CHAPTER ONE: Those Who Rise

Mattia Bovino is fourteen years old, and as far as people in the mafia under the age of sixteen go, he's pretty much coasting through life.

Not that the Bovino are like, mafia mafia. Sort of mafia? They don't commit crimes or anything, but they're in all the same circles, and at this point, that's all you really need to be in the mafia in-crowd. No one really knows they exist, what with the lack of crime-doing, but isn't trying to do important stuff without being a felon the point of the reformative mafia movement big hitters like the Vongola are trying to hock? Bovino is technically ahead of the curve, here, in regards to stuff like never hiring assassins or letting any outsiders into their family where they might infect it with their…their…their crime.

Anyway, life is awesome and he's awesome.

The Bovino's incredibly amazing technological research has become so amazing that they even got a big giant machine that takes up an entire room, and since this bit of tech is so awesome, they needed someone just as awesome (Mattia) to guard it during night shift, the most prime time to do some awesome tech robbing.

He's…not actually entirely sure what it does. It's got the word 'dimensions' on it.

Anyway, they're paying him for this and all he had to do was exist while they were delegating guard shifts. Being mafia is easy when you're in the Bovino. And it's guarding, which is basically being around when someone tries to mess with your stuff so you can go and stop it, so Mattia doesn't even have to do anything except sit around and read comic books.

Fantastic.

The Big Machine Room is all very delicate and complex, but there's a cement balcony with a ladder down to the heart of the room, which is a huge pillar of light that goes all the way down to the base's engine room. The Boss said it takes up so much energy they had to hook it up directly. When they run tests, it makes all the lights in the building flicker.

The Boss and the Mature Class are developing a lot of things with 'dimension' on it. Mattia thinks it would be pretty cool if they were using it to open a gate to like, the fairy realm, or something. Or hell. Wouldn't it be so rad if all this research was on how to do battle with the denizens of hell? The Boss has got this ring that's like, it's like some sort of ring from hell kinda deal, and Mattia and his brothers were all like, completely sure that it was a nickname because if the scary stuff that happened around its creation, kinda like the rings in Lord Of The Rings, but if it were actually from actual hell that would be so cool.

Anyway Mattia is on guard tonight.

And he's gotta pee.

The thing is about being on guard duty in the dead of night when everyone is sleeping is: he can't ask for anyone to cover for him. He's kinda the only one out here. The guards are the only people up right now, so the only people to ask are people who also need to stay put. For much smaller things, even. Things a thief could steal.

There's nothing for it. He just has to go to the bathroom now, and avoid a full bladder in the future. The Mature Class tell him that learning from your mistakes is an important part of growing up.

Mattia sprints down the hall and tries to urinate faster than any man has ever urinated before while still respecting the basic rules of hygiene. He washes his hands, and doesn't dry them. He is a speed demon about peeing. There is no possible way anything could go wrong he is using the toilet so fast.

But then,

THOOM.

Mattia jumps about a foot in the air and sprints towards the noise without a second thought, because oh no, that sounds like it came from the big room made of technology. If something happened to it he is going to be in more trouble than he has ever been in ever.

He doesn't even bother looking down when he makes it back; he jumps right off the balcony and tolerates the impact shaking up his legs when he lands so he doesn't waste any time confronting potential misdeeds.

There's no one here. No one, but a cloud of dust and a hunk of stone without a source.

Mattia looks at the hunk of stone, then at the walls, then back to the stone. It's clearly a chunk of wall, but nothing is damaged, and it didn't even fall all that hard, if the lack of damage to the floor is any indication. It just is.

Right. Dimensions.

There's only one door into the room barring the two balcony entrances, and would you look at that, it's suspiciously open. It's almost as if a creature from another dimension had opened it, suspiciously.

Mattia probably couldn't have prevented a creature from another dimension riding a broken chunk of wall into the Bovino base, so he's going to pretend he was here the whole time and do the responsible thing by investigating.

He gives chase. He would use his new roller-skate shoes, but they use Lightning Aura so they're in storage getting charged basically all the time. Speaking of storage, this hallway only leads to the stairwell that goes down to the basement, with nothing else but a keycard-locked door right before the staircase.

The basement is where the storage is.

And also where the engine room is.

Mattia picks up speed.

He thinks he could probably do his job a lot better if people told him stuff like 'there is a slight possibility you may encounter being from another dimension', or even what kind of dimensions that might entail. Mattia isn't sure he can fight demons. Maybe with his roller skates. Hey, he's heading down to storage right now! See, everything always works out.

The basement has a lot of doors, and Mattia makes a beeline for the third door on the left, the storage room, where his skates are sitting on the pedestal charger. He tries to put them on as fast as possible but there's a lot of laces and straps and he can't rush it without fumbling. When he strains his ears, he hears nothing. Good. It doesn't know about him yet. Boy, will this demon thing be shocked when Mattia comes round to hand it its ass!

