Disclaimer: KHR belong to Amano Akira
Meeting in the Past
Chapter 7
Everyone gathered back again for lunch and the future group were surprised to see extra guests present. Next to Primo a man bearing an air of resemblance to Enma but more confident in his demeanor stood. Beside Daemon a woman with a sweet countenance was smiling at them.
Cozart and Elena, Tsuna immediately identified them.
Primo introduced them and then they sat to eat. The discussion was lively with this many people and both Giotto and Daemon smiled more.
"Interesting things always happen around you Giotto." Laughed Cozart.
"Ah ha ha ! It's the same way with Tsuna." Happily joined Yamamoto.
Tsuna sweat-dropped, he'd rather spend peaceful days. He exchanged glance with Enma and he could tell his friend knew exactly what he was thinking.
Once lunch finished everyone once again went back their own ways. However as Tsuna and Enma were leaving Cozart caught up to them in a corridor.
"I was thinking I'd like to have a talk with you, is that okay ?" Cozart had noticed his descendant seemed meek so he tried not to be too forceful.
Enma was nervous to talk with Cozart alone but also curious, it wasn't everyday you got a chance to talk to your ancestor.
Tsuna picked up on both their feelings and felt safe enough to leave them alone, so he excused himself.
Cozart led the younger red-head into the garden and they walked for a while in silence before sitting on a bench after Enma nearly tripped.
"I just dropped by for a visit when I happened upon Daemon telling Elena about you guys. It's a bit strange knowing my great-something-grandkid. Though it's not a bad feeling. But I got to ask..." Cozart adopted a serious look staring at Enma. It was a bit intimidating. Enma braced himself.
"Do you know who I ended up marrying or at least her name ?"
Enma felt like face-palming. Was his ancestor supposed to be such a character ?
"Sorry." He mumbled.
"I'm just kidding. Future knowledge and all, it's better to let nature take it's course."
Enma didn't say anything just observed the man who was the creator of the Shimon famiglia and first boss from the corner of his eyes. He'd always been taught to admire him, his powers and been told he should be more like his ancestor.
Never mind, those people didn't have a clue how he was either outside stories. Still now he could see Cozart really had the charisma of a Boss and seemingly a good personality. So did Primo for that matter.
"Can you tell me about yourself ? Cozart pulled him out of his thoughts.
"There... There isn't much to say." He began in a quiet voice. "Right now I'm going to the same school as Tsuna. Though we had a misunderstanding between us when we first met, now we're close friends. We're a lot alike, clumsy and others think of us as losers but since knowing Tsuna it got better, since we both understand each other."
Cozart listened attentively, he felt Enma wasn't telling him everything, and it wasn't a hyper-intuition kind of feeling, he just knew how to read people well, but decided not to say anything, perhaps explaining further would touch too much on future events.
"Are you your generation Boss too ?" He asked instead.
Enma nodded and pulled a necklace with a ring out of his collar. It was the Shimon Earth ring.
"Do you have guardians ?" Cozart continued with his gaze focused on the ring, taking in the minute changes to it.
"Yeah. We've been together for years." Enma thought about the other six members of his famiglia waiting for him in the future.
To be honest, he really wanted to rant and rage and say everything that would befall the Shimon in the future, he wanted to change things so their future might be better, perhaps then his parents and sister wouldn't be dead. He would have a chance at growing up with them, his little sister would have the chance to grow at all. The same with his friends parents. But since he arrived in the past he'd known he couldn't. As messed up as his past was, things were fine now, he hadn't lied, things were better, never perfect but he'd learned early on life wasn't fair. He wouldn't tempt fate.
"Since hearing about it I always wondered, you gave Vongola Primo the idea for his vigilant group but you didn't enter it or lead one yourself really. So why creating the Shimon famiglia ?" Enma was truly curious about this point and perhaps he wanted some justification for the continued existence of the Shimon.
"Well I'm a pretty laid-back guy, being a vigilante doesn't suit me, but I value my famiglia and protecting my home is the same as protecting my people, I'm not attached to a place in particular rather as long as I find a nice place to settle in with my famiglia where we're safe, that's enough for me."
The Shimon existed to protect it's people, their famiglia.
Enma widened his eyes.
"Did you get the answer you wanted ?" Smiled Cozart.
"Maybe." He gazed into the horizon. Adelheid was better at thinking of solutions, though he made the final decision, a lot of the thinking for their famiglia was done by her, well no one else would do it otherwise.
Hibari had finished exploring the Vongola mansion and it's perimeter. He hadn't left the propriety yet though. But it wouldn't be wise to go too far while in the past, he was confident in his abilities of course, he'd beaten all that got in his way since his arrival here. But it was uncertain when they'd be able to go back.
