Wah, it's been WAYYYY too longgg... I apologize so much for the really long wait, everyone! I should've finished this chapter way way way back in August, but I sort of fail at life and being organized and also I've been re-reading Zatch Bell (confessions of a procrastinator, right there) but but but AUGHH and this chapter's not as long as I wish it was but I couldn't think of a better way to logically continue it from where it ended and
I'll shut up now and just let you read. You've been waiting too long.
Chapter seven; in which Everyone Wonders Why The Mafia Can Use Magic and Chrome Regrets the Laws of Anime
"So how the heck am I supposed to use this box thing?" Kurokawa Hana asked grumpily, turning her newly acquired "box weapon" over in her hands. It looked like a child's toy, all plastic and shiny and purple. Like something she'd see in the display window of a toy store, bearing a sign that said "Press the button and lights will flash" or something on that order. Hana was boggled as to how a little box could be a weapon. She wondered if this wasn't all some complex practical joke, and if it was, how on earth had Kyoko and her weirdo friends had the time and money to set all this shit up?
"You have to light the flame on the ring, like Kyoko-chan showed you," said Miura Haru, "and then stick the ring with the flames in the box. That's how Tsuna-san did it."
To Hana, this explanation sounded like utter bullshit. Yes, Kyoko had shown her that flames could come shooting out of the ring she'd given her earlier that day, but Hana was nearly positive that somehow she'd been pranked, because there was no way in seven hells that she had magic powers. Yes, that's it. It was a prank, and Kyoko shooting beams of sparkling yellow fire out of her gun – Kyoko has a gun! – earlier was just a trick of the light. Or a fluke. Or a… something. It had to be something, something with a reasonable explanation.
"That sounds like utter bullshit," Hana finally replied, after much deliberation. Her gut reaction to things was usually right.
"It's true," Chrome and Bianchi both told her, neither actually turning around to look at her. Over the course of the brief time she'd spent in their presence, Hana had developed a distinct opinion of both of them: Bianchi was exactly like Hana wanted to be when she was older (calm, mature and responsible), and Chrome was what Hana hoped she hadn't been when she was younger (shy, unconfident and permanently nervous) .
After a moment of consideration, Hana said to the world at large: "If you guys are the mafia, I'm a loaf of bread."
"You're a pretty strange-looking loaf of bread then," Bianchi replied. "I'm a hit woman. Reborn is a hitman."
"Reborn is an infant," Hana growled, not entirely sure why she was defending the normalcy of an obnoxious child.
"Tsuna-san really is a mafia boss," Haru added. Hana scoffed. "No, seriously! He's actually the boss of the Vongola famiglia, and Ryohei-san is one of his Guardians. That's why he's in danger right now; the Guardians got targeted."
The girls paused in their conversation to peer around a corner and check for traps or "enemies," but apparently the coast was clear, because Chrome waved them around the corner without hesitation.
"Okay, so let's pretend this shit makes sense," Hana conceded. "Sawada, the most pathetic boy I've ever met, is a mafia boss. And he's got Guardians. Kyoko, didn't you say this Chrome chick is one of his Guardians too?"
"Yes, but technically it's Mukuro-kun's job," Kyoko informed her as the group of them continued down the hall. "Chrome-chan and Mukuro-kun are sort of a package deal."
"Never mind that," Hana interjected. "My real question is why are the mafia using magic?"
Everyone stopped moving right in the middle of the hallway. Chrome and Bianchi looked at each other. I-Pin babbled something in Chinese that might've been meaningful to the girls if any of them understood Chinese (but they didn't). Kyoko glanced around nervously, and Haru put on a comedic, over-dramatic thinking expression.
Simultaneously, they all replied, "That's a really good question."
As soon as we're done saving my idiot boyfriend, Hana decided, I'm gonna get to the bottom of all this weirdness, once and for all. No matter how strange it really is.
...
Hibari sat in the corner of his unfortunately-shared cell with his back to everyone and debated the various merits and failings of trying to strangle Mukuro with everyone watching. He assumed Gokudera Hayato would, at the very least, egg him on. But everyone else (with the possible exclusion of that little brat Lambo, who was still throwing a tantrum) would attempt to stop him.
Mukuro was trying to remove Hibari from the corner, but his attempts were to no avail, because Hibari had at this point stopped listening to him. Actually, Hibari had stopped listening several minutes previous, in fact, when Mukuro had finished outlining the basic innuendoes surrounding Hibari's various weapons and catch-phrases and began going into details. Hibari would never admit that he was legitimately curious about it, but definitely not in front of Sawada and his idiot brigade.