He rolls back into the hall noiselessly, and checks on the engine first. It's just a big metal pill thingy twice as big as Mattia is hooked up to a bunch of wires and stuff, but the pill can be removed, so the Bovino have to be careful to make sure no one knows about it and no one tries to steal it. Then they'll have to actually pay their electricity bill. It's marked with the Morning Arc — an arcing line over a little circle with a circle drawn over the beginning of the line — which isn't a Bovino symbol, but Mattia sees it on some of the equipment anyway. He thinks it might symbolize that the thing was made in the base specifically.

He moves onto the rest of the rooms. More storage, labs, more labs, labs: the threequel, the surgery, aaaaaaand…

The last room is The Office.

Mattia gulps, stretches to prepare himself, and opens the door.

The Office is not Boss' office, or any of the Mature Class' office. You get sent here, and you sort of have to submit yourself to do stuff, like chore delegation. There's an office desk and an office chair and some couches for meetings, but it's all just gussying up what you really do here, which is reach over the desk and add your activity log to the computer sitting on the other side. It's hooked up to the big flatscreen TV hanging right above it, so when all the kids go in a flock they know who's doing what without asking. It's really tedious and everyone shoves and people are half-sure that the computer screen is looking at them. No one likes The Office.

There's a person standing there, and he can clearly see them, but the room is pitch black and his eyes are immediately drawn to the TV, the only source of light.

The scheduling software isn't on the TV. It's newspaper scans. The computer here isn't designed to look at newspaper scans, so they're all blurry and stretched too wide. There's been a word-search, so they're all dotted with blue streaks of highlighted text.

The scrolling pauses at a front page with a headline declaring 'TRAGIC DEATH OF EMILIANO GESSO'S SON LEADS TO INTERNAL INVESTIGATION'.

The article itself is too blurry to make out, so he redirects his attention to the intruder.

It looks like a normal person, albeit covered in stone dust. Curly black hair, and dressed for summer with a green tank and tan capris. It's so normal Mattia feels kinda disappointed.

"I can't believe he was actually right," says weird rock-riding extra-dimensional dude. He sounds kind of upset.

"Uh…halt!" Mattia announces. He's not sure what else to say.

The guy turns around.

"Oh," Mattia says, blinking. "Sorry, I didn't know you were one of us."

The guy, the Bovino, who looks like the same age as Mattia (and thus looks exactly the same as Mattia) stares at him for a few seconds. He looks exhausted.

Mattia shifts uncomfortably.

"…So…where'd the rock come from?"

"The wall fell on me when I was coming in and I accidentally took it with me, sorry. I don't think it broke anything." Mattia's brother shakes stone dust from his hair.

"Yeah I think it's all cool. So where'd you come in from? Is that like a teleporter?"

"Uhm…basically…" His brother frowns at him. "You don't know how it works?"

"We don't get to know that stuff until we're the Mature Class," Mattia shrugs.

"Oh. Guess that makes sense." He walks over to Mattia, hesitates, and then reaches out behind him to turn on the lights. In the new lighting, Mattia can see that his brother is super Classic-looking, with the average half-length haircut and pale green eyes. His hair is really untidy though, so it kinda falls into his eyes, which Mattia guesses is cool enough.

His brother raises his hand and runs his fingers through one of the three streaks of acid green running through Mattia's own black hair, eyebrows furrowed. After a second, he nods slowly. "Mattia, right?"

"Yeah! Yeah, you see, everyone makes fun of me for bein' all alternative and whatnot with the hair thing, but when you look Classic, you gotta like…make a statement, right?"

"I don't know. I always thought all my brothers looked really different."

"Awww," Mattia smiles.

"What are you doing up so late, anyway? Aren't there curfews?" His brother returns to the computer to shut it down.

"I'm supposed to be guarding that big room full a' technostuff." Mattia rolls around on his skates.

"Oh, my bad." His brother taps his fingers against the side of the computer screen. It's a really un-Bovino kinda thing to do.

"So, uh…where you from?"

"…A winery out in Grosetto."

"What you guys make out there?"

"Wine."

That doesn't sound especially techy. Probably like a side business thing. So everyone has more money to spend on tech. "Cool."

"They…They tell us all about how everything works, out there," his brother says quietly. "You always know exactly what to do, not like here. Do you want to see, Mattia?"

"See what?"

"What the Bovino make."

"What? Really? Won't we get in trouble?" Mattia starts skating in tight circles in his excitement.

