The process in which Kyoya introduced Yamamoto Takeshi to Tsuna was handled with the utmost care and some very precise planning.

Tsuna was in the garden, wearing a kimono that matched the color of her Flames, accented with gold. Her wings were out and spread around her as she knelt on a blanket and gathered around her were all manner of birds.

One stood in front of her, a brilliantly red crested ibis. She was singing to them in a voice like an angel, which only reinforced her newly granted royal title of 'hime'. Takeshi had never seen anything like it before. She was beautiful, surrounded by the natural garden of the Hibari Family, singing and being sung to by all sorts of birds the likes of which Takeshi has never seen before.

She glows too, where she sits. An amber-warm color winding through the shining white of her feathers and standing out all the more for it. Veins of living flame caught in her wings, her hair glimmering with the color, and when she turns to reach for another bird, Takeshi can see it is reflected in her eyes.

It was only when Hibari lifted his hands and they burst into purple fire that Takeshi realized that this was going to be one of those things where he was needed.

He watched in awe as those wings, thick with both shining white and fluffy downy feathers, shimmered purple as Hibari approached. The purple crept up to several cleverly hidden feathers in her hair as well and Tsuna-hime was stained purple, instead of orange now.

Takeshi took a moment, took a breath, carefully reoriented his world view...and let a wide, genuine smile stretch his lips.

"You should have mentioned you were an actual princess, Tsuna-hime!"

Aforementioned princess startled and swung around to stare, wide-eyed at one of the most popular boys in her school. Her mouth gapes open and for a moment, fear steals across her face at the sight of him and Takeshi's heart skips a beat.

He doesn't let his smile falter, doesn't let an inch of his facial expression change even as the sharp edge of bloodlust rises from the Chairman at his side.

Instead, he raises his hands and lets his own flames rise to the surface.

"My mother," Takeshi says as he stands in Hibari's courtyard and stares at someone he's longed for all his life, "my mother once told me, there were Kings and Queens in this world who would summon a Flame of amber. There were others with different colors, such as yellow, blue, red, green, indigo and purple, but the ones of orange were royalty."

Hibari's attention on him shifted from bloodlust to interest. Takeshi let his smile ease and walked forward to kneel a respectful distance from the girl he once only knew as Dame-Tsuna. He held out his hands, wreathed in soft blue flames. He didn't make another move, just continued to talk.

"She told me that they would seek out Knights, to join them in the Sky. Each person who bore the amber flames would have different criteria to meet, would look for that something in others. I never thought I would see a Queen, never thought I would find one. Never thought I would have a chance to try. You...I may not have joined in on any of the bullying, but I know I didn't make the best of impressions on you. Still I-," he hesitates, lowers his eyes from her kneeling form, allowing his head to dip down into a semi-bow. "Would you allow me to try? Even with our past...with my lack of actions...would you allow me to find a place in your Sky? To fly with you?"

And oh, but he has no idea what he has asked in that moment. What it means to one with wings when a person asks to fly with with them. The change is instant in Tsuna's bearing. The fear vanished, the confusion is wiped away. She straightens sharply at the question, her wings lifting from their places spread around her and into a more dominate and aware position.

She stares at this boy who kneels before her, his hands glowing with a shining blue that calls -sings- to that small spark of warmth still lingering in her soul. That part of her that had slipped free of the chains still wrapped tightly around her core. She stares and her head tilts in the way of a raptor, eyes narrowed and sharp-dangerous- for a fraction of a moment.

She stands. This one asks to fly with her. Asks to be part of her Flock, for a place in her Sky, to fly at her side, match her wing beat for wing beat even as he himself is wingless. She listens to that fire in her soul, to the song of her birds, the knowing that sleeps in her head and she listens mostly to that song of lonely-sad-abandoned-dangerous-want-hope-light cradled in his hands. She takes into account that one of her Flock, her Prince, had brought this Knight to her, and Tsuna makes a choice.

She steps forward, brings her hands forward, eyes gleaming brightly with the deep amber of her soul, flickers of her own Flames sparking to life in her palms...and she takes.

He has offered, has asked and has her Prince's approval or he would not have been brought before her in her sanctuary. Tsuna's Flames touch Takeshi's and she cannot stop the swift pleased twitter of song falling from her lips when she feels that shining blue click.

