Chapter 1: I am the Queen of Mirrors

"Juliette Delia Mavelik" POV

The mirror was a gorgeous antique, and I had nabbed it at a garage sale. I could tell the craftsmanship was top rate. The reflective surface perfectly smooth—almost soft, actually—and the dark wood frame was sturdy and tight. It was perfect.

I stood in front of it, staring at my reflection. My hair was an orangey shade of auburn, with the occasional blond or brown strand mixed in. My eyes were yellow, with hues of red and blue that melted together into a sort of rainbow. My torso was covered in a snugly fitting white dress shirt, with a hastily thrown on yellow sweater. My eyes dropped to my lower half.

Oh, yeah. I forgot to put on pants, didn't I?

I turned to my right, opened my closet door, grabbed a random pair of jeans, pulled them on, and returned to looking at my reflection.

My eyes had no pupils. Instead, they had a black circle that branched out. Put that together with my untamable, perpetually messy, long, shaggy red-brown-amber-blond-auburn-sienna-orange-sunset hair, I was probably your poster child for weird.

To fix that, I gently shoved a pair of purple-blue contacts in my eyes, before stuffing my unruly mess of hair into a floor-length platinum blond wig. Not much of a difference when it comes to weirdness, but it would give me the disguise I needed.

As usual, my skin, in all its unnaturally-pale glory, was completely unblemished. Fourteen years and not a single pimple. Yay. That should be a good thing, but I was always afraid they would all crop up when I was like, 35 or something, and no one else had any.

Not breaking eye contact with my mirror, I reached over to my left and picked up two fingerless white gloves of my bed, tugging them onto my waiting hands.

I flexed my fingers, warming them up. Then I pulled back my right fist and slammed it into the mirror as hard as I could. Cracks spread across the polished glass before it finally shattered into a million pieces, all of them scattering across my bedroom floor. Not one touched me.

I looked down at my gloved hand. Not a single scratch.

Still facing the now-empty mirror frame, I held my hands out in front of me, concentrating hard. Like magic, all the mirror shards on the ground flew back into the frame, fitting together like puzzle pieces.

I let a slow, creeping smile spread over my face. I had successfully harnessed one of the giants of nature: gravity.

On instinct, I glanced over at my clock. 7:55, it seemed to say. Time to move that fat butt of yours and get to your new school.

I was out the door in less than a minute, pausing only to chug a glass of orange juice and tug on a comfortable pair of knee-high boots.

By the time I got to the gates of my new school, it was already 8:01. Thank goodness I lived close to the building. Being a minute late shouldn't be much of a problem, right? Especially for someone new?

I breathed a sigh of relief, confidently strolling through the gates. They would go easy on a new student.

Out of the blue, a stray bar of metal slammed into the gate behind me, rattling the metal. It would have hit my temple if I hadn't lurched backward at the last second.

I made a disgruntled sound in the back of my throat. What the heck? I bent over to inspect the piece of metal. It was clearly shaped for a purpose, and I recognized it as some sort of weapon. I couldn't quite put my finger on the name, though… I just knew one of my targets used a weapon like it, which was the only reason I bothered to look it up anyway.

Toofa? No… Ponfa? No… Taufa? No… Tonfu? No…

Reaching out the pick it up, my fingers were just about the brush the cool metal when a deep voice, laced with menace, growled from behind me: "Don't. Touch."

"TOUFU?!" I blurted out, jumping back.

"…Tofu?" said the voice. I turned around to look at the owner of the voice.

Hey, he looks familiar, said the voice in the back of my head. Take a closer look.

Short-ish black hair: check. Pointy gray eyes: check. Black coat: check. Red armband: check. Yellow bird: check. Hateful, smirking expression: check.

…Oh, look.

I found Target #7 on my list of people to exterminate. Kyoya Hibari, aged 16 years. 10th Vongola Cloud Guardian. Namimori Middle Disciplinary Committee Leader. Catchphrase is "I'll bite you to death."

Wait, why the heck did I even memorize his catchphrase?

Better play it safe. "Oh, hello!" I chirped, my sunniest smile in place. "Are you a student here, too? Could you show me around? I'm sorry I'm late. See, I'm new! Would you mind telling the teacher that? I mean, really, your school's pretty big! I'm new! How do you—"

Another metal bar sailed past my head, missing only because I decided to cutely cock my head to the side. "Shut up, annoying herbivore," he snarled, "before I bite you to death."

