All Your Wishes

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Branch

What if Xanxus had been sane enough to become the Tenth after all? What would it have taken, and what would he do with the Family placed in his hands? And how would Tsuna enter into this? Xanxus/Squalo.

Ink Burns

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

This is a work of fanfiction, produced according to the principles of transformative fair use as put forward in US copyright law, and abiding by the custom and practice of fan-produced work in Japan, where the source texts were created. No author is in any way affiliated with any of the creators of the source texts, nor with the companies who distribute their products, nor any other rights holder, and these stories were not authorized by either the creators or the producers. Ink Burns is a fan site and the material here is freely provided for the enjoyment of fellow fan-community members; there is no commercial infringement.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 US license at the Ink Burns fanfiction archive (http://www.branchandroot.net/archive/).

"Archimedes' Lever - One" published on 2009-12-22 16:11:30.

"Archimedes' Lever - Two" published on 2009-12-23 15:32:36.

"Archimedes' Lever - Three" published on 2009-12-24 15:12:49.

"Archimedes' Lever - Four" published on 2009-12-25 16:05:10.

"Archimedes' Lever - Five" published on 2009-12-26 14:18:09.

"Archimedes' Lever - Six" published on 2009-12-27 14:10:14.

"Omiai" published on 2010-01-02 14:46:35.

"Keeping Up with the Vongolas" published on 2010-02-25 13:18:52.

Attributions can be made by author's name and a link to the archive.

This ebook edition was published on September 6, 2019 by the Ink Burns fanfiction archive.

Cover illustration is "Angel Custodia" by Joan de Joanes, public domain (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Joan_de_Joanes_-_Angel_custodio_%280425-0032%29.jpg).

Cover design by Branch.

Archimedes' Lever - One

What if Squalo had been taken in by the Vongola earlier, and met Xanxus much sooner? What change would that have made in both of them? Drama, I-3

In the end it all came down to Xanxus, Rafaele decided later. He didn't normally pay much attention to the mafia children until they were old enough to seek a real position. As both Gianni and Maria were wont to say, each in his or her own way, they had their fellow Guardians to satisfy any such urges. But having Xanxus running around the main house like a kid-shaped bomb, ready to go off at any second, would make anyone a little more alert. So when Tyr mentioned, after the sparring session when they were both wrapping their various cuts and bruises, that there was a promising new swordsman coming along among the children, Rafaele listened.

"Ten years old?" He paused with a palm full of salve and looked over at Tyr. "I'm not saying you're wrong, but how can you judge his promise so young? Or, perhaps I should say, his endurance?"

Tyr ran a cleaning rag down his sword in steady, even strokes. "You can tell with this one."

Tyr never used two words when one would do, or would do for the sufficiently alert mind willing to puzzle at it. You can tell, he'd said.

Which was how Rafaele came to be walking across the lawn of one of the mafia-run schools, tracking down a boy called Superbi Squalo. The teachers had known who he wanted as soon as he said the word "sword", and he thought that should probably tell him something. When he stepped through the last grove of bay laurel and out onto a grassy ring to see a thin boy lunging ferociously against practice dummies, he had the first inkling what that something was.

The boy spun toward him, sword in a low guard that looked so perfectly natural and unthinking in a ten year old's hand it send a faint shiver down Rafaele's spine.

"Who are you?" The question was a little wary and a little predatory, too.

Well, fair enough, he was a stranger and this was a school full of mafia children. "Rafaele Martelli of the Vongola."

The wariness relaxed a bit, edging toward the kind of dismissiveness Rafaele more expected from a kid. "Something you wanted?"

"I heard you were good with a sword," Rafaele answered easily. "I came to see."

Squalo frowned, easing back on his heels. "You're not with the Varia. I know Tyr already. Who are you?"

Rafaele silently aimed a mild curse or two at Tyr for not mentioning the part about already having scouted the kid for his own division of the Family, and then wondered why he hadn't. "I'm the Ninth's Rain Guardian," he supplied, wondering how that would be taken.

Squalo's eyes lit and gleamed. "The one who's supposed to be a swordsman." He was forward on his toes again. "Show me."

Rafaele blinked. "That's a bit presumptuous of you, don't you think?" he murmured.

"I don't care." Squalo's stare was fit to burn a hole through him and focused like... focused like the edge of a sword, Rafaele finished the thought slowly.

"Well, perhaps we can show each other, then," he allowed, and considered how those words echoed in his own mind as he shrugged out of his jacket and chose a practice blade from the rack.

Squalo's style was far more aggressive than his own, but it wasn't thoughtless. In fact, Rafaele could see the boy learning—sharpening, he couldn't help but think—as they fought. And when he eventually brought Squalo to a halt with the blunted point at his throat, Squalo's eyes were steady on him, unflinching. Rafaele drew back slowly, almost ready for Squalo to drive in on him again, not acknowledging his defeat.

Maybe he'd lived with Xanxus for too long already.

Instead, Squalo straightened up and nodded sharply. "I'll get better than that."

Rafaele gave him a thoughtful frown. "Why?" he finally asked. Tyr was right; Squalo's dedication was unmistakable and he had some notion of progress and pace already. But what was driving him?

Squalo was looking at him like he'd suddenly started speaking Russian instead of Italian. "To get better."

Rafaele's mouth quirked. "I gathered that, yes. But what do you want to get better for? What's the ultimate purpose of your swordwork?"

Squalo was still giving him the strange-foreign-language look, and Rafaele was getting a bad feeling about this. Perhaps he just wasn't using the right words, though; Squalo was from an established mafia family after all. He thought for a second and finally tried it the way he thought Gianni might phrase it.

"What does your sword serve?"

Ah, that seemed to click. Squalo settled and nodded a little and looked up at Rafaele more calmly. "Perfection," he answered.

Rafaele took a slow breath. This. This was what he had felt, hovering in the back of his head ever since he first saw the boy. This was why Tyr had wanted him to come. "Perfection itself must serve some larger end, or it's sterile," he said quietly. And Tyr believed that, but he was a little too given to the love of perfection, himself, to make someone like Squalo believe it. It was on Rafaele to make sure their new young sword didn't set himself up to snap.

Their new young sword, who was just about scoffing at him; well, if he'd wanted an easy life he shouldn't have said yes when Timoteo came asking for Guardians. "Perfection is weakened by thinking like that," Squalo declared. "You can't look away from it at other things."

"And yet I won today," Rafaele pointed out. "And my sword serves the Vongola Family, not itself."

Squalo glowered at him and muttered. "Just 'cause you're older."

Rafaele smiled wryly. "That is an advantage. But having something to serve gives you strength that you'll never find in the sword alone."

Squalo crossed his arms and eyed Rafaele skeptically for a long moment. "Prove it."

Rafaele thought about that for a moment. "All right, then." He held out a hand. "Come with me. We'll visit some other people who serve the same thing I do and perhaps you'll see."

If they hurried, he could probably catch Maria's afternoon training session.

They were in good time to find Maria grinding her training partner into the mats with her customary efficiency. Even Squalo looked a little impressed by the sound Alberto made landing. Maria shook her hand out briskly and looked over at Rafaele with a raised brow.

"You're early."

"I was hoping I could catch you for a bout today."

She smiled at that, slowly. Alberto managed about half a laugh as he levered himself to his feet. "Sounds like that's my cue." He waved at them as he staggered out.

"For a little more than just practice today, I think," Rafaele added.

Maria's brows went up at that and she glanced at Squalo as Rafaele directed him over by the wall. "Who's this?"

"Superbi Squalo. We're having a philosophical debate." Rafaele smiled a bit at the exasperated look Maria gave him, just about a match for Squalo's.

"Fine, whatever." She smiled again when Rafaele chose an unblunted blade and beckoned him onto the floor.

Fighting with a sword against bare hands required a different technique than against another sword, and fighting against Maria required total concentration. Rafaele couldn't spare anything to watch Squalo watching them as they pressed each other harder and harder, only hope that he would see everything. Rafaele held out as long as he could, drove himself the way he would for a fight the Family required and pulled Maria along with him, hoping it would be enough for Squalo to see.

Eventually even his speed and footwork wasn't enough, and Maria twisted past his blade and slammed him into the mats, one arm against his throat, teeth bared in a grin. Rafaele let his breath out and nodded.

And then he just lay there, panting for breath as Maria hauled herself upright. Finally he turned his head to look over at Squalo who did, indeed, look impressed. "Maria," Rafaele told him, a bit hoarsely, "is one of the Vongola's strongest fighters." He looked up at her and asked, levelly, "Maria, what does your strength serve?"

She snorted and toed him in the ribs, probably for making her into a teaching demonstration. "Stupid question. The Vongola, of course."

He gave her a wry shrug, asking silently who else he should have used. She glared, but held down a hand to help him up, tacitly forgiving him. "One person alone, even the strongest, will fail in the end," Rafaele said to Squalo, pressing a hand against his ribs. "The Vongola have always known this. If we fight as part of the Family, though, for the Family, there is always both need and strength beyond just ourselves."

Squalo was frowning again. "But all that will distract you from being the best fighter you can be," he protested.

Maria's snort was more emphatic this time. "Do I look distracted to you, kid?"

Squalo hesitated. "Well. No, I guess not."

"Rafaele reads too much." She waved at him dismissively. "He makes it more complicated than it has to be. If you don't fight for something, if it's just for the sake of fighting, you're nothing but a mad dog."

Squalo opened his mouth, eyes hot, and then closed it again slowly, frowning at Maria, and then at Rafaele. "Tyr... is better than you are," he finally said to Rafaele.

Rafaele suppressed a smile at the edge of uncertainty in Squalo's voice. "He is. And, yes, part of it is probably because he cares so much for the sword itself." He came to crouch in front of Squalo and laid a hand on his shoulder. "But once you have that sword, what are you going to do with it? Just keep looking for people to fight and kill?" Because then, he was starting to fear, you became Xanxus and he really didn't think they needed any more like that. He felt Squalo's shoulder settle under his hand, and those sharp eyes were focused again when Squalo looked up.

"No. Not like that."

This time Rafaele let the smile show. "Good. I'll be glad to fight beside you, then."

Maria put a knee in his shoulder and shoved him over. "Yes, yes, good fellowship toward all men, and the rest of that. You're in front of the medicine cabinet, move."

Rafaele righted himself with a low laugh as Maria pulled out the antiseptic and started spraying it over her cuts from their fight. "Maria is our Cloud Guardian," he told Squalo, by way of explanation. He watched it sink in, that the Cloud thought fighting for the Family was the right thing, and nodded to himself, pleased.

"Come and meet some of the others," Rafaele offered. "It's good to learn to fight against many kinds of opponents."

"Okay." This time Squalo didn't bristle at the hand Rafaele rested on his shoulder to guide him through the halls.

It didn't take long for everyone to get used to Squalo popping in and out of the main house, usually in search of Rafaele but he'd take anyone he could pin down for a training session. That included Piero, and Rafaele supposed he should have known that meant Squalo and Xanxus would meet sooner rather than later. He still had a moment of unease the day he emerged onto the outdoor shooting range and found Squalo quietly watching Xanxus shoot.

Squalo was never quiet without a good reason.

Xanxus, on the other hand, was always quiet when he was shooting, and the way he looked at the targets never failed to put a chill in Rafaele's veins. Piero praised Xanxus' focus and dedication, but to Rafaele the boy looked more than a little crazy like this—like he had someone particular in mind to aim at and was enjoying it a lot.

And Squalo was leaning against the rail of the gallery, eyes fixed on Xanxus.

When Xanxus emptied his clip and stepped back and saw them, his face shuttered instantly, eyes flicking between Rafaele and Squalo a few times before settling on the other boy. "What are you staring at?" he demanded.

The rudeness rolled right off Squalo, who was downright grinning. "You. That. That was cool. Hey, do you fight close-range, too?"

Xanxus snorted, hands moving over the gun, reloading without looking. "Of course."

Rafaele raised a brow at Piero, who shrugged and mouthed, "Street fighting." Rafaele remembered where they had found the boy and sighed. Squalo was far more enthused.

"Great!" He practically bounced down the steps and held out a hand to Xanxus. "Fight with me!"

Not for the first time, Rafaele reflected that mafia children grew up in a very different world than other children. Piero was nodding approval, though. "Yeah, you two should be decently matched, and you should get more practice against edged weapons. Go ahead."

Xanxus grunted and jerked his head at Squalo.

Rafaele trailed the three of them inside, hoping that his bad feeling about this was an overreaction.

Xanxus fought without any kind of restraint that Rafaele could see, but that didn't seem to faze Squalo. Of course, in justice, Rafaele had to admit, neither did getting hammered through the mat by Maria, who didn't believe in mercy to her training partners no matter how young. Squalo met Xanxus' vicious blows and kicks with fluid twists that were starting to be his personal style, and matched Xanxus' bared teeth with a grin of his own. When he landed on the mat for the last time, arm twisted hard behind him, he actually laughed breathlessly as he tapped out.

"That was great," he declared, working his shoulder a little as Xanxus let him up. He stuck out his other hand, shaking fine hair back from his face, and grinned up at Xanxus. "I'm Squalo. Good to meet you."

Xanxus nodded a little, looking satisfied at having won, though he ignored the extended hand loftily. "Yeah."

Squalo' eyes were just about glowing. "So. You want to train some more some time?"

Xanxus gave him a proud look, the kind that always made Rafaele feel a headache coming on. "Think you're good enough to train with the Ninth's son?"

Squalo tipped his head to the side. "Oh, you're his fourth son? I thought you were older." He shrugged it off. "Well, whatever."

Xanxus turned very still, staring at him. "You... didn't know who I was?"

"Sure I did." Squalo grinned as he stood. "You're good, that's what."

Rafaele could think of reasons, though none he liked, why that would make Xanxus look annoyed, but none why it would make him look, just for a moment, lost. He frowned and tucked the moment away to think about later.

"So, what about it?" Squalo prodded.

"I... sure, I guess so," Xanxus muttered.

Squalo was pleased and Piero looked approving, so Rafaele resigned himself. Hell, maybe having someone close to his own age would help civilize Xanxus a little, he thought, wistfully. "Come on then," he told his protege. "You can have another round with Xanxus later. Tyr wanted to see you today."

As he shepherded Squalo out, he glanced back to see Xanxus watching them leave with a tiny frown of what looked like genuine puzzlement.

TBC

Archimedes' Lever - Two

Squalo bonds with Xanxus, and none too soon as Xanxus finds out some things the Ninth had kept from him. Drama with Angst and Sort-of Romance, I-4

Squalo strolled around the edges of the wedding crowd beside Xanxus, keeping an eye out for any unattended cake they could nail down. He didn't have all that much of a sweet tooth personally, but it was a way of keeping score among the kids. After all, twelve year olds couldn't rack up kills yet, or negotiations concluded in their Family's favor. "Vieri are here," he observed. "Furetto, too. Guess that means Bertoldi's dad made him stop sulking and come along." He snorted a little; as if Bertoldi had ever had a chance with Dianora Leone.

Xanxus just grunted, and Squalo grinned crookedly. Sounded like Xanxus was in a bad mood. Again. He just kept chatting. Xanxus brooded a lot; Squalo hadn't been sure what the word really meant until he'd met Xanxus, but Xanxus was practically the definition of it. He came out of it eventually, if you just stayed close.

Well, and didn't lecture, which was where the grown ups always seemed to go wrong.

"Orsini, too," he observed idly, watching Giotto and Ignacio maneuvering for the punch bowl—good luck on that.

His head snapped up at the sound Xanxus made this time, low and ugly. "Xanxus?" His friend's face was dark and hard, lips curled up a little over his teeth, and a tingle slid down Squalo's nerves at that signal of a threat or fight on the horizon. Xanxus wasn't looking at the Orsini boys, though. His eyes were fixed straight ahead where Pino Tomasso and a few of his friends had come to stand.

Oh, great.

"Wedding isn't the place to start a fight," Squalo sing-songed under his breath, not that he thought that would do a bit of good if Xanxus lost his temper. The only answer he got was a snarl. Squalo sighed and stuffed his hands in his pockets and followed along, because Xanxus wasn't turning aside a single centimeter. He never did, and Squalo liked that, no matter how many lectures from the grown ups it meant.

"Hey, Xanxus," Pino called, crossing his arms. "Didn't expect to see you here."

The only answer he got was a stony stare. He plowed on anyway.

"Doesn't seem like the kind of place you'd be comfortable." He grinned at his friends, who grinned back and nudged each other. "I mean, a wedding. Must be kind of new to you, huh?" His smile turned vicious and his voice lowered as he finished. "Since your mom never had one, did she?"

Brightness flashed around Xanxus' clenched hand, and something very dark twisted his face. Squalo felt like that twist was in his gut, too. A few heads turned out among the crowd of grown ups, but damned if Squalo was waiting for them.

A man took care of his own business.

And wiping the smirk off Pino Tomasso's face with a fist to his stomach and an elbow across his jaw was damn satisfying business. Pino spat blood and straightened up with the help of a hand under his arm, glaring at Squalo as a few more boys materialized out of the crowd at his back. Squalo could see Xanxus staring at him, from the corner of his eye, but he kept his gaze on Pino, daring him to say more. "You'll regret standing by a bastard like Xanxus," Pino told him, low and vicious, and then there weren't any more words, just fists. Squalo could hear Xanxus snarling, behind him, and the memory of how his face had looked at Pino's words drove Squalo's feet faster and his fists harder. By the time Rafaele and two of the Tomasso's men arrived to pull them apart there was only one of Pino's friends still standing.

"Honestly... can't even stay out of trouble at a wedding..." Rafaele muttered as he swiped at their faces with a wet handkerchief.

"They asked for it," Xanxus growled, twisting aside.

"Even if they did, this wasn't the place for it," Rafaele told him severely. Squalo didn't think that was entirely fair.

"You'd have done it too, if they'd said that about your mother," he pointed out.

Rafaele paused and sighed. "I see."

"Besides, I was the one who punched Pino first." Squalo grabbed the cloth away from Rafaele to clean his own face with, frowning. "And you were right."

Rafaele blinked. "Excuse me?"

"It is different, when you're fighting for... for a reason." Squalo didn't look up. "For Family." He glanced at Xanxus, who had stopped still and was looking at him very oddly. Squalo shrugged and finished wiping the blood off his chin and offered Xanxus the handkerchief.

After a moment, he took it, not quite meeting Squalo's eyes. "Yeah. Whatever."

Squalo snorted a little, and winced at the way it made his ribs hurt. He was still amused. Xanxus was really bad at the people stuff.

Rafaele was shaking his head. "The two of you," he sighed.

Squalo considered that for a moment and smiled. "Yeah," he agreed, flashing a grin at Xanxus.

Xanxus finally met his eyes and took a slow step closer.

Squalo leaned back on his un-sprained hand and gave his mentor a satisfied look. "The two of us. That was what you wanted me to do, wasn't it?"

Rafaele put a hand over his eyes and laughed helplessly.

Training with Gianni was kind of like training blindfolded, only worse, because you saw things all right, but you couldn't trust any of them. Squalo absolutely hated it, and badgered Rafaele to convince Gianni to come more often, because anything he hated that much was obviously a weakness. Today there were real obstacles among the illusions, which was a particularly nasty touch that Squalo appreciated. Or, at least, he would appreciate it as soon as his head stopped ringing.

"Urgh," he said, and rolled over on his back to see what it was he actually tripped over. A footlocker sat where none had a minute ago, and the opponent he'd been chasing after had disappeared.

No wonder the Ninth's right had was supposed to be so good at negotiations.

By the time Gianni called a halt for the day Squalo was covered in bruises and Gianni didn't have a mark on him, the bastard. Squalo grinned at him. "I'll be better when I come back."

Gianni smiled just a little, but whatever he'd been about to say slid out of Squalo's mind as one of the shadows along the wall stirred.

"Xanxus!" Squalo trotted over before his friend could slip away or do any of the other stupid things he'd been doing this whole week. "Here to train or just to watch?" he asked. Xanxus' answer was a particularly inarticulate grunt and Squalo's smile quirked. "Well, anyway, come on." He took the precaution of towing Xanxus along with him as he racked his sword and nodded to Gianni, and didn't let go until they were out in the hall. They walked together silently, and Squalo waited.

"You're really going?" Xanxus finally asked, head down, hands shoved in his pockets.

"Yeah," Squalo said quietly. "Tyr thinks it's the right time. That I need to see and fight more styles than I'll find here. Feels like he's right." He glanced up at Xanxus' dark expression. "It'll probably only be a year or so."

"Mm."

Squalo rolled his eyes silently and tried another approach. "Well, how am I supposed to be able to keep up with you, if I don't keep advancing?"

That nudged Xanxus into an equally familiar but different response, one brow lifting as he eyed Squalo. "Think a lot of yourself, don't you?"

Squalo laughed. "Wherever you go, I'm following." He grinned as Xanxus' stride hitched; Xanxus never expected things like that, it was almost too easy. "I have to be the best to keep up, right?" He looked up to find Xanxus staring at him and shook his head, jostling Xanxus' shoulder companionably with his own. "Come on, you know that by now, don't you?"

Xanxus looked away and walked on. After a few more strides he said, quietly, "You want to train a few rounds before you go?"

Squalo smiled. "Sure."

Squalo expected to be welcomed home after a year away, but Rafaele had greeted Squalo with such a fervent "Thank God you're back," that Squalo was instantly suspicious.

"What's going on?"

"It's Xanxus."

Squalo narrowed his eyes and sat down at Rafaele's kitchen table with folded arms. "Okay, what did you guys do wrong this time?"

Rafaele gave him a stern look for a moment before sighing. "All right, perhaps there's some justice in that." He poured two cups of coffee and sat down across from Squalo. "There's been some factional trouble brewing, a few of the under-bosses starting to say that Xanxus should be heir, not Federico. What we're afraid of is that they aren't moving on their own."

"Outsiders stirring up trouble?" Squalo had seen that often enough in school.

"Maybe. The Cetrulli, Gianni thinks." Rafaele took a sip of his coffee and leaned back. "The problem is that Xanxus has heard and seems to be taking to the idea."

Squalo shrugged. "Well, why wouldn't he?"

Rafaele coughed on a swallow of coffee and frowned at him. Squalo leaned back and frowned right back at him.

"Look. I follow Xanxus, okay? That doesn't mean just calming him down so he'll go along with whatever you and the Ninth think is good. If he wants to compete with Federico to be the Tenth, it's him I'll be helping."

Rafaele set his cup down carefully. "If you follow him, and intend to aid him, doesn't that include protecting him from the manipulation of outsiders? It won't serve him if the fight just breaks the Family apart for the Cetrulli to pick off. This is why the Family must come first, Squalo."

Squalo thought about that. "Yeah, okay. I guess you're right." Of course, if Xanxus still thought it was a good idea, some other month when it wouldn't just stir up trouble some other Family could take advantage of, well that would be another time.

Rafaele breathed out. "Good. Help me keep this from getting out of hand, then." His mouth quirked wryly. "You're probably the only one he'll listen to right now."

Squalo snorted and pushed himself onto his feet. "That's because none of you understand him."

At the time, even he didn't know how right he was, but they all found out six weeks and four days later. Squalo remembered that day very clearly for a very long time.

It started with an explosion.

Squalo ran for the Ninth's office, and at first everyone around was running in the same direction. The closer he got, though, the more foot soldiers were retreating just as quickly, and Squalo had to shove his way past to break out in the clear area around the office door. Which was when he could hear who was shouting.

