Disclaimer: Anything you recognise, I don't own.
013 - A new city
They make their way to Venice next, but only stay a few days to enjoy the sights and marvel over the architecture. One, because Venice is firmly Carcassa Famiglia territory, and Carcassa is considered shady even for a Mafia Famiglia; they don't even have access to Mafia Land. They're also not part of the grand Vongola Alliance, and if Harry and Hayato want to make their names in this world, the Alliance will have the most opportunities.
Two, Venice is too beautiful and rich in history for Hayato to ever consider doing a job here that involves blowing parts of the city up.
So the two take a week's vacation and then make their way to Naples, home of the CEDEF, the Outside Advisor branch of the Vongola Famiglia, the most powerful Family in the entire world, and one of the Families Hayato and Harry have their eyes on. However, the Vongola Headquarters itself are located on Sicily, and that's not somewhere they want to go just that - Sicily is a hotpot of about a dozen Families in a constant power struggle for Vongola's favour. That kind of politics is not something kids like them can handle. Besides, there'll be more jobs in a large city like Naples. And CEDEF handles Vongola's intelligence - if Hayato and Harry become noteworthy enough, Vongola will hear about them through CEDEF.
Other possible destinations had been Milan, where the Tomaso had their base, Ravenna, city of the Chiavarone, and Florence. They'd been scrapped in favour of Naples, though. Milan, because the Tomaso had been going into weapons production and that just wasn't what suited Harry and Hayato; Ravenna because Chiavarone had lost much power and influence and were something of a laughing stock now; and Florence because it housed the homebase of the Varia, the Vongola's independent assassination squad. Grandted, they didn't only do assassinations, so they might have opportunities for Harry and Hayato. But going near Varia territory and working there was just too risky. Varia members were known to be trigger/knife/sword happy. And recruitment reputedly consisted of, 'join us or else'.
So Naples it was.
Their first impression of the city: It is big and chaotic.
"Okay," Harry mutters. "Find somewhere to stay?"
"Bene," Hayato agrees.
Harry had unearthed some information while they were in Venice, namely that Naples had apartment blocks that were mafia owned, which would allow them to rent a decent place to stay without having their age questioned. Civilians lived in them, too, of course, because an apartment building housing only hitmen and thieves and other lowlives was just a stupid business idea. Regardless, Harry had some adresses, and Hayato had few requirements.
They planned to stay in Naples for a while, after all. Crashing in abandoned shitholes would just give them a pathetic reputation.
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014 - Special
Their apartment is a... Well, the kindest way to describe it would be as humble. It's small, tucked away in a dark alley in a not-so-reputable part of the city.
But it's got a bed large enough for two kids, the stove sort of works, and it's got some space where Hayato can make his explosives until they've got enough money for him to get the good stuff from a real supplier instead of his homemade explosives. They aren't bad, just... nothing beats real dynamite.
All in all, the apartment isn't so bad. Harry seems to like it. But then, Harry is the most undemanding person Hayato knows. She once told him, I only need the clothes on my back and you to consider myself rich, Hayato. And Hayato immediately decided that someone who wanted for so little deserved everything.
One day. He'd give her the life she deserved. They'd be at the top of the world and want for nothing.
"So," Harry says, giving him a smirk. "You go scouting, I go eavesdropping?"
"No stealing today, la gazza." Hayato smirks back.
She laughs. "No promises!"
She's probably going to steal him a present. It's happened before. They're small things, most of them not even valuable - like a bone-shaped candle, or a funny postcard. But Hayato treasures them anyway, because her gifts come from the heart and he'd rather get a pink plastic skull ring from Harry than a million euro set of suits from anybody else.
"I'll see you later," he says softly.
"Yeah." Harry smiles at him. "Bye, 'yato!"
She jumps out of the window onto a nearby rooftop with a laugh and is gone, leaving Hayato shaking his head at her fondly. UMA or not, Harry was a special girl.
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015 - Alessandro Abandonato
Harry and Hayato have to start from scratch. First order is to familiarise themselves with the city. Naples is much different from Bologna. The city is chaotic and lively, and several larger Famiglias were represented here, even if they had their home bases elsewhere.