In any case now that he had a better grasp of his surroundings, it was time to make good on what the baby promised, strong adversaries.
The man who held the same title as he did, Cloud guardian, though he did not completely recognize its validity still, he did not obey anyone, that man had disappeared after lunch but Kyouya found him easily enough as he had not left the domain.
He was in some sort of fencing room, judging by the thin swords adorning the side wall, it would suit his purpose well enough.
Not wasting time he attacked without summation and was subsequently parried and pushed back several meters with seeming ease.
"And what is this ?" The blond man asked expressionlessly.
"Fight me."
"No." He turned away in disinterest.
Hibari had expected the refusal, he just didn't care for it, he wanted to fight this man who was said to be the strongest of his generation and so he would. He attacked again.
Alaude dodged the surprisingly fast attack for a boy of his age. Then again, he hadn't been any slower or weaker at that same age. Still, children were not his opponents. He was over ten years older than his Primo's descendant guardian counterpart, the amount of training and experiences was simply different.
Well that was a good chance to observe the boy sharing his element.
On one side he did act like a cloud guardian, seemingly not completely submitting to the sky, freely acting in the sky vast domain. However the blood thirst emitted by him at that moment nearly made him frown.
"Are you a mad dog ?" He disdainfully remarked blocking a hit.
"Mad dog randomly bite any prey. I chose mine carefully." Hibari didn't let the insult faze him, it wasn't the first time he heard it. He'd simply bitten to death the loudmouth, it wouldn't be any different this time.
Alaude didn't say anything back, however the black haired boy answer in a sense reassured him. He did have a lot of bloodlust but he also knew where to direct it at. A glint of interest appeared in his cold eyes.
This time he was the one to attack.
A savage smile stretched Kyouya's lips, his opponent was finally taking things more seriously. Time to measure his strength.
Elena was pretty happy to have another woman here, she loved spending time with Daemon of course and Primo and the rest of his guardians were dears, but it could be a bit lonely being the only woman amidst all those men, especially since more often than not they treated her as if she was made of sugar. So when she was introduced to Chrome she immediately took an interest in her. Thankfully Chrome was a nice if shy girl and agreed to have some tea while they talk.
That said they were not alone. Daemon and Mukuro, the other Mist guardian, were accompanying them. She had the feeling Mukuro was here only to guard Chrome against them but she couldn't think of why he should have to do so, well maybe he was just protective.
Daemon, she knew was rather curious about the pair sharing his element but left the conversation to her. Oh well, she might as well ask now.
"How did you come to share the duty of a guardian ?"
Chrome did not look surprised at the question but glanced at Mukuro before answering.
"Mukuro-sama was made the official guardian first but was indisposed when the Mist guardian was needed so he sent me in his place and I have been part of Boss famiglia since." She concisely explained.
"But in this case there is no need of sharing guardianship, guardians having direct subordinates of their element is better." Said Daemon.
"What Chrome meant is that I was in prison when made a guardian for Sawada Tsunayoshi and I asked her to be my substitute but didn't care much to go along with the Vongola even when released so she generally fulfill the Mist guardian duties. Of course the power of this is pretty nice so I won't resign either." Mukuro smiled showing his earring.
Both adults were a bit shocked at his words, Daemon was worried a man not completely loyal to Vongola was one of its guardian, especially since it wasn't the cloud element, and Elena was taken aback by him having been to prison, he could not have been older than eighteen now so he would have been even younger then, such harsh experiences in life already.
Chrome for her part wasn't surprised at all by Mukuro's intervention, he'd played surprisingly nice since their arrival and hadn't tried to kill Daemon in the day they'd been here. It was no wonder as soon Daemon opened his mouth he retaliated with provoking words. Well she could stand Daemon for now, he didn't seem to have devolved into his creepy future self yet, and Elena-san was nice in an European lady kind of way, far from the fake classy way her mother and friends actresses tried to act. Though it was a good thing she knew Italian as the blonde woman could only speak rudimentary old Japanese. The tea was great too, she thought as she took another sip.
Mukuro had been a bit annoyed at Daemon insinuation that Chrome was just a subordinate, Sawada Tsunayoshi recognized her, who was he to have a say in their generation affair.
He knew most of the guardians were having their own talk with their first generation counter-part, or fight in the case of a certain savage prefect and while he wouldn't mind a fight he didn't intend on having a heart-to-heart or exchanging tips on their powers with Daemon, he wouldn't be learning anything worthwhile anyway. Well as long as Chrome didn't mind conversing with Elena he would indulge her.
