Niko: Chapter two~
So this is when the main problem comes in, and when the logo of this story starts making sense.
V for Varia, M for...
I DO NOT OWN KATEKYO HITMAN REBORN!
Enter Merlo
When the Vongola Decimo called for the other team to come in the conference room, I wasn't sure what to expect. In our line of work, expectations for things like these would only weaken us. We can't always have a certain expectation on our target, or in this case, our challengers. We've seen a bunch of people in our line of work that an expectation seemed pointless. We don't expect. We kill.
However, if I were to expect something of our challengers, I guess I would have been surprised when they walked in.
They were a seven man team, for starters. By numbers, they already had an advantage, but it wasn't like Varia hadn't been outnumbered before. One extra man wasn't going to change anything.
Each of them were cloaked and masked, which was peculiar. Each mask was a plain white with painted black expressions. Each member had a different expression on their mask: frustration, bliss, sorrow, smug, the list goes on. Their cloaks covered their bodies and possibly hid their weapons.
Then one member, who I assume was the leader of this group, took his mask off, and soon the rest followed.
All but one.
"Varia, a pleasure it is to finally meet your acquaintance. My name is Marcello Vasco and I am the leader of Merlo," the leader spoke, with his mask clenched in his left hand. His skin was olive coloured and his hair was a tad bit darker than his skin. "You'll have to excuse our masks and cloaks. I'm sure the Vongola Decimo must have mentioned our nomadic tendencies."
Merlo...
Nomadic or not, why hide yourselves if you are simply moving from place to place. There was something that they were hiding beside their faces.
"Then what of that short member?" Levi called out. It was... different, hearing him speak out. Like I mentioned before, I'm usually the speaker.
Of course, Levi was mentioning the shortest member of the group before us. He was also heavily cloaked and kept his mask on his face. He stood close beside the leader, and shifted slightly when attention had finally been cast towards him.
"Pay no attention to Nuvola," the leader smiled. "He is young and self-conscious." It wasn't until then I noticed the kid, Nuvola as they called him, was holding hands with the leader. What was this kid doing in the mafia?
"What reason does Merlo have for challenging Varia?" I asked carefully. At first I thought that this little challenge would be fun, but this group was getting on my nerves. Something was not right about them.
"Hmm... it would be easier if I were to start from the beginning," Marcello spoke. "Merlo used to be under a different name when we were under a faraway famiglia. We were renowned for our prowess and our ability. Similar to Varia. Until one day we went renegade. We fought off our famiglia long enough to escape its clutches. Our aim for challenging Varia however, is to take your place."
We stood still. We wouldn't still be alive if we gave in to every surprise the enemy had thrown at us.
"And why do you wish for our position? You had left your own famiglia to go to another one? Seems pointless," I spoke again.
"We cannot exactly return to our old famiglia, and through our travels we had overheard that Varia and the current Vongola Decimo do not stand quite well together. Why should the Vongola have to worry about a petty assassination squad that doesn't even support him?"
Did he just call us "petty?"
"And just what makes you think we'll let your leave here alive?" My poker face had cracked into a smirk.
"Because... we already have the Vongola Decimo and his Guardians in agreement," Marcello then walked over to the brat. "Isn't that right, Vongola?"
"Yes, he is correct," Sawada's spoke. "The tournament will be held in the Vongola base. Varia and Merlo will fight for the position of Vongola's elite assassination squad. Whoever loses, must disband and will be exiled from the Vongola famiglia."
This was when some of us lost their cool, while the rest of us saw what was happening. Mammon and I, and probably Xanxus, could see that that was not Sawada speaking. He was being controlled.
"Hypnotism..." Mammon grumbled with his usual tone of annoyance. He knew what we were all thinking, could he fight it off? He shook his head. "This is no illusion.
To be more precise, it is not even something within the capabilities of the Dying Will Flames. It is a spell, of which the likes I've never encountered before."
That... wasn't good. Besides being an illusionist, Mammon was Varia's best, and sort of our only, spell caster. Many of times his illusions were superb, but his spells were what made him truly worthy of his officer position in Varia. Spell casting is an ability not many have, since not many survive its practices. Mammon, although not in physical years, is the oldest of all of us. If there is even something he has no encountered before, that is an instant bad sign for the rest of us.
"It is nothing that you should take to concern," one of the members said rather sweetly, as if recognizing our anxiety. "Worry not your pretty little heads, we would never use the hypnotism to ensure our victory."
"We just want a cleanly fought tournament," Marcello jumped in. "A simple tournament between Merlo and Varia. Winner will be Vongola's elite assassination squad, Loser disbands and leaves."
Fuck "cleanly!" Fuck "simple!" I'll splatter their blood all over the drywall!
"What's in it for us?" Mammon asked. "You win and you get the position you want. We win and what?"
Another member laughed. "You don't get it do you? It doesn't matter what your going to get if you win. If you don't fight us that is an automatic surrender, and that's our win. But really, you can't expect to win in your position. There's no luck in your hand of cards, you were fucked the moment we decided to challenge you."
"Loveless," Marcello said sternly to the member, Loveless apparently. Then he turned to us and gave us a smile. A fucking smile. You'd think that if he wanted to play innocent, he would have done that from the get go, but no. Now, after he's proven themselves as a threat to not only us but Vongola as well, he's smiling as if to appease us. Either he thinks we're about to rip him into piece, which we might, or he's just playing us even more.
