Recap: Reborn decides to dump the work of forming a hit squad on Tsuna. Lambo receives an offer to join the group, and after stalking Tsuna for a bit, decides to accept.
Chapter 8: Assembly
Perhaps the most interesting of the list of Vongola Bosses was Tsunayoshi Sawada, also known as Vongola the Tenth. He was born in 1999, to the then CEDEF leader Sawada Iemitsu, a direct descendant of Vongola Primo.
Vongola the Tenth did not start out as a candidate for Boss; he joined the ranks of Vongola through the Allied Families' Recruitment Test in the year 2017, when he was eighteen years old. He achieved the highest scores in the test since the establishment of the Recruitment Test, and was only beaten out by Carita Squalo twenty four years later, when she single handedly completed her test during a rival family attack, an event better known as the Shark's Massacre. Despite only applying for a reconnaissance position, he defeated veteran mafioso, orchestrated the retrieval of hostages, defeated Rokudo Mukuro, who would later become one his two Mist Guardians. His Recruitment test result, according to the committee that year, would have been higher if he had done more actual reconnaissance.
It was then that he caught the attention of Reborn, who is said to be the greatest hit man since Asari Ugetsu. It was under his tutelage and guidance that the Tenth formed one of the most famed hit squads in history.
Forming the group from scratch, he first recruited friends from his childhood home in Japan, including his later Sun Guardian, Ryohei Sasagawa. It strikes some historians as odd that he choose to recruit those from his town with no immediate association with the underworld instead of his Rain and Cloud Guardians, both also from Namimori Japan, that were the progeny of a famed assassin and Yazuka group respectively. This might be due to a need to ensure that the loyalty of his subordinates would be, first and foremost to himself, although some dispute this on account of the Tenth's famed blindness to background and candidness with enemies.
The Tenth's first recruits included Kyoko Sasagawa, the sister of the Tenth's Sun Guardian, and Hana Kurokawa. Both were his former classmates, and would go on to form the support team for the hit squad, eventually becoming high ranking members within Vongola.
One of the next to join the group is Hayato Gokudera, the Tenth's Storm Guardian, a man known for his tactical planning, expertise with large scale battles and an almost fanatic loyalty to the Tenth. Rumor has it that Gokudera collapsed from excitement when first given the offer.
The timing that Lambo Bovino joined the group is unclear as the Tenth did not recruit him himself; instead it was Reborn who was said to have recruited him, although it is clear, from multiple accounts, that the Tenth's Lightning Guardian was only persuaded to join the Tenth's hit squad by the Tenth himself. In fact, in the earlier years, Reborn and Bovino had an antagonistic relationship.
- Vongola: the Present Past, 2045 edition, by Jacob Riley
When Kyoko opened the door, Tsuna greeted her with a wail of unadulterated desperation. "Please, you have to help me!"
Tsuna was lucky Kyoko was the one who answered the door and not Hana; as it was, he was patiently guided to the sofa of the living room instead of having the door slammed in his face.
From fifty feet away, with a sniper trained on his new student, Reborn hummed in approval. Tsuna had effectively startled the girl into inviting him in and he didn't even know it.
Tsuna's subsequent panicked rant didn't take into account his need to breathe. "Reborn wants me to lead a hit squad and I don't know the first thing about killing and I've got to establish the whole thing from scratch too and I don't know how I'm supposed to do it and he's the greatest hit man in the world so I can't stop him and he says he'll string me up on a tree naked if I do poorly and I haven't the slightest idea-" It was only when Hana calmly slapped him across the face that he finally drew in a shuddering breath.
"Thanks," he mumbled, looking down at his hands clasped on his lap, slightly shamefaced as his breakdown.
Both girls, women, sat across from his, giving him calculating looks. Kyoko's was more subtle, but Tsuna felt like he could hear their minds racing as they took stock of him. After a moment, Kyoko gave him a warm smile, one that was purposeful but no less real, and asked: "Why don't you start from the beginning, Tsuna?"
Tsuna began with the Recruitment Test, carefully ghosting over what brought him to Italy. He told them about how Reborn had saved him, then about how Reborn had suddenly appeared in his room with a high-handedness that had Tsuna slipping back into the days of Dame Tsuna. He was very sure he would be getting a note from his landlord about the girlish shrieks of "But I don't want to lead a hit squad!" and gunshot sounds.
