A Look Through Glass

Summary. Glimpses of new possibilities had things played out differently, in which Tsuna's guardians are not quite what you'd expect. This does not make them any less deadly. An experiment with a different tenth generation.
Pairing. Hints of K27 and XanxusKyoko
Rating. PG
Disclaimer. The KHR! franchise does not belong to me, but to Akira Amano and people with more money.
A/N. unbeta'd, as usual, because i'm a lazyass who can't find it in herself to look for one, so there are probably grammatical errors and whatnot.
General things to know (!). this was originally a very much discarded idea for an epicly long chaptered fic in which world's collided and worked together to defeat byakuran. that is dead and gone now, but the idea itself is interesting and appealing enough to my inner feminist for me to try.

this first glimpse of this parallel world is set TYL, after the defeat of Byakuran. not all of the other chapters will be set in the same time period.

I-Pin could just barely recall the first few months in the Sawada house. Mostly what she remembered were feelings: joy, comfort, safety and annoyance at Lambo. The first distinct memory is that of a group of men dressed in black who, for some reason or other which a five-year-old could not understand, meant them harm. She would sometimes dream of blond hair, knives in the darkness and strong gusts of wind. Her lack of knowledge of the past was understandable: most people tend to forget the things they lived through when they were still children.

I-Pin had still been young when the whole affair with Byakuran had sent them on an apparently one-way trip to the future. This did not mean she was wholly unaware of what transpired as she seemed to be with the Ring Battle, just that her memory was sketchy.

She recalled the inner security of the Vongola Base, riddled with Lambo's antics and attempts to escape the oppressiveness of it. She also remembered a large white city, watching events unfold behind a glass. Last but not least, she occasionally had vague instances in which she could envision a forest, bright lights of all colors, and dinosaurs.

I-Pin knew that if she ever had any questions, she could ask, or even go through the Vongola files as she was sure the events had been documented accordingly, probably in a matter of hours after they had returned from the past. The Vongola were frighteningly efficient like that.

Another aspect that made the Vongola frightening was its feared assassination squad, the famous (or was it infamous?) Varia. It was not without a few well-placed threats and one or two bribes that she had managed to get Lambo to accompany her to their headquarters. As their car neared the building, she could see Lambo becoming paler. Their driver gave both them pitiful looks as he dropped them off at the gate, not daring to go any closer.

I-Pin waved at him cheerfully as he drove off, and then confidently turned to march into the Varia's entrance hall. Lambo followed stiffly, wondering not for the first time about the sanity of his friend. Pointedly ignoring her companion's uneasy mutterings, I-Pin strode forward confidently, until she reached the conference room.

Opening the door and causing any conversation that had been going to cease, she walked forward and took a seat, no hesitation marring her movements, while her appointed bodyguard quickly shut the doors and stood quivering behind her.

"VOOOOOOOII! You're late!" Squalo's voice was the first to break the silence.

"I'm sorry, there was a last minute change – both Kyoko and Haru couldn't manage to get away from their assignments on time, so, here I am," I-Pin supplied with a bright smile to the roomful of assassins, herself and Lambo included.

Her explanation seemed to as much appease as aggravate her audience, but with a few mutters the conversation flowed on. The meeting was about the Vongola's newest hit-list for the Varia, as well as a list of expenses presented by the Varia which they deemed necessary. I-Pin had already been prepared and groomed for her part, which was to give them a strict budget. Kyoko and Haru had been firm on that front, and the memory of Bianchi's threats over the video conference should the budget grow even by one number gave I-Pin the courage and determination she would otherwise not have.

The fact that she was no longer a lost little girl but a confident, teenage assassin working for the most powerful Mafia family also helped. The fact that she was a Guardian and that despite their lack of men the main Vongola branch had still dignified the Varia with one of the higher-ups being present at the meeting also won points in her favour.

As for her position in the Guardians, being the youngest one of all of them, it did not harm her credibility or importance. True, she was still in high school, and could do with much more training than she had the moment. However, the Varia had received the memories of the possible future, and they had seen potential in her younger self which, ironically enough, I-Pin could not quite recall.

Whatever had transpired however had clearly earned her some form of recognition, because she was able to arrive at a reasonable budget with the group of madmen, although - and she had to wince slightly at this - Haru or Kyoko would've probably been able to pull it down much further than she had.

As the meeting concluded and they all stood up, I-Pin waited respectfully for the Varia Captains to file out first.

"Voi! Tell the little sword girl that I'll be giving her extra training for taking so long!" Squalo, the first one to move towards the door, called out.

"Will do!" I-Pin replied brightly.

Neither Levi nor Lussuria had anything particular to tell her, although Lussuria did offer a shopping date sometime soon which "you better not miss sweetheart! Bring the other girls as well, we'll have such a fun time!".

