Hi everyone!
I'm italian and I'm translating my story in english because some not-italian people ask me to do it, so please forgive me for this poor and basic english!
I accept any advice because I really want to improve my english and I know there are many mistakes, SORRY!
Thank you for reading ~
Target 9 - Eh? I want to became stronger to protect Nozomi!
Arina is still at the edge of the door, looking at her pupil on the bed, with the respirator attached to the face.
She still sleeps and it's probably normal, after what had happened.
A man is standing next to the bed, her apprehensive gaze is on the girl, his right hand holds hers.
Slowly the woman approaches them, trying not to disturb him, but he already knows that she is there.
Arina: Uhm ... what have the doctors said ...?
Tsuna: She needs a lot of rest.
He looks up at her.
Tsuna: The initial conditions weren't the best, but fortunately there wasn't anything serious. Even his friend is recovering fast.
Arina: Yeah, I visited Jun before coming here.
After all she is also concerned about Nozomi's classmate.
Arina: ... It's the first time that she is reduced like that. She was right to say that she needed a weapon ... she could die ...
Tsuna: She tried to protect her friend. I would have done the same thing.
He admits, letting out a smile.
Tsuna: Why have they attacked the two of them?
Arina: I think they were the envious guys from the last time, but they called for reinforcements.
The boss doesn't speak, he only sighs.
Arina: ... Decimo, I have to tell you something. It's very important...
She throws a fleeting glance at the girl. The man turns toward her, interested in what the woman is going to reveal.
Arina: ... Arashi told me ... that when they got there, and saw her in that state, along with Jun ... all of them have noticed something they had never seen before ...
She doesn't even know why she is hesitating. She takes courage, and speaks.
Arina: ... She had an orange flame on her forehead.
She says, returning to look at the man, who instead turns to the slumbering daughter.
Tsuna: ... As I guessed. That was the only thing that could exhaust her up to this point, it is what happened to me.
He says sternly.
The woman doesn't know what to say. Looks again once at her student, luckily she's in good hands, then she turns around and slowly leave the room.
Before leaving she hears a whisper, it captures her attention and forces her to turn around.
Tsuna: So, now your moment has arrived ... so soon ... so soon ...
She is afflicted, she can understand Decimo's sadness. It seems like yesterday when Nozomi was just born, that September 15th, fifteen years before, and now she is already almost an adult.
When leaving the room, sees a woman with long blond hair, who smiles at her thoughtfully and then join her husband and daughter in the room.
The storm slams the door violently, burning with rage, looking around thinking about what to do and then decides to throw herself on the bed, looking at the ceiling.
Arashi: I knew he would put her in danger! I knew it!
"I'm really so useless?" she asks herself, angry for not being able to save her precious friend. "If I had been there I would have avoided that Nozo were treated that way."
She turns, deep in thought.
"... Three days are passed and she hasn't woken up yet, what should I do if this is going to last much longer?" she bites her lip, trying to hold back tears. "What kind of right-hand woman I am?"
She quickly pulls herself up, opens the door again and she goes without delay to the shooting room in the basement, next to her brother's lab.
The Fukada family is an pretty important family, for generations they lent services to some mafia clans although different from each other. Anyway, all of them were always allies or subordinates of the Vongola. Her grandfather, Ryonosuke Fukada, is very close to the Elektrica family's boss, with whom they right now are working with. Also Masato started working with them, right after their parents disappeared into thin air, some years before.
The redhead enters in the huge room from the automatic door, walking to the desk and stopping in front of the computer, turning it on and typing a code. Some figures starts moving, reaching the center of the room, while the girl wears the headphones and takes her twin gun, Scarlet and Raven.
She waits for the figures to stop at the center and the computer starts the timer, so the figures begin to move quickly around in a random way. The storm starts to shoot at them, passing from one figure to another one after two or three hits per figure, aiming to the head.
Even if the figures are moving really fast she's still able to calculate the time, the speed and the airflow in order to aim precisely to vital points.
But, in that moment, maybe cause her rage, she can't concentrate as she should and she wasted more than two shot per figure, before hitting the brain.
After she releasing her anger on fifty figures the times stops and the program moves away the damaged figures, making them disappear behind the steel panels at the two sides of the room.
She sits on the desk, putting her twin down in their enclosures: one behind the right thigh and the other on her left calf.
Arashi: It doesn't work, completely useless. I'm in a bad shape.