There were hushed up rumors in the break rooms of Europol, quiet murmurs spoken in fear and almost-awe, of the Strongest Seven, the Arcobaleno. What Tsuna didn't know was that the group composed of people who had the strongest flame type of their category. This did not necessarily manifest in terms of physical capability, but in the case of Reborn, it did.
Tsuna didn't want to admit it, but Reborn terrified him in a way that reminded him of the bullies back in Namimori. They weren't like Hibari, who sought rules and order. They had power and used and abused that to get people to dance to their tune, to bend to their will and found amusement in another's pain. That, more than anything else, made Tsuna feel small and panicked and had all of the confidence the last few years had brought fade away.
When Tsuna ended his story, his hands were clenched around a mug of steaming tea and his expressions screwed up in misery. Hana, who had been entirely silent up until that point, spoke up.
"You don't really have a choice, do you? So hand those over and we'll get to work," she ordered, sticking out a hand.
Tsuna looked up at her dumbfounded. He was so shocked at her offer of help he didn't even remember to point out that he didn't want to establish a hit squad.
"Hana is right," Kyoko smiled distractedly as she handed Hana a file in Tsuna's stead. "We've got a lot of work to do!"
While Reborn didn't approve of the way his student suffered from what seemed to be a nervous breakdown, he did manage to do what Reborn had wanted him to do. Now Tsuna had gained minions to help him with paperwork. Well, not exactly minions,, if the way the dark haired roommate smacked Tsuna's head with a sheaf of papers and barked at him to work was any indication. But having subordinates willing to challenge you and yet respect you enough to bend to your goals was a good thing.
Reborn sighed happily, leaning away from the sniper rifle as he sipped on his coffee. Man, he loved teaching.
Reborn's mountain of paperwork had included Lambo under the name of confirmed applicants, as well as someone named Bianchi and Colonello. While the paperwork for Bianchi and Lambo were already filled out, Colonello's paperwork was missing; Tsuna supposed that he would have to find Reborn to get that sorted.
The girls were remarkably efficient; they had their own -and Tsuna's - paperwork sorted out within minutes, adding it to the pile of confirmed applicants. Now they were looking at the long, long list of prospective applicants, looking at profiles and eliminating candidates.
Hana tutted grumpily. "There is nothing under weapons suppliers, explosive experts and medical staff at all; it's like someone just gave up on this halfway."
Tsuna suspected that that was exactly what happened, but didn't voice it in fear that he would just feed Hana's anger. "Uh, I met the Smokin' Bomb Hayato during the Test. We could try asking him?" Hana wrinkled her nose, as if the very thought of Hayato joining them was abhorrent. "Have you seen his track record, Tsuna?" Hana demanded. "Leaving families left and right, collateral damage and nothing but failed negotiations... This isn't a man who can work in a team."
Tsuna frowned, looking that the data. Hana was right, but still... Hayato reminded Tsuna of himself. Constantly screwing up and being a disappointment, being ostracized and having a history of failure weigh him down... "Those mostly occurred five years ago," Tsuna pointed out. "Everything else after that looks like genuine accidents. He has been doing higher risk jobs in the past year, so that kind of experience is invaluable to a rookie team. Besides, he visited Ryohei in the hospital and was very cooperative during the actual Recruitment Test."
Kyoko bit her lip, nodding slowly. "I know what you mean, but I think we need to watch him carefully."
Rolling her eyes, Hana leaned back into her chair, a sure sign of her resignation. "Fine, whatever."
Tsuna and Kyoko shared a smile as they continued to go through more applicants. "Brother will want to join us I think, and I like the idea of being able to keep watch on him. For the medical position... If you don't mind a trainee, we could ask Haru?"
A shrug from Tsuna was her only response. He didn't know Haru, so it wasn't like his opinion would be worth anything anyway. Hana had pressed her lips together at the name, Tsuna noticed, but didn't say anything out loud. If Tsuna had to guess, Hana probably considered Haru to be on the same level as all the boys in their class; an un-evolved monkey.
"We need more people capable of carrying out the hit jobs too… Maybe others from the Recruitment Test?"
