A Royal Epilogue

Chapter 6

Inside the Home of Squalo and Xanxus

9:00 PM

Squalo sighed, finishing washing the dishes and soon returning to the living room. "How was work today?"

"Bland and boring." Xanxus was hardly even looking at the shark, eyes nearly closed as he sat slumped against the couch.

"Have they stopped asking about the scars?" Squalo questioned as he sat down beside his husband. Xanxus shook his head.

"Doesn't matter. Customers will," he muttered. "Blokes won't leave me alone, think it's just the oddest thing for a man to have scars like mine…"…"

"Sorry about that," Squalo sighed. "Need a… I donno, back rub or something?" he asked, a bit awkward.

"A what?"

"A… a back r-"

"No, no I don't," Xanxus said, giving a huff. "Honestly, Squalo."

"VRAI! It was just a suggestion, don't get your britches in a bundle!"

A sudden crash made the pair jump and immediately hop to their feet. They had no weapons on them – even at the base, raids had been few and very far between. A raid in their itty bitty little house certainly wasn't a situation they had properly prepared for.

"Voi, boss-"

"Quiet," Xanxus whispered, his eyes fiery and red like pools of molten lava. "I may have failed to protect one guardian, but that doesn't make me useless," he declared as he reached up and cracked his knuckles, readying them. "I'll handle it."

"Without burning the house down, please?" Squalo requested gruffly, an eyebrow twitching.

"It's okay. You can fix any damages. It's what you do," Xanxus answered, starting towards the sound. As soon as he rounded a corner, a gunshot rang out, Xanxus narrowly avoiding the shot as he dropped down. As the bullet made its way through the wall, Xanxus heard a distinct crackling noise, and he frowned.

"Lightning flames," he whispered, his lionlike gaze resting upon the cloaked man before him and pinning him into place. "You the bastard who took out Levi and Luss, the same man who tried to take me out," he acknowledged as his eyes sharpened further. "You won't succeed in that, scum. I'm ready for you this time."

A few more gunshots rang out, but Xanxus managed to dodge them, lunging at the other man quickly, readying himself to attempt his Flame of Fury for the first time in years. Dodging a few more attacks, he snarled, before finally attacking, the flame of fury bursting forth from his hands, scorching majority of the room, but as the flames faded, the assassin seemed untouched.

"That all you got, after all these years? And you call this Varia quality."

"We're newly retired!" Xanxus snapped, attacking again. Squalo peered into the room as well, frowning.

"Boss, do you recognize that voice?" he murmured.

"It's the voice of the man who killed Luss, what else matters?" Xanxus muttered back.

"No, I mean-"

Another gunshot rang out, and Squalo winced. As the assassin began to dash out of the house, Xanxus ran forward, not about to let him leave. "Hit and run, will you coward?!" Xanxus shouted. "I'll kill you!"

"XANXUS!" Squalo screamed, hand over his shoulder. "Get your ass BACK HERE!"

There were another few crashes and shouts, before Xanxus returned, frowning. "Yeah, yeah, I'll drive you to a hospital or something."

"It went right through… those Lightning flames…," Squalo muttered. "Anyhow, seems we're not safe even out here."

"After I get you some help, I'll call the Vongola brats and decide what to do. I'm sure's hell not losing you," Xanxus murmured as he knelt beside Squalo and slipped an arm around his middle.

"I appreciate it, bastard," the shark whispered as Xanxus helped him back to his feet.

Namimori Varia Base

6:00 a.m.

Dino sighed as he combed a hand through his messy blond hair, trying to fix it as he made his way towards the entrance of the newly built base. It was a pretty nice place, if a bit small. It had that nice new base smell, too, which was-

His thoughts drifted off as he tripped on flat ground, soon getting back up to his feet. He glanced around to make certain that no one had seen that, before he kept walking with a sigh. Maybe he could sneak down to the Vongola base beneath them and pop in on Tsuna, tease him a bit before he headed back…

He perked, however, as he spotted Belphegor and Fran up ahead, crouched menacingly at the entrance to the Varia base. "Hey-" he started to call to them, but the two quickly turned and gave him harsh 'shush'-ing.

"What are you guys doing?" Dino whispered, walking up behind the two.