"Don't worry. I'll take responsibility." His voice is really soft and faint, which is also not very Bovino-like. They must raise 'em up different in Grosetto. That's probably why they trust them with information that usually only the Mature Class get to know. This is soooo awesome!

"You sure? Really?"

"Yeah." His brother manages a weak smile, and fidgets with his bracelets, running chipped, dirty fingernails over a yellow crystal orb that looks almost like a pacifier. "Show me the engine, and I'll show you everything."

When they leave The Office, he places something on the wall. It's metallic and has a blinking red light.

Huh. Must be part of the big reveal.

Miki thought the worst was over when he got his eyes dialed down and somehow convinced his parents to let a strange foreigner live in their house, but he is proven very, very wrong when their early-morning breakfast-slash-apartment hunt is interrupted by a knock on the door.

He already has an idea of who it is. He's not sure he's really in the right place to see them right now. Then again, where has avoiding his problems gotten him so far?

"I need a job," Ben mutters, re-reading the promising selections they've written down. "You think they'll let me get a job?"

"I don't know, I guess? There's always people guarding me. I don't see why not."

"Yeah, but you're letting me stick around because I'm protecting you from the people protecting you."

"…Hmmmm."

No one's answering the door, so Miki heads into the kitchen. His mom is passed out at the dining table, again.

"Mom, please go to bed," he whispers.

His mom makes a noise that sounds only vaguely human.

She's pulling a lot more all-nighters than usual; Miki wonders if he should be worried. Her threshold for fatigue is pretty low, and she starts hallucinating spiders far earlier than most people, but she has the immune system of a god. Maybe he'll ask his dad about it.

Miki considers the door, and decides he may as well confront the rest of his problems now while his brain is still having trouble remembering what hope feels like. The unrelenting pessimism telling him nothing can get worse than Miyazawa is the closest he's ever gotten to courage. Also, the fact he's just really, really mad at everyone right now. Angry people are the best at being competent, right? That's how Gokudera took over a school in under four hours and had a loyal legion of followers within the day, Miki is pretty sure.

Behind the door is Kurokawa. She's brought a friend, who appears to be the girl who had suggested the vacation to Miyazawa to begin with. Maintaining eye contact doesn't feel like an uncanny valley of almost-discomfort clawing at his psyche anymore, so whatever caused their trance-like staring contest, it's not there anymore. He should have brought that up with uncle Naoki, god he's dumb.

"Hey. We're having a meeting at Takesushi's about, like, magic and stuff."

Miki stares at her.

"…Ma…Magic and stuff."

"Yeah. We all got magic powers so we're going to mess with them irresponsibly. Wanna come?"

Miki holds a hand over his mouth.

Then he gently closes the door.

"Mooooooooooooooom."

The sound she makes is slightly closer to human. Good sign?

"Mom, i-is there something we're supposed to do if civilians know, uhm, about, like the whole…magic…lore thing?"

"They're not civilians," she mumbles.

"Yes? They are?"

"Not anymore."

Miki wishes his mom wasn't so cynical about their family. It's like an echo chamber of pure misery in this house.

"Okay. I'll just. Maybe I should go? Check on them and what they're doing? O-Or…"

"Take the…" His mom gestures widely to Ben.

"R-Right, that's, yeah! Yeah. Ben, can you come with me? I'm going to, uhm…I don't know, I guess observe. They're friends with the president, right? I-I want to talk to him so I should…right, yeah, I'm going." Miki wrings his hands anxiously.

Ben pulls himself off the couch. "Yeah. Don't want to be in here wasting more time and resources than I have to."

They slip their shoes on and head out. Kurokawa is, to her credit, still waiting with the painfully pretty girl.

"No bandages," she notes.

"Not for long. I'll put them back on soon."

"Aw."

It's not really a rational decision to put them on to begin with. Miki mostly feels really freaked out by the extremes he was willing to push people to get out of a bad situation, and kind of bitter that the Kouyou family seems to prefer his eyes over the rest of him.

And, you know, his entire family is in the yakuza and the most personal relationship he had was uncle Kunihiro, who smashed three bathroom mirrors with a 12-year-old's face for trying to intimidate Miki only two days into his first semester, so he's not emotionally prepared for open rebellion. Or being in the same building as his uncle for extended periods of time. Or going outside at all where people could…could watch him.

Maybe this was a bad idea.

Ben gives him an awkward pat on the back. Miki fakes a smile and starts wrapping.

Kunihiro wakes suddenly from what he can only assume is Mukuro's PTSD nightmare.

He can't be sure, seeing as their childhoods are similarly plagued by uncertainty, emotionally draining criminal families, and hot summer days spent skiving off instead of fulfilling any responsibility to said criminal families, but the thread of terror through them is hint enough. He doesn't remember the contents of the dream. He's assuming Mukuro would kill him if he knew, anyway.