Once they have a good grasp of the city's layout, they scout out the local underworld. Like anywhere else, the underworld in Naples operated on a sort of class system. At the bottom are people who aren't actually aware of the Mafia, but did work for it anyway - the desperate homeless hoping to make a living on the other side of the law, the ruthless cutthroats with their eyes on power. A step up from that were people that were aware, but not fully entrenched in the underworld - information brokers are an example for that. The class above that would be freelancers, hitmen and the like, people who do work for the mafia but aren't part of any Famiglia. There are layers within that class itself, some of them are just lowlives while others are respected by even the large Families. Another class would be the grunts - members of Families who follow orders but don't have any real sway or power. They make up the majority of the underworld.
And then there are the people who call the shots. Higher placed within the Mafia; captains, Generals, Guardians, the ones who keep the Mafia running. That's the class Hayato is aiming for.
And the most powerful class, the bosses. Where the real power lays. The people who steer the direction life in the underworld takes.
Of course, there are differences in power there. For example, the Quattrini Don in Bologna would be much lower placed in the hierarchy than any Vongola Guardian or General and even some captains, that's just how powerful the Vongola are. It's one of the reasons Hayato and Harry have their eyes on the Vongola, the name alone comes with protection and respect.
At the moment though, they are both somewhere between freelance work and homeless. Not quite at the bottom, but close to it. They did manage in Bologna, but they didn't have much competition there either. Here, though, the underworld thrives. And what reasonable person would hire two supposedly green kids when there were hardened and ruthless mercenaries with years of experience to choose from?
A desperate one, that's who. Alessandro Abandonato is a captain of the once prestigious Chiavarone Famiglia, a Famiglia that had lost most of its power and money and were just barely holding on to their chapter in Naples. Alessandro operates on a tight budget that just isn't enough for what he needed done right now. Which is to keep the Filipi Famiglia from buying up a certain business that would give said Family a monopoly in Naples and drive out the Chiavarone entirely. The nature of the needed sabotage was delicate, the job would be dangerous and risky; and anybody who could have done it would demand far too much payment than Alessandro could afford.
(The entire Filipi situation is Alessandro's fault in the first place because he had a little gambling problem. And there had been a few unsanctioned actions he'd taken that had financially sort of backfired on him and the Family by extension, not that anyone knew that.)
Alessandro thought he'd caught a lucky break when a Filipi warehouse burned down. He did raise a sceptical eyebrow when a Filipi owned store was robbed. When the police busted a drug laboratory that, while on paper owned by a freelancer, was almost certainly under Filipi operations... well. Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action; and Alessandro wants to know.
And then that girl shows up on the windowsill of his office which is located on the fourth floor of the Chiavarone mansion in Naples. "First one's free," she says brightly. "But we're open to negotiotiations on prices, Signor Abandonato!"
"Wha-wha-wha?!" is all Alessandro gets out.
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016 - A good life
As it turns out, the Chiavarone have many jobs they need done. The payment isn't that great, but for Harry and Hayato it's more than enough, considering they're newcomers in Naples and only pre-teens to boot. Besides, it does give them lots of experience, and eventually, they would get jobs from other Families, too. The jobs are at least more challenging than they had been in Bologna.
It's a good deal, and Harry and Hayato do good work. At least in Naples, the Chiavarone Famiglia's standing is now secure, thanks to them. Alessandro even offers them a place in the Family, but after talking it over, they turn him down. They want to make their names first before accepting an offer from the first Family that came along. They do, however, accept a deal to prioritise jobs the Chiavarone offer over others in exchange for a loose affiliation with the Chiavarone that grants them some protection.
If they play their cards right, they might even get a ticket into Mafia Land one day, where the really big jobs were. The ones that would get their names out there.
Harry and Hayato do have a way to go before they are ready for that, though.
Months pass. Harry realises with a start that she and Hayato have known each other for a year now, which means she had to be nine now, and Hayato ten. She'd long forgotten when her birthday was, the Dursleys had never celebrated it of course, because of the UMA conspiracy. And she doesn't know Hayato's birthday... so she just randomly choses a day and sneaks them both into a planetarium as a present. Hayato in turn gets them tickets to an amusement park the next day, since it was 'her birthday too'.
It's a good life.
Until Hayato gets kidnapped.
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017 - The kidnapping incident (I)
It starts out as a normal day. Or night. Hayato and Harry mostly operate on a nocturnal schedule these days. Hayato by necessity, because blowing shit up in broad daylight is just asking for trouble, and Harry because of Hayato. Her thievery she actually likes to pull off during the daytime - for some reason, people never expect a break-in to happen in mid-afternoon.