"We're waiting for someone to come out of the Vongola base," Bel whispered, holding up the carton of eggs in his hand. "This is going to be amazing, you just wait."

"Oh, yeah?" Dino smiled, amused. "That might be fun. Want me to help?"

"Can you do it without ruining everything?" Fran asked flatly.

"Yeah, yeah! See that tree over there?" Dino answered, pointing to one that loomed by the Vongola's underground entrance. "I can wait up there, and signal you guys when someone's coming," he said happily.

The two considered for a long moment, forming a mini-huddle to discuss, before they nodded in agreement.

"All right, fine," Bel chuckled. "Go get up there, then."

Dino grinned and nodded, happy to be part of the group. Running out and stumbling a few times, he soon started to climb the tree, inching up it rather ungracefully until he was secure up in a branch. He shot the two a thumbs-up, and they rolled their eyes.

Dino was such a newbie.

After nearly a half-hour of waiting up in that tree, Dino finally saw some action. Through the leaves, he spotted a suit, and he waved to Bel and Fran, grinning. It was way too late before he realized that the man who'd left the base was none other than Tsuna, but despite his frantic gestures, both Fran and Bel had already thrown an egg towards the figure. Fran's egg, remarkably, landed safely in Tsuna's hair without disturbing the boss at all, but Bel's hit him right in the side of the face. Startled, Tsuna jumped, then ran off in a random direction, soon hitting the tree. It wobbled little, the branch Dino sat on snapped, and the blond fell atop Tsuna with a startled yelp.

"Oh, whoops," Bel laughed.

"For you, maybe. I was just serving the guy breakfast," Fran reasoned as they got to their feet and headed down, though Bel was happy to bring the carton. "I hear egg warns off malicious pineapples, too. He should thank me."

"Bad boss, you gestured for us to attack the Vongola!" Bel scolded, throwing an egg at the heap of clumsy Mafiosi.

"I think he deserves more than one egg," Fran told Bel solemnely, taking the carton before turning it upside down, the rest of the eggs falling on their new boss. Dino whined as he sat up, trying to brush the mess off to little success.

"Man guys, it was your own ideas. I tried to get across that it was Tsuna but you guys were too fast," he said with a pout.

"Dino, you had your deadly assassins attack me?" Tsuna asked as he glanced up, Fran's egg remarkably still in tact upon his head. In awe, Fran and Bel nudged each other and mused over whether the egg would hatch someday and imprint on Tsuna. Bel smugly remarked that Hibird was probably conceived atop Hibari's head in a similar matter, but Fran disagreed, reasoning that Hibari's hair probably rejected hair pins with how violently neat it was, and therefore an egg would stand no chance…

"I didn't think it'd be you, I thought it'd be Reborn, or Lambo, or someone like that," Dino tried.

"You would egg Reborn?" Tsuna said in surprise. Dino winced and tried to take it back, but stopped when Tsuna said, "Wow, Dino, you're so brave!" He sat up fully, grinning at the blond, who blushed and happily laughed it off, flattered.

"Anyway, I was actually coming to talk to you all," Tsuna said, getting to his feet and looking at Fran and Bel. "Xanxus called."

"It's too late for him to have his position back," Bel said with a pout. "We like Dino already."

"Yeah, he's fun and stupid. Like us," Fran deadpanned.

"It's nothing like that," Tsuna said as he shook his head. "He said that the assassin came after him and Squalo, and shot Squalo in the shoulder. They learned that his primary weapon is a gun with bullets infused with Lightning flames.

"Lightning? Did that Spark kid come back?" Bel wondered.

"Not a chance, I punched that kid really hard," Tsuna said with a pout. "And I don't like to punch kids, so you know I was serious."

"I do admit, getting punched by someone as wimpy as the Tenth would most certainly make me want to quit Mafia forever," Fran mused, pleased when the older male gave him that tired, almost pleading look that read 'Please stop, I think I have a long day ahead of me and I have this terrible feeling that it's going to be your fault.'

Man, he already missed getting that look from Xanxus.

"So what do we do?" Fran asked. "We can't just fly back – I mean, we could, but it'd be super inconvenient…"

"They may have to go into hiding," Tsuna sighed. "I could call my dad and work something out for them."