He had…not fibbed, but exaggerated his experience with this sort of thing. The only one he's ever really resonated with was Naoki, and Naoki hasn't been close enough to him to share their headspace in years. Even then, it's not like this, their memories blurring at the seams. Nothing is like this. Kunihiro's never heard of an illusionist capable of half the shit Mukuro does naturally. Kunihiro wonders if he has a Wick literally growing in his eye socket. The science required to do that is…he likes raising kids into their potential as much as the next recruiter, but the level of invasive surgery to a kid who's already part of your family, god, he'd tear apart the Famiglia if Mukuro hadn't gone and done it already. What a waste. What's the point of giving this much power to a kid if it gives them trust issues?

Anyway, Mukuro is ungodly powerful, and it's impossible to find illusionists south of Japan. They're all in Hokkaido or something. The family is going to love this.

Speaking of the brat, he's still unconscious, and burning up with a fever, soaking the sheets of his bed with sweat. Kunihiro had gotten them a hotel room because the kid blacked out before he could show him where his little cloister of criminal cohorts are staying. Naoki has been trying to call him since the whole attack began. He hasn't resorted to texts, but Kunihiro can feel the anger and exasperation increase exponentially with each one anyway.

Kunihiro runs cool water over a complimentary face towel and dabs it over Mukuro's flushed brow. He runs it along the crook of his neck, and frowns at how visible the cords of his throat are. He yanks up the boy's shirt. Visible ribs, stomach is flat in less of a 'toned to hide the round of a stomach' way and more of a 'I eat sometimes, but not today' way. A few presses to his organs tell him that underneath the musculature is soft, pliable, and definitely not swollen innards. Bowels are healthy. He pulls back the sleeves, next. More distinct muscles, but again, the bones are sharp and visible, especially around his wrists.

Not starving, but not eating regularly, either. His body type is so narrow, Kunihiro imagines it was never designed to pack on the calories (or the nutrients) to begin with. Inconsistent diets are a baaaaaad idea for kids like him.

Kunihiro leaves the towel on Mukuro's forehead and heads out. He doesn't go far, just grabs something to eat; veggies, rice, and meat especially. He takes it back to see Mukuro hasn't moved.

The bathroom door is open, though.

Kunihiro, not one for caution, puts the food on the table, cuts the back of his wrist open, and strolls right up to the door. There's a man in all black with deep, puckered scars along his cheek. His eyes are sunken and haunted, staring into the mirror.

"Can I help you?"

"You've already done that." He turns to glance over his shoulder. One of his eyes glows red.

"You can do that unconscious?" Kunihiro laughs.

"…Control is more than possession," the man says.

"Mindslaves, gotcha. Hungry?" Kunihiro opens a plaster with his teeth, wets the cut on his arm, and slaps it on. He can take it off later if he needs to.

Tall Dark And Intimidating opens the bag of food Kunihiro had fetched. He doesn't look happy. "Nothing sweet…"

"I'm not feeding him junkfood. He looks like another week with a bad diet is going to put him in a hospital." Kunihiro sets out the food. "How'd you know to find us? He passed out pretty quickly."

"I am always sensitive to Mukuro-sama's presence."

Kunihiro regards him for a moment, trying to place the face. He sort of knows who he's looking at. He was a little younger, much less sunken, yet still no eyebrows. He's one of the bodies Mukuro used for a murder tantrum; he can almost feel what it's like to be inside him just at a glance. The facts are blurry in his mind, but there's a strange weight to his presence that tells him that Mukuro has some sort of strong opinion about him.

"How many of you are there?" Kunihiro taps his chopsticks against the table.

"Mukuro-sama's closest followers number only two, but we've gained the loyalty of four criminals. You won't survive harming him."

Two, two, two, twooooo kids, blending into the mob of hungry, blood-speckled children that smelled like ash and gore stumbling after Mukuro, clutched in the arms of his murderous meatsuit, escaping tooooo…a country. He has the image in mind, not the facts. The point is, once he dumped them all in some delightful place where no one could touch them and had the meatsuit shoot himself, those two started following him around everywhere. They're like his friends.

"Harming? I'd never. Mukuro-kun is my friend! And we have a deal."

"What are the parameters of that deal?"

"He keeps me out of trouble and doesn't attack anyone I like, I tell him all about Flame lore."

Mindslave's expression is empty and carved from stone. "What are you to Mukuro-sama?"

"Oh, I'm his best friend." Kunihiro gives him a smile that shows teeth.

"Mukuro-sama has no friends."

"There's nothing a lonely misanthropic teenage boy hates more than admitting his friends are friends. What's the job he needs my intel for, anyway? Assisting someone in robbing the Vongola seems a little extreme just for information this basic." Kunihiro raises his eyebrows at Mindslave as he tears the meat of his order of ribs off the bones.