"Kyouya, I'm sorry if I embarrassed you, but you've got to learn to deal with these facts of life at some point!" Mukuro teased from somewhere a few feet behind Hibari. With a brief glance over his shoulder, Hibari ascertained that Mukuro was smirking at him, and so he growled angrily at the illusionist.
"Mukuro, maybe you should leave him be," Sawada suggested from his cell across the hall. Yes, Mukuro, Hibari agreed. Leave me the fuck alone. "Stop pestering him about that."
"Fine," Mukuro conceded. "I'll get back to pestering him about that favor he owes me."
Shit. Hibari cringed. Mukuro didn't notice or otherwise didn't care, because he proceeded to drape himself over Hibari's shoulders and wrap his arms around the prefect's neck.
"Get off," Hibari whispered angrily, so that only Mukuro could hear. "People are watching, you cretin."
"You know what I want that favor to be, Kyouya," Mukuro murmured in reply. "And since you owe me, you really don't have a choice if I want to just go ahead and do it without your consent."
"You sound like a rapist," Hibari complained. Mukuro chuckled under his breath. "Also, if you even dare to do that without my consen-"
Hibari didn't finish his sentence, because Mukuro took the liberty of slapping a hand over his mouth and shutting him up.
"Hey, everyone!" Mukuro announced, much to Hibari's horror. "We've got a secret we'd like to tell you. And you've got to take it seriously, okay? This is a legitimate, serious moment, and we believe we owe it to you to inform you of such an important part of our lives. You see, Kyouya-kun and I are-"
Hibari twisted around and punched Mukuro in the stomach.
"What did I just say, herbivore? If you even dare to-"
"Dating."
"Huh?" Hibari stared at Mukuro for a moment in blank confusion. And then he realized that Mukuro had in fact finished the sentence that he'd interrupted seconds before.
"Kyouya-kun and I are dating," Mukuro repeated. "And because you consider us your friends, even if we don't necessarily reciprocate those feelings of friendship, I at least saw it fit to inform you of the fact that the two of us are in a relationship."
Hibari was absolutely thunderstruck.
"We really don't care if you hate us," Mukuro continued, much to Hibari's increasingly obvious displeasure. "For the most part, we already don't like you that much, and we're pretty sure about half of you don't like us either. So not much difference would be made."
Hibari, at this point boiling with rage at the fact that Mukuro would dare to drag him out of the closet in such an undesirable and unceremonious manner, took this chance to remove his jacket, wrap the sleeve around Mukuro's neck, and attempt to strangle him with it. Unfortunately, Mukuro managed to see through this action, and before Hibari could tighten the sleeve enough around Mukuro's neck, the illusionist slipped out of the loop and flopped over onto Hibari's lap.
Hibari resisted the urge to rage-kill someone.
"And that about sums it up," he finished.
The rest of the Vongola was silent (except for Lambo, who, continuing in his tantrum, had decided to scream loudly and rattle the bars of his cell).
Eventually, Sawada gathered up the brain cells necessary to ask a stupid question. "Wait," he said blankly, "You're gay? Both of you?"
"Yep," Mukuro replied with a smile. Hibari turned away and decided this was all rather overwhelming and he'd really like his tonfas back. Yes, his tonfas would be nice right now. It was always so comforting to have the option of slamming cold steel into the face of someone who was pissing him off. And Mukuro always put up such a nice fight, too... And it always ended nicely-
"Why didn't you tell us earlier?" Yamamoto wondered, interrupting Hibari's reverie.
"You didn't ask," Mukuro snickered. Hibari scoffed.
"Okay, Mukuro I can get being gay," Sawada nodded. Mukuro chuckled and adjusted his position on Hibari's lap (Hibari growled at him in place of whining uncomfortably, because that was just something Hibari Kyouya didn't do). "Gokudera-kun and I had already guessed that, even. But how come my hyper intuition didn't alert me to the fact that Hibari-san is too?"
Out of the corner of his eye, Hibari saw Mukuro grin and knew he was about to regret whatever came out of the illusionist's mouth.
"Because Kyouya-kun is such a tsundere that even I had trouble telling," he said, snuggling up against Hibari.
I'm a what?
"That's enough, Rokudo," Hibari growled, shoving Mukuro off his lap. "You're pissing me off. Stop crowding."
"That's another thing," Sawada added. "If Hibari hates crowds, and he seriously hates you, why and how the hell are you dating anyway? When did this even start? Is this a new thing?"
"It's been about three weeks," Mukuro replied. "As for the why and how, it's really a funny story-"
"I'm sorry to interrupt what's probably a wonderful team bonding moment," said Irie Shouichi suddenly as he appeared in the hallway between the cells, "But we've kind of got a really major problem involving Chrome Dokuro and your other female friends."
