Dysfunctional

The Perfect Example of A Dysfunctional Family.

If you mention the words 'dysfunctional' and 'family' in one sentence, most Vongola-related people will quickly think of a certain assassination squad, namely Varia, Vongola's Independent Assassination Squad. Especially the generation led by the fearsome man called Xanxus.

He, Xanxus, was the perfect personification of wrath, blasting anything which pissed him off into ashes—and unfortunately, that 'anything' was practically 'almost everything'. He ruled Varia with iron gauntlets, assuring loyalty of his subordinates by inflicting great fear upon them. His 'right-hand man', Squalo, was known as the second Sword Emperor, defeating the previous Sword Emperor, Tyr, who was also the previous leader of Varia. Of course, this meant Squalo was supposed to be the next leader of Varia, no? However, Squalo, the Pride himself, put himself under the shadows of Xanxus only for the sake of witnessing the wrath that gave Xanxus his power. Only that. Under the two are four, no, five others – Levi A Than, the envious person who would rampage upon seeing someone people say to be more worthy than him to become Xanxus' subordinate. Belphegor, the embodiment of sloth, Prince the Ripper. The royal-blooded assassin lusting for blood. His bloodlust is unbeatable and his desire to murder made him one of the deadliest members of Varia—albeit of course, he didn't seem to show much effort in it. A tad bit immoral—licentious, living up to his name, Belpeghor. Lussuria, perfect personification of lust, hence his name Lussuria. Mammon—who previously died earlier—was the Greed himself, showing excessive desire for wealth. And last was Fran, a replacement for Mammon who, in the end, created his own identity as the one who purposely antagonize his partners out of excessive gluttonous desire for self-amusement.

So, as most of you are probably thinking by now, what does dysfunctional family have to do with the fearsome Varia of all things possible? To know, we must look back when Vongola the tenth celebrated his 17th birthday...

"Happy birthday, Juudaime!" Gokudera Hayato cheered, as well as a few others, as Tsuna giggled sheepishly, scratching his not-so-itchy head in both embarrassment and happiness. It was Sawada Tsunayoshi's 17th birthday, also marking the second year he holds the title Vongola the tenth. Reborn stood next to Tsuna, smirking. "Nice job surviving until now, dame-Tsuna." he said.

"Mou, Reborn, I'm not that 'dame' anymore, okay?" Tsuna replied, laughing heartily, followed by the others present in that festive event. "That's correct, Reborn-san!" Gokudera blurted, his eyes glittering in pride of his beloved boss. "Juudaime has created a breakthrough in Vongola's history! In just two years, he's well known already in the world, both in the mafia world and in the outside world—positively, too! To be able to preserve the great great great history of Vongola while creating the perfect facade as the world's most successful business company...Juudaime is so awesome! And to think that he achieved all that in only less than two years, too...!" he continued praising Tsuna as said boss only laughed embarrassedly.

"I'm not that great, Gokudera. I mean, I'm sure the first boss was much better than me...I only continued what the Ninth trusted me with. I'm just trying to do my best—this is for everyone's good too." he smiled, looking at everyone. Yamamoto Takeshi only laughed cheerfully. "That's what we all do, right? Do our best—there's nothing wrong with it, anyway!" He said, but he was then strangled by Gokudera for a while before said hurricane bomb held Tsuna's hands tightly. "But Juudaime will always be the greatest person ever in my life! No matter if it's for 2 years, 5 years, 10 years, heck, FOREVER, I'll always follow Juudaime, even to the end of the world!" Gokudera stated, receiving a loud applause from everyone else and a humble laugh from Tsuna.

Sighing, the tenth boss of Vongola stood up calmly. "Well, everyone," he began speaking. "I'd like to say a few things. First...thanks for this birthday party—you guys should know I felt really, really happy to have this party—so happy that I actually wanted to lit my flame and launch a dying will flame-powered firework to celebrate this, haha." A laughter was heard from throughout the room. "Second...I'd like to say thanks for all your hard work until now in supporting the family. Each one of you have became an important member of the family, and it is all of us who have been leading Vongola to its current condition. Thank you for all your supports. And lastly..." Here, Tsuna seemed to be hesitating a little. Gulping, he continued.

