CHAPTER 4: BURIED HATRED
"F-F-FIANCEE?" Tsuna shrieked. " SHE WAS XANXUS' FIANCEE?"
"SHHHHHHH!" Dino shushed Tsuna. "Keep it down!"
"But isn't she a little too young to get engaged?" Gokudera asked curiously, clearly a little disturbed by this.
"Ever heard of arranged marriages?"
"Iiya-chan?" Timoteo smiled. "Thank you for coming to see me at such short notice."
"No problem, Ninth!" Iiya laughed. "I haven't seen you in ages! I've been wanting to drop by to visit you, but I guess setting up this new organisation and continuing to fulfil my missions within the Varia has been eating up my time. So… Why did you call me here? Do you need my help?"
The happiness in Timoteo's eyes suddenly changed to that of sadness and worry. He wondered if he should be doing such a thing and asking her for such a huge favour. Yet, with the results of the Representative Battle and his failing health, he was truly worried for the future of his adopted son. As ruthless as he had been, he was still his son, though not by blood. If his health were to fail him one day, who would look after him? He certainly could not rely on any of the officers of Varia for such a task. Struggling with the right words to say, Timoteo finally spoke up.
"Well, you know my son Xanxus…"
"Yeah, him." Iiya nodded, with a sense of uneasiness in her voice.
"I'll just be straightforward with you, Iiya-chan. I know that this will be very unfair to you and I'd hate to do this to you… But I haven't been in the best of health, as you know. And I worry about Xanxus… If I'm gone, who would care for him?"
"Ninth, don't say that! You'll be just fine!"
"It's going to be unfair towards you… But I can't trust anyone but you to take care of him… Anyone else in Varia would just feed his ruthlessness and his hastiness… I can only trust you to help me keep him under control…"
"So Ninth…" Iiya spoke slowly. "What do you want me to do..?"
"I… I'd like you to marry my son."
"And she said yes? Even though she's ten years younger than him?" Gokudera raised an eyebrow suspiciously.
"Iiya feels indebted to the Ninth," Reborn explained. "Iiya's parents were both assassins working for the Varia. They died on a mission when she was five, and the Ninth told the Vongola to take her in and look after her."
"The boss of Varia at that time saw her light her dying will flames when she was playing in the garden near the mansion, and spoke to the Ninth about training her to join the Varia. That's why the Ninth sent her to the Mafia school, where Squalo and I studied…" Dino said.
"And that's why she never met Xanxus in person." Gokudera figured it out quickly, finishing Dino's sentence.
"The old man brought me a child?" Xanxus muttered to himself.
"Shi shi shi," Belphegor laughed. "She's also a Varia member too. Apparently, she's strong enough to be an officer and her flames have the same attributes as yours."
"Leave her here."
"Sure, boss." Belphegor grinned, before slipping out of the room.
The atmosphere in the room felt both tense and awkward, as Xanxus stared at Iiya, looking at her closely from his seat.
"So the old man said that I'll marry you once you turn eighteen?" He finally spoke, sipping his wine while keeping his eyes on her.
"If the 'old man' you're referring to is the Ninth," Iiya replied curtly, showing her obvious distaste towards his lack of respect towards the Ninth. "Then yeah, apparently that's what's happening."
Xanxus had a murderous glint in his eyes, as he placed his wine glass on the table and walked towards Iiya, who was standing right in front of his table. He lifted her chin and turned her face right and left, peering at her features. Iiya looked him in the eye, wondering what he was so curious about.
"Not bad for a fourteen year old."
"I can't believe she could put up with him for two years…" Tsuna shuddered, thinking about how she had to put up with such a violent guy on a daily basis.
"None of us could believe it either," Reborn sighed. "Anyone her age would have been unable to take it. But she was both mentally and physically strong enough to withstand him, until last year…"
The door to Xanxus office fell open, completely separated from its hinges, with his subordinates lying outside, completely unconscious. It was not an unusual sight to see in the Varia headquarters, as Xanxus losing his temper was something that happened on a regular basis. He slumped back down in his chair, downing whatever liquor there was in his wine glass and grumbling about his "trash" subordinates. Stepping over the pile of unconscious Varia members on the floor, Iiya huffed, already sickened by what she had to deal with every day.
"Really, Xanxus?" Iiya shouted. "You just HAD to throw your subordinates through the door, just because they ran out of the wine you wanted to drink today?"
Xanxus glared at her, not admiring the fact that she had been telling him off whenever he did things like that.