"Not particularly," Mindslave says. He holds a bean pod to his lips. "Because the job he needs the information for is most relevant to his plans for the Vongola."

Shamal goes through two cigarettes before he's ready to head back to Federico's.

Hayato's Japanese friend is completely deprived of feminine charm. He is all masculine, boyish charm, and masculine, boyish lack of self-respect and caution. He came out of the shower dazed and unfocused, and stared at Shamal for half an hour while he was going through his third callgirl. He only blinked about four times. It's a pretty normal reaction to having Angelitis reversed — information is recognized slow and processed slower, so once the kid decided 'okay, who's this then', he was destined to spend basically forever trying to comprehend Shamal's existence, a phenomenon Shamal personally experienced when he did it to himself at age twelve and spent all night trying to remember what babies were while Reborn ordered pizza and mocked him incessantly — but being leered at by a disoriented teenage boy he treated is so low on his priorities he feels like his integrity as a professional has been violated in some way.

The alternative was probably Hayato trying to kill the Bambino Beelzebub (unlikely), Zeni (uh-oh), or Reborn himself (hell no), so Shamal just has to suck it up and deal. And tell the kid that if anyone asks, Hayato mugged him and treated the boy himself. Shamal's entire 'cure women kill men' hitman-doctor shtick is at risk, here.

On the other hand, when he tells Bianchi he helped her brother at the expensive of his primary character traits, she'll probably give him a peck on the cheek and maybe stop trying to kill him.

It's morning, though, and Bianchi doesn't drop by Federico's until after noon, so all that's there for him is Reborn. And he hates dealing with Reborn.

Nothing is worse than dealing with Reborn at his most existential-dread-iest, where Shamal was a child and Reborn had no place taking care of one, but Reborn is a pain in the ass even when he's in a good mood. He built a brand on being irritating. Getting information out of him is like pulling teeth.

With a sigh, he knocks on the door. Federico's little dollface son answers.

"Reborn here?" Shamal asks.

Toru cocks his head very, very slowly, not breaking eye contact. It's almost certainly a threat. Reborn is probably up to something; he loves bringing Toru into his schemes, because Toru doesn't really care enough to object to all the ridiculous shit he does. "He is."

"I want to ask him something."

Toru steps out of the way. Shamal toes off his shoes. "Reborn!"

Reborn steps in from around the corner. He has mastered the Sudden Appearance. The man would rather die than be seen waddling around.

"Doctor Shamal."

"Just got back diagnosing that dying child," Shamal says. "Seems he's got Angelitis."

"Does he."

"You know. That condition you get when an Invoker doesn't take."

"I'm familiar."

Shamal runs his hands over his face and exhales. "Question. Why's the Bambino Beelzebub — the notorious cat burglar, if you remember — got a gun full of Dying Will Bullets?"

"You could ask him yourself," Reborn says.

Shamal opens his mouth.

Then he dashes to the guest bedroom.

Federico is there, with his hand pressed against his mouth, looking like he's going to cry. He's squatting in front of the bed, where, sure enough, a shrivelled little boy with a seaweed mop of black hair is sprawled. Shamal isn't sure if he's unconscious or not; he's wiggling a black stone rectangle necklace between his teeth.

"He's so tiny," Federico whispers with the deep emotion usually reserved for kittens doing something cute.

"Is that…?"

"His name is Gi U. I'm well aware of his actions," Reborn says from his new position atop Toru's head.

"And why is he in the employ of Romolo Zeni, firing dying will bullets at teenagers?"

"He was supposed to fire them at the regular henchmen, but I can see the situation became rather complicated."

"The other kid didn't die, did he?" Federico asks.

"No, he— why are you giving a cat burglar dying will bullets, Reborn? No one is supposed to have those things but you!" Pills makes sense; you could get dying will pills by swiping a hand underneath any given cabinet over at the CEDEF, but the bullets…

"I don't know," says Reborn.

Shamal hesitates. "Wha—?"

"I don't know. Gi U comes to me to recuperate and pick targets. I'm not fool enough to give him weapons he doesn't need." Reborn tugs his fedora over his eyes. "…The one who wanted him to have the bullets was Timoteo."

The Ninth?

There's no deep-frier in Yamamoto's house, so Hayato picks the lock to the restaurant below as soon as he wakes up. There is shitloads of fish, seeing as it's a fish restaurant, and Hayato feels his mouth water involuntarily while he starts preparing fish and chips. About halfway through he realizes he doesn't have potatoes, because it's a fish restaurant. A problem.

