The Varia gathered in their extravagant meeting room, eagerly anticipating their next assassination assignments. From one corner of the room, Mammon was waving a dangerous-looking glowy thing at an obviously amused Lussuria, asking loudly for more money. From another corner, a faint "Ushishishishishi~" made it obvious that Squalo and Bel were cackling over another nasty idea to tear victims apart. Xanxus stood in the center of the room looking pissed. Tsuna, Gokudera, and Yamamoto were crowded into another corner of the room, with Gokudera and Yamamoto glaring at each other and Tsuna trying his best to calm them down.

Xanxus cleared his throat, but the buzz of conversation continued.

Even more pissed off now, he bangs an oversized fist onto the table in front of him forcefully. Perhaps a little too forcefully, considering the fact that the desk now had an enormous crack running down the center of it. Taking a deep breath and passing his hand through his hair, Xanxus spoke out to the now-quiet room. "Listen up, everyone. I've got the targets and the assassins all listed up over here. This time, you'll be paired up."

The people around the room groaned. When they got paired up, it normally meant two things: one, the target was a little more deadly than usual, and two, this was another teamwork training exercise. For heavens sake, this was the MAFIA. Comradeship wasn't something you needed.

Tsuna was now obviously provoked. "I don't want to hear you whining! Teamwork is very, very important!"

-The author-ess takes this moment to point out that Tsuna sounds a lot like Mr. Hatake.-

The whole room's listeners pouted.

Tsuna's expression turned from enraged to frightened, and he quickly sat back down, once more trying to become hard-to-notice.

Xanxus turned his glare back on his listeners. "The 10th here has decided that you guys need a teamwork exercise, and you will have it. Please turn your attention to the right-hand wall."

A roomful of heads swiveled over to the indicated direction. The wall flashed once, then gradually increased its glow until it became a huge monitor. Xanxus brought up a picture or a fat man with a moustache. "This is Luigi. He's a butcher who pissed the 9th's cousin's best friend's wife's sister's aunt's butler's brother. He's good with knives, so I want you to be a little careful. Varia that you are, don't get too full of yourself. This dude knows what he's doing. Mammon and Lussuria will be taking him."

He tapped the monitor, and a bright-looking young boy with neon green hair and a really bad case of acne popped onto the screen. "This is Fred. He stole our cheese. He must be executed. It sounds ridiculous, but he stole the cheese for a reason. You'll have to figure out his fighting techniques before closing in for the kill. Information is power! For this, I've assigned myself to go finish him."

The listeners all sweatdropped. What was the point of telling them all this, then?

Xanxus cleared his throat loudly, and then tapped the screen again. A scowling blonde girl popped up on the screen. Bel gave a strangled gasp, and quickly silenced himself and put on a stone-cold mask. The Varia ignored him, thinking that he had probably accidentally choked on his tiara again. They had already told him that it wasn't a good idea to chew on it. "This is Dina. She was on the school grounds during the Storm Guardian fight—"

Bel stood up in protest. "But that was ages ago!"

"—and must be executed. She might know something."

Bel hated being ignored. It was the second best way to annoy him. The first was telling him not to chew on his tiara. "I'm telling you, this is a waste of time!! It's totally useless to kill her now! IF she had information, and IF she had wanted to distribute it, she'd already have given it out by now!"

Xanxus gave him a chilly smile. "Which is why we chose her, my beloved prince. She's perfect target practice for you and Squalo, don't you think?"

The Prince was a bit confused now. Who was she again? Think. Think. Think, Prince, think, aren't you supposed to be a genius?

Bel blanked out.

The Varia glanced at their genius. He was normally jumpy and happy, forever giggling and cackling. What the hell had gotten into him?

Squalo decided to break the silence. "VOOOOOOOOOIIIIIII!!!!!!!! WHY MUST I BE PAIRED UP WITH THIS IDIOT?!?!?!? HE NEARLY GOT KILLED BY THE EXPLOSIVE BRAT!"

Two-thirds of a second later, Bel's hands were around Squalo's neck, and they were rolling on the ground, Squalo choking out a cry for help, and Bel cackling away gleefully. "Ushishishishi~"

Xanxus gave them a contemptuous glance, and then dismissed the Varia with a flick of his hand. Bel and Squalo rolled out the door together, still tearing and clawing at each other.

xXLeMoNXx

Pretty little Dina comes walking down the street, whistling a happy tune. Happy day, happy day. She was starting to get used to Japanese life. Maybe it wasn't so bad after all. She'd always shunned everyone in her old school, right? So now was a great chance for a fresh start.

Feeling her stomach flip, she stopped and glared at it. Optimistic thoughts always gave her indigestion.

