"If he backs down from his position as leader of CEDEF, can he take the mantle of Boss?"

She carefully didn't meet glinting black eyes, instead focusing half-heartedly on the three pictures on the table. The three murdered sons of Timoteo of Vongola, the ninth and current boss of the biggest and most dangerous mafia family in Italy and the majority of Europe.

Huh, at least it wasn't some lowly, illegal business she was taking over. Might as well go big before her no doubt early death.

"That would depend on the famiglia's decision and a lot of politics but yes, technically he could." though he wouldn't, was the unvoiced but nonetheless heard continuation.

If the three adult sons of a powerful mafia family, who were most likely trained since birth in politics and combat and whatever a Mafioso needed to not only survive but thrive in the Mafia, got killed so easily just like that, then what chances did she have?

"Did they take care of who killed them?"

None, that were the chances. The only good thing out of all of this was the fact that she wasn't immediately shipped off to Italy to become a baby bearer.

Is she had to die, then it should be either because she wasn't good enough or because Reborn somehow failed at protecting her before his job was done. Even if he was dangerous and unpredictable, she knew that he would make sure she lived long enough to take the mantle of Vongola Decima.

Not because he cared or even because of his job as her tutor/main guard, but because of his pride. An assassin slipping into his guard without his consent and knowledge was like saying he wasn't good enough. Her death would be like an annoying gum stuck under his shiny, miniature leather shoes. Not enough to warrant his anger but annoying enough to tickle his sensibilities.

Reborn was a prideful being and failing was not in his vocabulary, of that, she was sure.

He was the Greatest Hitman in the World, after all.

"No, but they are working on it." Great.

"Reborn-san, is there a time limit?" The fake baby had called her a candidate for the position of the heir so that meant that she wasn't the official heir, yet. For all she knew, if he deemed her a waste of time, she could easily be discarded like a common piece of trash.

Of course, she wouldn't mind not having the heavy burden of a Mafia Don, but she feared the way she would be discarded. It could easily equal to a bullet between the eyes or being forced to produce the next generation as soon as possible.

"That depends on the Ninth's decision." The man in the baby's body scrutinized her calculatingly and she took a deep breath as thoughts raced in her mind, carefully relaxing in her seat on the carpeted floor, staring at her linked fingers as though they held the answer to her every problem.

"Do we have to stay here in Namimori? I mean that it doesn't exactly offer many opportunities for environment training." She said, almost hesitantly but she forced herself to look at the fake baby.

She didn't know anything at all about a Mafia Boss's job other than guesses and the general knowledge, though she doubted half of them were true, however, she knew enough of it to be sure that she wouldn't be ab;e to pursue her dreams anymore.

This training, the short time before whatever the future had in store for her, would be the only chance she would get to achieve it all. And she would be an idiot if she didn't take advantage of it, if she didn't at least try.

She knew that she would regret not taking the chance for all of her life if she didn't do this, if she took the coward's path and did nothing for herself before imminently changing into a person she would have never thought of becoming.

She stood up and strode quickly to her desk, opening a locked closet to pull out a leather book, pulling from its pages a dozen carefully folded papers. She gripped the things in her hands to her chest like a shield as she turned around to face the still figure of the World's Greatest Man in the world and for a moment she saw not the image of a baby in a charmingly cute suit but a tall, striking man in his place, dressed in a sharp, black suit, with smoldering black eyes and a dangerous smirk.

'Show me what you can do.' His stare seemed to purr.

She blinked and he vanished. Her eyes unconsciously fell to the pacifier for a brief moment before a squeaky voice interrupted her thoughts.

"Explain."

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