Tsuna's phone beeped. He pulled it out of his pocket, grimaced, then read the text out loud: "I won't accept second rate rejects." Tsuna felt his face settle into an even deeper frown. "I don't think I even gave him my number…"
Kyoko and Hana gave him sympathetic looks. "In the meantime, if there's anything urgent there are a couple of freelance hit men we could arrange on short notice," Hana told him, passing him another stack of profiles. "In case your crazy tutor decides to throw you into the deep end."
"I'm already in the deep end," Tsuna groaned, taking the papers in hand. Scarily enough, Hibari Kyouya's file was in the stack; Tsuna hurriedly pretended to have never seen it. Gratitude for saving his life or not, Tsuna was fairly certain trying to include Hibari into a large group of people would not end well for him. Strangely enough, his face wasn't the only familiar one in the pile…
"Shinigami?" Tsuna's hysteria and shock were just barely kept out of his voice.
Neither Kyoko or Hana noticed, too preoccupied with the work already in hand. "Yes, he's come out of retirement. Had a very fearsome reputation in his youth and is officially part of Vongola. In practice, he tended to stay in Japan and work with the Alliance's Japanese Yakuza, like the Hibari clan…"
Tsuna nodded absently, taking in all the information as he stared into the face of a man who used to sell him sushi every other week. Secret heir moved out of Namimori, Hibari seeking refuge in Vongola, Takeshi living deep in mafia territory… The pieces shifted together, and Tsuna felt his shoulders grow heavier with the knowledge.
Little did he know, that there were many more puzzle pieces he needed in order to find that very little of what happened and was happening around him was by coincidence.
Gokudera Hayato's door was left open, Tsuna noted, staring at it uneasily. No mafioso worth his salt was likely to do that, not in this neighbourhood. The same neighbourhood, incidentally, that Tsuna, Kyoko and Hana resided in, just a couple blocks away. Vongola must really like keeping its people together, he supposed.
Back to the matter at hand, the ajar door was really driving Tsuna crazy. Was it a trap? Did Gokudera get robbed? Was it a trap for Gokudera by his robbers? The questions were rather endless, and eventually Tsuna settled for following his gut feeling.
Carefully stepping forward, he called out Gokudera's name and carefully inched the door open. The door was stopped roughly three-quarter's open by the prone body of the explosives expert Tsuna had come to see.
"Gokudera?" Tsuna was rather proud of the fact that he didn't scream.
Lying in an ungraceful pile of limbs, Gokudera groaned pathetically, one hand on his stomach and the other over his mouth. His body was hunched over, his face positively green. Tsuna wondered if this sort of insanity was going to be the staple of his life from now on.
While Kyoko and Hana went to find Sasagawa Ryohei to join Tsuna's newly formed, unnamed hit squad, Tsuna had been tasked with talking to Gokudera Hayato about it. After that, the girls would find their medical student friend Haru and Tsuna would go to Cavallone and see if they were willing to put him in contact with Chrome.
In the meantime, Tsuna busied himself with Gokudera's moaning, groaning form.
"What happened?"
An airy, female voice floated in from further into the apartment. "Oh leave him be. He has always been terrible at receiving family as his guests." Tsuna didn't recognize the voice, but her identity hit him as she stepped into view. The Poison Scorpion.
"Uhm," Tsuna stuttered out eloquently.
Bianchi shrugged, then openly surveyed him from top to bottom. Tsuna rather felt like he was getting an x-ray. "He'll be fine in a moment, so don't bother. I presume you are Sawada Tsunayoshi?"
Tsuna found her quite terrifying, if he was being honest. Rather than try and figure out what she was doing and why her brother was lying on the floor like he was, Tsuna settled for answering her question with a nod.
"You are here to offer Hayato a position in your hit squad." It wasn't a question.
From somewhere on the floor, Gokudera made an incoherent noise that could have passed for being surprised.
Tsuna hesitated with his answer, but figured the formation of the hit squad, which not widely known, probably wasn't classified information. "Yes?"
Bianchi snatched the papers in his hands, leaving through them carelessly. "And Hayato will be accepting. A fingerprint will do, won't it?"