Xanxus' voice pulled him in the door like it was a rope tied around him.

The room was a wreck. The bullet-proof glass of the window was shattered and blown out. Chairs and a table were overturned. As Squalo came in he had to duck the vase Xanxus had just hurled at the wall, and was pelted with shards as it burst.

"All this time!" Xanxus shouted, pointing at the Ninth, and Squalo could see why Gianni was standing in front of his boss looking tense; Xanxus' Flame was flickering in and out around his hands. "What the fuck, were you just laughing at the idiot who fell for it?!"

The Ninth pulled Gianni gently back, brows twisted. "Xanxus, no..."

Xanxus laughed, harsh and raw. "Telling me I was your son so your goddamned Family could use me! And all this time it's a lie, and I'm nothing!" Squalo's eyes widened, hearing that.

"No! I didn't ever mean to use you, and I never wanted it to be a lie...!"

"Shut up!" Xanxus screamed. This time it was a chair he picked up and hurled against the wall with wild strength, cracking the back and two legs off. The rage and outrage and raw fear in his voice made Squalo flinch.

"Xanxus," he called, trying to break through.

"Nothing," Xanxus grated, glaring at the old men like he didn't see them, like he hadn't heard Squalo at all. Squalo took a breath.

"Boss!"

Both the Ninth and Xanxus looked around at that, but Squalo only had eyes for Xanxus. "Boss," he said, more quietly. "What does it matter?"

"...what?" Xanxus really looked like he didn't understand the words, and Squalo told the crinkle down his spine to go away and stepped closer.

"What difference does it make?" he asked as he came to stand in front of Xanxus, holding those blank eyes with his. "You're still you. You're Xanxus. That hasn't changed. That's all that matters."

Slowly Xanxus' eyes focused on him properly. Very quietly, hoarse from screaming, he asked, "Are you telling me the truth?"

Squalo stomped down a wince at that. Man, when the Ninth fucked up, he did it in style, didn't he? "I am," he answered, flat and sure, and reached up to grip Xanxus' shoulder. He didn't move as Xanxus' own hand flashed up, though he did relax when it clamped down on his wrist, holding his hand in place.

Xanxus took a slow, shuddering breath and looked up at the Ninth. "Why?"

"Because I wanted it to be true," the old man said, and even Squalo could hear the ache in his voice. "Because it was true in my heart. Not to use you, I swear it. If you'd chosen to leave the mafia and go be a citrus farmer, I'd have still thought of you as my son."

Xanxus had that blank look again, but his voice was more normally puzzled and exasperated when he asked again, "Why?"

The Ninth sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Finally he said, quietly, "Because underneath the angry, sullen child I first met, I could see the man you might become. And I wanted very much to know him." He looked up, and Squalo glanced away, embarrassed by the raw emotion in his face. "I still want to know him."

A shudder ran through Xanxus, under Squalo's hand. "I'll... I need to... I'll just..." Xanxus spun around abruptly and stalked out the door. Without letting go of Squalo's wrist.

Squalo waved his fingers at the Ninth and Gianni in what he hoped was an It's okay, I'll handle it, stay there sort of way, and let himself be towed along, down the halls as people ducked out of their way, and back to Xanxus' rooms. Xanxus slammed the door behind them and stood for a moment, half turned away from Squalo.

"You called me 'boss'," he finally said.

Squalo shrugged. "You're the one I follow. Doesn't matter to me whether you're his blood or not. You have the Flame. You have the strength."

Xanxus looked around at him, eyes dark, still breathing fast from the fight and their retreat here. "But not the right."

Squalo smiled, crookedly. "You have the right to me."

He didn't quite realize the double meaning of what he'd said until the agitation in the set of Xanxus' shoulders, and tightness around his eyes, changed. "Do I?" He pushed Squalo back up against the closed door, grip on his wrist shifting, and asked again, lower. "Do I? Are you really mine?"

Squalo swallowed; there was hunger in the way Xanxus looked at him, and more than one kind of hunger. He thought he could answer the part that wanted a place and reminders of his worth, but the other... He'd only just started getting to grips with all this hormone stuff and still wasn't entirely sure about the whole women thing, but... this was Xanxus. And that was different. Slowly he reached up with his free hand, winding his fingers in Xanxus' jacket. "Yeah."

Xanxus' mouth covered his, hot and wet and a little awkward. Squalo didn't care, because it felt good to have Xanxus' body pressed against his; it felt right. When Xanxus' thigh slid between his legs it felt better than good.

"So," he said, breathless, "if being the Tenth is out, how about the Varia?"

Xanxus lifted his head. "With you, you mean?"

Squalo shrugged, looking up at him. "I'm yours, right?"

The tautness in Xanxus finally relaxed and he leaned against Squalo, letting out a slow breath.

"Yeah."

"He's still in there, huh?"

Squalo leaned in Xanxus' doorway, arms crossed. "Yeah."

Rafaele sighed. "I guess we have to come to him, then."

"Not yet, you don't." Rafaele blinked and Squalo glared. "Not until he's ready to talk to you." And he closed the door firmly.

"Still not yet?"

"No."

"We can't just wait on his brooding forever," Gianni said over the maid's shoulder.

Squalo took the tray of food from her and raised his brows at Gianni. "Why not?" He closed the door.

"Are they still out there?" Xanxus asked as Squalo sat on the edge of the bed.

"It is the main house," Squalo pointed out. "I don't think they're going anywhere."

Xanxus ran a hand through his hair. "Why?" He sounded at a real loss and Squalo cocked his head.

"Guess you won't know until you ask them," he said quietly.

"Okay, go get the Ninth, you can come in," Squalo told Rafaele, and ignored the things Rafaele muttered under his breath. He just went back to stand at Xanxus' shoulder.

Once the Ninth and Gianni and Rafaele had gotten themselves settled, there was a moment of uncomfortable silence. The Ninth finally broke it with a cautious, "I'm glad to see you're doing all right, my boy."

Xanxus twitched. "Quit calling me that. It's not like I'm really your son."

Squalo thought the Ninth almost flinched.

"You've been my son in my heart," the old man insisted.

Xanxus' hair was a complete mess from how often he'd been running his hands through it. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" he demanded. "You said you didn't lie to me just so you could use me, but why else would you do something like that?"

The Ninth looked down at his hands. "When I first saw you I saw a child who'd been hurt and denied far too often. I didn't want to deny you again, and you'd been told you were mine. If I was to take you in and raise you as my own, what harm in letting you, and the rest of the world, believe you were mine by blood, too? At least," he finished, quieter, "that was what I thought then. I..." he sighed. "I'm sorry."

Xanxus just stared at him, face blank. "I don't get it."

Rafaele stirred, glancing between the Ninth and Xanxus and... Squalo? "Look," he said, "Squalo doesn't care where or how you were born, does he? He follows you anyway."

Squalo's spine straightened at that and he gave his mentor a hard look. "Damn right." He glanced down at Xanxus, and settled a bit as he saw the hard line of Xanxus' shoulders relaxing a little.

"It's like that," Rafaele went on. "Timoteo doesn't care about those things either. He wants you to take a son's place in this house, regardless of whether you were born to it or not."

Xanxus' eyes on the old man were dark, now, and confused Squalo thought. "But why me?" he finally said, voice low and cracking a little, and Squalo couldn't help reaching out to close a hand on his shoulder.

The Ninth smiled, gentle and maybe just a little wobbly. "I told you that already, didn't I? I saw some of what you might become. And I think I'll like that man, and I want to know him."

A shudder ran through Xanxus, under Squalo's hand, and he bit his lip. "But I... I'm just..." He bit down harder, stopping himself.

Squalo considered the tension he could feel and made shoo-ing motions at the old men with his free hand. After a judicious look at Xanxus, Rafaele nodded and stood. As the Ninth and Gianni followed, and turned toward the door, Xanxus said, low and rough, "Come back tomorrow...?"

Squalo felt like he might need to squint in face of the Ninth's sudden smile. "Of course, my boy."

Squalo listened for the door closing before he came around to kneel between Xanxus' legs and pull him close. Xanxus' arms locked tight around him, and now Squalo could feel his whole body shaking. "Hey," he said, quietly, not adding any idiocy about was Xanxus okay, just letting him know Squalo was there. They stayed there for a long time.

TBC

Archimedes' Lever - Three

Xanxus is finally finding his place in the Family when everything is upset again. Drama, Angst, I-4

When Xanxus finally came out of his rooms the way people looked at him made him twitch. He really wanted to scream at them that it was all over, now, didn't they know he was a fake anyway? But they wouldn't have any clue what he meant.

His fa— the old man had explained it, when Squalo had, eventually, let him in.

"Even if we put it around that you're not mine by blood, half of them won't believe it," he'd said quietly. "And the other half... well. If your blood comes from the Second instead of me, it's still Vongola, and there have been times in our history when legitimacy was... made not to matter."

"And we have to deal with the situation as it is," Staffieri had added. "Simply disowning your claim and suppressing this would be no service to the Family. Or to you."

Part of him was glad they felt goddamn guilty about this, and part of him was uncomfortable about feeling glad, and most of him was pissed off about both parts.

When they got to the Varia, the looks changed, and Xanxus was glad of it. These looks were only assessing, only wondering Are you stronger than me? and he could deal with that a lot easier. He straightened his spine, and listened to Squalo pointing out this or that squad leader and listing out his strengths and weaknesses, and recalled that Squalo had been trained to lead this group.

Eventually Tyr met them, a lean graying man, one handed, who cast a dry glance over the tail of Varia members they'd picked up. "Squalo," the man said, not sounding loud but clear enough for everyone to hear, "is it true you're willing to step aside in Xanxus' favor?"

A low murmur ran around the watching crowd as Squalo raised his chin. "Of course."

Tyr ran a subtle eye over the watchers and nodded to himself. "All right, then." He beckoned to Xanxus. "Come show me what you're made of."

Xanxus shrugged. He'd expected a trial of some kind.

"The Varia's standards of training are harsher than most," Tyr noted, apparently to thin air as he led Xanxus out into open air. "Nothing is forbidden. No blow, no weapon, no technique, as long as you don't actually kill each other."

Xanxus considered that. So he couldn't shoot the man straight on with his Flame, and that was about it. Not bad. "All right."

Tyr turned fluidly and lunged straight for him, blade suddenly out.

Xanxus bared his teeth as he spun aside. Now this he understood.

Tyr was good. Maybe even a shade better than Squalo, with a sword, and Squalo had come back from his year away able to beat Martelli two out of three. Xanxus didn't have attention to spare from the fight, but still quick flashes of awareness of the watching Varia came to him: people standing silently, people hidden in the shadows of trees and buildings, the glint of sun on metal, the rising tide of whispers running under the crack and roar of his shots.

When he and Tyr stopped still, the edge of Tyr's blade against his throat and the barrel of his gun pressed to Tyr's chest, there was silence.

Tyr's expression was just as cool and dry as it had been at the start. He nodded and flicked his sword away, stepping back. "You'll do."

A low laugh ran through the crowd and the watchers unraveled at once, talking quietly, smiling, hands cutting the air demonstratively. Xanxus caught a few bits of conversation.

"Another year at least..."

"...months, maybe."

"...right now if it were for real, but..."

Tyr murmured, undervoiced, "The day you can defeat me clearly is the day they will accept you as the Varia's leader."

Well all right, that made sense. Xanxus nodded. "Okay."

"At least," Tyr added, even dryer than usual, "with the both of you here I can be fairly sure you'll give your whole attention to it. Squalo has been rather distracted this year."

Squalo gave the man a dirty look. "Some things come first." He edged closer to Xanxus.

Xanxus let a breath out. He understood this place. He could deal with it. And Squalo was right here with him. He'd have a place of his own to stand in while he tried to figure out how the hell to deal with his... He hesitated and finished the thought slowly.

His family.

Xanxus pulled out a chair and slouched comfortably down into it. "So? What's this about?" He noticed Staffieri's faintly disapproving look and traded him a half-hearted sneer. Getting the old man's Guardians to frown used to be kind of a fun game, but there wasn't as much shine to it these days.

Not that that stopped him from sitting any way he damn well wanted to.

"Tyr said you asked for my squad," he prompted, crossing his legs.

"I'm not sure it isn't overkill, but I'd rather be safe this time," the old man sighed. "More than one of our mainland holdings has been attacked this month."

Xanxus' brows rose. "I didn't hear anything about a new war."

"All of the attacks were specific hits on the under-bosses in charge there," Staffieri said quietly, folding his hands. "They were all done by the same man. He alleges to be an independent, but we doubt that very much."

Xanxus cocked his head. "So you want him taken out, or the people behind him?" He smiled thinly. "Or both?"

Staffieri glanced at the old man, and then across the table at Federico. "That is the subject of some debate."

Xanxus eyed his bro... Federico with real surprise. "You think we should go for the source?"

Federico gave the old man a rueful smile. "I'm afraid so. Less," he looked back at Xanxus sharply, "to make a clean sweep of it..."

Xanxus snorted. Yeah, he'd always been the only practical one as far as he could tell.

"...than because I don't think we can avoid it and we might as well face them on our own terms."

The old man leaned forward on his elbows and sighed. "Perhaps you're right, and we can't avoid it. But I would like to try for a little longer. We're aware of the threat now, and by answering it this way," he opened a hand at Xanxus, "we leave the door open for less explosive negotiations."

Xanxus grunted. "Guess I can wait for later, then." The old man looked a little pained and he rolled his eyes. "Tell me who I'm after, then. We'll take care of it." Staffieri slid a folder down the table to him and he flipped through it. Finally he flipped it closed with another snort. "Piece of cake."

Federico laughed a little. "Good to see you enjoying your work." He leaned over and ruffled Xanxus' hair.

Xanxus swatted at his hand indignantly. "I'm not goddamn twelve anymore, knock that the fuck off!" He would have thought his damn brother got the hint when Xanxus bit him for doing that, when he was fourteen.

Federico leaned his chin on his fist, grinning. "What? I am glad, that's all."

"Well yeah, since it doesn't involve you dying, I bet you are," Xanxus muttered.

"That too," Federico agreed.

Xanxus considered, glumly, what kind of boss Federico was likely to be to work for. Maybe, when he was in charge, he could move the Varia headquarters further away from the main house.

The old man was smiling a little.

Xanxus pushed himself up and waved at the lot of them with the folder. "We'll take care of it. I'll tell you when we're done." He stalked out while he still had some fucking dignity and went to find Squalo. Squalo was good at planning this kind of stuff.

And he made the world feel a little more real after Xanxus had had to deal with his damn family.

"It was the Cetrulli. We caught a few of them who were slow getting away from the ambush."

Xanxus felt like his brain was buzzing. He could barely make sense of Maria's words. Or maybe that was because of her voice, flat and toneless.

Federico's body was laid out laid out under sheets in front of them. The useless doctors had already gone away.

"The Cetrulli," someone said, and he realized distantly that it was him.

The Cetrulli Family had killed Federico.

They had killed his brother.

He turned his eyes from the body to his father; it felt like his neck muscles creaked, like he'd been frozen there, staring, for years.

"They're going to die," he said, as flat as Maria had been. "I'm going to kill them. Every single goddamned one of them." The more he thought about that, the more he wanted to move, to go, right now. His voice rose. "I'm going to burn their House to the ground." Nothing he was looking at made sense to him, except Federico's still body.

And the slicing edge of rage in the old man's eyes as they rose to meet his. That too.

"Yes. Take who you need and do it."

Staffieri stirred, looking up. "Timoteo..."

"I will not forgive this," the old man said, low and harsh. "He was right all along. We should have taken this war to the Cetrulli months ago. I'm done speaking to them." His voice fell to a whisper. "Let his brother avenge him in the name of our Family."

Xanxus couldn't listen to anything else. He felt like he could barely hear anything else. The Ninth said he could go, that was all he needed. He spun away, and Squalo was at his side as he stalked through the halls, snapping orders, calling not just for his own squad of the Varia but all the others too.

His guns were around his hips. People were boiling out of the house behind him. Squalo was beside him, sword in one hand. So were the old man's Sun and Storm, and Xanxus remembered that the body laid out beside Federico's had been Rizzo's son.

There was road and city and road, and then the climb through the low hills to the Cetrulli main house, and the silence of the Varia spread out around him, the faint rustle of other foot soldiers following after.

And then there was Flame.

There was rage like he hadn't felt for years, blind, red fury at the whole world. No, not the whole world—just the Cetrulli. They had taken something, stolen it, they had tried to make his world the bleak, filthy scrabble it used to be, and he was going to destroy them for it. The Flame of Wrath rose up out of the core of him, pressed diamond hard and sharper than any steel, and he fed it to his guns and fired it out, away from him.

Walls cracked and burst and he barely noticed them falling around him. Men ran through the burning halls and he shot them down as they crossed his path. There was nothing but the Flame and his rage and the screams and movement of the world fading around him.

"Xanxus. Xanxus! Boss!"

He snapped back into focus, because those were Squalo's hands on his arms, shaking him. "What?"

Squalo's mouth twisted. "It's over."

Xanxus looked around at the smoking ruins of the Cetrulli house, the litter of rubble and bodies. "Oh."

Squalo pushed him down on a reasonably flat pile of concrete, hands still firm on his shoulders. "You back with me, now?"

Xanxus had to think about it for a moment. "...yeah."

Squalo just nodded and sat down beside him and fished out a rag to start cleaning his sword with.

As the shock of coming back lifted, Xanxus leaned forward, elbows on his knees. He hurt. There was no blood of his on him and he hurt anyway. That was not, he decided, fair. He'd destroyed the ones who tried to break his world, shouldn't he not hurt any more?

Except that the part they'd broken was still gone.

The thought made him suck in a fast breath between his teeth and swallow down a raw sound in his throat. Squalo left his sword and rested a hand on his back without looking up. "Here," he said quietly.

Yes. What was his was still here.

At least... part of it. Another part, part of his... his family, wasn't, no matter how much he destroyed. All told, he'd have preferred spending all this effort before that happened; that seemed like a fairer exchange.

Xanxus scrubbed a hand over his face. "Maybe," he said, very low, "you and Martelli weren't crazy after all. What he always said about doing things for the Family."

"Yeah," Squalo said quietly. "I think he was right."

Eventually Xanxus stood up again and looked around for his squads to take them back home.

Xanxus slouched in a chair and snorted under his breath as yet another ambassador from another Family danced around trying to tell the old man that he shouldn't have smashed the whole Cetrulli Family for killing his son.

The Orsini's man glanced at him nervously. "The destruction of the entire Family..." he started, and Xanxus lost his temper and slapped a hand down on the table. He took some satisfaction in the way the man jumped.

"They touched my Family," he growled, and ignored the way Staffieri's brows quirked at his emphasis. Too bad if he didn't like it; the man wasn't his right hand, after all. "They should have goddamn well expected it, and so should the rest of you spineless little—"

"Xanxus," the old man cut in, firmly.

Xanxus snorted and leaned back, still glaring at the Orsini idiot.

"The Cetrulli took it upon themselves to assassinate my heir," the old man told the ambassador levelly. "The Vongola were well within our rights to return such a mortal blow and insult."

"Well, perhaps, but the whole House..." the Orsini man dithered.

"Then perhaps," the old man said quietly, "their allies should take the lesson to heart."

Xanxus' lips curled up as the man excused himself, looking spooked.

"Well, this has been enlivening," the old man's Outside Advisor said, sounding genuinely cheerful as he and the whole lot of the Ninth's Guardians stretched or relaxed in their chairs, ranged behind their boss.

Xanxus eyed them. "There aren't any more idiots come to complain, then?"

"That was the last of them," Martelli agreed.

"Mm." He was almost disappointed. The more he could scare the envoys, the less those Families would ever consider touching his again.

Piero chuckled. "Don't worry. You'll get to intimidate more of them at the next social gathering, I'm sure."

Xanxus paused in the act of slouching a little more. "The next what?" He scowled at his father. Hadn't everyone figured out years ago that he didn't mix with all those damn parties where he was supposed to smile and not shoot anyone?

"I wasn't going to mention that quite yet," the old man murmured, and Piero looked abashed.

"Um. Oops?"

"You are not making me go back to parties again," Xanxus stated.

"I'm afraid it's likely you'll have to," the old man said, and it didn't help at all that he sounded apologetic. "If you're going to be the new heir."

Xanxus stared at him. "That's not possible," he finally managed. "I'm not really..."

The old man held up a hand. "I said, years ago, there have been times in our past when legitimacy was made to not matter. And, in fact, there is no actual evidence that you are not legitimate."

Xanxus opened his mouth and closed it again, totally at a loss. "But... my..." His mother. The son of a whore was pretty damn illegitimate, wasn't he?

The old man stood and came around to the chair beside him, lying a hand on the rigid line of his arm. "Your mother was married. The license was among her papers. I don't know why or exactly when the man left; we don't know for sure that he's still alive. But they were married."

"But she said..." Xanxus felt like something important was upside down somewhere.

"She said you were my child, too, and she and I never met." The old man shrugged. "As for your earlier lineage... well, you do favor the Second. He had a handful of children outside his marriage, to be sure, but there was also a legitimate child who married out of the mafia, and her children are not well documented in our records."

"And more importantly than that," Martelli said, quietly, "you have taken this Family as your own and proven you will defend it."

"You're definitely the strongest of Timoteo's sons," Piero put in.

"And while you will be a bit of a change in leadership style," Staffieri observed dryly, "you have demonstrated leadership among the Varia. With more flair, it must be said, than either Enrico or Massimo."

Xanxus stared at them. "You agree with this?!"

"You're not the barbarian brat you used to be," Maria said bluntly. "You haven't even shot any of these idiot envoys, over the past few months. We agree."

Xanxus looked over at Sawada, who was looking back steadily at him. "The Family comes first, among the Vongola," the man said quietly. "You, among all the Ninth's sons now living, will do the best job of protecting the Family." He smiled suddenly, showing his teeth. "At least you will now." Sobering again, he added, "You might think of it as fulfilling the wishes of your brother Federico."

Xanxus almost flinched.

The old man patted his arm. "So I'm afraid there are parties in your future," he concluded with a tiny smile. "If it helps, you have my permission to continue intimidating the Cetrulli allies all you like."

Xanxus was quiet for a few moments. "Give me some time, okay?" he finally said. Time to actually make this make sense, which it wasn't quite doing yet.

His father smiled, a little sadly. "As much as you need, my boy. I think we all need a little time for this."

That, Xanxus decided as he rose, was an understatement. But he didn't suppose any of them had a lot of choice, now.

TBC

Archimedes' Lever - Four

Squalo is growing into his place at Xanxus' side, and starting to look around them for some support. Drama, I-3

"Here." Gianni handed Squalo a second wineglass. "Take Xanxus a drink before he sets something on fire with his glare."

Squalo snorted. "If you think another drink will make him glare less..." And here he'd thought the old men had finally figured Xanxus out better than that.

"No, but you're bringing it to him and that will," Gianni noted with dry amusement.

Okay, maybe they had gotten it.

"Hurry up, before we have another incident like the Mondial wedding," Gianni added.

Squalo laughed, remembering the Tomasso heir retreating like something a lot more important than a bit of his hair had been singed. "You sure?" he asked a bit wistfully, recalling the satisfaction on Xanxus' face as he'd reholstered his gun.

"Yes, very."