Takeshi's eyes snap up as he feels small hands take his own without fear. They widen as he feels that dark place in his soul, the part of him that would unflinchingly murder a person with a smile on his face, where his own 'carnivore' sleeps, light up. It is warm, welcoming, sings to him in a way nothing ever has. And for all that he lacks the wings of this- of his- Queen, he feels like he could fly, if she asked it of him.

He sucks in a shocked breath as he sees the shining orange-amber in Tsuna's eyes sharpen brighten, her wings spread wide behind her, fully on display and lit with living flames. He watches that orange bleed into blue, as his own flames are welcomed amongst her feathers, her eyes swirling like a whirlpool as they too bleed to blue, and the feathers twined into her hair bright flashes of color spotted amongst her the carmel.

She is every inch the Queen his mother had told him that those of amber flames would be, and in that moment as he feels his soul welcomed without judgement, Takeshi swears that whatever his Queen should ask of him, he would see it done. His lips pull into a wide genuine smile as he meets her eyes that are stained with his fire, and for the first time in a long while Takeshi relaxes.

It is there in that place, where Takeshi finds his own peace. In the garden of Hibari Kyoya's mansion, his hand clasped with the girl-the Queen- who has wings that shine with amber flames.

It isn't far away that a boy with a shock of white hair who burns with purpose and fire, looks up in surprise, cutting off in the middle of a sentence. But as his sister looks on in concern, his face lights up with utter joy. He does not speak, except when his sister tugs on his sleeve while calling his name, her own face scrunched in worry.

"It's okay, imoto-chan!" Sasagawa Ryohei exclaims in excitement, before lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, "I'll introduce them to you soon."

Hibari Kyoya is a force of nature. Due to his family name, the connections of his parents and his own ambitions, he has a perfectly good network of information he can draw from.

It's been a couple months since he's taken the little bird into his flock. He's added several servants to his household in order to help with all of Tsunayoshi's needs. Ones that follow her when she returns to spend time with her mother. They also double as bodyguards and are pleasant enough to qualify as friendly.

As it is, the addition of Yamamoto Takeshi is truly the most valuable he's made so far, especially with the boy's information on the other colors options to this Flame. He looks for it, sends his people to do that same and watches. He finds a mere handful, but the entirety of his observations have produced interesting results.

The people connected to Sasagawa Ryohei (Sasagawa Kyoko, Kurokawa Hana and the boy himself) are curiously perfectly suited for addition to the flock in a way Kyoya can't yet fully explain. The boy has taken to calling out greetings to him each time their paths cross and Kyoya can see the way he shines with the faint glimmers of golden fire.

Going by the way the boy looks at him, Kyoya is beginning to suspect that perhaps, people gifted with wings are not the only 'special' people in his town.

Obviously there's is something to Sasagawa Ryohei that's more, in a similar way to Tsunayoshi, but not quite. Whatever it is, apparently, now isn't the time to investigate.

Flames that burn in response to one's Will.

Beings with wings and language that matched closely with birds of all kinds.

There is obviously more to life than Kyoya initially thought.

There's a girl in shades of purple that traverses the back alleys, usually with a cat in her arms, but even then, he's only caught glimpses of her before she always vanished from his senses. There's a familiar look in her eyes, in the way she stands and how thin she is.

Unfortunately, there's not much he can do with any of this information at the moment.

Kyoya has an appointment with his contacts in Italy.

He has a lead on Sawada Iemitsu, who appears to have disturbing luck in traveling to places where there tends to be quite a few murders of people who have similar backgrounds. Random traveling, staying at high price hotels, expensive dining and meetings with high profile people, all paid for by companies connected with one company in particular.

Vongola Corporation.

Vongola.

That was the link that Kyoya had been looking for.

The Italian word for clam of all things, with a history that stretched back 400 years. It was connected to a multitude of smaller companies that spanned nearly the entire world.

Construction, medicine, technology research, education, amusement parks, hotels, restaurants- you name it, Vongola owns it, or at the very least has a hand in it. Curiously enough, they were mostly clean- if you went by official channels that is. They had good business practices, quality products, and their services came highly recommended. While the name 'Vongola' wasn't as widely known as much of their products, research and services were sold, developed and operated under different names, but it was Vongola who stood at the top.