She didn't wait for Tsuna's response, gliding over to Gokudera's body instead. She produced a stamping pad and pressed Gokudera's thumbprint onto a piece of paper, exactly where his signature would have gone if he chose to accept the offer of being in Tsuna's hit squad. She proceeded to rapidly fill in information about Gokudera onto the various forms, all whilst humming a cheerful tune.
When the papers were shoved back into Tsuna's hands, Bianchi settled into the kitchen, making tea whilst ignoring everyone else. Tsuna quietly dragged Gokudera out of the apartment by his collar, not quite sure what just happened. Well, at least Reborn would be happy that another person was secured.
"As you probably know, Bianchi is my half sister."
Gokudera and Tsuna sat at the curb outside the apartment building, one smoking and the other too polite to tell his companion that the smell was driving him to slow suffocation and lung cancer via second hand smoke.
"My old man insists on butting into my life, y'know?" Tsuna actually didn't know, not having an extensive information network or Hana hissing into his ear at the moment, but he could tell that Gokudera didn't want to be interrupted. "Bianchi too, which is why she's making me enter your bloody squad."
"The mafia doesn't like it when bastard children of the well-connected try to enter their operations. There's a bit of racism, I won't deny, but most of it is paranoia and fear. Truth be told, I've only gotten one offer since the interviews, and it's a bloody desk job. Nothing important either."
Tsuna frowned, but didn't interject. "My temper probably doesn't help either, but plenty of other mafioso have worse tempers than mine and don't have the same problems. Look at Xanxus, or Superbi Squalo!"
Gokudera let his cigarette drop from his fingers and used the heel of his shoe to smash it into the pavement. "So yeah, I'll join your squad. It's not like I have anything worthwhile to do anyway. I'm fucking useless."
Tsuna felt the words come from his mouth involuntarily. "You aren't." Once the words had entered the world, it was as if they had taken solid form, becoming more real, more tangible to him.
"You aren't useless. I know what it is like, and you aren't it." Memories came unbidden, pushing to the forefront of Tsuna's mind. Quiet sniffles among torn up tests whilst hunched into a corner; the steady drip-drip-drip of a leaky pipe when he was locked into a supply closet at school; a penknife pressed to his wrist, but never forceful enough to make a mark… "You aren't," Tsuna repeated, as if the repetition would convince Gokudera.
Tsuna didn't know what kind of expression had been on his face in that moment, but it was what caused Gokudera to give him a weak, slightly watery smile.
Then the moment passed. Tsuna looked away, Gokudera cleared his throat, then a pigeon decided to defecate from overhead, right onto Tsuna's shoulder. A horrified expression, a started cry, a stifled laugh that spread to contagious, hearty guffaws, and the tension was broken.
Gokudera grinned at Tsuna. "So where to, Boss?"
"To my house, to get changed," Tsuna told him, wrinkling his nose, both at the bird crap on his shoulder and Gokudera's choice of address. "And don't call me Boss."
To Tsuna's despair, he hadn't been able to convince Hayato to call him by name. Though Hayato had somehow wrangled from Tsuna the promise to call him 'Hayato'. How it happened, Tsuna was still rather unsure.
Chrome had been hesitant to accept Tsuna's offer, but that was expected. Illusionists were dead useful and always in high demand, so Chrome likely had no lack of other jobs to choose from. In the end, she told him that she'd take the offer under consideration and would still be available for contract work if they needed someone urgently.
Kyoko and Hana had good news; both Ryohei and Haru accepted the offer without a second thought. Ryohei because he would be with his sister and Haru because she wanted to practice medicine practically and get out from under the leery eye of Dr. Shamal.
Housing was still a terrible fuss; why Reborn insisted that they live together, Tsuna had no clue. All he did know was that his phone would buzz with a threatening message from Reborn the moment he had begun to think about asking Reborn to piss off.
It was five days into looking at properties and calling real estate agents, all of them ―Tsuna, Gokudera, Ryohei, Lambo, Kyoko, Hana and Haru ―crowded into Tsuna's tiny apartment that Gokudera came up with a solution.
"I think we are going to have to build a place," Gokudera muttered quietly.
Lambo had hit off with Gokudera fabulously ―if fabulously meant explosively ― and was quick to respond. "What was that, you old octopus? You need to build a face? Anything is an improvement from your current face, I have to say."