Squalo rolled his eyes a little at the repressive tone. "All right, all right, I'm going. Mom." He strolled off though the shifting after-dinner crowd, mouth quirking as he listened to the grumbling behind him about insolent brats with no respect. He'd had two Family mentors, ever since the day Xanxus had said yes to the Ninth, and he understood why. Everyone knew exactly who Xanxus' right hand would be, and Gianni was the one who could show him how that worked. But the man really needed to loosen up, now and then.

Besides, between Gianni's indignation and Rafaele's snickering, he figured his teasing was pretty much right.

"Hey, boss." He slid up onto the windowsill beside Xanxus and offered him the second glass.

Xanxus grunted and took a swallow, eyes still tracking restlessly over the crowd. Unfortunately, there weren't any Family enemies to terrorize at this party. Eventually Xanxus sighed and glanced over at him. "So, what are we going to do about the Varia, anyway?"

Squalo grimaced. It was starting to be a familiar conversation. "Still isn't anyone I'd call ready to take it over, even if Tyr is getting old. Not besides you or me."

"I can't run the Family and the Varia too." Xanxus tilted his glass, frowning at the wine in it. "Have you seen the crap that lands on the old man's desk?"

That, and what landed on Gianni's too. Squalo leaned back against the cool glass. "I can probably handle most of it, if I have to," he said quietly. "We'll just have to keep looking for the right person."

"And that's another thing." Xanxus crossed his arms, glass dangling from his fingers. "The old men run on about how my Guardians are supposed to be the ones closest to me, but I don't have people close to me!" He glanced at Squalo. "Not besides you."

"Well, you know who your Rain will be, then." Squalo smiled at his boss' irate grunt. "Don't worry so much. The more you have to do with the rest of the Family, the more chances to meet the ones you need."

Xanxus downright glowered at him. "If this is a trick to get me to agree to more goddamn parties..."

Squalo laughed. "Only if there's more idiots you can shoot, promise." As Xanxus settled down again he added, thoughtfully, "What about Levi?" Levi was definitely loyal to Xanxus, and gave him the respect Squalo knew his boss still craved.

Xanxus made a dubious noise instead of rejecting the idea outright, which Squalo figured for a good sign. He added Levi to his mental list along with Enrico's oldest boy.

"Speak of the devil," he murmured as a confused scuffle broke out on the other side of the room and Tazio appeared out of the crowd, strolling toward them with a perfectly innocent expression.

"Hey, Uncle Xanxus, Squalo," he greeted them, easily.

"What'd you do this time?" Xanxus asked, eyeing the brief hubbub as the girl Dino Cavallone had escorted flounced away.

"Not a thing." Tazio gave them both an angelic smile. "I was all the way over here, wasn't I? I couldn't possibly have gotten Camilla to tell her big sister that Dino hadn't wanted to go with her in the first place, could I?"

Xanxus snorted with dark amusement. "Sure you couldn't."

Squalo watched the way Tazio grinned for Xanxus and recalled the way Tazio had always called Xanxus "uncle" despite only being three years younger, and nodded and silently checked the Sun off his list. The only question now was how long it would take Xanxus to realize.

"I don't like you leading this one yourself," the Ninth... fretted was the word, Squalo decided, and settled back in his chair with a sigh.

"If it's going to succeed for sure, I need to be there. And if it isn't going to succeed, why the hell are we sending it?" Xanxus told him bluntly.

"At least don't go in first, then." The old man was starting to look stubborn.

"How are we supposed to get in, then?" And Xanxus was starting to sound exasperated.

"What if someone else goes first to breach the walls?" Rafaele put in.

"Like who?" Xanxus snapped.

Squalo shrugged and elaborated. "There really isn't anyone else we have right now better suited to blowing things up."

Rafaele's lips quirked. "I'm not surprised. But I was thinking of an outside contractor. Do you know Gokudera Hayato?"

After a moment Gianni said, cautiously, "Isn't he a bit of a... lone wolf?"

Loose canon Squalo translated to himself, and sat up, more interested.

"So maybe he and Xanxus will have a topic of conversation," Rafaele murmured dryly.

Squalo glared at his mentor, but couldn't quite put as much force behind it as he wanted; it might be true.

"Isn't he rather young?" the Ninth asked, frowning.

"A bit perhaps, but he's very good at what he does."

"Mm," Gianni nodded, agreeing. "Word is that he was trained by Shamal."

Xanxus waved a hand. "All right, we'll take him." He cast a look at his father and added. "And now will you stop worrying?"

The Ninth smiled wryly. "I'm afraid not, my boy, but I will stop objecting."

Xanxus looked satisfied for a moment, and then gradually more uncertain. Squalo caught the suddenly softer smiles on Rafaele and Gianni and clapped Xanxus on the shoulder to distract him from noticing. "Let's go get everything together, then, okay?" He paused on their way out only to grimace at his mentors; why was it so hard for everyone to understand that Xanxus just wasn't good at the whole warm and fuzzy thing?

Fortunately the team they were taking in against the Tomasso holdings in Catania was about ready to go; Squalo had made sure of that. Contacting their "contractor" was the most time consuming thing left, and Gokudera agreed to meet them in the city.

When they met Squalo understood why the Ninth had hesitated. The kid couldn't be more than fifteen. But that was the age he'd been when he went on his training journey, after all. Squalo looked at Gokudera's eyes instead of his age.

That was when Gianni's hesitation made sense to him. He'd seen eyes like those before. His boss used to have them.

"...so we want the walls down here and here," Squalo finished explaining, watching too-sharp eyes track over the building plans as he pointed. "Can you do both at the same time?"

"Yeah, I can do it." Gokudera slung a small pack over his shoulder, fingers drifting over the canisters at his belt, gave them a jerky nod and vanished into the falling evening.

"Well." Squalo looked after the kid, brows raised. "Guess we should get ready, then."

Squalo barely had their people positioned when the explosions started. Kid worked fast. Xanxus made an approving sound, and Squalo had to smile wryly. They had impatience in common, that was for sure.

And then he set those thoughts aside for later, because it was time to move and his mind was divided into the him that kept track of their people, of who was where, of whether they needed to slow down or speed up, and the him that ran at Xanxus' back, guarding it, exulting in the speed and fire and grace of destruction. This didn't have quite the edge of a Varia mission; this was a warning to the Tomasso. A sharp one, but only a warning. The men with them were regular foot soldiers of the Family, and they were here to destroy property not lives. Except for the unfortunates who got in their way.

Squalo listened to the reports from the watchers spread blocks away. "Boss! Time to be going," he called. Reinforcements were coming thicker and they really would be in an all-out war if they didn't go now.

Xanxus looked around the shambles of the building and everything in it with some satisfaction. "All right. Guess so."

Squalo called for everyone to pull back, watching with some amusement as Xanxus fired on a few gaming tables and reduced them to finer splinters on his way out. Xanxus' edge wasn't as whetted on these trips, when they went out for general destruction, but he seemed to get more enjoyment out of them. Squalo suspected the Ninth's desire to have his son not lead from the front was doomed to disappointment.

More of his mind was taken up, now, with their men, with the pace of the withdrawal, and his eye tracked over the small squads as they regathered, counting up. Only a few casualties, that was good. And here was their contractor, slipping out of the shadow of a broken wall, hard eyes passing without really seeing over the gathered Vongola. Squalo shook his head, thinking absently that the kid needed to keep a better eye out around him.

Later, when he had time, he wondered if the universe just waited for him to think things like that.

One of the early, scattered Tomasso reinforcements came running heedlessly through the flickering darkness and broken concrete and straight into Gokudera, sending them both down. The Tomasso man's eyes were dark and blind with rage, and he didn't seem to notice the people just beyond; his attention was all on Gokudera, and he had a gun already in his hand.

Squalo hissed, without even time to swear as he turned, feeling for footing for a lunge, and he wasn't sure even he would be in enough time. Gokudera had one of his slender explosives in his hand, but the gun was trained already...

A line of Flame cut the night and blew the Tomasso man back through one of the remaining walls.

Squalo breathed out. For a second he wondered if Gokudera had been hit anyway, because the kid was just kneeling there in the rubble, staring at them. No. At Xanxus. Squalo saw his lips shape the word "Why".

"Well, what are you sitting there for?" Xanxus asked, and jerked his head at the waiting vans. "Come on."

"I... But... Yes." Gokudera stammered, and rose and followed after Xanxus, eyes still wide.

Squalo strolled after, mouth quirked. If he was reading this situation right, there was some potential here.

"So," he murmured to Xanxus once they were all rolling, "we could probably use an explosives expert for this kind of job, don't you think?"

Xanxus cocked a brow at him. "Thinking of recruiting the kid?"

"Thought I'd mention it, yeah. See what you thought."

Xanxus snorted. "I'm not the one you should talk to about bringing people into the Family."

"Yes you are," Squalo said with absolute surety and then had to come up with an explanation that would make sense in face of Xanxus' startled look. "Look, you're the heir. You're going to be the Tenth. It's about time you started building up your own people." Which was also true.

Xanxus gave that a generalized grunt of acknowledgment and Squalo sat back, satisfied. It never took Xanxus long to act once he'd made up his mind.

Today it didn't take any longer than the drive back home. As soon as Gokudera had been passed through by the medics, Xanxus cornered him. "You're not affiliated, right?"

Gokudera looked a bit wary at that. "Yeah, I'm not."

"Good. Any problems with coming into this Family, then?"

Squalo nearly laughed out loud, both at Xanxus' bluntness and the kid's stunned expression.

"But... You mean... You want me?" Gokudera sputtered.

"Yeah. I could use you."

It took the kid a few swallows to speak. When he did, his voice was husky. "You saved my life." He bowed his head formally. "I place my life in your hands. Boss."

Xanxus blinked a bit at this evidence of high manners. Or maybe just at Gokudera's utter sincerity. "Well. All right, then." He set a hand on Gokudera's shoulder to steer him toward the house, and Squalo was nearly blinded by the brilliance of the kid's smile as he looked up.

He followed along after them, wondering idly what Gokudera's alignment was. Definitely potential, here.

Squalo watched Xanxus knock briefly on the Ninth's door and casually boot it open, and shook his head, amused. Xanxus was always going to ignore manners and forms, and unlike the stray they'd adopted he didn't have to work to do it.

"You wanted me?" Xanxus slung himself into one of the chairs and Squalo came to lean against the back.

"Yes." The Ninth was smiling. "Reborn is back from the Cavallone Family assignment, and I wanted you two to meet again."

Xanxus nodded at the baby in the suit sitting in one of the other chairs, just a bit warily. After all, they'd both worked out now and then with Lal Mirch and you tended to respect the kind of people who came up to your knee and still pounded you into the mats like a tent peg. Squalo was wondering about something, though.

"The Cavallone?"

"Indeed." The Ninth was smiling into his mustache, Squalo thought. "Reborn does... tutoring, I suppose you could say, at need. The Cavallone heir needed some personal attention to settle him down."

Squalo snorted. "Dino? Didn't need settling down as much as stirring up. He drove me so damn crazy..." And then he woke to the implication of Reborn being back, and straightened. "You mean he is?"

"Dino is taking up his responsibilities in an acceptable fashion," Reborn said calmly.

Squalo was impressed.

"More than just acceptable," the Ninth murmured. "The Cavallone are making a strong recovery under his leadership. Nevertheless, I'm glad you're back with us, Reborn."

"So?" Opaque black eyes raked over both Xanxus and Squalo. "You need me for your own heir?"

The Ninth waved a reassuring hand as both Xanxus and Squalo stiffened. "Only in that he will need to have confidence in you when he takes the Family. I would like Xanxus to have your support."

"It's the same thing, isn't it?" Reborn sipped a tiny cup of coffee. "One way or another." He hopped down and strolled over to stand by Xanxus' boot. "I'll watch them."

For some reason that made the Ninth smile. "Try not to inspire my heir to shoot you, please."

Reborn smiled faintly. "We'll see."

"The hell is this?" Xanxus asked, eying Reborn.

"We're seeing what kind of boss you'll be," Reborn told him.

"One that's too busy for idiocy," Xanxus said, brusque, and looked up at the Ninth. "Was there anything else?"

The Ninth was still smiling, and his amusement gave Squalo a bad feeling. "Not immediately. Though I must say, I'm pleased to see how well young Gokudera is settling into the Family. He's had a reputation for being untamable for years now."

"Wouldn't say I've tamed him," Xanxus muttered, and Squalo had to roll his eyes. Since Xanxus apparently didn't notice these things until they hit him over the head a few times, no, he probably wouldn't.

"Gokudera Hayato?" Reborn mused. "Is he really the kind you want in the Vongola?"

Xanxus focused back on him sharply, eyes narrow, and his words picked up an edge of growl. "The decision was mine to make." Squalo automatically eased forward onto his toes in response to that tone, started to ease himself back when he remembered where they were, and hesitated when he recalled who they were dealing with.

Mayhem was not forthcoming, though. Reborn looked at Xanxus for a long moment and nodded. "Possessiveness can be a good trait in a boss." He nodded again at the Ninth while Xanxus was staring and Squalo was trying not to gape. Who the hell was this guy to come in and read Xanxus that well with just a look? "We'll get started, then." He sprang lightly up to the chair arm and then the back and then Squalo's fucking shoulder, and gave him a companionable smile sharp as a knife.

Squalo was getting the feeling it was going to be a long month.

Shouting and crashes were not unusual things to hear from the rooms the regular Family members used to train. Explosions, however, were. Squalo strode quickly down the hall, wondering if one of the Varia had wandered into this wing and why.

It wasn't one of the Varia he found, though. It was Gokudera.

Gokudera and Dangelo Ceirano, one of the rising young hitmen, were being pulled away from each other as smoke cleared. Squalo's eye traced the scorch marks and the hide-out knife in Ceirano's hand, reconstructing the fight. Gokudera had attacked first, he thought.

"What the hell?" he asked conversationally, strolling over to Gokudera and taking his shoulder, gesturing the other men away with a jerk of his chin.

Gokudera's glittering eyes never left Ceirano and his spine was stiff. "He has no right to say that about the Tenth," he snarled, completely ignoring the line of blood starting to trickle down his jaw.

"I say what I see," Ceirano snapped back, gesturing with the knife. "Xanxus doesn't give a damn about the Family, about the mafia, about our traditions or rules. Not really. And if that's true, he has no place as heir."

Squalo cocked his head, considering. If this was just disaffection, he would take Ceirano down himself and be done with it. But there were murmurs running around the room, just on the edge of hearing—not agreeing but doubtful and that was just as much of a problem in its way. He sighed, briefly damning Rafaele and Gianni for teaching him to think about these things. The Varia were so much easier to deal with.

He squeezed Gokudera's shoulder, quieting him as he sucked in a breath, probably to yell back some more, and stepped forward. "Someone who's only watched from a distance has no business having an opinion." Which should get Ceirano's mind off Gokudera and onto Squalo, seeing as Squalo had basically just insulted his profession as a sniper.

Sure enough, Ceirano's lip curled up and he glared at Squalo. "It doesn't take being up close and personal to see this."

Squalo's eyes narrowed at the unmistakable emphasis on "personal". Yeah, he went to Xanxus' bed, and no one was damn well going to comment on it unless they wanted a very personal fight indeed on their hands. Before he could invite Ceirano to that very fight, though, a tall shadow stirred in the doorway opposite and Xanxus stepped into the room.

"If I'm so out of touch, then when you surrender after I beat you I should just kill you instead of accepting it, right?" he said casually. "You still have the guts to say that shit to my face?"

Ceirano's glare tracked around to Xanxus, never wavering. "Damn right I do," he answered, voice flat.

A corner of Xanxus' mouth curled up. "Well, then." He crossed the room, stride easy, and opened the door to the outside before looking over his shoulder. "Come on," he said softly, eyes bright.

Ceirano stalked after him out the door, and the people in the room and the hall drifted after, including Gokudera who was looking vengefully pleased.

"Hmm. He still has a very short temper."

Squalo looked down to find Reborn beside him, and wasn't really surprised. He showed up in the damnedest places, and always when Xanxus was around. Squalo shrugged. "He's strongest when he's angry."

Reborn looked up at him, eyes dark and unreadable. "Do you think that's the way it should work?"

"That he's strongest when he's angry? Don't see why not. It works that way for a lot of people, as long as they can stay focused."

Reborn shook his head. "No. Do you think it's right that he's angry so often?"

Squalo sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "There are a bunch of things I don't think are right. That doesn't usually change them."

Reborn sprang up to his shoulder, ignoring Squalo's exasperated glare. "If you're his right hand, it's your business to change them for him, just as it's his business to change them for the Family. Let's go see how he does with that."

Squalo muttered under his breath about not being Reborn's damn chauffeur all the way outside.

Xanxus and Ceirano were squared off at either end of one of the terraces, and they both had their guns out. Squalo was actually a little interested to see how this went; Xanxus didn't often face someone else who used guns with the kind of precision he did. Xanxus was practically lounging against the stone balustrade, smiling darkly at Ceirano, daring him to shoot first.

Ceirano loaded calmly and did.

After the first few shots, Squalo sighed. Xanxus was playing with the man. He hadn't aimed a single shot of Flame at Ceirano himself, only using it to dodge. He was laughing, by now, with that exhilarated and just a little crazed note in it that always made Squalo smile and a lot of other people back away slowly.

"He spends too much time fighting his past," Reborn observed in Squalo's ear.

"There's a lot of it to fight," Squalo said quietly, glancing over at him.

"If he loses track of which is past and which is present—" Reborn broke off, leaning forward as Xanxus finally left off his game and drove in on Ceirano, coming hand to hand. Ceirano's knife flashed out again, glanced off the barrel of Xanxus' gun, caught his shoulder as Ceirano was thrown back by a kick to the stomach.

"Stubborn little shit, aren't you?" Xanxus asked, conversationally, and aimed a gun straight at Ceirano. He smiled, teeth showing as startled protests started to rise around them, and pulled the trigger.

"He forgets less, these days," Squalo told Reborn, leaning back against the outer wall and crossing his ankles.

Ceirano, smoking a bit, slowly hauled himself up from the crater Xanxus' shot had left in the lawn, and looked up a little blankly as Xanxus stood over him, second gun pressed to his forehead. For a long moment neither of them moved, and the watching crowd seemed to hold its breath.

"Well?" Xanxus prodded, and not just metaphorically. The blank waiting cleared from Ceirano's eyes at the brief jab of the barrel, replaced by startlement and then anger and finally a rueful twist of his mouth.

"You win," he said.

"Damn right I do." Xanxus holstered his guns and put his hands on his hips. "And you get what you paid for, Ceirano. You serve me and I'm stuck with you. Imagine how overjoyed I am." He turned on his heel and strode off the impromptu field, gathering Squalo up with a gesture, leaving Ceirano staring after him.

As the door closed behind them, Squalo heard Ceirano start to laugh.

Xanxus eyed Reborn as they moved through the halls. "Have a front row seat?" he asked, sarcastic.

"That would be Ceirano's," Reborn noted, sounding perfectly serene. "Mine was close enough, though." He hopped down without a word or wave and trotted off down the hall toward the Ninth's wing. Xanxus growled.

"You know," Squalo murmured, thoughtfully, "one of these days I think I'll start wearing spikes on my shoulders. Could we say that was a new part of the Varia uniform, you think?" He was satisfied when Xanxus relaxed enough to laugh, even if it was just a snort.

Change things for Xanxus, huh? If Reborn couldn't see the ways Squalo did that every day, he could just go suck eggs, legendary hitman or not.

TBC

Archimedes' Lever - Five

Just when things might be settling down, Mukuro appears, targeting the Vongola's heir. Drama, Action, I-4

Seven months and sixteen days—he'd counted—after Reborn started shadowing them with his measuring looks and annoying observations, Xanxus walked into the old man's office to find both Reborn and Sawada already there.

"What's this?" he asked, instantly suspicious. His father's Guardians might be his closest protectors and advisers, but the outside adviser was the outside adviser, after all, and Reborn seemed to be the old man's personal weapon or something.

The old man just chuckled and waved him to a chair and looked at the other two men. "Well?"

"He'll do." Reborn tipped his hat down. "I'll serve him after you."

Sawada leaned back with a wry grin. "Yeah. When it comes time, the Rings can go to him and his."

Xanxus, barely seated, stared at them; he thought distantly that his mouth was hanging open but couldn't seem to do anything about it. "You..." he started, and couldn't actually think of any way to finish that. He looked at Reborn, dazed. "You?"

Reborn looked back at him, serene as ever, and repeated, "You'll do."

"It's good to have that decided," the old man said briskly, "because we may need you elsewhere very shortly, Reborn." He slid a file across his desk. "It appears that Rokudou Mukuro has escaped."

"Escaped?!" Sawada snatched up the folder, paging through it. "I didn't think that was possible!"

"This is Rokudou we're talking about." The old man leaned back tiredly. "And, perhaps more disturbing, no one has heard about or seen him since. We don't think he's left the country, but we don't know where he is or what he's doing. All the Families are nervous. So," he smiled at Xanxus, "I'm glad to see all of us are in agreement today. I don't want any doubts or instability that could be attacked."

Xanxus pulled himself together and took the folder as Sawada handed it on, scanning it. "How much of this is hearsay?" he asked, settling his nerves with the familiar sense of working on a target. "We know the Rossi were destroyed, but is any of this about his methods solid?"

"Since there were no survivors, all we have is hearsay." The old man looked grim. "And all we can do for now is watch for him and be ready to move quickly."

Xanxus tossed the file to Reborn. "Squalo will speak to the Varia squad leaders about keeping their eyes open."

"You want me to go for him when he's found," Reborn stated instead of asked, running an eye down the pages of the folder in turn.

"I think you have the best chance," the old man said quietly.

"As you wish." Reborn closed the folder and set it aside calmly.

Afterwards Xanxus thought, a bit wistfully, that it would have been nice if things had worked out that way.

Two months with Rokudou on the loose and everyone in the House was whispering and looking over their shoulders and Xanxus could barely stand to be inside.

"What the fuck is wrong with them all?" he growled, throwing himself down in a chair out on one of the east balconies.

"Damned if I know." Squalo pulled out another chair, frowning. "It's even getting to the Varia. We really need to find someone else who can take that branch; we're both too busy to thump on the idiots like someone should and Tyr can't take the stronger ones anymore. Stubborn bastard," he added. Xanxus growled some more. Almost two years since he'd been named heir and still there were no candidates who really seemed to suit.

Gokudera, perched on the railing, piped up, "People think there's something weird going on. Some of the men are talking about drugs getting slipped in somehow, or something."

Squalo cocked his head at their shadow. "Why drugs?"

"Some people are acting weird, they say." Gokudera shrugged a shoulder, frowning a little himself. "No one I've talked to can get any more specific than that."

"'Acting weird'." Xanxus slouched lower, disgusted. "Are they mafia or little kids? For fuck's sake."

Fast steps rang down the hall and they all looked around as the door jerked open. "Xanxus," Rafaele called, leaning out, "the Ninth wants to see you. Quickly."

"Some action, thank God," Xanxus muttered as he stalked inside, and ignored the amused sound Squalo made, behind his shoulder.

The old man didn't agree, of course.

"Reborn will go to watch your back," he stated, flat and hard. "Whoever did this said they would negotiate only with you, but you are not going alone."

Xanxus ran his eyes down the letter found beside the bodies of ten Vongola foot soldiers. "Negotiate." He snorted. "If they asked for me, it's a fight they'll get."

"I suspect they know that," Reborn observed, ankles crossed on the chair seat in front of him.