I-Pin doubted Bianchi or Kuromu would appreciate the invitation, and, as much as she was sure Lussuria would love to see Gamma, she didn't think she'd be able to drag him along. As for M.M., I-Pin wasn't even going to try - the woman was a force to be reckoned with. Lussuria did manage to grope Lambo's butt on the way out though ("Gyaah!" "Well, you certainly grew up well, dear,"), so she figured it'd be alright.

Mammon paused by the door once, his protégé Fran (entrusted to him momentarily by Kuromu) waiting dutifully in the corridor with his signature dull eyes, just to once more plead the case for the budget. I-Pin grinned brightly as she refused, and the greedy baby sighed as he floated out and landed on Fran's shoulder. The teenage assassin was sure that the Arcobaleno was mentally calculating the costs for the next year for the Varia, and how they'd have to cope with what they'd be given.

Belphegor, the Varia's own claim to royalty, was the last member of the assassination squad to leave the room.

(As a general rule, Xanxus refused to attend to these meetings, unless the Vongola Tenth himself was present. The only other occasion when he might venture out of his quarters would be when Kyoko came to visit and he was in the mood to see if her skills were still as close to his. I-Pin often wondered if the closeness Kyoko had with the Varia leader ever bothered Tsuna, but he took it all in good grace, bless the man.)

"Ushishishi, the prince deems you worthy of keeping him company this afternoon," slightly startled out of her thoughts, I-Pin turned to her once-nemesis.

His hair was wavier, and he might have been wearing a new tiara, but Belphegor had not changed much since she'd last seen him. He was still taller than her, unfortunately, but that was something she had come to accept as unchangeable unless she hit a growth spurt soon.

Ignoring Lambo's pleas behind her, ("I-Pin, you can't say yes, c'mon I wanna leave, these guys are crazy, please I-Piiiin,") I-Pin considered the offer for a few minutes. In what she had come to refer as Bel-speak, he was pretty much inviting her for a training session with him before she left. They'd usually end up pretty battered and with multiple cuts on both ends, but it was always entertaining, so…

"Sure Bel! Lead the way," she answered with a large smile. Behind her, Lambo groaned and might have hit his head against the door. Bel twitched lightly in response to how she called him ("you shall refer to me as prince, peasant, and nothing else," he'd told her more than once), but then simply grinned even wider, probably thinking about the many ways he could remind her of that fact by injuring her during training.

She didn't care. She knew she could take a sparring session with him – although they were not on wholly even ground just yet, it was only a matter of time. The fact that one of her weapons was so similar to his own only infuriated him and made it all the more worth it for her, because she'd learn new tricks from watching him.

As they stood on opposite sides of the training ground, and Lambo watched on in despair, Belphegor drew his knives and activated his storm flame fast. He threw them at her speedily and then drew his second wave of knives. On her end, I-Pin countered the knives with storm-flame-infused shuriken, and then rolled out of the way to pull out her first pair of matching hudie shuangdao (1). She had more pairs hidden in her attire, but for the moment these were doing quite nicely, as they covered her from the ongoing assault of Belphegor's second knife attack. Once it stopped, she herself lunged.

And as she ran towards her opponent, revealing her martial art training as she skilfully avoided new attacks, she was grinning. She was having fun, and, after all, she had always been an assassin. The fact that she was now the Vongola Tenth's Storm Guardian did not change that – in fact, it made her want to train more and become an even better fighter.

(1) Translates to 'butterfly swords' if my research is correct. Any Chinese speakers feel free to correct me. If I'm not mistaken, they're a pair of short swords about the length of a forearm, making it handy for close-fighting and hiding it under clothes, which I-Pin likes to do. It was originally used in the South of China.

A/N. i made I-Pin the Storm Guardian as a nod to her master, Fon, for the most part. he is a martial artist and yet the Storm Arcobaleno, which is why i kept her close-range fighting ability but also, gave her ninja weapons such as shuriken for mid/long-range fighting. she's a martial artist-ninja girl or something. i had her more thought out originally, but her bubbly, confident personality pretty much took over halfway through.

some details of this verse have obviously been revealed through this first chapter, or vignette, or one-shot, but i don't think i've given away much, just a glimpse of the other guardians. why they're who they are and which elements they represent will be revealed as time passes, although some of you may be able to make a guess already.

title shamelessly stolen from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass. sorry Mr. Carroll, it just felt entirely too appropriate for this particular idea of mine.

also, a warning: i procrastinate, so i don't know how far this fic will go and how often i'll update. it is pretty much set at seven chapters, so hopefully that'll help, especially since they're all pretty much stand-alone except for the common thread…okay, nevermind.

finally, concrit is much appreciated, especially in terms of characterization and the general idea of the fic. as in, am i crazy or is this interesting?

EDIT (July 10th, 2011): Tweaked a few details to follow some changes in plot.

EDIT 2 (August 9th, 2011): Entire fic (ch.1-4) edit - tweaked a couple more details for plot changes and tried to fix the wording a bit.