Yamamoto wanders down to stare at him while he works. He doesn't look bothered by the fact Hayato broke into the restaurant kitchen.

"Your dad not coming down?" Hayato asks.

Yamamoto shakes his head and mimes casting a fishing line.

"Fine." He finds veggies in the fridge. Not a lot, but they're good for dips. Hayato starts dicing them. Yamamoto hasn't taken his eyes off him since he came in. He looks like he's going to fucking eat him. Jesus christ.

He sets the fried fish on a platter and makes a roughly-piled veggie platter right next to it.

"Serve yourself," Hayato says.

Yamamoto drifts over to the platters. He uses chopsticks to put the fried fish onto his own plate, and then his brain visibly shuts down.

"Fucking god are you ever useless." Hayato puts the veggies on the plate for him, and adds dressing. "Sit down when you eat."

Yamamoto completely fails to listen and munches on the way to the tables. Hayato grumbles under his breath and sits next to him. Yamamoto starts leering at the food, now. It takes him like five minutes to figure out how to take a bite of his fish. Hayato massages his temples. So annoying.

"Give," Hayato snaps, yanking Yamamoto's plate from his hands. Yamamoto looks blankly at him as he chops the fish into small pieces with his spare bowie knife. He gives the plate back. "I want you done eating by the time everyone else gets here."

Yamamoto has a much easier time eating when the task is reduced to 'pick up, put in mouth'. They actually manage to finish in a timely manner, thank god. Hayato takes their plates and goes to wash them. He twitches when Yamamoto is basically breathing down his fucking neck on the way in.

"Can I help you?" Hayato snaps.

Yamamoto cocks his head and his face screws up very, very slowly.

"God. Go sit by the door, you need to let them in."

Yamamoto's face clears up and he cheerfully goes over to the door, leaving Hayato to do his chores in peace.

He's been doing that all fucking night, too. Yamamoto seems to be thinking in slow motion, and he's fixed a placid smile on his face so he's got this completely bizarre predatory 'you're doing something interestiiiing' look at Hayato that seems completely unintentional. His usual chipper, passive-aggressive-bullshit attitude that he used to buy Tsuna's favour is nowhere to be seen, replaced with the kinda look people used to give him when they they were torturing people for the sake of seeing Hayato squirm. Fucked up, is what it is. He usually snaps out of it if Hayato does something to simplify his thought process, but that just leaves him with the fact that his 'thinking face' is also his 'sadistic murderer' face. No one would fuck with Yamamoto in the slums of southern Europe, and Hayato resents him for it.

He's done the dishes by the time there's a knock on the door. Hayato skids into the dining area.

"Heeyyyy," Kurokawa greets with a little wave. "Yamamoto says the restaurant opens at ten, so we'll be brief with all this."

"I see you can type, at least," Hayato grunts.

Yamamoto's smile pulls into something more akin to an actual face real humans make when they want to express positive emotion and he scratches the back of his head.

Behind Kurokawa is Sasagawa the younger, Miki, gun kid, and that complete fucking stranger. He hadn't asked her name. Had he? Maybe he just didn't care.

"Her brother isn't coming?"

"Dude, Onii-san's everything is broken. Let him live," Kurokawa says.

"This is exciting," Tsuna's friend squeals. "Kusakabe-senpai was really worried about me, it's so wonderful that you've figured all this out by yourself!"

"Uh…yeah, a lot happened. Like, uh…" Hayato looks pointedly at Kurokawa.

"Like how the yakuza and the archeology team got in a fight over magic artifacts," Kurokawa says leadingly.

"Right, like that. Yamamoto robbed them."

Yamamoto's smile drops into an unimpressed look.

"He's funny," Sasagawa whispers. It's unclear if she's taking them seriously or not. She seems critical enough of criminals that robbing them would be 'funny'.

Kurokawa and Sasagawa take one table, and Miki and Gun Kid inexplicably take a table on either side of…the Miura sister, right.

"Why is she here again?"

"I'm the therapist," Miura says cheerfully.

Yamamoto slips right in to sit at her table and does that freaky leer at her.

Miura's mouth opens. She looks from Yamamoto to Hayato, unsure.

"He's thinking. That's his thinking face. He's got a disability where that's his thinking face."

"Oh. Uhm, okay. Okay!" She folds her hands on the table and tries her best to pretend Yamamoto isn't sitting there, drilling holes into her skull with his eyes.

"Next: why are you wearing bandages on your face?" Hayato gestures to Miki.

Miki looks up at him. "I'm extremely dangerous. Nothing would happen if I took them off, I guess, but I don't want to."

Honestly, did everyone come out of Miyazawa broken?

He sighs and points his hand at Kurokawa next. "You. Boss is?"

"He sent me the letter 'a'." Kurokawa shows him the text.