Chewing on some bubblegum, as usual, she blew out a huge bubble and popped it, then stopped to take a look at where she was. Oh, joy. One more turn, and she'd be home.

And guess who she bumps into at the corner?

Our beloved blonde boy.

He leaned on a lamppost, tossing his favorite "happy knife" around and scaring innocent little kids by snatching their lollipops~

He was also chewing on his tiara. Yum.

Dina grabbed his tiara. "Don't chew on that, it's dirty."

Bel raised an eyebrow, only nobody could see it. Cuz he's just that cool, hah.

"It is NOT dirty, my dear little princess. I always keep my diamonds polished."

"What diamonds? These are fake. Just like you are."

"Indignation! Those are NOT fake! I am not fake!!"

"Prove it."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just give my tiara back, or I'll skewer you. Here, look. You can have this lollipop. It's only been licked twice. Besides, who are you to say that my tiara is dirty? Who knows where that gum's been? Take the lollipop. It's better for you. Ushishi."

Dina smiled and graciously accepted his lollipop. She waited for him to reposition the tip of his tiara between his teeth, and then shoved the lolly up his face.

Okay, she tried to. It didn't quite work out, 'cause he evaded it, and she found herself lunging forward. Bel slipped, and they both went crashing onto the ground. Dina rolled around in pain, biting her tongue to keep herself from screaming out foul words. It was funny, because the only times she didn't swear were when she broke a bone. So you could always tell if she had fractured something.

Bel got up and carefully balanced the tiara onto his hair, and then picked Dina up and dusted her off unceremoniously. Her eyes were squeezed shut, and she was clutching her elbow and growling quite menacingly at blonde boy. Grinning at her, Bel poked her forehead. "What, you got somethin' to say? Shishishishi…"

Slowly and painfully, Dina un-squeezed one eye and said, "Ow."

"Ushishishi~ Ow, that's all? No 'Fuck you bastard,' or 'bitch you suck,' or anything not-nice-at-all like that?"

"Er, no. Indeedly not."

"Ushishishishishishi~"

Dina didn't have the energy to deal with him at the moment. Kicking Bel in the stomach to let him know that she wanted down, NOW, she did a quick feel around her elbow to check for which bone she had broken. There wasdefinitely something strange jutting out of her wrist…

"What the hell? What's your knife doing in my wrist?"

"Oh, my happy knife! You found it!"

"Er, okay. Why am I not bleeding?"

"Ehh…shishi….ehhh….it's, erm, fake. Shi."

Dina shook her head, picked up her backpack, and started on the last few steps toward home.

"No! Wait! You can't go yet!!"

She made a rude gesture in Bel's general direction. It didn't stop him from running after her and picking her up with one arm, heavy backpack and all. She waited until she rotated around enough to face him. Dangling off a weak-looking blonde boys arm is pretty pride-smacking. Making sure that he could feel the waves of murderous intent spilling off her, she gave him another one of her signature glares. "And why, pray tell, cannot I go?"

Bel gave a nervous chuckle. Even for Varia's number one assassin, she was a little spooky. He decided to be frank and stop playing games.

"Er…I still need to kill you? Ushi…shi….shi…?"

Before Dina could say anything, someone else had grabbed her. "VOI! What's taken you so long!? How come she's still alive??"

"I, er, wanted to play with her a bit."

"…"

"The prince was bored!" –puppy dog face-

"That doesn't work, and you know it, thanks to those bangs of yours. That face just doesn't work without the eyes. Nice try. Voi."

"Butbut…!"

"No. More. Fucking. Buts. Seriously…voiiiii….playing with your victims is something you are all too fond of. It wastes too much time. It would be so much easier to finish them off like this—"

Squalo whipped out his sword and was about to bury it in Dina's back when Bel pounced. It only took another two-thirds of a second to have Bel on top of Squalo, pointing almost his entire arsenal of knives at him. He looked like some sorta metal porcupine.

Squalo blinked. "…Voi?"

"I, uh, dunno why I did that. Sorry."

"WHAT THE FUCK, YOU BASTARD?"

"Sorry! Sorry! Ushi…shishi…"

"Don't give me that idiotic laugh of yours!!!! The boss will NOT be pleased. He'll flip the same way he does when we cook his meat all wrong. And nobody wants that."

"Aw, come on, bro! You can't snitch on me like that! Reflexes man, you can't control them! Shishi. Shi."

"Voi…alright. But you have to let me have her for target practice. And teach me how to throw knives."

"Okay. But only after I'm done practicing with her."

When they got up and smoothed themselves down, Dina was gone.