"It's a trap, then." Squalo leaned over Xanxus' shoulder to read. "They want to kill the heir. We'll take Levi along too; whatever the hell has been going on around here, we know he's solid for you."

Xanxus grunted. He knew he wouldn't get away without an escort, but he didn't want too many people between his guns and whoever did this. "All right. Squalo, Levi and Reborn. That's enough close-in backup." As his father opened his mouth, frowning, he added, "Any more might spook the bastards off. They asked for me." He stood. "They'll get me." And afterward they'd never touch what was his again.

The old man sighed. "All right. Just be careful, my boy."

Since Xanxus wasn't really going to agree to that he substituted, "Don't worry."

From his father's wry smile he didn't think it worked, but at least it got them out of the office.

"We have a day to plan this," Squalo said, all business. "I'll get the maps of Primosole and meet you."

When Squalo joined Xanxus and Levi in Xanxus' office, though, he had more than the maps. Xanxus frowned at Gokudera and Ceirano as they tagged in after. "What are you doing here?"

"We're coming with you." Ceirano's tone added you idiot. Xanxus stopped glaring on general principles and started glaring for real.

"Boss," Gokudera said, quietly, "if they're gunning for you, you should have your own people around you."

"I'll have Squalo and Levi," Xanxus said brusquely, and jabbed a thumb at Reborn. "And him."

Ceirano leaned against a chair and folded his arms. "Think the Ninth would agree?" he asked, and the grin that answered Xanxus' growl showed teeth. "We're coming; deal with it. Boss."

Short of shooting them himself, Xanxus couldn't really think of a way to stop them. He considered the shooting option for a moment, during which Ceirano looked cool and immovable and Gokudera ducked his head apologetically but looked stubborn as hell. Finally he snorted. "Fine."

"Um." Everyone looked around as someone spoke from the door. "I'd like to come too."

Xanxus stared for a blank moment as Tazio stepped into his office. "What the hell makes you think I would agree to that? Or that Enrico would agree, either?"

"It doesn't really matter what Father agrees to," Tazio took a deep breath, "if I'm one of your people."

Xanxus was reduced to blinking. "One of... Tazio... What the hell?"

"I think he's saying that he wants to serve under the Tenth," Squalo said, a little dryly.

Xanxus spared a glower for Squalo's sense of humor before he looked back at Tazio, frowning. "Why?"

Tazio spread his hands. "Because you're amazing, Uncle Xanxus! I mean," he was practically bouncing on his toes for god's sake, "you take all the crazy-hard jobs, and you always come back, and you've run the Varia, and," he waved his hands exuberantly, "I want to help!"

"You want to help," Xanxus repeated slowly. "And that's why you're running up to risk your life?"

Tazio just looked at him, perfectly open. "Of course."

Xanxus felt at a bit of a loss, in face of that, and glanced up at Squalo.

Squalo was smirking the way he did when he found something privately amusing. "Well," he glanced down at Xanxus, totally unsympathetic, "looks like the only thing we're missing is your Mist."

Everyone in the room stared at him, not just Xanxus. It was Xanxus he looked at as he shrugged and smiled, though. "What? I told you it would become obvious who your people were. If the Ninth asked you today who you would choose, aren't these them?" He waved a hand at the four other people in the office.

Xanxus looked around at them, feeling a little like he was seeing all of them for the first time.

"You know I'll follow you anywhere, Boss," Levi murmured. "The name doesn't matter."

Ceirano made a face but opened a hand palm up. "You won my service."

Tazio was just about fucking glowing. "I would," he breathed. "I swear. Uncle..." he grinned brilliantly, "Boss."

Gokudera, at least, looked as stunned as Xanxus actually felt. "Boss," he whispered.

Xanxus looked back at Squalo's crooked smile. "I'm your right hand," Squalo said quietly. "It's my job to know what you need and see it's done."

"All right," Xanxus said a last. "Yeah, okay." From the corner of his eye he caught Reborn's faintly amused look, and shook himself. "All right, then, if all of you are coming, come here and look at where we're going."

He spread out the map as his people gathered around, and buried himself in planning, and barely noticed the tension easing bit by bit out of his shoulders.

"What a dump," Gokudera muttered.

Looking over the patchy, crumbling walls of the little resort, its overgrown grounds with pathetic, scruffy little groves of trees, and the "for sale" sign which had obviously been up for years, Xanxus had to agree. "At least there won't be anyone else in the way," he growled. Which reminded him, and he looked down at Reborn. "The old man said he wanted you to cover our backs. Fine. Do that and stay out of my way, or I'll damn well shoot you myself."

Reborn cocked his head and looked up at him for a long, unreadable moment. Finally he nodded. "All right. I'll watch from here."

"Good enough." Xanxus jerked his head at the rest of them and vaulted up over the low gate.

They made it as far as the golf course before they were interrupted.

"Fucking amateurs," Squalo muttered as they ducked behind the rocks by the water hazard and the chick with the clarinet laughed.

Gokudera popped up for a look and ducked back, wall cracking a little over his head. "She's a bit out of range. Someone cover me while I close it up."

"No need," Xanxus grunted, leaning back against the rocks and counting down in his head. He snorted when Gokudera looked around at him, puzzled. "Haven't you noticed who isn't here?"

Two flat cracks sounded, and the annoying laugh cut off, and a breath later Ceirano called, "Clear!"

Xanxus stood up and dusted himself off. "Come on." Ceirano had a definite sneer on his face as he rejoined them. Xanxus couldn't really blame him; the chick had either been a total amateur or else off her rocker. Either way she was no challenge for a real sniper.

The next annoyance was waiting at the parking lot. Xanxus just stared at the old pervert as he gibbered about hostages and battles of the mind and why couldn't they bring him any soft little girls. "The fuck?" Hostage? Who did this guy think he was dealing with?

"Boss?" Levi asked, looking disgusted. Xanxus waved a hand.

"Yeah, go ahead." His mouth quirked as he watched. Levi didn't even bother with his specialized weapons; he just took the two creepy looking twin bastards bracketing him apart with his fists. When he was done Xanxus eyed the gaping old pervert up and down and sneered. Hell if he was going to waste a shot on this. One kick threw the old guy back against the broken asphalt with a satisfying crunch.

"These jokers took out ten of our people?" Tazio asked, as they went on.

"Doubt it," Squalo said, clipped. "They're here to slow us down, let the real enemy know we're coming and get a little of our measure."

Xanxus growled at that and almost missed the approaching hiss.

"Above!" Gokudera shouted, and they all dodged back as a massive ball of metal came down where they'd been standing.

"Not bad."

Squalo stilled as they saw their next opponent. "Boss."

Xanxus snarled. He'd seen that face not long ago in a file folder. "Rokudou."

The tall man hauled his weapon back and half smiled, dark and bitter. Before Xanxus could line him up for a shot, though, Squalo grasped his shoulder hard.

"This is wrong," he said, low. "There's still someone in that building, you can feel it. And Rokudou is out here with those other trash?"

Xanxus frowned. "You really think...?"

"I don't know. But it he's not really the one, you shouldn't be the one who deals with him."

Xanxus' mouth tightened, but Squalo was his strategist. "Levi," he snapped, throwing out an arm to hold the rest of them back. He watched as that ball sped out again, and Levi's parabolas snapped out to answer, and both of them dodged aside from the attacks. "Hm." They met hand to hand, and his scowl got deeper; the man was strong all right, stronger even than Levi maybe. But there was someone watching from the building. Xanxus gritted his teeth and finally barked, "Ceirano!"

"It'll take a while to get a clear shot if they stay that close," Ceirano observed, distant, eyes tracking each blow.

"Don't worry about killing him first shot, then, just take him down," Xanxus growled.

Ceirano nodded silently and faded aside, passing through the grove behind them with barely a rustle. Xanxus gathered up the other three with a sharp gesture and stalked on toward the building.

The inside was as much of a wreck as the outside, and Gokudera and Squalo frowned almost identically at the broken staircases. "Bastards are herding us," Gokudera declared, getting the flat glint in his eyes Xanxus hadn't seen in a while. When feet scuffed off one of the side halls, Xanxus wasn't surprised that Gokudera snapped alight a fistful of explosives and flung them before anyone else had turned all the way around. "I'll take care of this one," he snapped and stalked forward into the settling clouds of debris.

Squalo's mouth quirked. "Kid's got the Storm's temper, that's for sure."

They'd barely gone five steps when Tazio tensed. "Boss!" He lunged forward, intercepting the maniacally laughing blur heading for them, and when the dust settled he was glaring across the hall at a crazily grinning kid crouched on all fours. "Squalo," Tazio called, spinning his knuckle knife out of its sheath, "get the Boss where he needs to go."

While Xanxus was staring in disbelief, he darted in on the blond kid and they were gone, circling and lunging at each other through dusty, broken exercise equipment, leaving him with Squalo's snickering. "I can damn well get myself where I'm going," he grumbled.

"Sure you can. You're the Sky. But let your people do their jobs," Squalo told him.

Xanxus grunted and stalked on down the hall.

They finally found what they were looking for on the second floor, a big, open hall that might have been meant for a ballroom or receptions. The light from the dusty windows at one end was dim, and it took a few moments to spot the person sitting, lounging, in one of the equally dusty leather armchairs from the lobby.

"Welcome, gentlemen. You must be Xanxus, of the Vongola," a light voice greeted them, and the figure stood and stepped out of the shadows.

"The hell...?" Squalo murmured.

It was a kid. He looked around sixteen or seventeen. A kid with a creepy smile, but still a kid. "Who are you?" Xanxus demanded.

The kid laughed, merrily, and the sound actually made Xanxus' skin crawl. "What, you still haven't figured it out?" He spread his hands and smiled at them with a sardonic twist and the creepiest part was that it didn't look affected. "I'm Rokudou Mukuro."

Squalo's sword slid free and he ghosted a few steps away from Xanxus, opening space between them. Squalo believed it; Xanxus nodded a little, silently.

"You made a mistake, attacking the Vongola," he said, flatly, and fired.

The shot shattered the wall behind Rokudou, but Rokudou wasn't there anymore. Xanxus turned to put his back to Squalo, scanning the room, and that laugh echoed around them.

"No, actually I think I made a very good choice indeed. Let us see, though, shall we?"

The floor under Xanxus bucked, broke, they were falling. But he'd trained against Mammon more than once, and his logic wrestled his senses for control. This was illusion; it had to be. His feet were on the floor and his eyes would see what was really there. They would!

The room faded back in around him, though Rokudou was still nowhere to be seen. He glanced over his shoulder at Squalo, who was down on one knee, but looked steady again. And pissed off too.

"Very nice."

Xanxus' head snapped back around. Rokudou was in front of him, a few meters off, smiling, and one of his eyes was red.

"Let's try this, then." There was a trident between Rokudou's hands and he spun it, slamming the butt down on the floor. Pillars of fire burst up, and no matter how Xanxus disbelieved in them, they were still searing hot. He'd figure out later how the hell Rokudou was doing it, though. First things first. He bared his teeth and lifted a gun.

"You think I don't know about fire?" The blast of his Flame cut through those pillars and they died as Mukuro dodged aside, faster than anyone had a right to, laughing.

"Of course you do."

The voice came from behind him and Xanxus spun, catching the crosspiece of the trident on the barrel of his other gun while Squalo lunged for Rokudou's back. Somehow the little bastard twisted out from between them and Squalo hissed as the trident scored his shoulder.

As far as Xanxus could tell, sanity took a walk after that, and instead it rained snakes and self-proclaimed hellfire. That was okay, though, he'd grown up without sanity and as long as he could find Rokudou in his sights everything was going just fine. The building was creaking ominously around them by the time he and Squalo finally managed to corner Rokudou. The crazy bastard was still laughing.

"You're everything I hoped for," he murmured. And then he pulled out a gun, lifted it to his temple, and shot himself.

After a frozen moment, Xanxus stepped forward and turned the body over with his toe. "That was weird as all fuck," he muttered.

"You can say that again." Squalo came up beside him, a bit wide-eyed. "Was he just plain crazy?"

"Sure looked that way." Xanxus was still frowning down at the body and the sudden slash of Squalo's sword came as a total surprise. He threw himself back, one hand locked over the gash in his arm, more stunned than he could remember being before in his life. "Squalo?!"

Squalo's gaze was fixed on his own arm, and shocked. "That... wasn't me." He sucked in a hard breath and looked up at Xanxus, urgent. "Boss."

Xanxus' mouth tightened and he nodded shortly. Two steps forward, ducking under another slash and he brought the butt of his gun down and clubbed Squalo unconscious.

Rokudou's laugh rang out again.

Xanxus spun around, teeth bared. The body was gone. No, the body... was standing and smiling at him.

"Just what one would expect of the man who led the Varia," Rokudou purred. "You'll do perfectly."

Xanxus stood very still, looking down at Squalo's body, hearing again Gokudera saying that people were acting strangely, remembering that one bullet Rokudou had shot himself with. "They were destroyed," he said, very softly, and looked up. "The Estraneo."

"Very good!" The son of a bitch actually applauded. "It's my inheritance, you see," he added with a hard twist to his lips.

Xanxus fired both guns at him.

"Now, now," Squalo's voice came from behind him. "Are you sure you want to do that?"

Xanxus turned to see Mukuro's eye in Squalo's face and snarled wordlessly. A smile that wasn't Squalo's curled Squalo's mouth.

"Anyone I've drawn blood from with my trident is mine. And to further my plans, I'll be adding you to my collection."

Xanxus glared, breathing hard, hands tight around his guns. "You will, huh? You think you can take me by using my people?" He laughed, harsh and wild. "Come on, then, you son of a bitch!" He slammed his guns back into their holsters and shoved one sleeve up and held his arm out, teeth bared. "Try it."

Squalo dropped bonelessly back to the ground and the trident licked out from behind him, drawing a line down his arm.

"If you insist," Rokudou murmured at his shoulder.

Xanxus wanted to answer, but he was too busy. The possession technique was based on a special bullet, and all of those were based one way or another on the Dying Will. And he would, by damn, stake his Will against this bastard's. He sank down to the floor, but he barely noticed that; fire was running down his veins and nerves. Fire, or maybe Flame. He drew on his own Flame, his own Will, as though he were going to feed it to his guns. This time, though, he turned it inward, burning back against that invading fire.

And the invasion flinched.

It surged back the next second, hard and vicious, heavy and cold for something that burned so fiercely. But that second was all the proof Xanxus needed and he raged back against it with nothing held back. He could barely feel the hard floor under him, had no idea what his body was doing, only knew he had to burn Rokudou out. He didn't care if he burned the whole world, as long as he burned Rokudou out of himself. He turned all the wildness of the Flame of Wrath against the thing inside him, the flashes of fury and hate and madness, the half-thoughts that lashed at him, trash and traitor and failure. He couldn't tell whether the moments of crushing pain were attacks or just side-effects. He wasn't stopping for them. For anything.

And in the end, scorched and smoking from the inside out, he looked out of his own eyes through the whirl of Flame and met Rokudou's, wide and shocked. Rokudou's lips moved. "You..."

Then the world was Flame. Or maybe fire.

When Xanxus woke up he was in a hospital bed. "What the hell happened?" he asked, or tried to; it came out as a croak.

"Xanxus? Are you awake?" His father leaned over him, and there was a nurse with a glass of water.

"What happened?" he tried again.

"Rokudou escaped," Reborn's voice said, and Xanxus turned his head to see Reborn perched on the bedside table, "while I was getting you out of the burning building."

Xanxus blinked. Burning? Maybe all the Flame hadn't gone inward after all. And then another memory jabbed him and he started upright. "Squalo!"

The old man pushed him firmly back down. "Squalo is just fine. Considerably better than you are, in fact." As Xanxus opened his mouth again, he went on. "All your people are fine. Some broken bones, some blood loss, but nothing too serious. It's you who's been unconscious for two days."

"Bastard was Estraneo," Xanxus rasped. "Picture was totally wrong. The Possession Bullet. Be careful going after him."

"Squalo told us," the old man soothed, hand on his shoulder. "We put the rest of it together. It's clear now he must have possessed the man everyone thought was him."

Xanxus' lips pulled up off his teeth. "Fixed the son of a bitch, though. He couldn't take me." He grinned up at the ceiling with slightly dizzy satisfaction. And it sounded like Squalo hadn't taken any permanent damage from being possessed, which maybe meant he wouldn't have to skin Rokudou before he killed him. "Where is he now?"

After a moment of silence he looked down at his father and Reborn, both of whom were looking at him with open startlement. "What?"

"You... resisted possession?" The old man smiled slowly. "I suppose we might have known."

Xanxus snorted. "Damn right." He ignored the sneaking warmth in his chest.

"As for where he is," Reborn put in, sounding his annoyingly calm self again, "we think he's left the country."

"He's what!?" Xanxus tried to sit up again and was pushed back down. "Goddamn it!"

"We have people on his trail," the old man said firmly. "We'll find him. I can't spare you to go off hunting him, though, not when three other Families have already taken far too much interest in what no doubt appeared to be a secret attack on us."

Xanxus grudgingly lay back into the pillows. Rokudou was going to be found, all right, and when he was Xanxus was going to turn him into dog meat.

No one touched what was his.

A week later, he was walking around on his own again, even if the old man did fuss over him, and he made it down the hall just as fast as ever when he got the call.

"You found him?" he demanded, throwing open the office door.

"He's gone to ground in Japan," Staffieri said, "but that's as far as we've gotten. He's good at hiding."

Xanxus thumped down in a chair and growled with pure frustration.

"I sympathize," his father said dryly. "But even Iemitsu hasn't been able to find them." He frowned. "And even if he did, I'm afraid he might not be able to hold them until you got there." He sighed. "It would have complicated things dreadfully at the time, but now I find myself somewhat regretting Iemitsu didn't inherit the Vongola Flame."

Xanxus frowned as a faint memory tugged at him. "Hey." He glanced at Staffieri. "Didn't I hear something about Sawada's kid?"

Staffieri lifted a brow. "The Ninth believes Tsunayoshi may have inherited the Flame, but the boy's shown no open signs of it."

"If he's got it, he's got it," Xanxus argued. "And if he needs it, he'll use it. And he's on the spot."

The old man made a thoughtful sound. "Perhaps I should ask Iemitsu about this again..."

"Tsuna?" Sawada ran a hand through his hair. "Ah. Well. The thing is..."

"Spit it out already," Xanxus grumbled.

Sawada sighed. "Tsuna doesn't seem to have much interest in, well, anything at all, really." He looked at the old man. "I believe you when you say he has the potential, of course, but I've seen no sign at all of it coming out."

"He'd be interested in survival, wouldn't he?" Xanxus said bluntly. "What if Rokudou has heard about him? He wanted someone with the Flame, that's for damn sure."

Sawada's face turned still and cold. "That is a good point," he said slowly.

The old man leaned back in his chair. "Perhaps," he murmured, "I should send Reborn to the boy."

Sawada lost his stone face and sputtered.

The old man smiled wryly at his outside adviser. "What do you say, my friend? Would you be willing to have your son serve me?" He glanced at Xanxus. "And my son after?"

Sawada snorted magnificently. "My blood is the Family's blood, and it will serve the Family in whatever way you require. Don't ask silly questions."

The old man's smile softened, and Xanxus had to glance aside from the way they looked at each other. "Very well, then. I'll ask Reborn."

It was a reasonably even deal, Xanxus decided, as he walked back to his own rooms. Someone else might get first crack at Rokudou, but at least Reborn would harass someone else for a little while.

TBC

Archimedes' Lever - Six

Xanxus and his people take up their place in the Family. Drama, I-3

Rafaele turned another page, torn between amusement and horror. "You know, I think I'm starting to understand just why young Cavallone is so skittish when he comes here to visit," he said in a reflective tone. "Not to mention why Xanxus seemed so happy that Reborn was going to be elsewhere for a while."

"Reborn never used that kind of tactics with Xanxus," Gianni pointed out, setting a glass of wine down in front of him and taking a seat across the kitchen table.

"Certainly not, and a good thing to." Rafaele shook his head. "I mean, 'traditional Vongola birthday party'? Reborn has a really evil sense of humor."

Gianni's mouth twitched. "Yes, well. I get the impression that Tsunayoshi is a good deal younger than Xanxus ever was." He took a sip of his own wine and shrugged. "As long as it works, I suppose. And if you look at Dino Cavallone today it certainly seems to work."

"I just hope it works in time," Rafaele sighed, closing the folder and taking up his glass. "Before Rokudou makes his move. And before Xanxus completely loses his patience and tries to turn Japan upside down and shake it until Rokudou falls out," he added wryly.

"Mmm." Gianni frowned. "He does seem a bit fixated, doesn't he?"

"It was Squalo Rokudou possessed and used against him," Rafaele pointed out, sober. "Xanxus has turned possessive of the whole Family, but Squalo especially so."

Raw envy flashed over Gianni's face and Rafaele reached out and laid a gentle hand over his.

"At least we know he'll be ready to go help take care of Rokudou whenever he does surface," he went on, conversational tone at odds with the sympathy in his eyes.

Gianni took a breath, and another drink. "Yes. I just hope that works out." He frowned again suddenly, but it was his business expression and Rafaele relaxed. "What do you think of the way Reborn is drawing Tsunayoshi's friends into our business?"

"I think our business may be the reason Tsunayoshi has friends," Rafaele answered a bit dryly. "At least if I'm reading between the lines correctly."

"Not very like his father at all," Gianni murmured, sounding rather puzzled.

"Perhaps." Rafaele leaned back, considering the reports Reborn had sent, and the things Sawada himself had said in passing. "Does it seem to you that each time Tsunayoshi makes progress, it's for the sake of something besides himself?"

Gianni's brows rose. "Hm." He smiled slowly. "More like his father than I'd thought, then."

Rafaele smiled. "Yes. I think the boy might just fit in with the Family very well, in the end."

Rafaele watched Timoteo set the phone down, slow and controlled. "Rokudou is moving?" he asked.

"Yes." Timoteo had a bit of fire in his eyes. "Not directly for Tsunayoshi, but he's struck at the people around him. Reborn says Tsunayoshi insists on going to find the man himself."

"Xanxus is still out on that raid against the Tomaso," Gianni murmured. "Should we call him back?"

Timoteo was quiet for a long moment, eyes on his folded hands. "Reborn feels that Tsunayoshi may be able to deal with this himself," he said at last, quietly. "And the Vendicare are already moving in any case. This may be the time for Xanxus to learn that there are more important things than personal revenge."

Gianni hesitated and glanced at Rafaele.

"Showing him that—catching Mukuro without him—is a heavy burden to place on Tsunayoshi." Rafaele made his voice as neutral as he could, but Timoteo still winced a little.

"I know," he said, softly, and was silent.

Rafaele watched the hand Gianni laid on Timoteo's shoulder and sighed. He wouldn't want to be the Family boss for all the money in the world; not when it meant making decisions like these.

All they could do was support Timoteo and hope for the best.

Iemitsu sat back with a sigh of what sounded to Rafaele like profound relief. "Well, that's that, then."

Xanxus made a grumpy sound and slouched down a little further into his chair. Rafaele was quite willing to admit that Xanxus had come a long way since the day Squalo had walked into his life and turned it on its side, but he could still beat any five year old for marathon sulking. And wasn't it just typical that he was sulking because he hadn't personally gotten to tear Rokudou to bits? Timoteo was right; it was high time Xanxus learned that it didn't matter who did it as long as it got done.