"He was probably tired. Text him again later. No, call him." Hayato gestures to Gun Kid. "And then…you."

"Kurokawa told me I'm relevant," he responds quietly.

"Sure, yeah. So Sasagawa knows about magic aspects—"

"Hana told me," Sasagawa nods.

"Right. She told you. So what aspects we got here?"

Kurokawa hums. She points at Hayato, "Red," (Storm), Yamamoto, "Rain," herself, "Lightning," Gun Kid, "Sun," Miki, "Sun," Miura, "Lightning," and then her finger hesitates at Sasagawa.

"What's a Lightning? What's it do?" Miura asks gleefully.

"Hold on— Shou-kun, you got the thingy?"

"This feels reckless and dangerous," Gun Kid grumbles. He takes out the dial.

"This is how you pick out different types of magic," Sasagawa notes.

"Mm-hmm…Just crank it for a while and press the button."

Sasagawa obeys. Her hand pulsates with light just under the skin, which escapes as a vibrant orange like a stain spreading over paper. Then it destabilizes and rapidly decays, collapsing into smoke that swirls in circles and looking like cigarette smoke blown out during the fall of dusk against cold air.

"…Yeah, I got nothing," Kurokawa mutters.

"Can she do shit? Any special powers?" Hayato asks.

"I'm very psychic," Sasagawa says matter-of-factly.

Fuck, Hayato was so off-the-mark. She had all but told him outright. Tsuna was right to get mad at him. He probably knew already. "…Okay we'll, hm. We'll put you in under Mist, that seems like the only one that fits."

"Oh, so it has an explanation and everything after all! What's Mist like?" Sasagawa asks eagerly.

"Uh…I dunno, illusions? We're new to this too. So, everyone's got their own little aspect to investigate!" Hayato claps his hands together. "Step one, we'll show off to each other until Yamamoto's dad kicks us out. Step two, we blackmail someone for even more information. Step three, we use our powers for the sake of the Boss."

"Who's the boss," Miura whispers.

"He means Tsuna. Tsuna's very impressive," Sasagawa whispers back.

Miki raises his hand, looking away even though dumbass is already blind. "I-I, uhm…I think…I could help with step two."

Tsuna awakes to Hatachi licking his face.

"Mmrrrggghhh," Tsuna says.

He doesn't get to go back to sleep, unfortunately, because next thing he knows, he's being dragged by the ankle right off the bed. His forehead hits the carpeted floor with a little thunk.

"Guuugghrgh," says Tsuna.

"Get up," Hibari says. "We're here."

Tsuna flips over to look up at him. Hibari is, shockingly, decked out in full Varia uniform. He looks amazing, obviously. His haircut looks strange, but it doesn't seem like Tsuna has messed it up any. It's haloed by the overhead lights, because Hibari is always haloed by something. With the short hair, he looks less like an ethereal god, and more like an angry teenager.

Hatachi jumps down onto his back and kneads his little paws on Tsuna's back before running to the jet's door. Tsuna rolls over again and pushes himself to his knees. "You're wearing someone else's uniform."

"It won't be for long," Hibari says.

"You're going to join the Varia?"

Hibari gives him a mysterious smile and goes over to the sitting room.

Tsuna pulls himself to his feet and goes to the cupboard to put on the extra-small uniform. The other uniforms come with a black button-down, but the smallest size comes with an indigo sweater. Probably for the same reason there's a new wig here. Tsuna slicks his hair back, pins it in place, and carefully puts the wig on. It's supposed to seal to his skin, with realistic roots, and he has to be careful with it.

Hibari is napping on the couch when Tsuna turns around. Hatachi is sitting on his chest, panting at the both of them, looking delighted just to be here.

Tsuna opens his bag in search of his makeup, and pauses.

The documents from Gi U's room.

He remembers the conversation from last night. "…Hibari-san?"

"Mm."

"You understand…Korean and Italian, yeah?"

"Mm."

Tsuna fidgets with the edges of one of the pages. "…I have some documents that might tell you more about, er, Flames and such."

"Give them to me later."

"S…Sure."

Tsuna reaches underneath his pile of stolen documents and takes out his compact mirror and makeup. He applies the usual foundation, blush, and eyeshadow (purple, this time), and once again laments his inability to apply stuff like eyeliner. He doesn't have any purple lipstick, so he settles on lipgloss to finish his face off.

When he holds the mirror at a distance, he thinks he looks elegant and mysterious, but also just as young as he usually does (which is 'very'). Tsuna can't wait until puberty, whatever that brings him.

"Are you done?" Hibari asks.

"Uhm, I think so?"

Hibari sits up, and Hatachi jumps down. Tsuna opens the door for the three of them.