"You're an idiot, really." Iiya rolled her eyes at him, exasperated and wondering why she had to put up with him.
Upon hearing that, he rushed over to her and grabbed her wrist, slamming her against the wall so hard that all the paintings hung there crashed onto the ground. He took out his gun and jammed it under her chin, furious that Iiya showed no signs of flinching, despite her young age.
"Shut up, trash." Xanxus growled.
"Get off me." Iiya retorted.
Not caring that his door was knocked over and fully open, Xanxus forced his teeth onto her neck, keeping the gun aimed under her chin.
"And the next day, Iiya told me she had resigned from Varia and she was breaking off the engagement." Dino sighed.
"What…" Tsuna stumbled with his words, completely dumbfounded. "What did he do to her..?"
"She never told me, Tsuna," Dino looked down, with worry in his eyes. "All I know is that she still felt bad towards the Ninth for breaking off the engagement, but she told the Ninth that she couldn't stand what he had been putting her through. And she was pretty upset over everything that had happened."
"She may be strong and she's good at hiding her feelings, but that doesn't mean that there aren't things out there that can destroy her spirit." Reborn continued. "After she broke things off, Xanxus kept bugging her and attempted to sabotage her efforts to set up DS55… She was lucky that the Ninth still supported her and stopped Xanxus from interfering. This allowed the organisation to flourish to what it is today."
"Then why does she still want to look for Xanxus? She can just continue to ignore him and keep her distance."
"Iiya doesn't like keeping things unresolved. I think she wants to finish things with Xanxus without troubling the Ninth and everyone around her."
After ensuring that Tsuna had got to his room safely, Gokudera walked up to the rooftop for his usual smoke before he went to bed. When he opened the door to the rooftop, he smelt the scent of a burning cigarette, turning his head to see who was there. His eyes met a familiar pair of blue eyes, which stared back at him emotionlessly.
"Shouldn't you be in bed by now? It's late." Iiya tried to smile, a burning cigarette placed comfortably between her second and middle finger.
"Are you… Smoking?" Gokudera asked, bewildered by the fact that the cigarette wasn't in her mouth.
"I don't smoke cigarettes." She replied. "I just light them and let them burn. The scent calms me down sometimes."
Flicking his lighter, Gokudera quickly lit his cigarette and put it between his teeth for a while, before removing it and blowing out white puffs of smoke.
"Stop lighting them. You're wasting good cigarettes." He mumbled.
"I wonder what smoking feels like."
"A girl like you shouldn't really be smoking…" He sighed.
"I'm just a year younger than all of you."
Iiya put out her cigarette, as the scent of Gokudera's cigarette wafted up her nose. She closed her eyes and tried to relax, trying to shake off the encounter she just had with Xanxus. It was so diffcult to find solutions to a problem, and Xanxus being part of the problem just made things so much worse for her. Gokudera glanced at her, noticing how her eyes were closed yet her brows were furrowed, showing how troubled she felt inside.
"Thanks for today though." Iiya whispered.
Gokudera sighed, unable to figure out how she was really feeling at that moment.
"The Tenth was really worried about you. As his right-hand man, I had to help out."
Iiya smiled weakly, before standing up from her spot.
"I'm going to bed now. See you tomorrow morning."
"See you."
"By the way…"
"Yeah, Iiya-san?"
"What cigarettes do you smoke? I like the way it smells."
"You don't need to know."
"Haha, alright. Goodnight, Gokudera-kun."
Iiya slowly walked back to her room, her head still filled with thoughts of the day, but feeling slightly better after that conversation with her pupil. She tried to clear her head, knowing that she had a long day of training ahead of her, and she had no time to be distracted by her personal problems.
"What is this strange feeling?" She thought to herself.
Though she was not keen on admitting it, she could not deny the fact that she found intellect and cigarettes rather appealing. Letting the thoughts invade her head briefly, she shoved it out once she reached her bedroom. She quickly changed into her sleepwear, before burying herself under her blanket and refusing to think of anything else as she fell into her slumber.
The time to think about feelings was not on her agenda.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:I feel like things just got really serious in this chapter. Honestly, there were so many possibilities when I was thinking of her back story, but somehow this one just felt like it suited the story well. Next chapter, I'll focus on further developing the relationship between Iiya and Gokudera, as well as with the rest of Tsuna's family :)
I finally got my first review for this story! Thank you so much allylovesbluefood :D
I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! Do leave a review to tell me what you think :) Stay tuned!