Timoteo ignored his son's snit, focused on the oddest part of Rokudou's recapture. "So you say Tsunayoshi actually cleansed Rokudou's aura?"

"That's what Reborn said." Iemitsu smirked just a bit. Rafaele supposed his pride was excusable; no one had expected his son to have that kind of ability. Iemitsu sobered quickly, though. "Speaking of cleansing, in a way, how are negotiations with the Vendicare over Lancia Rossi going? That was... well, it was important to Tsuna."

"That was clearly a miscarriage of even our justice," Timoteo said firmly. "We will get him free."

"You need someone else to talk to them?" Xanxus asked, looking out the window.

Timoteo's mustache twitched, as if he'd suppressed a smile. "That would be very helpful, yes. Thank you, my boy."

Rafaele gave his boss a long look as Xanxus pushed himself up and strode out of the room. "Now, was that a nice thing to do?"

"It will be helpful," Timoteo said. "Both to defuse some of his temper and to get Lancia out of the Vendicare's hands as quickly as possible."

"His temper does worry me sometimes," Gianni murmured.

"He's growing out of it," Timoteo insisted, which Rafaele couldn't help thinking represented more optimism than was quite warranted.

Iemitsu was looking after Xanxus with a thoughtful expression. "Maybe I'll see about bringing Tsuna here after he graduates," he said.

"You think it would help?" Timoteo sounded so hopeful Rafaele instantly took back his thought about optimism.

Iemitsu smiled wryly. "We'll see how far Reborn takes him. It might."

Rafaele stared at the official letter on Timoteo's desk and sighed. "And it's been such a nice quiet month," he said wistfully.

Right on cue, Timoteo's office door slammed open, and almost off its hinges, and Xanxus came through it just about breathing fire.

"They lost him?! Barely one damn month and that bastard escaped?!"

"The Vendicare recaptured Rokudou almost at once," Gianni said firmly.

"How the hell do they think they can capture someone who goddamn well possesses people?" Xanxus demanded with unreasonable volume but unfortunately good logic. Rafaele sighed.

"His body, at least, won't be getting away again. And we are tracking those of his followers who did get away," he said firmly. Xanxus didn't look convinced.

"Come on, Boss," Squalo said, leaning in the doorway. "We'll find him when we find him. And in the meantime, why should he get to interrupt a good workout?" Indeed, there was blood running down his jaw from a split lip and the redness of a proximity burn on his sword arm.

That got Xanxus turned around and stalking back out the door. Squalo spared a grin for everyone's expressions before following.

"Squalo is just as crazy as he is," Gianni declared.

"I imagine that's why they get along," Rafaele pointed out mildly.

Iemitsu, who had been staring out the window quietly while Xanxus burst in, finally spoke. "Rokudou's followers did get away, didn't they? And it sounded like he let himself be recaptured to let them."

"It did sound as though the Vendicare themselves thought so," Gianni agreed.

Iemitsu looked at Timoteo. "Perhaps we can make some use of that."

Timoteo frowned. "Use his people as hostages?"

"No, not that." Iemitsu crossed an ankle over his knee and leaned back. "No, I was thinking that his care for their escape indicates some reform, let's say, in him, and about the things Reborn reported he said during his fight with Tsuna. That Rokudou seems to have some respect for Xanxus. I can't imagine Rokudou's dealt with anyone, before, who could throw off possession; he certainly seemed to think it would still work fine on Tsuna. And if Rokudou has started to value Family properly, perhaps, between his respect for Xanxus' strength and his regard for his own people, we can do something with him." Iemitsu had a definite gleam in his eye. "So, what if we bring him in?"

There was a long moment of silence before Timoteo said, carefully, "Iemitsu, are you really suggesting that we make Rokudou Mukuro one of the Vongola?"

"Not sure if he'd quite swallow that," Iemitsu allowed. "But if we trade him, if we offer to take care of his followers in return for his services..." he smiled, sharp, "especially his service to Xanxus, that he might agree to." The smile turned downright wicked. "After all, isn't it traditional that the loser serves the winner, after a leadership challenge?"

Timoteo snorted, but he also looked thoughtful.

"Iemitsu?" Rafaele managed, after a moment.

"Hm?" Iemitsu gave him a cheery look of inquiry.

"You get to explain this to Xanxus."

"This is complete bullshit," Xanxus muttered, pacing back and forth through the room. "He can't possibly be willing to fucking well work for me."

Rafaele raised a brow at Squalo, who shook his head firmly. Rafaele sighed; if Squalo thought it was better to let Xanxus pace, the boy was probably twice as tense as Rafaele thought. "Well, we'll know soon," he said, calmingly, more in hopes that Xanxus' people would relax than that Xanxus himself would.

"No, we won't. That's the point. If it's Rokudou we won't know that it didn't work until the day he tries to kill us all."

Rafaele had to admit that Xanxus had a point. This time he looked at Iemitsu.

"Mukuro has changed," Iemitsu put in obligingly. He looked perfectly relaxed, leaning against the wall with casually crossed arms. "Have some faith in Tsuna's work."

Xanxus started to turn and give Iemitsu a dire glare, but the door at the far end of the hall opened and he whipped back around to face it.

Through the door stepped Piero and Maria, escorting three young people. The two boys Rafaele thought he recognized from the reports of both Xanxus' and Tsunayoshi's encounters. They looked around with hard, bitter eyes, the dark one blank and the blond one sneering. If the history Reborn had passed on was accurate, he could understand why. The third person held the trident Xanxus had described, but she most certainly did not look like Rokudou Mukuro.

"You didn't say he'd changed that much," Tazio said, staring.

"His body's still held by the Vendicare," Squalo said, tight and quiet. "Could have figured he'd come in someone else's."

"She's not," Xanxus said, very quietly, staring hard at the girl. "Not... quite."

The girl stepped forward with perfectly unnatural composure, looking up to meet Xanxus' glare. "You wish to speak with Mukuro-sama?"

Xanxus was silent for a long moment before he finally said, slowly, "Yeah, I think so."

She nodded and closed her eyes, clasping the trident closer to her chest. White mist twined up around her and Gianni stiffened.

"Illusion," he murmured, stepping closer to Timoteo's shoulder.

The mist blew away on a light laugh. "Yes and no," said the tall young man who stood where the girl had been.

Rafaele stifled a frown as Squalo actually flinched a little. Xanxus took one long step ahead of his right hand, eyes fixed on Rokudou and burning.

Rokudou's mouth curled. "This should be an interesting game, shouldn't it?" he murmured. "How can you know that I'll actually serve you instead of merely stalk you for my own use? How can I know you'll shelter these three children instead of simply kill me?"

"You don't," Xanxus said bluntly. "And I don't. I damn well should kill you for laying a hand on what's mine. Even think about it again, and I will."

Rokudou blinked once and burst out laughing; this time he sounded genuinely amused. "Very well. And what all is yours?" He cocked his head, inquiring, eyes sharp on Xanxus.

"The Vongola," Xanxus said, flatly. "All of it."

Rokudou's smile quirked as his eyes tracked over the five men leaning or perching around the room who focused on Xanxus instead of Timoteo. "Indeed," he murmured. "And these," he waved his fingers at the two boys who flanked him, tense and protective now, "are mine. You will guard them as well."

Xanxus considered Rokudou narrowly for a long moment and Rafaele wondered if Xanxus also heard the similarity in what the two of them were saying. Finally Xanxus smirked. "As long as they're Vongola. As long as you are."

Rokudou's chin jerked up, and his smile turned sardonic. "Very good." A breath of hesitation and he finished, "Very well." Mist swept around him again and when it fell the girl stood there again, leaning on the trident. She opened her eyes slowly and looked up at Xanxus again, weirdly serene for someone who seemed to timeshare her life with Rokudou. "My name is Chrome Dokurou," she said, and dipped her head. "Boss."

Xanxus actually took a step back. "What?"

"Aren't you?" she asked.

Squalo finally stirred and laughed, a little roughly. "Well. I was starting to wonder where we might find a Mist for you."

Rafaele expected Xanxus to glare like death at that crack, but instead he looked at Squalo level and serious. "Yeah?"

Squalo shrugged a shoulder. "If it holds. Yeah."

After a long moment Xanxus nodded. "All right." He eyed the two boys consideringly and a corner of his mouth tilted up. "Gokudera! Tazio! Get them settled somewhere."

Tazio and Gokudera exchanged unenthusiastic looks and even less enthusiastic ones with Rokudou's followers, and Rafaele remembered they had been the ones to fight them when Xanxus came up against Rokudou.

"Yes, Boss," Gokudera sighed and slouched over to the newcomers. "C'mon, you."

Rafael had to stifle a laugh as the five moved off, four already bickering.

"Well done, my boy," Timoteo said, chuckling. "Very well done."

Xanxus grunted and gathered up the rest of his people with a gesture. "We'll see."

Rafaele watched him go. "Well," he murmured, "maybe this will work."

Rafaele stood with the rest of Timoteo's Guardians and watched solemnly as Xanxus and his people came forward to accept the Vongola Rings. There were little stirs among the watching witnesses, especially when Xanxus took the Sky Ring. The Family had horror stories about what happened if the Rings rejected a candidate; in fact Timoteo's mother had added one, about the brother who'd made the mistake of thinking his sister couldn't lead the Family. It was the gleam in her eye as she'd told it that had really made the story, he'd always thought.

Xanxus didn't seem to notice, though Rafaele wouldn't have laid money that he hadn't, and marked exactly who was doubting him, too. He slid the ring onto his finger and closed his hand into a fist. The six Guardians he'd chosen, who had chosen him, all showed their teeth at that, one way or another, and held out their hands to him.

Flames lit on each Ring.

Rafaele almost expected them to flutter as the entire room seemed to breathe out. He let himself grin as Timoteo announced in a firm voice that his choice of heir was confirmed and that Xanxus would be the tenth Boss of the Vongola, and everyone broke up to chatter about it.

"We might actually live to retire after all!" Michele said, and Rafaele smiled at this flash of his old irrepresibleness—that kind they hadn't seen much of since his son died with Federico.

"Let's go congratulate the children, then," he suggested.

"As long as Chrome stays Chrome," Michele specified, promptly. "I can deal with a cute girl, even one who doesn't know she's pretty yet. But that Mukuro gives me the creeps. Especially when he thanks me for complimenting her." He shuddered and Rafaele chuckled as they spread out. Mukuro's sense of humor was a pretty good match for his boss', at that.

Eventually he worked his way to where Squalo was leaning against the wall and watching the crowd. "Congratulations," Rafaele said, nodding to the ring on Squalo's hand.

"Mm. Nice to have it all official, I guess," his protege murmured.

Rafaele leaned beside him. "You know, I'm not sure I've ever mentioned it," he said at last, "but I'm glad you came back to the Family with me, that day I first met you. When I look back at how Xanxus was before... well, I think this turned out better for everyone."

Squalo's mouth quirked. "Yeah, 'Mom' said kind of the same thing just now. Only he didn't sound quite as cheery about it."

"Gianni belongs to Timoteo a lot like you belong to Xanxus," Rafaele said gently, and then grinned. "I imagine you'll think Xanxus' son is an uppity little brat, too."

"Oh God." Squalo slumped back against the wall. "You're going to start encouraging the girls, now, aren't you?"

"I imagine their own Families will do that," Rafaele pointed out dryly. "Don't worry; I'm sure you'll be able to find him a woman to suit him."

Squalo stared. "Me?"

"You're his right hand," Rafaele pointed out inexorably. "And he certainly isn't going to do it left to his own devices, is he?"

Squalo slumped again. "I really hate you sometimes," he said into his glass.

"Shows I'm doing my job."

After another silence Squalo said quietly, "I suppose I'm glad, too."

Rafaele smiled and held out his glass. "To the Vongola Tenth, then."

Squalo laughed. "Yeah, all right." He clinked his glass against Rafaele's and they both drank.

Whether he retired or died in the harness, Rafaele decided, he would leave the Family in good hands.

End

Omiai

In the universe where Xanxus is the Tenth, what happens to Tsuna and his friends? Drama with Humor and Tangential Romance, I-4

Tsuna stood in the shade of the small 'control tower' building and watched as a sleek private jet rolled to a stop, and tried not to fidget.

"Why did the Tenth have to come here?" he asked Reborn one more time. "I haven't even graduated from high school yet!"

"Because he's the one you'll serve when Iemitsu retires and you take over CEDEF," Reborn told him. "It's about time you met each other. Quit complaining."

"Who said I was going to take over CEDEF?" Tsuna muttered, more out of habit than hope at this point.

"I did."

Tsuna sighed and then stood up straighter, nervous, as the jet's door opened and a tall, dark man prowled down the stairs. He was followed by another man, lean and not quite so tall with a fly-away brush of short silver hair, and—thank goodness!—a boy about Tsuna's age, looking around with sharp eyes under a curtain of darker silver hair.

"Xanxus," Reborn greeted the one in the lead, not that Tsuna had really had any doubts.

"Reborn." Xanxus looked Tsuna up and down and lifted a brow. "You're sure he beat Mukuro?" he added doubtfully.

"Quite sure. Not that he wasn't pathetically clumsy about it." Tsuna rolled his eyes and caught what might have been a glint of sympathy in Xanxus'. "Which is why I wanted you to come help with his training," Reborn finished.

"What?!" Tsuna yelped.

"Well of course," Reborn told him, perfectly serene. "I can't arrange escaped mafia criminals for you all the time, you know."

"He didn't tell you," Xanxus stated rather than asked, and snorted.

"He usually doesn't," Tsuna admitted.

Xanxus looked him up and down again, more measuringly this time. "Hm. Got a problem with training against me?"

"I, um, don't want to die and I don't like pain?" Tsuna suggested, not entirely sure this would weigh with the kind of people Reborn seemed to know.

"Ah, don't worry about that," the lean man put in with a rather unnerving smile. "You probably won't die."

Tsuna sighed, slumping. Yeah, that was about what he had figured.

"This is the Vongola house in this town," Reborn announced when they arrived.

It was the first Tsuna had heard of any such thing, and the first time he'd ever seen the large, western style house they had pulled up to. For the first time he wondered exactly how much money Reborn had at his personal disposal, to set this up.

Actually, considering property damages, maybe he should have wondered that sooner.

He helped haul luggage into the spotless foyer while Xanxus looked around, hands on his hips. "Nice place," Xanxus observed with a hint of what sounded like suspicion. Xanxus, Tsuna reflected, seemed to know Reborn awfully well.

"I called in some of the Family to get it ready." At Xanxus' frown Reborn added, "They've already left again."

"Good," Xanxus grunted. "Can't stand having a bunch of fawning idiots around."

Tsuna blinked, started by the harshness of that comment on the Tenth's own Family.

"They're not actually pretending, you know," Squalo said, in the tone of someone who'd said it many times before. "Just because they're not afraid of you any more. I mean, how long has it been since you even broke someone up during training? Someone who wasn't Varia," he added.

Xanxus made a noncommittal sound and turned down the hall, glancing into each room as if he expected to find concealed attackers. Squalo looked after him, shaking his head and smiling crookedly, and jerked his chin at Gokudera, who followed quietly after Xanxus.

"If he doesn't believe his own Family respects him, there will be trouble," Reborn said.

The tolerant look slid off Squalo's face and he narrowed his eyes at Reborn. "He's getting there," he snapped.

"He's the Tenth now," Reborn shot back, inflexible. "Get there faster."

"Mind your own business," Squalo growled, and Tsuna tip toed back a little, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. "You're the Ninth's man. You don't know the Tenth."

"If he can't inherit the Ninth's men, the Vongola will fail at the end of this generation," Reborn said quietly.

Squalo's mouth tightened and he said, just as soft, "And do you really think Iemitsu will give Xanxus everything he gives the Ninth? Do you really think you will?"

Reborn pulled the brim of his hat down, quiet for a moment. "That's why I'm here," he finally answered.

"Then I guess we'll see." Squalo turned away, following Xanxus and Gokudera.

"Tsuna."

Tsuna started a little, and tried to breathe normally again as the tension in the front hall eased. "Yeah?"

"Tell Yamamoto to stop by and see us, once he's done with his team practice."

Tsuna stared at him. "Um. Okay?"

Reborn didn't explain the non sequitur, just hopped up onto Tsuna's shoulder as he turned back for the next suitcase.

To Tsuna's temporary relief he was not tossed to the Tenth's un-tender-looking mercies the very next day. Instead he was training with the boy his age, Gokudera Hayato. His relief was only temporary because this involved getting blown up.

"You need to increase your endurance," Reborn declared. "We'll start easy; just put out all the bomb fuses before they go off."

"Put out the fu—?"

Gokudera flicked and fanned sticks of dynamite through his fingers and lit them off his cigarette quite calmly. Tsuna didn't have time to protest further before the bombs bracketed him on all sides and he'd been shot.

More bombs. Fewer bombs. Bombs further away. Really a whole lot of bombs. Small bombs hiding among bigger bombs.

It was the last that got him, and when he came to he was still smoking.

"Idiot," Reborn told him. "You need to pay better attention."

"I was paying attention," Tsuna protested, spitting out dirt. "It's just... they looked..."

"Perspective," Gokudera supplied, perched on a rock with one knee drawn up. "If I can distract you with the larger ones, the smaller ones will seem like regular bombs further away. They're scaled to look exactly alike."

Xanxus, leaning against a tree to watch the show, made a satisfied sound. "Hayato will be our best strategist, eventually."

Tsuna blinked as Gokudera's cool, businesslike look evaporated into a soft smile and bright eyes and... was Gokudera actually blushing?

"Tenth," Gokudera murmured. Then he seemed to notice Tsuna smiling and cleared his throat. "So. We going again?"

"Of course," Reborn said, and Tsuna stood with a sigh.

It was getting on towards evening when Reborn finally said they were done, and Tsuna just collapsed where he stood. "Ow," he added, after a moment to catch his breath.

"What the hell?" Xanxus was asking Reborn, not quite quietly. "He acts like a total wimp, but he's been running around like a crazy man putting out bombs like it's nothing all day."

"That's Tsuna," Reborn said, uninformatively. Tsuna figured that meant he was going to have to do this again tomorrow.

"Hey, Tsuna!"

Tsuna hauled himself to his feet with a smile. "Yamamoto."

Yamamoto strolled up, bat over his shoulder, and blinked at Tsuna's ragged, dirt streaked clothes. "Been practicing hard?"

"I guess so, yeah," Tsuna sighed.

"Yamamoto, good, you're here." Reborn landed hard on Tsuna's shoulder. "There are things you need to work on, too. Squalo," he added, "Yamamoto uses a sword."

That seemed an odd way to introduce them, to Tsuna, but sure enough Squalo straightened up and took a long step forward, eyes on Yamamoto. He didn't speak, though.

Yamamoto cocked his head in friendly inquiry, bat shifting just a little against his shoulder.

Tsuna yelped as a sword blade slid out of Squalo's sleeve and he lunged at Yamamoto. Everyone else, he realized, was just standing there looking on, and he wondered again when he had stopped knowing any sane people.

One strike that Yamamoto met, bat suddenly a sword, laughing; a second that he dodged, and Squalo's face was completely still; a third that he stepped into and Squalo's eyes narrowed and something small flew from Squalo's sword and Squalo was leaping back from the explosion that blew Yamamoto through the air.

Yamamoto lay still where he'd landed.

"Yamamoto!" Tsuna started to go to him only to fetch up short against Gokudera's grip on his arm.

"Don't," Gokudera said quietly, eyes on Yamamoto as he stirred and slowly levered himself upright.

"You wave a sword around, but you're not a swordsman," Squalo said, loud and flat. "With that skill level you're no use to anyone." He turned on his heel and stalked away from them all. Xanxus, Tsuna noted even in his distraction, watched Squalo go with a tilted smile.

"Let me go," Tsuna hissed to Gokudera.

"Do you really think he'll want sympathy when he's just been beaten that easily?" Gokudera asked, though he also let Tsuna go. Tsuna hesitated.

"Well." Yamamoto walked toward them and he was smiling the way he always did, but there was something different in his eyes. "It's good to see you, Tsuna, but I guess I should get back to practice." He patted Tsuna on the shoulder companionably and walked on.

"Yamamoto." Tsuna hesitated.

"Good."

Tsuna glared at Reborn. "What's good about it?"

"Yamamoto needs a reason to be serious." Reborn was smiling his barely-there smile. "And Squalo wouldn't have been that angry if Yamamoto didn't have it in him to be better."

Xanxus snorted. "If it's the sword, yeah. You're a complete bastard, you know that?"

"I," Reborn said, "am the very best home tutor."

Tsuna thought about that, and about himself and about Yamamoto and about the Family that Reborn said he was already a part of, the whole way home.

For three days Tsuna tried to catch up with Yamamoto at school and completely failed. Yamamoto seemed just as sociable and cheerful as ever, but he was always on his way somewhere: to buy lunch because he'd forgotten his; to team practice, though Tsuna didn't see him there when he stopped by on his way out to his own training; to take a make-up test, and that was when Tsuna got suspicious, because he usually had to take all of those and he didn't have any that day. Finally Tsuna asked Reborn if he thought something was wrong. Reborn smacked him casually over the head.

"Idiot Tsuna. Of course something's wrong. Yamamoto isn't the kind of person to take being beaten easily."

After that, Tsuna insisted on visiting Yamamoto's house and finding out what his friend was doing.

"Takeshi?" Yamamoto's father smiled. "So, it's something to do with your business, is it?"

"Um." Tsuna fidgeted guiltily.

"Takeshi is at the dojo two blocks down." Yamamoto-san went back to chopping ingredients, knife flashing, still with that odd smile.

"I'll... just go see how he's doing, then." Tsuna slipped back out of the shop and looked at Reborn. "Was that weird, or is it just me?"

"I didn't see anything odd about it," Reborn told him, and pointed down the road. "That way."

Tsuna sighed and headed on toward the dojo. It was a nice one, large and traditional and set back on a big lot with willows and pines leaning around it. Tsuna peeked in the window slats to see if Yamamoto was really in there, and wound up clinging to the slats in shock. Yamamoto was there all right.

He was moving through the open room like water flowing, one form after another, and Tsuna would almost swear his sword was leaving trails in the air. "Since when..." he whispered.

Yamamoto paused and came to the door, looking around. "Is someone...? Oh, hey, Tsuna!" He grinned. "Come on in. I'm sorry," he added, penitently, as Tsuna slipped inside and toed off his shoes, "did I worry you?"

"No, no, it wasn't—" Tsuna started, only to be overridden by Reborn.

"Yes, Tsuna is an idiot, so he was fretting. So? How is it going?"

Yamamoto smiled wryly. "It's good. At least I think so." He looked round at the scattered remains of straw bundles. "If you don't mind, though, I think... I think I'd rather not show you yet."

"I understand."

Tsuna was glad someone did. "You're sure you're doing all right?" he asked, hesitantly.

Yamamoto smiled at him, open as always though there was a layer of darkness in his eyes now. "Honest, Tsuna. I'm good."

Tsuna smiled back; obviously there wasn't anything he could say to change this. "All right. I'll let you get back to it, then." He made a face. "I was on my way to training anyway."

Yamamoto laughed. "Hey, good luck. Oh." He paused, back to them. "Don't mention this to Squalo, all right?"

"If you want, sure," Tsuna assured him.

"Thanks."

Tsuna was silent for a while as they walked on down the road. "Reborn," he said, finally, "is this really going to be all right?"

"Yamamoto is strong enough to be your friend," Reborn said, serenely. "Have some faith in him."