"Lammme," Fran said boredly. "It sounds like you intend for them to go into some sort of Mafia retirement home."

"Well… yeah. That's kind of it," Tsuna admitted as he awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck. "Where do you think my dad is? The guy's old. I figure if we get Xanxus and Squalo a protected estate, it'd definitely be safer than them living in some run-down place that they could afford in Italy. I uh… I know I wasn't really intending to do all these things I saw the previous boss's do, but uh… I think that life suits them better."

"Xanxus for sure. He grew up with all that," Fran sighed. "Squalo was probably no different, in fact."

"What if…," Bel started slowly, drawing attention on him. "What if Luss… is still out there somehow?"

"Bel, let it go," Fran whispered.

"If we're all here in Japan, he's not gonna have any help," Bel tried to reason.

"But he's not alive, Bel," Fran whispered. "It's just… impossible."

"We never found a body. Who's to say it's not?" added a voice from the trees. Startled, the group looked up, and Fon dropped down, smiling as he approached. "I was meditating earlier, forgive me for my interruption," he said, before reaching out and taking the egg off of Tsuna's head, soon handing it to the small monkey on his own. "I do think it's a good idea to move Xanxus and Squalo, but perhaps to keep track of the old headquarters with a security system?"

"We could, I guess," Tsuna sighed. "It's just... flying another jet out there…"

"It's better than the rage you'd be met with if you made Squalo and Xanxus walk, I think," Bel offered.

"For sure," Fran agreed with his husband. "Xanxus would be drunk and Squalo would be pissed he had to carry Xanxus the whole way."

"Squalo would probably come by boat, to be honest," Dino chuckled. "But Xanxus would be drunk either way."

"Right, and I don't want to see how they would react to being made to travel on their own, anyway," Tsuna sighed. "We'll send a jet. In the meantime, I feel like I should ask… how are Hibari-san and Muluro faring?"

"They're pretty okay," Bel said, a confused look on his face. "What'sit matter?"

"Well, they're getting older too. In fact, so is Byakuran…," Tsuna sighed. "Because of how the curse was broken, Mammon and Fon are the youngest Varia right now, right Fon?" he murmured, glancing to the Arcobaleno.

"Yes, my body is aged twenty six currently, and Mammon's is a touch younger," he confirmed.

"Doesn't matter," Fran said. "Xanxus and Squalo might've been big giving-up babies, but a Varia's retirement is still death to most of us. Right Bel?"

The prince nodded, grinning a bit. "I'd surely have it no other way."

"So if Fran or you died by some assassin because you had grown too complacent to fight properly, that's fine with you?" Tsuna challenged.

"… It'd be a proper death, at least," Bel offered.

"Yeah, it'd suck, but… Mafia," Fran said, shrugging. "Can't expect any other death really. We kinda kill people in the same exact way on a daily basis."

"It's only fair, an eye for an eye," Bel giggled, pointing to his bad eye happily.

"Sometimes I wonder why I agreed to all this," Tsuna sighed.

"Becoming a Mafia boss?"

"No, having you guys over," Tsuna said, a small smile crossing as he teased the Varia (which was now significantly easier to do without Xanxus and Squalo guarding them all protectively and scaring the Vongola out of his pants).

"Mean," Bel giggled.

"Well, team, should we head inside and regroup?" Dino chuckled. "Anyone else feeling like ice cream for breakfast?"

"Shishi… I believe this is the start of a very good subservience," Belphegor chuckled back. The Varia headed back for their base, Dino giving Tsuna a brief hug before he left.

9:00 PM

"So you've failed again to bring us Xanxus," muttered a surly man with sharp green eyes.

"I'm sorry, boss. I'm doing my utmost, he just has so many protectors…," answered the assassin standing before him.

"No excuses. It was disgraceful enough when you brought us the Sun guardian, but now you return empty-handed. I thought you were supposed to be quick and efficient! IF you don't kill him, how do you expect to prove your loyalty to us?"

"I will bring him, I swear it. Perhaps if I had help-"

"No 'help,' you're an assassin! You will work stealthily, fast, and alone, understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Don't fail us now," the older man muttered. "We're counting on you here, Leviathan."