Confrontation was inevitable, everyone knew. Even Tsuna was unable to stop the train wreck from happening this close to the point of impact.
In the midst of all their discussions, Tsuna found himself in the position of mediator, which was tiring enough without everyone seeking his opinion on this or that. He knew he was supposed to be leader, but Gokudera and Hana were way better at these things, so why did they keep asking him?
Nearly twenty minutes and one shouting match later, one which Tsuna was certain his landlord would not be happy about, Gokudera managed to voice his idea.
"We aren't getting anywhere looking for property; it's either way over our budget and full of unnecessary things, or lacks fundamental facilities and space. Their locations are all shit too."
It was very true. They needed enough single rooms for the lot of them and facilities like a training room and open space for combat. Most apartment buildings didn't host sparring rings or gun ranges, and all the mansions that were big enough came with eighteen hole golf courses and a ridiculous price tag. Location was another terrible, terrible thing they had to consider. Too close to other buildings and civilians might get implicated or curious. Too far away from the city and their dispatches would be slow.
"What we could do is get a hold of a large property, about half an hour by car from the city, that is largely inaccessible. Vongola even has a construction company and everything could be built according to specification."
The idea did seem tempting. It was all of their problems solved at once.
Ever the cynic, Hana decided to burst their bubble. "Unless we find a property for dirt cheap, there is no way we can afford everything. And if we get a completely new property and build everything, we'd have to connect it to the electrical grid and water supply. That's not cheap either."
"What if we create a self sustaining place? Bills would go down in the long run, and there is less risk of poison via our water supply and electricity failure," Haru suggested.
"Stupid woman! That would be even more expensive!"
"Not as expensive as your face job."
"Stupid cow!"
"I am extremely confused!"
The noise around Tsuna faded as he delved deeper into his thoughts. They all made valid points, but the solution was so close, Tsuna felt as though he could stretch out his arm and reach it. Inaccessible, but not so inaccessible that they'd have to build roads and whatnot. Cheap, with a large amount of space available, and already connected to a power grid, or having its own supply of electricity.
Tsuna sighed, about to give up and instead try to put an end to the fifth argument of the day, when he caught sight of the corkboard above his desk. A picture of him and his mom, a list of groceries, a newspaper clipping that vaguely covered the explosion they had caused during the Recruitment Test, one that read 'Abandoned Amusement Park Collapsed'…
"Kokuyo Fun Land," Tsuna breathed. "Kokuyo Fun Land!"
Everyone turned to witness one of the rare moments where Tsuna raised his voice and didn't shriek.
"It's about half an hour from the city centre by cab, and maybe twenty or fifteen from the outskirts. There are two roads leading to and from it, and the place is huge! It's been unused for the past couple years and with the collapse of the Ferris wheel, the owner is probably never going to rebuild it, so it should go for cheap."
The more Tsuna thought about it, the more it made sense. "It's already connected to the city's power grid, but it does have its own generator. We might have to do something about water supply in case it gets poisoned, but we can install filters and whatever instead of building a reservoir. Demolishing the entire place wouldn't seem odd given the accident either!"
As he finally registered the eyes watching him, Tsuna shuffled his feet awkwardly, feeling a lot like he had just made a fool of himself. This reminded him of being in second grade and telling the class that he wanted to grow up to become a giant robot.
Then Haru shrieked her approval and tackled him into a hug, ignoring Gokudera's and Lambo's protest that she get off him and Tsuna was struck dumb by the vocal approval. Hana smirked at him proudly while Kyoko clapped her hands excitedly and Ryohei howled his approval.
The cacophony of noise was abruptly cut short when Reborn exited Tsuna's toilet in a construction outfit, complete with yellow hardhat and rubber boots.
He smirked knowingly at Tsuna. "We are now undergoing negotiations to purchase Kokuyo Fun Land. Get to work, brats."
This update came much later than I had hoped, and the next update, sadly, will probably be mid May.
Suggestions for the name of the hit squad are welcome! As is the way the name will be suggested and by whom. I've also added in a recap at the beginning of latest few chapters, since I've found that it's useful when catching up with stories that don't update often, like mine.
Please do give me feedback on what you found humorous or dull, or what you hope to see in the future, I'd really appreciate it!