Tsuna took a deep breath and let it out.

"All right."

"All right," Reborn announced, "today you're working with Xanxus."

Tsuna looked at Xanxus and instantly felt scrawny. And breakable.

"You use very different techniques, it should be interesting." There was, Tsuna felt, something ghoulish about Reborn's good cheer as he cocked his head at the Tenth.

Xanxus gave him a dark look. "Interesting, huh?" Tsuna was slightly cheered by this evidence that other people than him knew Reborn was evil that way. His eyes widened, though, when Xanxus drew a gun and a hard glow lit his hand on the grip.

"That's..."

"The Vongola Flame," Reborn agreed.

Xanxus raised the gun and fired at the cliff face, a lot of which turned into rubble.

"Heee!" Tsuna squeaked. He really couldn't help it.

"It's about time you got some experience against someone else who uses the Flame," Reborn told him with perfect ruthlessness.

Tsuna missed most of Reborn's lecture about special bullets and Wrath and some other Vongola boss who'd also used guns, because he was staring at the cliff in horror. When Reborn shot him he was actually relieved, because it was a lot easier to look at the Tenth's Flame and not run screaming when Dying Will was humming through his nerves and thoughts. He was also grateful for the week of practice against Gokudera, because he needed every bit of speed and precision to dodge Xanxus' shots; he had more agility, especially in the air, and that was good since he absolutely had to close hand-to-hand.

The thought stirred, in the back of his mind, that he should do something about that.

More and more of his attention, though was taken up with the taste, for lack of a better word, of Xanxus' Flame. It was hard and wild, and there was something running through it like a scream heard in the distance. The word Reborn had spoken came back to him: Wrath. A compression and sharpening of the Flame.

He thought Xanxus' Flame could get a lot sharper than this, too, if he were facing a real enemy. Someone who threatened the things Xanxus cared about.

That reminded him of someone.

When Reborn finally said they could stop and Tsuna collapsed on a rock, panting and aching in every muscle, that thought stayed with him. "Xanxus-san?" he finally said, hesitantly.

"Hm?" Xanxus was leaning back, legs crossed, looking like he'd maybe had a decent workout and could go another round any time.

"Reborn said that Mukuro was with you, now?"

Xanxus snorted. "As much as he's with anyone."

"I'm glad," Tsuna said quietly. He got an odd look from Xanxus for that.

"Glad?"

"The things they talked about, that their own Family had done to them." Tsuna groped for the right words. "I don't understand a lot of what Reborn talks about, the traditions and things. But that... that's just wrong. They need someplace to be that will be better. So if they're with you, now, I'm glad."

"You think I can be better for them?" Xanxus asked, brows raised, and Tsuna looked up at him.

"I think maybe you're a little like Mukuro when you care about something. I think maybe you can understand him better than other people."

Xanxus eyed him for a long moment and then, rather to Tsuna's surprise, turned and gave Reborn a very hard look.

"That's Tsuna," Reborn said evenly. "You've seen his technique up close, now, and you know what he did to Mukuro. It's his intuition that's developing fastest, not his offensive abilities." He cocked his head. "Isn't that good, for someone who will be your outside advisor?"

Xanxus answered with a wordless grunt, leaning back to stare up at the sky.

"He could probably master the Zero Point, too," Reborn added, and sat calmly as Xanxus jerked back upright. "If you agree."

Tsuna had no idea what they were talking about, but he did his best not to quail under the burning stare Xanxus gave him.

The Tenth stood abruptly. "I'll think about it."

"What's the Zero Point?" Tsuna asked as Xanxus strode away.

Reborn was smiling. "If he agrees, I'll tell you."

Their next visitor was a lot more unexpected than Yamamoto had been.

"Hibari-san!" Tsuna scrambled to his feet as Hibari looked him up and down, because he could already hear Hibari's admonishment about letting his school uniform get dirty by sprawling around on the ground. And Hibari's admonishments never stopped at words. Tsuna dusted himself off, nervously, as well as could be when Xanxus' last shot had slammed him into a small crater.

Hibari sniffed and glanced at the others. "Baby." He nodded acknowledgment to Reborn, fingers already working delicately around the handle of his tonfa.

"Hibari." Reborn was almost smirking, Tsuna swore. "I'm still a bit busy, but I thought you might like to go a few rounds with Xanxus."

Hibari's focus shifted and he examined Xanxus for a long moment. "Are you strong?" he finally asked.

Xanxus' mouth curled. "Are you?" he returned.

Somehow Tsuna wasn't at all surprised when they both lunged for each other and Xanxus caught the first tonfa on the barrel of his gun. He backed up out of the way along with Squalo and Reborn.

"He's good," Squalo said, arms folded, eyes fixed on the fast, brutal exchange ranging up and down the boulders in front of them. It was the most civil thing Tsuna had heard him say in days, which was a bit of a relief.

"Of course he is." Reborn crossed his ankles. "I wouldn't have recommended this if he weren't."

"He's also," Squalo noted as Xanxus shot the ground out from under Hibari and Hibari sprang forward instead of back, teeth bared, "crazy."

"Hibari enjoys fighting, and he likes fighting strong opponents the best," Reborn answered, composed. "You should understand that."

"Mmm." Tsuna didn't understand the sidelong look Squalo gave Reborn.

The open area they'd been using as a practice ground was smoking and scattered with rubble by the time Xanxus got Hibari down. "So?" he asked, out of breath and dripping blood from the side of his head but also grinning, gun trained straight at Hibari.

Hibari looked up at him, expressionless, and twisted, coming up, steel first, inside Xanxus' reach.

Xanxus laughed as he rolled back and kicked Hibari hard over him and against the broken rocks.

"Um," Tsuna murmured. "Is this a good idea? I mean," he went on as both Reborn and Squalo looked at him blankly, "one of them could get seriously hurt if they keep it up."

Squalo shrugged. "That's how we've trained, for a long time." With another of those looks at Reborn he added, "Been a while since someone else could keep up."

It was getting dark before Xanxus and Hibari stopped, and they only did because this time Hibari was actually unconscious. Xanxus took a while to straighten up, too, before spitting out a mouthful of blood and slinging Hibari's body over his shoulder. "Persistent little bastard," he panted, limping over to them and letting Hibari slide down to the rock beside Reborn. His teeth glinted in the dusk. "He'd fit right in with the Varia."

The words left a little silence behind them that wasn't broken until Squalo stirred and looked down at Reborn. "When you said you'd serve the Tenth," he said quietly, "you weren't kidding were you?"

"I'm going to forget you said that." Reborn tugged his hat down a bit.

Squalo looked away. "Yeah. All right."

Xanxus was frowning down at Reborn. "Wait. Are you saying that's why you called the kid here today?"

Reborn shrugged. "I thought you'd both enjoy it, either way." When he looked up he was unreadable, even to Tsuna. "But the thought occurred to me, when I met Hibari."

Xanxus looked at Reborn for a long, silent moment, eyes dark, before he glanced down at Hibari, who was beginning to stir. "A new leader for the Varia, huh? He'd have to work his own way up."

"With Hibari," Reborn said dryly, "it couldn't possibly happen any other way."

"Well, good." After a moment, Xanxus added, "Tell Sawada what the Zero Point is."

Reborn smiled. "As you wish."

Tsuna wondered again what the Zero Point was, that Xanxus was so wary of trusting him with it.

Five days later, he stood on the cliff, staring at his hands with wide eyes, and understood. "I can't," he said, husky, raising shocked eyes to Xanxus. "I can't do that to you!" Now he understood why Squalo had been so tense these past few days.

Xanxus' mouth twisted. "Not without this, anyway." He pulled something out of his pocket and flipped it through the air, gleaming. It was a ring. "That's why I sent Hayato back home to get it."

"Ah." Reborn sounded pleased. "That," he lectured Tsuna, "is the Sky Ring. With it, Xanxus will be able to melt the Zero Point again. With all of the Vongola rings together, anyone could do it."

"Oh." Tsuna nibbled on his lip. "Well, I guess..." He could tell, though, that the Zero Point was a harsh technique, and he didn't like the thought. Finally he straightened up. "Show me, first, then. Use it on me."

Xanxus' brows lifted. "What are you, kid, a masochist?"

Tsuna frowned. "You're telling me to do this to you aren't you?"

Xanxus snorted. "That's different."

"How?"

Xanxus was silent for a long moment, hooded eyes fixed on Tsuna. Finally he sighed, exasperated. "Fine, fine. Don't complain to me after." He holstered one of his guns and laid his hand over the remaining one, closing his eyes. The alternation of his Flame was slow to build but eye-hurtingly bright when it flashed. Tsuna took a breath and gathered his own Flame. Finally Xanxus' eyes opened, dark and clear, and he raised the gun and fired. Tsuna met it, as he was learning to, but this time the touch of Xanxus' Flame was very different—draining, slowing his strength, stilling everything. Tsuna gasped as ice closed around his gloves, not really cold but an absence that seared him. It was a shock like being cut and not seeing his blood flowing.

When Xanxus' hand settled over his, with that ring glinting on his finger, and Tsuna could feel it, could feel his own Flame again too, the relief made him dizzy. "Xanxus-san," he whispered, looking up at him.

Xanxus frowned a little. "You okay?" he asked briskly.

"Why is it all right for me to do this to you?" Tsuna demanded, voice cracking a little.

Xanxus looked away abruptly. "I'm used to it," he finally answered.

He didn't mean the Zero Point itself, Tsuna could see that. Trying to think what else might feel like that, though, made him sick. And angry. A small, hot anger in the center of his chest at people he'd never met and probably never would.

The Zero Point was something that might stop those people, though.

"All right," he said, low, and Xanxus looked back at him, sharp and startled. "I'll do it. I'll learn it. But I'm stopping for the day if I think we've done too much." He looked up at his prospective boss, Will rising, lifting his determination like a tide.

Xanxus' mouth quirked. "You will huh?" He stepped back again and aimed at Tsuna, the hard glow of his Flame steady this time. "Ready or not, then."

Xanxus fired on him again and again, ruthless, pushing Tsuna back and back as he tried to catch the rhythm of the Zero Point. But even when the shots left him smoking, they didn't break that new determination. Every now and then Tsuna caught a glimpse of Squalo, off to the side, leaning against a tree with crossed arms and a sardonic smile. He thought maybe he was starting to understand Squalo, too, a little.

It took hours, but finally Tsuna found his balance and when he closed with Xanxus that time he left Xanxus' gun hand frozen. Xanxus' expression didn't alter a hair as he laid his ring hand over it and melted the not-ice. "Again," he said.

"Wait." Tsuna stepped back, frowning down at the ground. "There was something..." He placed his hands together, as if for the Zero Point, and felt it again, like something he'd heard years ago and forgotten but might remember if he could just find the thread of it. Finally he looked up, determined. "Yes. Again."

Xanxus frowned at him, and frowned at him some more when he backed off to take the shots again. "What the hell, Sawada?" he asked after the first few left Tsuna smoking again.

"It's something else," Tsuna insisted. "There's something else I could do with this." He took a breath and focused again. "Please."

Xanxus' mouth tightened, but he fired again. And again. And again.

As he watched the last shot coming, Tsuna thought what he wanted was like the Zero Point inside out. Moving with the thought, he turned his hands around.

The flow of his Flame reversed.

This time he didn't stop, either his Flame or Xanxus'. This time Xanxus' Flame ran into him with no resistance and flared through him—out from him, overflowing. He let it, let the new strength drive him forward, closing hand to hand before Xanxus could move. "This," he said quietly, hands closed around Xanxus'. "This was it."

He stepped back, meeting Xanxus' shocked stare calmly.

"I told you," Reborn said into the silence. "Tsuna's intuition is what's growing the fastest. That's how he'll best serve you."

Tsuna smiled at that. "Yes." He looked up at Xanxus, calmed by the way he'd found, by the assurance that he could do better for Xanxus than piling more pain on him. Xanxus looked back at him, and Tsuna could see something slowly relaxing in him.

Leaning against his tree, Squalo was downright grinning.

Tsuna thought it was just typical that whenever Xanxus and his people were running out of groceries it was him, and sometimes Gokudera, who got sent out for more.

"Here," Gokudera said, holding out a bag. "I'll put stuff away upstairs if you get the kitchen."

Since it had already been a very long day and the thought of not climbing stairs was extremely appealing, Tsuna agreed.

Most everything was easy enough to find the right place for, in the refrigerator or the pantry, though the package after package of instant noodles amused him as he stacked them neatly on their shelf. This, he thought, might be what people usually meant when they talked about the eating habits of bachelors. The only one of those he'd known previously was Yamamoto's father, and that was obviously a special case.

He heard the refrigerator open and close while he was putting away the last of the rice, and then the sliding door out onto the deck behind the house.

"So? What do you think?"

Tsuna peeked around the pantry door to see Squalo setting a beer down by Xanxus, who was lounging in one of the deck chairs and might have been there the whole time. Squalo leaned against the rail across from him.

"What do I think of what?" Xanxus asked and took a long swallow. Tsuna went back to trying to find room for the new bottle of vinegar.

"Sawada."

Tsuna froze.

Xanxus snorted. "I think he's crazy. Pretty sure I said that before."

Tsuna reached for the last bag, trying to stack things quickly and silently so he could see about sneaking out of there.

"He'll fit in, then. But do you think he'll be loyal?"

"To the Family? I'm guessing so; he's a protective little bastard. Should have seen him when you were having your go at his friend the swordsman."

Tsuna anticipated another loud and profane tirade over how far Yamamoto had to go before Squalo would call him that. Instead Squalo said quietly, "That's the Family. Do you believe he'll be loyal to you?"

There was a moment of silence and then Xanxus snorted. "As long as he does his job, what difference does that make?"

"You know," Squalo said dryly, "if anyone ever wanted to know all the things that are really important to you, all they'd have to do is listen and see what you act most careless about."

"Squalo." It was a growl, and Tsuna peeked around the edge of the door cautiously. He saw Squalo push away from the rail and come to kneel beside Xanxus' chair instead, looking up at him.

"Boss," was all Squalo said, but Tsuna could hear things in that one word he didn't even have names for.

Xanxus looked down at Squalo for a long moment, eyes dark, and finally glanced away. "Have I told you have have a really damn smart mouth?"

The mouth in question quirked. "Not just lately."

"Well you do." Xanxus reached out, though, and rested a hand on Squalo's shoulder. After a moment he turned back and Tsuna, still trapped at the pantry door, could see he was smiling a little. "There are better uses for it." He slid his hand up into Squalo's hair and pulled him closer. Squalo went easily, eyes sliding half closed as Xanxus' mouth covered his. "Come here," Xanxus murmured after a moment, and Squalo slid up to straddle his long legs and be pressed tight against him as both Xanxus' hands slid up his back and pulled him down to another kiss.

Tsuna took the chance while they were distracted and scuttled for the hall, face burning. There were no crashes behind him so he thought he'd gotten away clean, but he didn't slow down until he ran into Gokudera at the bottom of the stairs.

"Sawada?" Gokudera's hand slid to his belts, and he glanced around sharply. "What's wrong?"

"Huh? Oh." Tsuna realized he must look a little wild. He felt like it, wide eyed and probably very red. "No, no! No, it's not... Nothing's wrong, it's just... um... Xanxus-san and Squalo-san... um..."

Gokudera frowned at him for a moment before his own eyes widened a bit. "Oh. Yeah." He was turning a little pink himself. "Yeah, they're um. Yeah." He glanced down the hall Tsuna had come out of and cleared his throat. "So. I guess we shouldn't start dinner yet, huh?"

"No! Really not!" Tsuna squeaked.

"Right." After a moment Gokudera suggested, "Delivery?"

"Good idea," Tsuna agreed fervently.

Dinner was enough to get them both past the embarrassment and talking sensibly about the weather in Italy, but as he walked home that night Tsuna remembered the question Squalo had asked about his loyalty to Xanxus and the way Xanxus hadn't answered it.

He thought especially hard about the things Xanxus acted careless about.

Tsuna was back to exercises against Gokudera's explosives because Hibari had been back for Xanxus today. Again. Tsuna was reminded of the last time Dino had come to visit, and the way he laughed when he'd said Hibari didn't need a reason to fight, just an occasion. Xanxus seemed to like being the occasion.

Tsuna thought they were both kind of weird.

"Ninety percent chance of success is going to get a whole new meaning with him, I can tell," Squalo was saying to Reborn as Tsuna and Gokudera came in for a drink. "I can't wait until he meets Bel."

"It will probably take a while to pry him out of Namimori," Reborn cautioned. "But if he knows he can find so many strong opponents by coming to Italy we can convince him to transfer his attachment. Dino is already telling him little things about the honor and traditions of our world."

Squalo's smile tilted. "Ceirano will like having someone else around who's into tradition; they'll get along."

"As much as two people aligned with Cloud ever do," Reborn murmured.

"No surprise." Xanxus joined them and caught the bottle of water Squalo tossed him with his off hand. He was favoring his ribs today, Tsuna noted. Hibari was already halfway into the trees, one arm dangling.

They were definitely both weird.

"So, we're done for the day?" he asked hopefully, glancing up at the clouds. He'd felt a drop here and there and it looked like it was just about to open up and pour.

"Of course not. This is a good opportunity to train in low visibility," Reborn declared.

Tsuna groaned. Of course.

Tsuna was drenched and gasping for breath, and the puddles were nearly ankle deep before Reborn finally declared himself satisfied for the day. Squalo wasn't in quite such bad shape, but he hadn't spent the first half of the day being blown up either. Tsuna dragged himself back under the trees, feeling like a drowned rat.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when Yamamoto spoke from the shadows beside him.

"So, is it my turn now?"

"Yamamoto!" Tsuna's first response was relief, because he had been starting to get worried. His second was to get worried, because Yamamoto had a glint in his eyes that he didn't get even when he was pitching in a tight game. Yamamoto was also carrying a shinai over his shoulder where his bat normally rested.

Squalo's lip curled. "Back for more?"

Yamamoto's answering smile was perfectly affable. "Yeah. I'm going to stay with Tsuna."

"Even if you're too weak?"

"We won't know that until I try."

"Bad timing, fighting the Rain on ground like this," Squalo said very quietly, and vanished into the falling water.

"Yamamoto..." Tsuna started to say, only to be stopped by a heavy hand on his shoulder.

"Don't interrupt," Xanxus told him, eyes narrowed on Yamamoto.

Yamamoto just stood, head cocked, not even looking focused. Tsuna was about to say something, and never mind what the crazy people he was with thought, when that stillness broke. Yamamoto spun on his heel, sword dropping low and coming up in a sure slash, and...

Tsuna stared. The shinai had become a katana. And Yamamoto had caught Squalo's descending stroke out of nowhere.

"Hmm." Squalo smiled slowly. "Not bad, kid. Not bad." He disengaged and sprang back. "Just not enough." He came in again, faster this time, and Tsuna took in a breath to call something, he didn't know what, because Squalo was looking a lot more serious than he had while he nearly skewered Tsuna himself. Gokudera seemed to agree, because he took a step forward with a worried frown.

The tip of Yamamoto's sword dipped to the ground and slashed up, and water followed it. When either of them could be seen again, Yamamoto was behind Squalo. Now it was his turn to charge. Squalo was already turning, though, and Tsuna bit his lip hard.

"Quit worrying so much," Reborn said, landing on Tsuna's free shoulder. "Yamamoto is a natural."

"But," Tsuna started, strangled, and then gasped. Yamamoto's hand slashed up and across as Squalo blocked a sword that wasn't there. Instead it was coming in the other hand, and Squalo's jacket fluttered, torn. He looked down at it for a long moment.

"Huh." His eyes on Yamamoto were sharper than ever. "Your style. What's it called?"

"Shigure Souen," Yamamoto said, and smiled a little differently than he usually did.

"Thought I'd seen it before." Squalo's teeth showed. "Of course, the last time I saw someone using it, he lost."

They met again, fast and sharp and brutal, and Tsuna felt like he could barely breathe. He knew Yamamoto, he knew Yamamoto always found a way when something was important, but he'd also spent some of the last few weeks fighting Squalo himself. He knew Squalo was the Tenth's right hand, the strategist who taught Gokudera, the strongest among the Vongola after Xanxus himself. This couldn't possibly end well.

"Been a while since I watched Squalo get serious," Xanxus said, leaning back against a tree. "It's good to see. Is that kid strong enough to take it, Reborn?"

"Yamamoto?" Reborn was smiling under his hat. "Of course."

There was no question; Tsuna was surrounded by maniacs.

Xanxus grunted, watching.

"He thinks fast," Gokudera murmured. "Most don't realize how Attaco di Squalo works." He straightened suddenly and Tsuna looked back at Yamamoto and Squalo. They were lunging for each other with what looked like exactly the same stance.

At least it looked that way until the actual strike.

Squalo landed hard in the mud and rolled back to his feet, eyes blazing. "What the hell was that?!"

"Shigure Souen," Yamamoto gasped, down on one knee but grinning. "Eighth form."

"That wasn't Autumn Rain," Squalo growled.

Yamamoto blinked. "Of course not. It was the eighth form, Pouring Rain."

Squalo opened his mouth and froze. "Like that, is it?" he finally said, very quietly, voice almost lost in the downpour. "Well, then." He smiled, thin and sharp, and beckoned. "Get up and turn your goddamn sword around and show me the real thing."

Yamamoto met him again, and Tsuna listened to Reborn explaining what must be the shape of Shigure Souen to Xanxus and Gokudera. His eyes were fixed on the flash and dart of swords in the rain, the hard, fierce light in Squalo's face and the smile on Yamamoto's. Watched as water swept up and away from Squalo's charge and Yamamoto leaned into his stance, sword steady. Watched as Yamamoto fell.

"He's still alive," Reborn said quietly in Tsuna's ear.

"Wasn't that overkill, using Scontro on him?" Xanxus asked, as Squalo hauled Yamamoto back under the trees and dumped him there.

"No." Squalo's smile was wide enough to belong on his namesake.

Xanxus lifted an eyebrow as Yamamoto stirred and Tsuna hurried to help him sit up. "He's that good?"

"He will be." Squalo flung wet hair back with a toss of his head and kicked the bottom of Yamamoto's shoe. "Keep working on it, kid."

Yamamoto's unsteady laugh broke the glare Tsuna started to give Squalo. "I will."

"Are you all right?" Tsuna demanded.

"Yeah, sure." Yamamoto blinked up at him as if he didn't know why Tsuna might have asked, and Tsuna had to restrain the urge to bang his head against something. They were all crazy.

"Well then." Xanxus stood over them for a moment. "Looks like you have someone for CEDEF, Sawada."

Tsuna opened his mouth and closed it again. "I'm glad you'll be with me," he said at last, to Yamamoto.

As they gathered everything, and everyone, up to slog back to the mansion Xanxus and his people were staying at, Gokudera helped Tsuna get Yamamoto upright and finally ducked under his other arm to help him walk. "Swords make you crazy," he muttered.

Tsuna couldn't help laughing, even as Yamamoto looked slightly bewildered by both of them.

At least one person agreed with him.

Tsuna stood out on the private runway again, this time with Yamamoto beside him, and watched the stairs wheeled up to the side of the jet.

"...and for fuck's sake learn how to use your edge," Squalo was lecturing Yamamoto. "If you're not serious about the sword it'll kill you, and damn good riddance."

"Yes, Squalo." Yamamoto smiled agreeably, and Squalo eyed him with suspicion.