Then again, that makes stealing stuff at night more challenging and fun, so she isn't complaining.
Anyway, they have a quick dinner/breakfast/whatever at 6 pm. Then Hayato leaves to stock up on dynamite at a Chiavarone supplier, which he now gets for a low price because of their loose affiliation with the Family. Harry meanwhile has papers to steal from a bank. Just because her and Hayato are partners, doesn't mean they do every single thing together.
When she drops the papers off in Alessandro's office, she notices that the atmosphere is weird. Outwardly, nothing is different, it's just the feel of the place is more... charged? And Alessandro seems shifty for some reason when he tells her that there won't be any job to do for the rest of the week, so why not take a little vacation and buy herself something nice?
Like Harry is an idiot.
She leaves his office, and five minutes later reenters the Chiavarone Mansion through a balcony door.
The mansion is vast and rich. Harry has explored it before, because breaking into a real Mafia mansion? Hell yes. So she knows the corridors and where to go so she won't get caught.
The source of the weird atmosphere is kind of easy to find. She just has to follow the noise.
There's a group of people just talking in the middle of the stairwell without a care in the world, and heck if it isn't the single most weird assortment of people Harry has ever seen. There's a blond teenager laid out face first on the stairs, apparently just having fallen over. Then there's the obvious cause of his fall, namely a baby with a fedora sitting on his head and a glowing ball with eyes tucked under his arm. Another teenager, this one with black hair and a lazy expression, stands next to a really pretty girl with pink hair.
Hayato is on the ground at her feet, foam coming out of his mouth.
Harry frowns. This doesn't look good. She wants to storm in and get Hayato and get out, but something stops her. It's the baby, she thinks. There's something wrong with that baby. It's terrifiying.
The girl is clutching the black-haired boy's arm to her flat chest. "Ohhh, thank you Romeo!" she coos.
"Why?" the boy on the ground shrieks. "He didn't do anything! And why's the kid foaming at the mouth?!" The baby kicks him.
"Shut it, Pipsqueak Dino," it says.
"He must have passed out from happiness seeing his lovely sister," the one named Romeo drawls slowly. "Right, Bianchi?"
The girl stares at him with stars in her eyes.
What the hell, Harry thinks. Sister?!
"He doesn't look very happy!" the one called Dino yells, flailing on the ground. The baby hops off his head, and Dino's flailing momentum makes him tumble down the rest of the stairs.
"Ohh, Hayato!" the pretty girl coos, kneeling beside Hayato. Harry wants to strangle her. "Your big sister was soooo worried!" She hugs his foaming head to herself. "I came all this way to find you and bring you home!"
Home? Bring him home? Hayato has never talked about his home. He's never talked about a sister, either. Only sometimes he'd make his frowny face and get all grumpy, and Harry would cheer him up, and he'd tell her he was thinking of before he met her.
Anyway, home isn't with that Bianchi girl. Home is with Harry in their little appartement, with UMA experiments and making plans together and giving stupid little presents for no good reason, and sneaking into libraries together and eating Harry's cooking because Hayato always burns what he makes, though Harry eats it anyway because he made it for her.
Bianchi can't take Harry's Hayato away. Harry won't let her. If that girl tries to steal Hayato she has another think coming.
"He collapsed the moment he saw you!" Dino protests, finally getting to his feet.
"From happiness!" Bianchi says earnestly. Her eyes are as green as Hayato's, Harry notices angrily.
"That's not a normal sign of happiness!" The baby kicks Dino. He falls over. "Argh!"
"Pipsqueak Dino," the baby says. "Mafia Bosses always respect ladies."
"Reborn, I'm so grateful!" Bianchi gushes, still stroking Hayato's silver hair. Harry's finger dig into the wall besider her so hard, it starts to... smoke? There are orange sparks coming from her hands, and the wall is smoking around her fingers. Great, more UMA abilities she and Hayato can explore once she has him back. She'll always protect him.
"Of course, Bianchi," the terrifying baby named Reborn says, smirking. "Pipsqueak Dino was happy to help you find your brother."
"No I wasn't!" Dino shouts, only to get kicked again.
Harry finally manages to pry her hand off the destroyed wall. The sparks on her fingers - orange, but in varying tones of orange, Harry could swear some have a dark blue hue - extinguish; and Harry slips out of the mansion.
She's a thief and if they take the one precious thing she has in her life, then she'll just steal it back.
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