The jet landed in what looks like an airstrip surrounded by a forest. They've outran the sun; it's nighttime in the distant lands of Europe, and the moon is high in the sky. The air is brisk, but not as cool as Miyazawa's air was. It smells like leaves and earth instead of ocean and smoke, and even though there's nothing to visually separate the two regions, Tsuna still feels the difference in locations on a subconscious level.

Waiting for them is two men in the same Varia uniform they're wearing and Mammon, floating in the air, somehow dangling under a serpent biting its own tail. There's a roll of toilet paper dangling from the baby's hip.

Tsuna bows. Hibari looks unimpressed.

"You'll be staying in our manor until the meeting," Mammon declares.

"Meeting?"

Mammon turns to Hibari. "You didn't brief it?"

"He'll do what he's told regardless."

Tsuna rolls his eyes. Well, he's right, but he doesn't have to go out and say it like that.

"Mu…We've requested a meeting with the Vongola. You're to supervise. If it becomes violent, you'll be de-escalating. If it simply goes poorly, you'll be used to retrieve the target we're bartering over."

"Sounds…simple…?" Tsuna makes a face.

"And who exactly is this?" Mammon looks at Hibari.

"My boss." "His boss."

Mammon doesn't react.

Tsuna clears his throat. "My current employer and supervisor, Hibari Kyouya."

"The bird progeny. In that case, I doubt we'll be able to part you from this case." Mammon floats over to Tsuna. "You. I'll need your name, age, gender, and employment status. You'll be entering as my subordinate."

"Oh, yeah, okay." Tsuna takes a step back when a set of papers are shoved into his face, along with a pen. He uses his thigh as a surface.

Name…well, it sure as shit isn't Tsuna, here. His dad has some sort of relationship with the Vongola, and these guys are the Vongola Varia. Outing himself is a terrifying prospect, here. Since he's trying to look girly, he writes 'Hachiko'. Age…he doesn't want to looked down on, and girls can get away with looking younger. He'll say 16. Gender…

He taps once, twice on the paper. The entire point of a disguise is to pretend to be someone else (namely, Not Sawada Tsunayoshi, Son Of Sawada Iemitsu, Man Who Is Tangentially Related To The Vongola Maybe), but outright saying he's a girl feels kind of…

"You don't have to make any assertions of your gender," Mammon says suddenly, making Tsuna jump. "It's only a matter of convenience."

Thankful for the excuse to avoid it, Tsuna moves onto fill in the details of his employment to Hibari. He gives the document to Mammon, who reviews.

"…This will be adequate. Come. I'll take you to be briefed by Squalo."

Oh.

Right.

Him.

Shit.

Iemitsu runs cold water over his head, the traditional man's man way of waking up with your job smacks you on the ass just when you thought you could relax for once.

Well, not like he was relaxing much. Gokudera was skittish, unfriendly, and giving himself a stress ulcer just making eye contact. For all his drilling, all Iemitsu got out of him was that Tsuna had ambition, some friends, and he's very nice to Gokudera, which tells Iemitsu very little, especially coming from a source as blatantly biased as Gokudera.

After Tsuna's friend showed up (delightful girl, good influence, assured him of his moral integrity, seems to be the source of his gang involvement, very soothing to talk to), Gokudera got really prickly. For one, he made an effort to hide from her; suspicious. For two, he proceeded to immediately jump out the window while they were talking to her. Iemitsu should have predicted that. Is he losing his edge?

Iemitsu figured Gokudera was going to run off to fill Tsuna in, and that could give him some valuable new information in the form of how Tsuna tends to react to new stimuli. He had decided to ignore it and settle on throwing back a few drinks while reviewing what he has on the other 'friend', Kurokawa (boring, part of a deeply community-centric family, involved in the law, seems to be taught to use weaponry under Miura Fuyumi (yikes), no strong relation to Tsuna, seems obligated more towards Sasagawa Kyouko than Tsuna to begin with), and Yamamoto's son (uncomfortably enthusiastic about baseball).

And then he woke up to three new reports. One from Basil, one from Oregano, and one from Cumin.

From Basil; Timoteo is delaying a follow-up meeting with Difo, and needs Iemitsu to cover for him. He's going to a very important meeting. It's an internal matter.

From Oregano; Squalo is kicking up shit and has forced her to be a liaison in a professional meeting between the Varia and their employers. It is theoretically a request for highly classified work that can't be communicated through a third party, but everyone involved knows the real reason Squalo would invite Timoteo over to his own home.

From Cumin…

Only an hour ago, still night-time in Italy, an explosion wiped the Bovino off the map. There were no survivors. All investigation into Bovino technology has been called off.

Iemitsu pulls his head out from under the tap.

It's going to be a hell of a day.