"I'm new!" I chirped.

"And your hair breaks school regulations," he hissed under his breath. Then his lips curled into a smirk, and he pulled yet another metal bar out of his coat-thing.

"I'm new!" I repeated dumbly. "Gotta goooooo!" I turned away, breaking into a sprint.

I could've sworn I heard him mutter, "A spry young'un from a Peace Corps protected nation," right before I sped off toward what I hoped was the main door.

I stopped just short of the door, reaching into my bag and taking out a silicon mask. The final part of my disguise, and my least favorite. The mask stuck to my face and felt slimy and cold all the time.

Sighing, I brushed back the bangs from my wig and gently stuck the silicon to my face, closing my eyes.

EEEWWWW, an internal voice screeched. NASTY.

Oh, shut up. It could be worse, another voice scolded the first one. Then it began to address me. You should just kill it. No one will miss it, anyway. Burn it to death! You know you want to!

I need it, though, I told them. Now be quiet.

But it's cold and slimy and weird and gross and slimy—

I opened my eyes again, effectively cutting them off.

"Alright," I said to no one in particular. "Time to actually go inside." With that, I strolled through the doors, exuding an aura of confidence and false bubbly cheeriness.

"Hello!" I chirped in greeting to the secretary in the lobby. "I'm new! What should I do? Red storm bats its way through sound!"

"Oh! Hello, I've been expecting you," she said, shuffling some papers around her desk. "Here's your schedule, locker number, and the rest of the papers you'll need." She handed me a couple sheets of paper. "Oh, and… sunny kangaroos will punch you."

"Thanks!" I beamed, before turning away to examine the papers.

One was my schedule, a second was my locker number and combination, a third was full of information on their uniform options, a fourth was a map of the school, and the last was a message from the Vongola Nono to the Vongola Decimo, my Target #1. It even had a tiny, barely noticeable Dying Will Flame burning on the header margin.

Okay, so I was right. The secretary was actually a member of the Vongola. Thank goodness boss found the right code words, or I would've been hunted down and killed for trying to interfere with Vongola business.

I headed to the girls' restroom. It was the middle of homeroom, so no one else was there. I pushed up a section of the ceiling—precut from the preparation mission a couple weeks ago—and flipped myself into the space.

Ugh, dusty. They really need to clean this place up.

Silently, I crawled through the ceiling, careful not to alert anyone below me. At long last, after going through a vent or two, I was on top of the Vongola Decimo's classroom. Even through the ceiling, I could still hear hysterical shouts and threats being made below me.

Nevertheless, I scooped out a wee little precut section of a ceiling corner so I could hear more. Peeking through, I could see the back of a head covered with spiky brown hair.

There's Target #1.

Spiky brown hair: check. Girlish voice: check. Thin, lean body structure: check. Annoying silver-haired weirdo screaming near him: check. Equally annoying black-haired boy laughing: check.

Target #1: Tsunayoshi "Tsuna" Sawada, aged 14 years. Vongola Decimo. Flames of the Sky. Also known as Dame-Tsuna, for his talent at failing.

Target #2: Hayato "Smokin' Bomb" Gokudera, aged 14 years. 10th Vongola Storm Guardian. Vongola Decimo's Right-hand Man.

Target #3: Takeshi Yamamoto, aged 14 years. 10th Vongola Rain Guardian. Vongola Decimo's… Left-hand… man… What kind of title is that?!

I closed my eyes. Immediately, the voices popped up.

You should just kill him, one said. Burn him. He won't even see it coming.

Wait! He's already suspicious, the other pointed out. Curse his Hyper Intuition!

I opened my eyes and put them to the hole. Sure enough, Tsunayoshi was nervously glancing around, before seemingly deciding it to be nothing and returning to bantering with his friends.

I sighed. This was going to be a long mission.

You can call me Juliette Delia Mavelik. It's not my real name, though. But then again, my hair is fake and my eyes are fake and so is my face, so one more lie couldn't hurt. My mission is to infiltrate the Vongola and weaken it. My goal is to—well, that's personal, isn't it?