"Well I'm glad everything worked out for the best for the both of you and Tsunayoshi." Elena smiled and began to chat about lighter topics. Mukuro was a bit prickly but so had been Daemon at his age and Chrome was adorable.
"Are you also the only girl in Tsunayoshi's group ?" Elena asked.
"No, there's also I-Pin-chan, Kyoko-chan, Haru-chan, Hana-chan and Bianchi-san." Chrome relaxed as she talked about her first female friends.
"My ! How wonderful. Unfortunately none of Primo and his guardians have a significant other so it's lonely sometimes. Can you tell me about everyone ?"
Primo had heard from a few of his guardians about Tsuna's guardians and their relation with Tsuna. According to G and Ugetsu who came to find him before and after lunch respectively, they viewed the brunette as their leader, the Decimo Boss of Vongola, though more importantly they saw him as a friend.
Giotto had no problem believing Tsuna returned the friendship from what he'd observed of their interactions, but what worried him was his descendant continued denial as the next Vongola Boss. It wasn't even lying or omitting thing because of future knowledge as he'd thought it was about at first. Tsuna truly seemed to be dreading the rôle.
Of course Giotto wished for his descendants to chose is own path as he did and if it took him away from Vongola so be it. But as long as Tsuna was not forced into it and chose for himself, from what he'd seen Tsuna would make a good boss.
He hadn't really thought about it before the future group arrival but since they were here, Tsuna was obviously the linking point between them and the one who seemed to always know where everyone was and needed.
While thinking about this he walked around the mansion looking for Tsuna, the boy was in the sitting room with his storm and rain, Hayato and Takeshi wasn't it ?
"Tsuna can we talk alone for a bit ?"
The boy looked surprised but nodded and followed him to one of the training room.
He'd heard the report another one had been destroyed by Alaude earlier before he went on elsewhere to continue his fight with Tsuna's Cloud guardian, it was worrying in its own right but he trusted the CEDEF boss not to take things too far.
"Seeing you the other day we seem to have similar abilities, so I thought we could spar, I might be able to give you tips."
Tsuna's flight instinct nearly took over him but calming the rapid beat of his heart he reminded himself that Giotto wasn't Reborn and probably didn't have crazy spartan training method, well for others than himself anyway, he still remembered the cliff climbing.
"Alright."
Giotto smiled, he'd felt Tsuna's apprehension at first but had quickly calmed down, he wondered what he thought about, then he closed his eyes and soon an orange flame appeared on his forhead as he reopened his eyes.
Tsuna scrambled to put on his ring and swallow a pill, igniting his own flame as his air became more composed.
Giotto took all that in before going in with a light attack that was easily parried. Both fought without weapons except their gloves, who any of their enemies or allies knew to be dangerous in their own right.
They exchanged a few more hits before Giotto came to a stop.
"You're better than I was at your age."
"You can understand that even though I haven't used any techniques ?" Tsuna tilted his head, in reality most of his techniques were adapted from Primo's so in a way he did not have to come up with them himself, not that mastering and adapting them for himself was not hard work.
Also he could see, compared to his unpolished fighting style, Giotto's was much more fluid and refined. It truly showed the difference in their dedication to training.
"Is this pill you took an artificial way to get into hyper mode ?" Giotto pulled him out of his thoughts. "Are every flame users using this method in the future ?"
"No, from what I know CEDEF created those pills and their distribution is limited to a few people to help draw out their dying will."
So CEDEF was indeed still existing alongside Vongola, Alaude would be pleased.
However he frowned a bit at what Tsuna said about those pills. It seemed rather unreliable to not be able to attain hyper mode or any flame abilities without them as supplement. And from what he had seen, Tsuna should be able to enter hyper mode by himself now, he understood the help in the beginning but by now his understanding of this process should be sufficient.
He told so to Tsuna who felt a bit reflective once again about his training and the fact he'd never truly tried to attain the hyper-mode by his own effort after he got the pills, granted before Reborn had to shoot him but it was all shortcut all the same.
And so they began to work on that until it was time for dinner where they joined the others.
During dinner, one of Primo's men hurried in and spoke in a hushed tone to Primo.
As they saw Primo nod with a small smile, everyone relaxed and went back to their dinner. Not long after, someone walked in the dining room again, much slower this time, it was a blind old man, Talbot.
Everyone respectfully greeted him and Primo invited him to join their meal.
Then a recounting of the event leading to the future group being there happened and Talbot seemed quite amused by the current situation by the end.
"I'll need at least three days to sent them back, also Vongola Primo do give me that wish stone, I'll need it."
And with that he closed himself into a room as the future group needed to decide what they would do in the meanwhile. But since it was late they left it for tomorrow and went to bed first.