"What?" Sawada said, immediately distracted.
"They're sort of inside Melone Base," Irie continued, attempting to pretend that his nervousness wasn't churning his stomach around.
"WHAT?" Not only Sawada, but everyone aside from Hibari and Lambo was flipping a shit now.
"Yeah… it's sort of an issue. We're working on resolving it. I'm attempting to make sure they don't run into anyone dangerous, but I can't get in contact with a lot of the higher-ranked Black and White Spell members…"
"You must be kidding," Mukuro deadpanned, standing up and walking right over to the front of the cell to glare at Irie. "Chrome aside, I've briefly met Tsunayoshi's female friends. The little redhead sister of Sasagawa, and the brunette with the ponytail, yes?"
"Yes, them," Irie confirmed. "Along with Poison Scorpion Bianchi, I-Pin and another girl I don't know."
"The other two though, Sasagawa's sister and the brunette girl. They can't fight. They can't even control their flames correctly."
"Flames?" asked Sawada, Gokudera, Sasagawa and Yamamoto.
"Yes," Mukuro nodded. "Flames."
"They can't use flames," Yamamoto stated.
"Yes, in fact they can," Mukuro countered. "At least the brunette one can; she and the other one came to visit Chrome the other day, and I thought they were assassins of some sort so I attacked them. The brunette girl defended herself with Lightning flames. And Sasagawa's sister had a Sun ring on as well."
"And," Hibari added, finally contributing something to the conversation, "I saw them at the weapons shop, right? Sasagawa-chan had purchased a gun."
"WHAT?" Ryohei shouted (because he appeared to not have a volume control).
"Why didn't you guys tell us this earlier?" Tsuna whined.
Mukuro and Hibari looked at each other for a brief moment, and then said in tandem, "You didn't ask."
...
The girls made it relatively far into the base before running into anyone at all, and as soon as they did run into someone, Chrome immediately wished she'd taken the group a different direction. Of all people, she thought morbidly to herself, why must it be him?
And it wasn't like they could turn around and avoid his gaze and run down a different hall before they were seen, because Chrome had accidentally walked around a corner at the exact same time Glo Xinia had been walking around it in the other direction, and they'd run right into each other.
Chrome jumped back and readied her trident. Her last encounter with Glo Xinia had been decidedly less than pleasant, and if she remembered correctly it'd involved a lot of horrifying innuendoes. If it hadn't been for Mukuro's help, she'd have been-
She didn't want to think about what she'd have been if Mukuro hadn't been there. But this time Mukuro wasn't there to save her. Yes, the other girls were there, she wasn't alone, but it was still different. Half of them didn't even know how to fight for real.
[According to Rokudo Mukuro and certain parts of the internet:
It is a law of the known universe that, if any amount of young women go into battle against one creepy man in a universe where magic exists or magic powers can be utilized, it is a given fact that the creepy man will be able to summon, create, or control something large, slimy and tentacled. It is an unfortunate factor that cannot be avoided.]
Chrome suddenly realized why Mukuro had instructed them to wear pants. She was eternally grateful she'd listened.
Glo Xinia smiled a very creepy smile upon realizing who exactly he'd run into, and started gushing on and on about something that Chrome decided to tune out, because it sounded remarkably like the same exact thing he'd said to her the first time she'd met him and she really didn't need to hear it ever again.
But then she snapped back to attention when she heard him say, "And you even brought some tasty little friends for me to play with when I'm done with you? How thoughtful!"
What?
An image flashed through Chrome's mind of the battle she'd conducted with Glo in the future that would never be, only in the image it wasn't her fighting Glo; it was Kyoko and Haru, and they were unarmed and losing and tentacles and Goddammit, Mukuro-sama, why couldn't you ever learn to keep your mind to yourself and not leave knowledge like this behind?
Chrome was not previously aware that she could actually display emotions other than shy and scared without extreme effort, so it startled even her when she stomped straight up to Glo Xinia (he'd been edging toward her during his tirade of creepiness, so it wasn't very far to stomp), gritted her teeth, and defiantly kneed him in the balls.
"Leave my friends alone, pervert," she growled, and then twirled her trident in the air, slammed it to the ground, and summoned illusionary fire pillars out of the ground in a fit of actual Chrome Dokuro anger.
And promptly set off every alarm in the hallway.
"Run before they send in reinforcements!" Bianchi shouted, grabbing Chrome by the arm before she could do any more damage to Glo and dragging her down the hall with the other girls.