"I'd love to see our 'family' grows more like a true family. I've been quite disturbed by the lack of closeness between family members lately—and I believe that something has to be done. Besides, together we are strong, and we perish when we split, right? I hope we can strengthen our bond as a family together—and yes, Xanxus, that includes Varia as well. Well, actually, I want to say this ESPECIALLY for everyone in Varia." He smiled to Xanxus, who was literally staring at him with a face that clearly said 'I don't believe you, brat'. His scar seemed to reappear a bit when he noticed Reborn's sly smirk.

"Well said, Tsuna." the arcobaleno said. Tsuna laughed sheepishly and sat down again on his chair. Reborn looked at the members of Varia. "You heard that, Varia. Good luck with your 'family bonding'." He said, showing a smile which seemed to be planning something 'evil' in Xanxus' eyes. Lussuria, however, seemed to be amused with this idea. "This looks really interesting, don't you think, bossu~?" Even Bel seemed to be interested in the idea, grinning madly as he seemed to be shifting his eyes towards Fran—who seemed like he didn't care at all.

And this also marked the beginning of the insanity called 'The Varia Family'.

"Well, I apologize, Bucking Horse, but I'd have to tell you that mom's not available today."

Dino raised an eyebrow hearing Bel's statement. "...'mom'?"

Bel grinned widely. "But you can ask 'dad' about more. Shishi~"

"W-wait! Who the hell are you talking about, huh!?"

"I don't have to answer that, because I'm a prince~"

That just doesn't make any sense!! Dino thought, wondering how unreasonable could Prince the Ripper be. Well, to be honest, he's been wondering about his little brother's mental condition lately, especially since Tsuna let out a rather suspicious-looking grin when he said he was going to pay a visit to Squalo. Not only Tsuna, actually, but even members of CEDEF and the rest of Vongola, they actually did the same when they heard his plans on visiting the Varia headquarter. Before he could think more about this, however, someone suddenly appeared from behind Bel and kicked the prince in his face.

It was Fran, that newbie mist Varia who replaced Mammon's place.

"He's talking about our stupid leader and his new wife. Sorry if senpai confused you, Bucking Horse-san." Fran said monotonously, dragging Bel away from the Cavallone boss. Belpeghor was still smirking madly.

"But it's now 'Bel-nii', froggy-imouto~"

Dino made a face.

"'Mama' told me that I may kick your crotch if I have to, nii-san, I think you use 'imouto' wrongly. I'm not a girl. And please refrain from abusing Japanese language too much; it sounds so weird with your princely tongue saying it. "

"You want a piece of me, brat?" Bel threatened, pulling out his knives and box.

"Bring it on, nii-san. You'll be wasting your energy anyway." Fran pulled out his box as well.

And Dino could only stare with his mouth hanging wide open as the two Varia siblings (?) began fighting each other in a messy cloud filled with hurt and insults. Sighing, Dino decided to just ignore the two and walked past them. Again, he wondered if there's something going on in Vongola which Tsuna didn't tell him about. At the same time, he also wondered about whoever the two called 'mom' and 'dad' earlier. He had his own suspicions, but then decided to shrug it off, thinking that his suspicions was too impossible to be true.

"Ah, bucking horse Dino Cavallone~! What could've brought you here today?"

Dino stopped dead on his track. That voice...that shrilly, high-pitched, and girly tone of voice...slowly, he turned his head. "Uh...hi, Lussuria." he greeted. Said member of Varia let out a high-pitched squeal before giving Dino a supposedly-friendly hug. "Well, hi too, blondie. So, what do you have to do with us today?" he asked. Dino, being a little bit unsure, hesitated to say anything to Lussuria. "U-Uh, actually—"

SWOOSH! A knife scratched Dino's left cheek as it flew past him and planted itself on a wall not far from Dino and Lussuria. It effectively made the blonde boss paled and Lussuria looked at the two fighting Varia with an unhappy face. "Are you two fighting again!? You two naughty kids!" Lussuria walked to Bel and Fran and separated the two, holding both of their collars as the two tried to strangle each other to death. A moment later, Lussuria turned to Dino with a bright expression, surprising Dino. "Forgive my two little brothers, bucking horse. So, what was it again, dear?"