"Hmph."

"Are you sure this guy isn't just a complete idiot?" Gokudera asked his senior doubtfully.

"Idiot savant, maybe," Squalo muttered.

Gokudera eyed Yamamoto and nodded. "Yeah, that sounds right."

Tsuna could see that Yamamoto was trying not to laugh out loud.

"Nice that Squalo's found a toy that bites back," Xanxus murmured, a sardonic glint in his eye.

Tsuna turned to him. "I'm glad you came, and that I had a chance to meet you and work with you, Xanxus-san," he said politely, which seemed to amuse Xanxus.

"You should be ready for the next insane mafia criminal Reborn finds for you anyway."

Tsuna quailed a little at the thought, because he knew quite well Reborn would. He pulled himself together, though, because there was something else he needed to say. "Tenth."

That pulled Xanxus' attention to him, all right, and Tsuna looked up at him.

"I'll get stronger. I promise." At Xanxus' startled look, he waved a hand, trying to take in the whole mafia thing. "For this." He took a breath. "For you."

It was hard to stand there under the sudden sharpness of Xanxus' gaze, but Tsuna had thought long and hard about this and watched Xanxus with his people, and listened to the little things Reborn said about the Family heir. Xanxus had been hurt, like Mukuro had been hurt, and it was wrong. Tsuna couldn't see that and do nothing.

"For me?" Xanxus' voice was harsh, and in the disbelieving edge of it Tsuna heard the darkness he would need to cleanse this time.

The calm that was almost Dying Will stirred in Tsuna and made his voice low and even. "For you." He remembered how Squalo had said it and smiled. "I'll be the Tenth's man, won't I?"

After a long, still moment Xanxus nodded. "All right." No more than that before he turned away toward the jet, but Tsuna settled back, satisfied. Xanxus hadn't pretended it didn't matter, this time.

He and Yamamoto, Reborn on his shoulder, retreated indoors as the engines started.

"So," Yamamoto said as they watched the jet rise. "Italy, huh?"

Tsuna gave his friend a long look. "You're sure you want to come too?"

Yamamoto smiled, eyes still on the jet. "Yeah. Yeah, I think so."

Tsuna clasped his hands and told his nerves to go away. "Italy, then."

"You'd both better start training harder, then," Reborn told them. "I'll call in some favors."

"Harder?!" Tsuna had a bit of difficulty imagining that.

"And you should tell Kyouko soon," Reborn added. "She'll need time to decide."

Tsuna just squawked wordlessly. It didn't help that Yamamoto was stifling laughter.

"You can start with running the distance home." Reborn pulled out his gun. "How can you expect to take over CEDEF without being in better shape?"

"Who said I was going to?" Tsuna demanded out of pure reflex.

Reborn smiled. "You did."

Tsuna sighed. He supposed he had at that. On the bright side, he decided as Reborn took aim at him, he probably had an answer that would keep the career counselor at a distance for the rest of the year.

He supposed he'd better start learning Italian.

End

Keeping Up with the Vongolas

Tsuna goes to Italy to get settled in his new job, and brings Yamamoto and Hibari with him. Settling in goes fine, but he finds his job is bigger than he'd thought it would be. Drama, I-3

Tsuna stepped out of the car and tugged his jacket straight. He still wasn't used to the suit.

"Big place," Yamamoto remarked, emerging behind him. It was certainly that; the huge building looked to Tsuna as though someone had taken at least four separate mansions and pushed them together.

"It's the main House," Basil said, closing the car door. He smiled cheerfully at Tsuna. "Don't worry; you'll be used to it in no time!"

"Hmph." Hibari climbed out of the back and looked around with a gimlet eye. "So where's Xanxus?" His hand flexed, already prepared for the grip of his weapons.

"Looks like he's coming," Kusakabe said, closing the door behind Hibari and nodding at the stairs the led down from the house, or House rather, to the drive. Hibari smiled.

"Ah, you don't think you could maybe wait just a little while..." Tsuna trailed off at the look Hibari gave him, which conveyed quite efficiently that Hibari would be willing enough to warm his teeth up by biting Tsuna first. Tsuna held up his hands. "Just asking."

Xanxus was followed by Squalo, Gokudera, someone Tsuna didn't know, and someone else he couldn't see clearly. "Sawada." He nodded briskly at Tsuna. "Good, you're all here. This is Tazio," he jerked his thumb at the young man with the bright grin beside him. "He and Gokudera will show you around." He glanced at Hibari as he stepped forward, clearly not interested in a tour of the House, and snorted. "Got someone else to settle you in."

The fourth person in the party stepped forward and Tsuna started. "Mukuro!" Beside him, Hibari turned very still.

"Sawada," Mukuro greeted him with a smile, eyes sliding toward Hibari. "And I see you brought me a present; how thoughtful." He laughed, flickering aside as Hibari lunged for him, and they were gone.

"That should keep him occupied for a while." Squalo showed his teeth. "Give him a chance to shake the kinks out after the long trip."

Tsuna shook his head, a rueful smile twitching at his lips. "It was very thoughtful of you." Kusakabe just sighed and pulled the rest of Hibari's luggage out of the trunk.

"He's the one you're thinking of for the Varia?" Tazio asked, looking after Hibari and Mukuro. At Xanxus' nod he laughed. "I want to watch that."

Tsuna couldn't help laughing a little too. At least one of them was fitting in right away.

After an extended tour of the house which mostly left Tsuna confused, they fetched up in a pleasant sitting room with the current boss of the Vongola and his heir. Tsuna was glad he'd seen a picture last year or he might have blurted out the thought about not looking like a mafia boss, and then all the other old men in the room would probably have laughed. Except for the old woman, whose expression was alarmingly similar to Hibari's, and who might have done something more extreme.

"You know Squalo and Gokudera," Xanxus said, from where he was slouched in an arm chair. "You met Tazio. Levi and Ceirano are away, you can meet them later." He waved at the older people. "They belong to the old man."

The slim, neatly suited man standing beside the Ninth made a faint grimace, as if he'd refrained from rolling his eyes, and the lean, dark, elegant man sitting to one side with an ankle crossed over his knee quirked a tiny smile, either at his companion or at Xanxus. "We're the Ninth's Guardians," he supplied. "I'm Rafaele Martelli. That," opening a hand at the man standing by the Ninth, "is Gianni Staffieri, the Ninth's right hand." He went around the room with graceful introductions. The alarming woman was Maria Purezza. The large, quiet man with dark, thoughtful eyes was Paolo Gemello. Apparently he had a twin, Piero, who wasn't here today and there was a Michele Rizzo who was off taking care of family things. Though why this information should cause everyone in the room to grin or snort or roll their eyes, Tsuna wasn't sure.

He supposed he'd find out over the next few months.

"And of course, you know Iemitsu and Reborn," Rafaele finished with a wry smile.

"Well, I thought I did," Tsuna couldn't quite help muttering under his breath with a somewhat exasperated look at his father, who looked his part in a dark suit far more serious than anything he'd ever worn or even seemed to own at home. His dad stopped looking serious and looked perfectly, infuriatingly innocent instead, and Tsuna positively glared. At least until he noticed the startled looks around the room. Then he flushed and straightened. A faint sound made him glance over at his own immediate boss, and Tsuna surprised a dark look on Xanxus' face for a breath. Some of the things Reborn had hinted at without saying suddenly came together in Tsuna's head and he stole a fast look at the Ninth.

Sure enough, the Ninth was looking rueful. Like the byplay between Tsuna and his dad was familiar in some not completely pleasant way. Xanxus was now looking out the window, brooding. Tsuna reminded himself that these signs were why he had really agreed to take this job in the first place, and pulled himself together. "I'm very glad to meet you," he said, nodding politely around the room. "This is Yamamoto Takeshi, who's agreed to work with CEDEF," Yamamoto bobbed a cheerful nod to everyone impartially, "and this is Kusakabe Tetsuya, who is here with Hibari Kyouya." Kusakabe nodded silently and Tsuna cleared his throat. "Hibari-san seems to still be out with Mukuro."

"This is the one you want for the Varia?" Gianni asked Xanxus, one brow raised dubiously. "Will he really be willing to dedicate himself to the Family?"

"He's dedicated to exactly what he needs to be: completely destroying his enemies." Xanxus didn't stir, but Tsuna thought he looked like he was hunching down further in his chair.

Tsuna tried not to let his growing disturbance show and interjected, "If Hibari-san was willing to come at all, it means he's considering the Family, and whether it's a thing he wants to preserve. If he agrees, he'll be completely dedicated." He shrugged with a rueful smile at the older people. "Hibari-san doesn't do anything half way."

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Xanxus relaxing a little from that still tension, and decided that had been the right move. Squalo was looking at him with approval, which was a good sign anyway.

Hibari took that moment to stalk in, looking a bit battered and scorched but just about gleaming with satisfaction. "And this is Hibari-san," Tsuna introduced him with as much aplomb as he could muster.

"Mm." Hibari glanced around with only mild interest, though he paused and looked twice at Maria before turning to Xanxus. "These Varia. Where are they?"

Xanxus grinned at that, clearly entertained. "Show you tomorrow."

Hibari drew himself up, and Tsuna was resigning himself to a fast trip to wherever the Varia were when Maria stepped in.

"Tomorrow," she snapped. "You'll have to fight all the unit captains to convince them. Get some sleep first. It would be absolutely pathetic if you lost just because you were too stupid to gather your resources properly."

Hibari actually stopped and cocked his head at her. "You then, instead."

She crossed her legs, lip curled. "After dinner, boy."

Hibari considered that for a moment, while Tsuna held his breath, and finally nodded agreement and settled into the chair Kusakabe pulled up for him. Clearly, Tsuna reflected, there was a good reason Maria had reminded him immediately of Hibari; at least they might keep each other occupied.

"All right, Chrome?" Squalo asked quietly, and Tsuna realized there were two new people in the room, not one.

A slight young women had slipped in behind Hibari, and Tsuna started a little when he saw her eye patch and noticed her hair style as she nodded to Squalo. "Um...?"

Xanxus flicked his fingers at her. "This is Chrome. She's Mukuro's host out here." He raked a look up and down her and grunted, turning back to the gathering while she found a chair and let herself down into it with a rather tired sigh. Tsuna caught a frown on Paolo's face, and had to stifle an exasperated sigh of his own. Even he knew that, when Xanxus sounded like that, it meant he'd looked and was satisfied Chrome was all right and just didn't want anyone to notice he cared. Really, whatever had happened between these people before he came must have been huge if it had left this many misunderstandings lying around.

"Well, you're quite welcome, here, Tsunayoshi," the Ninth said, gathering all eyes back to himself, and Tsuna relaxed to see the faint smile under the Ninth's mustache.

"Thank you, sir." It was Xanxus Tsuna looked at as he finished, though. "I'm glad to be here."

The next morning, Tsuna barely had time for a piece of toast before Hibari set down the tea he had somehow extracted from the kitchen here with a click and demanded to know where the Varia were. Tsuna paused to fill his coffee cup before trailing along after the resulting crowd, figuring he would want to be awake enough to duck when Hibari started throwing things, and people, around. The way Xanxus and Squalo were both smiling as they led the little parade only confirmed his wariness.

They left the main House and crossed down a hill to an annex set back on its own. A bit to Tsuna's surprise, though only a bit, Xanxus stopped outside the door and waved at it. "There you go. Have fun."

Hibari didn't dignify that with a reply; he just stalked inside. There was definitely, Tsuna decided, a glint of anticipation in Xanxus' eyes as he strolled after. Kusakabe sighed and muttered, "Cavallone and Romario were a lot easier to deal with." Tsuna gave him a sympathetic smile, swallowed the rest of his coffee in a long gulp, and followed along.

There was a lot of black clothing, inside, which Tsuna had started to get used to, and a lot of leather, which he hadn't.

One of the men in the leather tried to stop Hibari, who was by now stalking a ways ahead of everyone else. "Hey! What are you doing here?"

Hibari gave the man a dubious look and a fast, hard swing of one tonfa, and snorted when he went down. "I thought you said there were strong people here," he said over his shoulder to Xanxus.

"Keep going. You'll find them at this rate." Xanxus would never look bland, but he was as close to it as Tsuna had ever seen.

Hibari sniffed and stalked on with Kusakabe a respectful distance behind his shoulder, and Xanxus prodded the downed man with his toe in passing. "Pay more attention next time," he ordered briskly, and strode on after Hibari before the man quite finished groaning an agreement.

"I know you said the Varia was more demanding than the other branches," Tsuna said quietly to Squalo, "but..."

"He got off lightly." Squalo didn't look at Tsuna, eyes following Hibari and Xanxus ahead of them. "He should have known with one look that Hibari was dangerous."

Well, all right, Tsuna couldn't really argue with that.

"Most people are paying better attention," Yamamoto murmured behind Tsuna, and when Tsuna looked around his eyes were bright and focused, tracking over the growing number of people in the hall. Squalo grinned.

"There are strong people here. You should think about it."

"Hey," Tsuna protested this attempt to poach his friend, the latest in an ongoing series. Yamamoto laughed.

"I'm staying with Tsuna. But I'll come visit a lot, how's that?"

Squalo gave him an exasperated look. "What the hell do you think this is, a neighborhood slumber party?"

"Hadn't thought of that. Do you think it would be fun?" Yamamoto smiled at Squalo with innocent cheer and Squalo growled and stalked further ahead.

Tsuna shook his head. "He should be glad you are staying with me."

Yamamoto laughed, and Tsuna reflected, not for the first time, that his friend had a fairly evil sense of humor once you got to recognize it.

The next room they came into was obviously their destination, because Kusakabe and Xanxus were leaning against the wall beside a fascinated Tazio, and Hibari was in the middle of it, tonfa hammering into another unfortunate in black leather. More people were quietly slipping in, and most of them seemed content to watch.

"So what's this?" A slight blond man had appeared beside them, and his smile instantly put Tsuna on edge.

"Your new boss, maybe."

The smile flickered. "Him?" The man gave Hibari a hard look as he kicked his latest opponent into the wall and something cracked. "I've never seen him here before. Is he from another Family? A hitman?"

"No." Xanxus didn't look away from Hibari. "He's not from the mafia at all."

The blond man was still for a moment, and when he spoke again his voice was cold. "What kind of a joke is this?"

"No joke," Squalo put in, leaning beside Xanxus. "Go see for yourself, Bel. Looks like Hibari's done with the small fry."

Indeed, Hibari was looking around disdainfully as his half-conscious challenger was helped off to the side.

"We'll just see, then," Bel murmured, and strolled toward Hibari, a sudden fan of small, wicked looking knives appearing in his fingers.

"Um." Tsuna edged closer to Squalo and murmured. "So, you said Varia aren't actually supposed to kill each other, right?"

Squalo bared his teeth. "Usually." Just when Tsuna was relaxing a little, he added, "Course, Hibari isn't Varia yet." He shrugged at Tsuna's glare. "You think Hibari wants anyone going easy on him?"

Tsuna slumped against the wall with a faint groan. Yamamoto laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. "It's Hibari. He'll be okay." Kusakabe didn't look away from Hibari, but he nodded a silent endorsement of this.

Tsuna tried to hold on to that thought, but it wasn't easy when he saw the things Bel's knives could do, and watched Hibari's blood start running. "Why?" he asked, soft and harsh, as they watched and did nothing.

"The Varia are the best," Xanxus answered, voice a little distant. "And this is the mafia. Negotiations are a big part of it, yeah, but they only happen because they're backed up with guns and knives every second. You want to see less bloodshed, Sawada? Then we need the threat of the Varia in hand. And that means no mercy here and now."

Tsuna looked up at him, lips tight. "You know I'll try to change it."

Now Xanxus glanced down at him, a wry tilt at the corner of his mouth. "Okay," he said eventually.

Tsuna took a breath and nodded and stayed where he was, watching silently as Hibari and Bel fought. And if he sighed with quiet relief when Hibari found the wires and smashed Bel into the floor three breaths later, well no one but Yamamoto heard him.

Hibari made considerably shorter work of the rather flamboyant man with the colored hair who stepped up next. Tsuna wondered if there would be trouble when he faced what was obviously one of the arcobaleno, but when Mammon turned out to be an illusionist Tsuna just winced and hoped Hibari would let him get away in the end. He was pretty sure he would. Mostly sure, anyway. Probably.

"Um. Does Hibari not like illusionists?" Tazio asked, cautiously, a few seconds later, over Mammon's chopped-off grunt as the first tonfa found him.

"He's still pretty mad at Mukuro," Tsuna sighed, clinging to the wall with his eyes closed as the floor disappeared. He opened them again when he heard the crack and thump. "I think he's kind of taking it out on this one."

"You were totally right, Boss," Tazio told Xanxus with assurance as Hibari chased Mammon across the room. "This guy will like the Varia."

Xanxus just snorted.

In the quiet after Mammon disappeared, though, the person who stepped up next was an old man. Tsuna glanced over at Xanxus and Squalo, who had straightened a little and were watching closely.

"So," the old man said, looking Hibari up and down. "You're strong. That's good. Seems like you can think while you fight, and that's better. But you're not mafia. Why do you want to serve the Vongola to begin with?"

Hibari gave him a blank look. "Serve?" He pointed at Xanxus. "He said I could find the best here."

"Is that all that matters to you?" the old man asked quietly, and a chilly crinkle ran up Tsuna's spine.

Hibari actually paused and seemed to be considering it. Finally he smiled. He gestured with his chin at Xanxus. "He'll make something that works properly. I approve of that."

The old man's brows were raised as he glanced at Xanxus. "Are you sure about this, boy?"

Xanxus was trading an extremely sharp smile with Hibari. "Yeah. He's the one I want." He shrugged impatiently when the eyebrows stayed up. "He'll keep everyone on their toes. Me too."

"All right," the old man sighed. "It won't be official until I'm satisfied he's not actually crazy, but all right." He gathered up the other people in the room with one look and announced. "The Varia has a prospective new boss. See about it."

The room broke up into excited conversation, some of them crowding around Hibari, though not too close, and a few, who Tsuna privately considered the smartest, heading for Kusakabe.

Squalo pushed away from the wall and stretched, grinning. "So. Is it lunch time yet?" Tsuna laughed a little, helplessly, knowing that Hibari would agree completely with that casual attitude, and that Yamamoto probably would too.

Maybe he'd have lunch with Gokudera, for his daily dose of sane-person.

With Hibari settled in, for Hibari-values of the concept, Tsuna had a few days of relative quiet to actually learn to navigate the huge House. He supposed it wasn't any harder than learning his neighborhood, at home, he just had to learn it faster.

Knowing full well that Reborn was waiting in every office or sitting room he had to find, perfectly willing to shoot him if he was late, lent something extra to the effort, of course.

"Don't you have other things to do these days?" he asked Reborn, panting a little as he dropped down into his chair.

"I don't leave jobs in the middle, and you're obviously not finished yet," Reborn told him over a sip of the poisonously strong coffee all the mafia appeared to favor.

A man Tsuna hadn't met before laughed. "You're a hard task-master, Reborn! No vacations, even?"

"Certainly none of the kind you would recognize."

Since that resulted in a certain amount of laughing and elbowing, Tsuna wasn't entirely surprised when the man was introduced as Michele Rizzo, the Ninth's Sun Guardian. He'd definitely gotten the impression that Michele and Kyouko's brother had a certain approach to life in common.

Xanxus shifted impatiently in his own chair. "Screw Reborn, I have better things to be doing."

The dark look that flickered over Michele's cheerful face caught Tsuna's attention.

"You have nothing better than the business of this Family to be doing."

The spark that lit in Xanxus' eyes made Tsuna wince. Clearly this was another person Xanxus didn't deal well with. And apparently vice versa.

"Your business," the sneer that accompanied that said volumes about Xanxus' opinion of Michele's 'vacation' activities, "is none of mine."

Michele slapped a hand down on the table. "Damn it, when are you going to take some responsibility and do this job right? If Federico had..."

"Michele," the Ninth said firmly, and Michele bit off the rest of it, but Xanxus was already leaning over the table, teeth bared.

"Where the fuck do you get off talking to me about responsibility, or about Federico? You're so cock-proud of all your damn bastards, but your precious son couldn't keep the boss you really wanted alive, could he? Who should be taking the responsibility for that?!" Michele started up from his chair at that, and Squalo was moving forward from where he'd been leaning against the wall, and Tsuna wondered a little despairingly just how often Xanxus and his father's men had to be pulled off each other.

From the weary slump of the Ninth's shoulders and the resignation in the tight set of Squalo's mouth, he didn't think he'd like the answer to that.

"They're both dead now, and after all Federico did for you you're just going to throw away everything they worked for!" Michele was almost shouting, and Tsuna could hear the pain behind what he said, it was clear in every gesture.

The old, dark pain in the hunch of Xanxus' shoulders was louder to him, though, and that was what had brought him here in the first place. He hesitated, but this was exactly the kind of thing he was starting to realize he would keep needing to do for a long time and it wouldn't get any shorter for delaying. He let the still calm that Reborn had taught him was the first unfolding of his Will rise.

"Rizzo-san." Tsuna's voice cut across them, and he took a slow breath as everyone turned to look at him, reminding himself to use Italian. "That wasn't what Xanxus said. And it wasn't what he meant either," he said, quietly.

Xanxus stiffened. "Sawada," he said, low and harsh, and Tsuna saw the alarm behind his frown, the fear of what Tsuna's intuition would pull into the open.

"It serves nothing for them not to know," he said quietly, and waited, watching Xanxus, watching him understand that Tsuna was waiting for his consent.

Xanxus growled out a curse and flung himself up out of his chair, stalking out of the room with tight shoulders. Squalo gave Tsuna a distinctly "better you than me" look and followed him. Tsuna watched him go with a tiny, wry smile, at least until Michele made an indignant sound behind him.

"Why that little...!"

"No," Tsuna said low, turning back. "You don't understand. That was Xanxus telling me that I can say whatever I feel I need to."

Michele frowned at him, obviously not making the connection and Tsuna sighed.

"Xanxus doesn't set his heart out where people can find it easily. You're not like that, I can see," and he could see a faint flicker of startlement as Michele met his eyes, "but this is Xanxus. When he said that he blamed you in some part for Federico's death, what he meant was that he loved Federico too. The thing he most cares about is the one he'll try to ignore. When he turns his back, that's when you know he's listening."

Michele scrubbed a hand through his hair. "That's insane," he said, rather plaintively.

"Actually," Rafaele put in, looking enlightened, "that's one of the best descriptions I've ever heard of Xanxus in a nutshell."

"How am I supposed to deal with someone who's all backward like that?" Michele demanded, aggrieved.

"He isn't asking you to deal with him," Tsuna pointed out. "What he wants is for you to understand him. He won't believe in it, but that's what he wants." He stood and nodded politely to the older men and turned to go look for Xanxus, because he was only half done with today's work. And today's work was only the beginning. The nonplussed expressions on almost every face told him it would be a long project, reconciling Xanxus to the Family he was inheriting and vice versa, though he did take some encouragement from Rafaele's soft, rueful snort as he left.

Tsuna checked both Xanxus' rooms and the east terrace before finally running him down in his office. Squalo opened the door at his tap and waved him inside after a long look, slipping out himself. Tsuna smiled, warmed by that silent vote of confidence. "Xanxus," he said quietly.

Standing looking out the window, Xanxus stirred but didn't answer. Tsuna took a deep breath and let it out.

"I'm not going to stop, you know."

