biggest one on her cabinet.

The big one that keeps talking about groceries and how pricy everything is in the garbled voice of an old man.

Its presence is not malicious to her at least, more like it was a negativity given physical form. Now that she thinks about it, the world around her feels different than the one in her memories as Skull. Yuuka is as connected and intimate to the world as Skull is now, the hum of her Sky-Cloud flames still within her. The energy coming from the earth is different, she can tell that the elements are still there but as she does a flame sweep to her surroundings, the mortals around her do not even make a bleep as any sort of flame type.

But what they do have is a different type of energy, one that neither Yuuka nor Skull knows in their combined life and knowledge.

Hmmm… it seems like before Yuuka could become a super idol, she has to figure out what type of world she was reborn into, because clearly, it was a different one from when she was Skull.

A smirk spread across Yuuka's lips, an out of place, ill-suited expression to her now sweet cherubic face.

"This will be so much fun."