Interestingly enough, Kyoya had found records in the Hibari Archives which were stored in the Main House in Namimori that he currently resided in.

Records that detailed the creation of 'Consulenza Esterna Della Famiglia', or CEDEF for short. An ancestor of his had married into the prestigious Hibari family also around the time that Vongola began to emerge into the larger world. This ancestor was some kind of outside enforcer, or the head of some secret intelligence agency for a growing ruler power in Europe - Vongola.

That lead to an interesting search through the Hibari Family historical records.

While he didn't find much else besides what the ancestor of his wrote, he did learn that the reason his ancestor was in Namimori in the first place, was because the man to whom he had given his loyalty had chosen to settle down here. The man his ancestor followed married well, into a good-standing family, and Kyoya's ancestor did the same. Only into a family ranked much higher.

That this foreigner gained the attention of the local warlord's daughter and returned it enough to marry and procreate spoke volumes of both his ancestor and the one he followed.

The name Hibari could be traced back to 500 years ago, to a warlord who carved out his territory and held it for an uncommonly long time, considering that life expectancy in those times. He had a son who inherited his legacy and followed the same path as his father while his own son did the same.

It was that man who had only a daughter.

The daughter who grew up to marry this pale-haired foreigner of whose line Kyoya was a direct descendant. There were other additions to the main line, as the Hibari prized strength and power above all else, and Kyoya knew for a fact that his mother was half Chinese.

There was a knock at the Archive's entrance that drew his attention and he stood to his feet, carefully putting away the family tree. Kusakabe stood at the door, but did not cross. Kyoya turned on his heel and walked out.

"Kyo-san, we've identified which Sawada line Tsunayoshi-hime is descended from. Investigations into her ancestors are already underway. Should the results be available before your return, would you prefer them on paper or digitally?"

"Send a courier with the hardcopy. Store the digital copied in the secure vaults."

"Understood."

While Kyoya would like to run through every single line associated with this foreign man, this Giotto who took the name Iyasu, along with the other names mentioned, his attention was required overseas.

He was leaving Kusakabe to keep order, as well as to make certain Tsunayoshi would be protected during his absence. He handed her the list with names and left her with instructions to try and find their descendants in Namimori.

Ugetsu Asari (Immigrated to Italy and back, brought others with him.)

Knuckle - (Immigrated from Italy, Catholic priest, connections with Alaude Hibari)

G - (Immigrated from Italy, connections with Alaude Hibari)

Surprisingly, the Deceiving Carnivore had spoken up, saying that his family dojo was called Asarigumi. He then mentioned that his father had been taught a sword-style, Shigure Soen Ryu that was said to be called the perfect, flawless style. Invincible.

Which aligned with the information he had discovered regarding Ugetsu Asari, stating he was both a renowned musician and swordsman.

Kyoya was pleased to see contemplation on Yamamoto Takeshi's face and made the conclusion that he would be asking his father for lessons as soon as he returned to his residence. He was satisfied with this as training with a blade would increase his natural talent. His willingness to swear himself to the Little Bird was also something he completely approved of.

Everyone needed a good swordsman to display at one's side. That was just common sense. This one even came with Flames.

Kyoya's flight is...delayed by half an hour. It doesn't matter, as the jet belongs to him and the pilot will not be taking off without him. The reason is not one that makes him angry, but...pleased.

Tsunayoshi had grasped onto him with a strength that defied her small form. Her wings had stretched to their full width and glowed with as much Flame as she could gather, enough to fill her eyes and raise her body temperature.

The warmth of her had washed over him and his own Flames rose in response. Little Bird stood tall and very firmly and in no uncertain terms told him to come home safely. Kyoya merely smiled and gave his word easily enough.

When she deemed it time to let go, and Kyoya climbed the steps into the airplane, he could still feel the blazing warmth of Sky Flames curled against his own. He smirked to himself, viciously pleased that the Seal had cracked enough, that Tsunayoshi's Will was strong enough to impress her Flames on his person.

He settled into his seat and the pilot got a green light for takeoff.

Kyoya's eyes glimmered in the lighting of the cabin.

Italy has the answers he needs.

I edited the previous chapters, if you're up for a re-read. I should started updating this again.