"I realize now that we've been quite rude for skipping our introductions," Marcello spoke while keeping that damn smile on his face. "We already know about Varia. Mammon, illusionist and spell caster chosen as an Acrobaleno. Belphegor otherwise known as "Prince the Ripper" and a genius of battle. Leviathan, ever loyal to your leader and merciless to whomever your target is. Lussuria, trained in the battle style of Muay Thai and youngest body building champion. Squalo, the second-in-comand of Varia, Second Sword Emperor, child prodigy of the blade, but ever haunted by the ghosts of his pasts. And Xanxus, current leader of Varia, who lost his position as Vongola Decimo to a child. We could go on, we know everything about you, Varia."
Everything else made sense. Of course they could have known that much, but when they came to me, how did they know? How was it possible for them to know? Anything else could have been researched from a book or by common gossip, but that! No one but me knew about that (1)!
"Allow me," Marcello interrupted my thoughts. He gestured to the member with the sweet voice (2).
"This is Hou Po, exiled member of the Chinese mafia, our very own illusionist and spell caster." Hou Po bowed curtly as Marcello introduced him. He was the tallest and his skin was lightly tanned. His hair was long enough to tie a short braid that hung on right side of his rather large cranium. The hairs were naturally a dark black, but were bleached to a brown, and dyed to a white at the very tip of the braid. His eyes were a rather bright indigo colour, that seemed innocent, yet filled with mischief.
"His highness Aero, firstborn son to the throne, wanted for the mass murder of the royal family." Aero twirled his mask in his hands, obviously bored with being here. He was the second tallest, with milky skin and waves of golden hair tied into a small tail. His eyes were red, burning with passion, or was it flooded with blood? His nose protruded from his face like a bird's beak.
"Next is Lluks Loveless, known also as Luckless, long known for his gambling habits and has cheated death several times." Lluks had been smirking at us ever since he had taken off his mask, maybe for even longer. His face was tanned from the sun, and his dark brown hair was braided into a long braid behind him, which rested between his shoulder blades. His eyes were lighted with an energetic green that seemed to be covered with lies.
"This is Root Valerian, a young man who never sleeps but waits for his target to come to him." Root scoffed and and continued to eye us with pools of sunshine. He was one of the shorter, next to Nuvola. His skin was tanned lightly, with dirty blonde hair. His arms were crossed and his feet were placed in a balanced and stable position. Out of all of them, he looked like he truly did not want to be here.
"After that is Vellalar, who is yet to be fluent in English, but is still a sturdy warrior." He did look sturdy. Vellalar seemed fairly well built, from what I could see, and was only a little taller than Root. His skin was dark and so was his hair. His eyes were a bright blue that looked like waves crashing against each other in the sea. On his forehead was a scar, not a noticeable one, but one that would appear whenever his eyebrows raised.
"And finally is our beloved Nuvola, whom we call Loreto, our very own second-in-command, and a child prodigy in every aspect." Nuvola, or rather Loreto stood before us, the only one still with a mask on. From what I could see, he was the shortest of the members, and likely the youngest. He wore a top hat and... there was something on it. It was difficult to see from the distance between us, but there was something small and bright yellow on his hat.
"So now that introductions are aside, what do you say, Varia?" Marcello gave out his hand in our general direction, his smile had disappeared. "Will you save us the effort of a pointless battle, or will you fight for your failure?"
It happened so quickly, I nearly missed it, because I didn't expect it. All of sudden came a whipping sound, a cocked gun, and then the ferocious growl of a bullet being freed from it's holster. It ended with when the bullet met cold hard metal and then the fine mahogany of a nearby table.
Xanxus had shot at him. It wasn't rare for him to do so, but this time was different. My left arm seemed to tense up when he shot. Our boss was reckless and stupid at times, not that I would say that to his face, but right now he was not acting out of stupidity. It was like the Cradle Affair, it was like the Vongola Ring Battle; he was a lion fighting for his rightful throne.
Before us, Marcello had defended himself from the shot, which had ricocheted off the surface of his axe. On that note, the rest of Merlo had taken out their weapons, and that was when I wondered if that was Xanxus's intention. My eyes darted taking in all that it could. Axe. Fan. Bow and Arrows. Pistols and throwing knives. Sickle. Spear and Mace. Rapier.
"So that's how it is..." Marcello's smile reappeared. "We will meet here tomorrow for the tournament. For now, we will take our leave." One by one they started to leave.
All but one.
Nuvola, or Loreto rather, stayed in his spot and stared at us for a long while. Then he simply bowed and followed after his team.
While they all left we had a chance to kill them all with their backs turned to us. We had the chance, but we did not take it. None of us took it.
Today... was definitely not any other day.
Niko: So Varia's being challenged! Just how will this play out, I wonder...
Notes:
1. I can't help it, reading over this line I keep thinking that Merlo went on Reborn! wikia and read Requiem of Rain. They did their RESEARCH! (but no, there's another reason for this, but this makes for a funny headcanon)
2. Not sure if anyone would be interested in knowing, but all the members of Merlo (aside from Marcello and Loreto) are recycled characters of mine. They used to be a part of this adventure story of mine, inspired by Dragon Quest IX (by the way, it's a good game). Each of them has a pun in their name (some are more obvious and others are not, but I'll go into further detail another time)
So next chapter shall be the start of the tournament. How the tournament will be setup, will be announced also in the next chapter.
Upon writing this chapter, I faced a little... problem. Not a big problem, but still a problem. Hopefully, after I get the next chapter written, the problem will be fixed.
Thanks for reading and feel free to leave a review!