A harsh laugh shook Xanxus' shoulders. "I got that part, yeah."

"If I'm going to be your outside adviser, my job is to see the things you don't isn't it?" Tsuna stepped softly closer.

"Is it your job to share them with the whole world?" Xanxus asked tightly.

"It's my job to use what I see however will serve you and the Family best." That much, Tsuna was sure of, from the things Reborn had said about how Tsuna's father served the Ninth.

Xanxus just growled, one hand curling into a fist against the window.

Tsuna watched him, thinking again about the things Reborn had told him about the First and the Vongola traditions; about the things his father had told him of the Ninth and his ideals on the few occasions Tsuna had been able to pin him down about the Vongola Family; about what he knew of Federico, the brilliant son who'd been the first to accept Xanxus, and of Xanxus' past. Intuition stirred again, and he thought that no one who'd been beaten down that hard would believe in kindness or care he couldn't see and touch. Tsuna understood that. He also understood, a little, when Reborn and his father insisted that the Family was everything, but he thought neither he nor Xanxus was here just to protect an ideal. Finally he said, quiet, "I'll serve the Family, yes. But I came here for you. Not for an abstraction." He crossed the office and folded his hands around Xanxus' fist, tugging it away from the window as Xanxus looked around at him, startled.

"Sawada, what...?" Xanxus broke off as Tsuna knelt down at his feet, lifted his hand, and brushed his lips over Xanxus' knuckles.

Tsuna knew the history of the gesture; it was one of the things he'd pried out of his father after quite a few beers one night had turned the conversation sentimental. It wasn't the Ring Xanxus wore that he kissed, it was his hand—the man and not the office. From the sharp intake of breath, he knew Xanxus had understood.

He stood up and looked at Xanxus steadily. "Not for an abstraction," he repeated.

Xanxus stared at him, for once shocked out of any defensive temper, and Tsuna smiled up at him quietly. Xanxus finally recovered himself enough to scowl, and added a growl for good measure when Tsuna laughed softly.

"Yes, Boss," Tsuna agreed to that unspoken acceptance.

This was his job and his place, and he had a good grip on it now.

After the upsets that most of the Family provided, Tsuna found CEDEF unexpectedly restful. Most of them even seemed sane.

"So," Yamamoto said, tipping his chair back on two legs, teacup cradled between his hands, "we're not part of the Vongola but we work for them?"

"Essentially," Oregano agreed. "You might think of us almost as an allied Family." She smiled. "Though a very small one."

"And, like the Varia, we answer directly to the Vongola boss," Turmeric added.

Tsuna sketched a few more lines on his growing table of organization and shook his head at the spaghetti-mess it was. "This all seems awfully complicated. We're separate, but the head of CEDEF has to know everything that's going on because he might have to take over as second-in-command, or even act for the Vongola boss at any second!" Why had he thought this was a good idea, again?

"When loyalty and betrayal are two sides of one coin," his dad said quietly, arms folded against the table, "the outside adviser is also the person the boss knows is absolutely loyal to him."

Tsuna thought about Xanxus, and his hands, which had been nervously turning the pencil over and over, stilled. "Yes," he agreed softly.

"So what kind of work do we do?" Yamamoto asked, breaking the silence, and Tsuna smiled gratefully at his friend. Yamamoto would always bring life back to the practical.

"Lots of things," Oregano said. "Scouting, negotiations, courier work... Anything that needs a touch of authority but that the boss or the heir shouldn't be seen doing."

Yamamoto laughed. "Anything the Vongola are interested in, but don't want to look interested in?" He cocked his head at the older members. "Or anything they want to show an interest in but only sideways?"

Oregano blinked and Turmeric nodded slowly. "That's a very good way to put it." He smiled faintly. "I won't be surprised if you get sent out often for negotiation."

"Anything I can do to help out," Yamamoto agreed, cheerfully, causing everyone to look twice at him and Tsuna to grin wryly. He supposed it took a little while to get used to Yamamoto.

"Yamamoto-san?" Basil's voice drifted up the stairs.

"Up here," Yamamoto called back. Basil ran lightly up and through the door.

"Lal Mirch is, ah..." He hesitated.

"Yamamoto!" Lal's voice didn't drift so much as march. "You're late for training, get your sorry ass down here!"

"Impatient," Basil finished.

A huge grin spread over Yamamoto's face. "Yes, Lal," he called back, lilting. "Coming." He turned the grin on Tsuna. "Want to watch? She said she'd make an obstacle course for me today."

"Better you than me," Tsuna said fervently, though he got up to follow after Yamamoto willingly enough.

The rest of CEDEF trailed along, and Tsuna relaxed at the warmth of their obvious amusement. He liked this feeling, of being accepted, being one of them. He liked that they took Yamamoto's enthusiasm as much in stride as they did Lal's hard-as-nails dedication and cutting sarcasm.

It was still a little weirder that his dad was involved, but he'd just have to manage that.

This time, Lal had made the course for Yamamoto on one of the open hillsides beyond the House. It appeared to involve explosives, as well as traps and obstacles, and Tsuna shook his head ruefully as they watched Yamamoto fling himself into it, leaping and slinking and ducking.

And laughing, when he had the breath.

Lal was a demanding trainer. She reminded Tsuna a lot of Reborn, that way, only with less bland-faced evil and more shouting. She accepted no excuses and she drove anyone who fell under her influence without a hint of mercy. Tsuna could tell that she was just a little bemused that Yamamoto seemed to enjoy that.

"Swords really do make you crazy," a new voice said, behind Tsuna, and he turned to smile at Gokudera.

"Did you help Lal make the course today?" The occasional explosions did suggest it.

"Yeah." Gokudera's eyes were fixed on Yamamoto's progress, rather darkly. Tsuna's smile gentled.

"Yamamoto likes pushing himself, and stretching as far as he can go," he explained, the way he hadn't quite had the nerve to yet, to Lal. "He didn't used to get much opportunity for that, I think."

"Doesn't look much like he's stretching," Gokudera observed, still sounding rather sour. He added, far quieter, enough so that Tsuna wasn't sure he'd been supposed to hear, "Does everything come easy to him?"

Tsuna looked at Gokudera a lot more sharply, suddenly wondering.

Yamamoto came out the other end of the course, smoking and bruised but still grinning, to face Lal's critique. It was loud enough to be heard up the hill and included a lot of terms like "reckless damn idiot" and "charging in like a thundering elephant", and Yamamoto bobbed his head with earnest attention to each one. Tsuna's mouth quirked, rueful; Lal was taking a little longer then most of CEDEF to catch on to Yamamoto's sense of humor. Gokudera, who Tsuna suspected hadn't gotten it yet either, growled and stalked down the hill to join them. He gestured sharply at the course and then at Yamamoto and planted his hands on his hips, glaring. Yamamoto spread his hands innocently, but Tsuna noticed that his smile had turned more sincere and less teasing.

This time Tsuna was really watching, and so this time he also noticed the way that blunted the fine edge of Gokudera's irritation.

Before he could consider the implications of that too deeply, though, Turmeric moved up to stand next to him, and Tsuna turned his attention to the older man. When Turmeric said something it was usually worth listening to.

"Takeshi will be very good at negotiations, here. It's something you should probably keep in mind."

Tsuna laughed. "Yeah, I don't know anyone else who can keep smiling like he does."

"That's not quite what I mean," Turmeric said quietly. "It will be an advantage, yes; but his real strength at the table will be, well..." Turmeric's mouth quirked a bit as he looked down the hill to where Lal and Yamamoto and Gokudera were walking the course, arguing and gesturing over bits of it, "his strength."

Tsuna looked up, curious. "What do you mean?"

Turmeric looked out over the hills for a moment, and when he spoke he sounded a little distant and maybe even a little sad. "Negotiations, in our world, are not always a matter of reason. Maybe not even often. Unless you have the strength to win it as a battle, you won't usually win it at the table, either. A successful negotiator is a threat." He finally looked down at Tsuna, serious. "Takeshi will be the threat in your hand."

Tsuna flinched from that, lips pressed tight. "I don't want," he started, only to break off as Turmeric rested a hand on his shoulder.

"I know you don't. And we like you for that, Tsuna. But I also know you'll do it when you have to. And that," he finished, gently, "is why we also trust you."

Tsuna took a deep breath and let it out. "If I have to," he agreed, low.

That was the promise he'd given Xanxus, and now he understood it was the promise he had to give the people who would work under him.

"Whatever I have to do," he said quietly, looking up at the House above them.

Another day, another meeting. Tsuna was starting to feel like he'd taken on that civil service job the school counselor had kept hopefully suggesting, after all.

"Those Pozzo Nero assholes won't back off until we make them!"

With some significant differences, of course.

"We might at least try to negotiate first," Gianni answered Xanxus, rather dryly.

"Why?" Maria asked, with a glint in her eye that looked just like the one in Xanxus'.

"Because we aren't the Pozzo Nero; we're the Vongola," Paulo said firmly.

"That doesn't mean rolling over and being nice to scum," Tazio shot back just as firmly.

Xanxus leaned forward, hand closed into a fist on the table. "I'll negotiate with them the way they understand," he growled.

Tsuna stifled a sigh. Why did he always get to be the reasonable one? "Xanxus," he put in, "they are in the middle of a city." A city full of innocent bystanders that might be caught in the fire. And if they were, that would be very bad for Xanxus, even if Xanxus didn't seem to understand that yet.

Xanxus turned to look at him and Tsuna's thoughts froze. He suddenly felt like he'd stepped off the edge of a cliff without realizing it. Xanxus' eyes on him were cold and shuttered.

"So what?" he asked, low and vicious, and cut his hand at Gianni and Paulo, somehow including Tsuna in the gesture. "I know what the fuck I'm doing, and I'm not going to let them get away with the same shit the goddamn Cetrulli pulled!"

The magnitude of his misstep cut off Tsuna's voice. He hadn't meant to take their side against Xanxus! But of course, now, too late, he could see clear as day that that's how it would look to Xanxus. And not just Xanxus; even Tazio was frowning at him. So Tsuna did the only thing he could think of that might calm Xanxus down.

"Yes, Boss," he murmured, bowing his head.

After a moment Xanxus made a wordless, frustrated sound and turned to look at the Ninth, who sighed.

"You make a strong case. Very well."

Tsuna stood slowly as the meeting broke up, still a little shaken. He wasn't quite sure what to do now.

It was almost comforting when Reborn landed on his shoulder and cuffed him across the back of the head. "Idiot."

"Shut up, I know already," Tsuna muttered, watching Xanxus and Squalo disappearing through the far door.

"So, what are you waiting for?"

Tsuna blinked at Reborn, who smiled faintly.

"You're his adviser, aren't you?"

Xanxus' adviser, yes. The one who'd promised to stand by him. The world snapped back into place and Tsuna took a deep breath and smiled back. "I'm waiting for some privacy."

Reborn hopped down onto the table. "Well, then."

Tsuna slipped past Maria as politely as he could, trying not to flush at her sardonic glance, and out into the hall. He wasn't entirely surprised to find Xanxus, just one corner away, leaning up against the wall with his arms folded tight and Squalo speaking to him, low and intent. Squalo looked up and his mouth tightened. Tsuna ducked his head apologetically, and Squalo rolled his eyes and beckoned with a quick jerk of his head.

Xanxus noticed that and looked up, expression freezing again the instant he saw Tsuna.

"Boss," Tsuna protested, taking the last few steps quicker. "I said it for you, not for them!"

Xanxus' shoulders hunched faintly, and Tsuna reached out, resting a hand on Xanxus' chest.

"I swear," he said, softly. "It's you I'm thinking of."

"Me, huh? Nothing about all those civilians in that city?" Xanxus asked, low and edgy, not looking at him.

"Them too," Tsuna agreed, easily. "But I can tell you one thing I wasn't thinking of at all, and that's that you'd be careless. Or screw up. Or not succeed."

"That's three things," Xanxus said after a moment, but the line of his shoulders had relaxed, and Tsuna smiled.

"They count as one."

Xanxus looked at him now, with the kind of exasperation Tsuna often saw; it was very welcome, and his smile got more cheerful. Xanxus snorted and shrugged his hand off, straightening. "If you want to help, go pry Hibari and Ceirano away from each other and bring them down to my office. We have planning to do."

"Yes, Boss," Tsuna murmured, just a little teasing, and slipped off down the hall, grinning, when Xanxus growled at him. The grin faded a bit as he paced down halls and stairs toward the practice rooms.

He would have to be more careful, from now on.

Tsuna sat in the outer room of the suite he'd been given and chewed the end of his pen as he sorted his words. It was turning out to be more difficult than he'd expected, when he wrote to Kyouko. He didn't want to alarm her, but if he didn't say anything about the dangers here her next letter might just inform him that she'd bought a plane ticket.

He'd attempted to suggest that she might like to simply stay in Japan, the way his mother did, instead of eventually joining him in Italy. She'd smiled at him sweetly and told him not to be silly, and there'd been just enough edge under the softness of her voice that he'd never mentioned the idea again.

He was trying to find some un-alarming way to mention that Hibari had had another go at Mukuro today, and a sparring match with Yamamoto after that had certainly alarmed Tsuna, when someone knocked on his door. "Come in!" he called with momentary relief.

It turned to curiosity when his visitor turned out to be Paulo Gemello. He hadn't spoken very often to Paulo, though he struck Tsuna as quite like Turmeric—quiet but thoughtful. Tsuna fetched his guest a drink, still getting used to the sideboards everywhere, and looked inquiring.

Paulo turned his glass in his hands, looking down at it. "I wanted to ask you something, man to man," he said finally.

Tsuna made the sort of generally acknowledging noise one made to such a vague statement.

"We haven't worked with you long, but it's already clear you're a kind young man. You take thought for the people who might be hurt. You hold on to your optimism, even in this world. Those are good qualities."

Tsuna felt a 'but' coming, and reflected ruefully that the Ninth's Guardians seemed to have a lot of attitudes in common with the Tenth's, really.

"I have to wonder," Paulo said slowly, "if that gives you as clear a view of Xanxus as you'll need."

Tsuna sat very still for a long moment, feeling a chill uncurl in his stomach. He found himself wanting to point out that "nice" did not mean "fool". To point out that it was this old suspicion that made Xanxus so volatile. But that would not, he thought, make Paulo understand. He looked at Paulo, really looked, seeing the tense lines around his mouth, the unhappy tightness of his eyes, and felt his stillness sliding into the calm of intuition.

So what he said, instead, was, "Why did the Ninth lie to Xanxus?"

Paulo stiffened, abruptly frowning.

"You're angry," Tsuna said quietly, watching him. "You don't like it that I should accuse the Ninth of doing something like that. Even though it's true."

"Of course I don't, he's my Boss and I protect his honor as well as his life," Paulo stated firmly.

Tsuna cut off whatever he'd been going to say next with, "Then why do you think it's acceptable to accuse my Boss to me?"

Paulo blinked at him, startled out of his anger. "I... But..." He took a deep breath and set his hands on his knees, quiet for a moment. "I see," he said finally.

"Do you still have doubts about my perception?" Tsuna asked.

After a moment, Paulo's mouth quirked up. "Perhaps not. That was an effective demonstration."

Tsuna sat back with a sigh, releasing the tautness of seeing that way. "I didn't choose this work just because it's what my dad does, or because Reborn insisted. I chose it because I met Xanxus and saw how badly he'd been hurt, and that I could do something to help. That's what I'm here for. So yes, I look for ways to keep the innocent out of harm's way. And I believe we can succeed in protecting what's important without losing ourselves. Because those are the things I need to do to help Xanxus, and the Family." He hesitated a moment and added, half apologetically, "I'm afraid the way some of you are with him really doesn't help."

Paulo ran a hand through his hair. "I don't understand Xanxus," he admitted. "My brother says he does, but I honestly don't see how. And I certainly don't see how someone as kind and," he smiled a bit wryly, "as clear-sighted as you can give him your loyalty when he doesn't give his back."

Tsuna stared at him startled. "He does, though!" Paulo's look of puzzlement made him laugh a little, helplessly. "He does. He'd rather be hung by his toes than say it out loud, but surely you've watched him with his people? Seen how protective he is of the Family?"

"Possessive, maybe," Paulo muttered.

"Well, yes, that's where it starts," Tsuna admitted. "Xanxus protects what's his. Maybe that isn't the way everyone does it, but if it works why does that matter?" Paulo hesitated, and Tsuna added, softly, "If you hold the past against him, we're going to need to talk about who else made the mistakes that led to it."

Paulo's mouth tightened, but there was a glint of respect in the look he gave Tsuna. "Well. As long as you can tell me you'll watch over him, I'll do my best to let it go."

Tsuna smiled, quiet and serene. "You have my word." And if he meant to watch over Xanxus in a different way than Paulo meant it, he didn't really think he needed to say so right now.

Reborn, he reflected with a secret grin, would probably approve.

Two months after arriving, Tsuna had asked, a bit anxiously, whether the property damage bill from Hibari's training with the Varia would be a problem. Squalo had stared at him for a long, blank moment and then burst out laughing. Watching Xanxus and Hibari fight, and eyeing the rubble and splinters they left behind them, Tsuna finally understood why.

"Now, you see, he has the right attitude," Ceirano said as Hibari ducked under Xanxus' fire to drive the end of his tonfa into Xanxus' stomach. "If a thing is worth doing, it's worth doing all the way."

"I thought that was 'worth doing right'," Tsuna ventured.

"That's what I said." Ceirano suddenly sounded distracted, though, and a moment later he strolled off. Looking after him, Tsuna saw Reborn sitting on the terrace rail watching Xanxus and Hibari.

Tsuna shook his head, a bit bemused that anyone, even another hitman, would court a training session with Reborn on purpose. Though he supposed he wasn't really surprised that Xanxus' Guardians all shared with him a certain cheerful bloodthirstiness.

"Barbarians, the lot of them," Mukuro murmured behind his shoulder.

Each in their own way, of course. "Mukuro," Tsuna greeted him, turning a little.

Mukuro looked him up and down. "And not even an apology for entangling me with them."

"That wasn't my idea!" Tsuna defended himself roundly. "That was my dad; I would never have thought of doing anything so crazy."

"Ah. So you, sensible creature that you are, would only think of doing something like coming after a notorious criminal with a pitiful one or two followers. Oh, yes, and a baby." Mukuro gave him a silky smile. "You match the likes of Xanxus very well after all."

"I'm glad to see you're settling in here, with him," Tsuna offered.

Mukuro raised a supercilious brow. "And what, precisely gave you the impression that I am?" he asked coolly. "I am merely..." The other brow went up. "Sawada?"

Tsuna finally got a hold of himself and managed to stop laughing. "Ah. Sorry." He wiped his eyes. "It's just you sound so much like him."

Mukuro actually blinked at him. "Like who?"

"Like Xanxus," Tsuna smiled. "You sound just like him when he's trying not to admit he likes something." He paused a moment, considering. "Only with more syllables."

"Mukuro?" he ventured after a moment when Mukuro just stood and stared at him, perfectly still.

Abruptly he wasn't talking to Mukuro any more. Chrome wobbled a little as she regained her own feet, catching her balance on the arm Tsuna quickly held out.

"Just like," Tsuna murmured, mouth quirked.

Chrome looked at him, grave and quiet. "Mukuro-sama takes care that we are well."

Since that could have been either agreement, that Mukuro wasn't fooling anyone with his careless pose, or a warning, that Mukuro wouldn't brook any interference from Tsuna, and Tsuna really couldn't tell which, he just nodded. The very faint smile that flickered around the corners of Chrome's mouth as she turned away made him wonder if it was actually both. He supposed no one could have Mukuro in her head so much and not grow subtle herself.

Sometimes he just had to look around and wonder how a normal guy like him had ended up here.

Tsuna had never been a fan of parties, even, or especially, in his own honor, and despite the dangers of the mafia world he couldn't help a tiny, wistful wish that Kyouko had come this year instead of next. She was much better at these things. He, on the other hand, was eventually reduced to hiding in a corner with his drink.

Rafaele looked faintly amused when he found Tsuna there. "So," he leaned against the wall beside him, "how is your debut going?"

Tsuna gave him a dour look. Despite their difference in years and nationality, Rafaele reminded him an awful lot of Yamamoto sometimes. "It's going just fine," he said, repressively.

Rafaele laughed softly.

"Though it does seem as though everyone expects me to be crazy." Tsuna cast an eye over the Vongola allies moving through the room, chatting with each other, many trying to keep one eye on him and another on Xanxus, and muttered into his glass, "I really hope that someday everyone realizes just how hard they're making my job."

Rafaele sighed and when he spoke again his voice was far more serious. "We're trying to understand, Tsuna. That much I can promise you." He rested a hand on Tsuna's shoulder. "It's good that you've come."

Tsuna studied his drink again. "I wish," he said softly, "that it didn't take waving someone who's obviously harmless in people's faces to make them take a second look at Xanxus."

"First of all, I very much doubt anyone trained and approved by Reborn is harmless." When Tsuna looked up, Rafaele's tilted smile matched the briskness of his tone. "And second, you might consider it a compliment to Xanxus. All his hard work in keeping us from thinking he might feel gently for the Family paid off."

Tsuna frowned stubbornly. "No. That isn't a compliment. He hides it out of fear, and for his own family not to notice is..." he couldn't quite think of a right word that wouldn't be insulting and finished a bit lamely, "a bad thing."

Rafaele was quiet for a moment, eyes dark and unfathomable. "You're right," he said finally. His stillness broke into a wry snort. "I don't know how we'll manage to deal with someone who's trying very hard to deny all of this, but we'll just have to find a way."

Tsuna looked out over the room. "He can't possibly be the only difficult person any of you have ever had to deal with." His eyes fell on Yamamoto and Gokudera, apparently arguing. Or at least Gokudera was arguing, waving his hands vigorously enough to endanger unwary passers-by. Yamamoto was just listening, perfectly attentive, and smiling.

Speaking of difficult.

"He certainly isn't," Rafaele sighed. "But after Timoteo he's... disconcerting. I'm grateful we have Squalo around too, you know."

Tsuna, watching Gokudera glare, was reminded of his comments about sword-idiots all communicating in their own universal language and stifled a snort of amusement. Catching another wary glance from one of the men in the room turned it into a sigh. "If you don't want this Family alliance of yours falling apart because everyone is afraid the heir is a mad dog, you need to stand behind him," he said bluntly, suddenly tired of trying to put it more delicately.

Maybe he'd been with Reborn too long.

"You make a good case," Rafaele murmured. "I'll speak with the others."

"Thank you," Tsuna said softly.

Rafaele patted his shoulder again and strolled off, elegant and casual as always, and Tsuna sighed with relief as eyes drew away from him to follow Rafaele instead. He'd known this wasn't going to be a simple job from the start, and after a bare week here he'd known it was a bigger one than he'd thought, too. But at least he felt like he'd made a good start on it.

He glanced back over at Yamamoto just in time to see him catch one of Gokudera's waving hands before it smacked a passing ally. Gokudera didn't seem to notice, though Yamamoto's eyes were dancing with silent amusement. He was glad that Yamamoto was settling in, too, and only hoped that Kyouko would find it as easy when she joined him. He didn't think he could have handled it to know following him into this job had made his friends and loved ones unhappy.

Gokudera finally noticed that Yamamoto hadn't let go of his hand, animated words and gestures trailing off into startled quiet. Tsuna smiled and turned to move through the room again, nodding and speaking calmly to the Family allies as they slowly came closer.

It was a good start.

End