"Well..."

"Ah, I see~!" Again, Dino shivered as Lussuria's awfully girly voice reached his eardrums. Fran and Bel were sitting across each other, in order to prevent anymore bloodshed between the two. Dino swore he could see sparks of—what, siblings rivalry?—between the two, though. Lussuria didn't seem to notice anything, as he only hummed lightly while thinking for a while. "So...you were looking for mommy because you need to talk about katana-kid, and—"

"You might have misheard," Dino cut Lussuria. "I was looking for Squalo, not your mother, whoever she might be."

Silence dominated the room.

A sigh. Fran looked at Dino with an abnormally bored and calm look. "We hadn't misheard anything," he said. "You see...when we were talking about mom, we were talking about—"

"VOOOOOOOOOIIIIIIII!! STOP SPREADING THAT STUPID HAPPY FAMILY SHIT, YOU UNGRATEFUL BRATS!!"

Another heavy silence fell into the room as the occupants of the room stared at Superbia Squalo, who had just banged the door open. His long hair was in a mess, showing how he seemed to have hurried back from wherever he was, running like a mad man and made his hair suffer the consequences.

"...Squalo-senpai." Fran finished his sentence, as Bel and Lussuria sighed, leaving Dino staring at Squalo in disbelief.

"So, uh, when was the wedding?"

"SHUT UP FERRARI! LIKE I SAID, IT WAS ALL BULLSHIT!!"

Dino stared at Squalo as the shark-like man continued rambling angrily, occasionally slicing the nearest object available. He finally understood the reason behind the anomaly in Vongola. Why Tsuna let out that wicked grin, why everyone in CEDEF broke into a laughter when he said he was going to visit Varia's headquarter....Dino quickly ducked as Squalo sliced the vase behind him into three. Long story short, after the other members of Varia fled for their life, Squalo explained to Dino how it all began. Apparently, it was thanks to Tsuna's 'speech' back at his 17th birthday party. Yes, the one where he said that Varia should act more like a family. Belpeghor and Lussuria seemed to take it seriously and began calling Xanxus 'daddy' and Squalo 'mommy'. At first, it was life-risking, as every time they call Xanxus 'daddy', they would have to avoid a barrage of flame of rage from Xanxus' guns. A little later, Fran decided that it was fun teasing Xanxus, and began doing the same thing. Levi A Than was more than willing to become closer with his boss, and did the same thing a few days later. And finally, Xanxus decided that it would be useless to continue doing the same thing daily, and decided to just ignore his new nickname.

"Of course, I noticed the good intention that runt had, but STILL! THERE'S DEFINITELY SOMETHING WRONG WITH THAT RUNT'S HEAD FOR HIM TO SAY I MAKE A GOOD WIFE, GODDAMMIT!" Hearing Squalo, Dino finally knew one more thing about his cute little brother. Tsuna...isn't exactly as innocent as how he looks.

And somewhere across the sea, Tsuna sneezed. Twice.

[end/to be continued?]

# And last was Fran, a replacement for Mammon who, in the end, created his own identity as the one who purposely antagonize his partners out of excessive gluttonous desire for self-amusement. This is a personal theory, actually. Because Fran seems to annoy the other members simply for the sake of his own amusement, ahaha. From my point of view, that is. And I just can't see the connections between Fran and Greed (which Mammon represented), so I'll just make him a glutton for amusement, haha. Feel free to shoot me now.___.

# Imouto = little sister

# '-nii' = suffix for big brother

# The reason why I wrote Squalo calling Dino 'Ferrari', is because...well, as most of you have probably known, Dino and Enzo Ferrari created the renowned Ferrari known with the name "bucking horse". And Dino use a Ferrari too into the episode where he appear! (thanks to nekoi_echizen on livejournal for these interesting points ;D)