"I'm gonna kill him," Chrome hissed. "I swear I will!"
The girls located an empty room and barricaded themselves inside of it.
"Chrome," Bianchi started, placing both hands on Chrome's shoulders. "What were you thinking, attacking someone that strong like that?"
"I was thinking," she hissed, "that I didn't want that man to do what I thought he was going to do, and I was thinking of the battle I fought against him in the future, and I was thinking that I was very, very angry." With that, Chrome pulled out of Bianchi's grasp and sank to the floor with a look of shock on her face. For once, she'd done it. She's said what she'd meant, without any inhibitions. She'd spoken her mind.
For once, she thought, I spoke up. And if I did it once, I can do it again. Confidence, Chrome. Confidence. You can stand up to Glo Xinia of all people, maybe you can stand up to M.M. and Ken. Maybe… maybe I could even tell that person that I like him…
"Chrome-chan?" Haru said, kneeling down in front of her. "You're kinda talking to yourself. Muttering under your breath, like. It's sorta creepy."
"Sorry," Chrome mumbled, picking herself up off the floor. I'm just so happy with myself…
At that moment, the door to the room flew open and the girls spun around to see Glo Xinia standing there, looking very angry (and also like he was still in a fair amount of pain).
"Chrome Dokuro… I'm going to get you for that," he growled eerily.
"Yeah, how about not?" Bianchi retorted, whipping out a plate of purple-fuming sludge that Chrome hesitated to label as food (where she kept getting this stuff was anybody's guess) and throwing it at Glo. He dodged easily, because hand-thrown projectiles are only a true danger if you're slow or you're dealing with Xanxus at close range. But as he dodged, Haru went straight for him with her wooden sword, glittering with Lightning flames, and whacked him in the side.
"Now, Hana-chan!" Bianchi called. "Open the box weapon and finish this before he has a chance to attack us back!"
Hana stared at the box weapon for a moment, and then gave Bianchi a look like she didn't understand basic Japanese.
"Light the flame again," Kyoko instructed, "And-"
"Why don't I give a demonstration first?" sneered Glo, and he opened his box weapon.
Maybe it'll be the owl one, Chrome hoped futilely. However, due to the issues of space-time being a bitch, Glo's owl box had already been transported to the past in the possession of Chrome herself, and as such, Glo no longer had it.
Chrome cringed and everyone else backed up in terror as the Kraken box was unleashed.
"Let's have some fun," hissed Glo, and Chrome realized that it didn't matter how many girls were around, because she'd gone out of the way to catch Glo's attention this time (kneeing someone in the balls is a good way to get them to focus their aggression on you and nobody else) and he was going to target her.
As she readied her trident and mentally prepared herself for what was likely to be traumatizing in some way, shape or form, she mentally thanked Mukuro again for convincing her to not wear a skirt.
You're very welcome, Chrome, Mukuro thought back, and Chrome swore inwardly at the fact that he was probably listening in now. But could you answer one burning query for me, while I can still contact you like this? It's still fading in and out.
What is it?
You're inside Melone Base, aren't you?
No point in hiding it now.
And Tsunayoshi's female friends are with you, aren't they?
Please don't tell him.
I don't need to. Irie Shouichi already did.
Please apologize to Boss for me.
I don't think that will help. He is, as you say, "flipping the fuck out."
Mukuro-sama?
What?
I'm sorry, but I'm sort of busy. I've got to go fight a tentacle monster.
Oh, okay.
…
…
Wait, what?
Yaaaay, cliffhanger. I'm a bitch.
Anyway, I'm honestly sorry I've been procrastinating the hell out of this story and I'm not gonna go into the whole shitlist of stuff I've been doing when I should've been working on this instead and just go ahead and lie and say it's the start of the school year and I've been busy. Let's go with that.
I've told you why this story was started: feminism in shounen manga fandom. But do you want to know why I actually went through with it and continued writing? There are several reasons, but aside from general awesomeness, it was something that occurred in this very chapter. One of the reasons I kept going with this story was because I really wanted someone to kick Glo Xinia in the nuts, and I was dead-set on making it happen.
AND NOW I ACTUALLY HAVE AN ENDING FOR THIS WOOHOOOOO well sort of. I have a few different things that will eventually lead to an ending and I sorta need a plot thread to connect them all up but that's okay because I've been winging it on everything else so far, so why not keep doing what works and wing it the rest of the way too?
I'm probably going to end up doing a lot of the writing for this during French or History or English class, so I can't yet say if I'm going to get into a consistent update schedule. More on that later.
Reviews will be fed into a quantum transducer and converted into motivation and energy.