She leaves the house, still confused and angry and heading toward somewhere she doesn't know yet, staring into space.
The sky is dark and the moon is hidden by clouds. The neighbourhood lights are dim, there is hardly anybody on the street even though it is only 10 pm. In contrast, toward the center of the city the clubs and restaurants are noisy and you can hear musics and chats.
Men and women are talking outside of a pub. A couple of maids are inviting people to drink something in the café, other girls are sharing flyers of their place.
In a big screen people can see music video of famous singers, close to that place there's an arcade room with laughing guys, some girls are taking pictures with the appropriate picture machine, while a man is trying to win a stuffed pet in the catching machine.
The flame-haired girl walks down the main road and slips in an alley hidden from the lights, trying to think about herself and her future. She's tired to walk in the middle of the noise, with people who are having fun without worries. She still can't forget the image of a bleeding Nozomi, who falls down in front of them. In that exact moment the girl is in a private clinic, under strict observation. Her father entrusted her to some reliable doctors, they're actually taking care of her.
She wouldn't have been in that state if she had protected her adequately.
If she wants to get stronger she must find a way to create stronger weapons and to use her flame of the storm.
Arashi, Kaito and the others know about their flames but they never saw them and they don't know how to use them. Sometimes she thinks Nozomi was wrong and she doesn't have any flame. Though in her heart she's sure that's not true, the brunette said she could clearly feel some flame in their bodies, it's something perceptive that also she can't understand well, maybe it's strong because of her dreams, or maybe her hyper intuition is definitely more developed.
She believes in it, she's sure her flame is inside her, waiting to go out. She only needs to find a way to do it, as the other guardians unless Shinji.
The mist already knows how to use it, it was because following his flame that Nozomi found him, one month before. Maybe he can be the solution to their problems.
Kicks a bin and leans to a wall, trying to calm herself and release her frustrations, exactly when a horrible stench of alcohol passes rapidly under her nose: two staggering men has approached her, giggling.
- Oooh it's a lil girl! Hey, lady, how about giving us some money for drinks? -
- And you can come along with us~ -
The two men scrutinize her body as if they want to tear her clothes off and Arashi is really disgusted, also because the stink.
She turns quickly to them, pulling the twins out and aiming to the heads of the two.
Arashi: One more word and I'll blow your brain.
The two drunks, blanched at the sight of guns, scream while fleeing to the high street, the girl puts her weapons in their cases, starting to walk toward the the back road.
- Can you please avoid making fuss? -
She rolls her eyes, cursing herself because she doesn't detect this other person close to her. She looks around, trying to locate the guy who has just spoken, until she notices a young man with glasses, lying on the wall that framed the road behind the pub.
Arashi: ... Cloud.
The young man yawns loudly and then hauls himself up to sit, looking bored at the girl.
Cloud: I was trying to compose music, so be quiet and look for another place to vent your anger.
After it he lays again, ignoring that the girl anger increased because his words.
Arashi: ... Damn ... What kind of guardian are you? Do you know that your boss has been seriously injured?
Cloud: Who, that brat? I don't care.
Arashi: What? Are you a guardian or not? You can't say such things!
She is really furious but the boy just doesn't care.
Cloud: Hahaha ... Guardian? I don't care about guardians or shells.
Arashi: ...Vongola ...
Cloud: Clams, shells, whatever.
Arashi: Look, whether you like it or not you are a guardian and then you have to take your responsibilities.
The girl tries to calm herself, she knows that Nozomi hates when there are fights in the family, so she tries everything possible to contain her rage.
Cloud: I'm only interested in music, I don't care about mafia or such. If Ms. Sawada pays me as she always does, I could repay her with my services, otherwise you can disappear.
He lights a cigarette, the red-haired girl is trembling.
Arashi: ... "as she always does" what? What the hell are you talking about?
Some thinkings are on her mind right now, many of them are about Nozomi forced to listen to the requests of the boy.
She doesn't want even to think about the idea that Cloud can do something lewd to her.
She could dismember him and gives his flesh to stray cats.
The guy glances at her killing look and gets up, laughing.
Cloud: So, are you jealous or what? I'm not interested in certain things, I just love music and I'm looking for some lost relics that Ms. Shell is able to find for me.
Their eyes meet for a few intense moments, Cloud is amused but Arashi is furious.
Cloud: Anyway, there's nothing sexually attractive in that girl of uncertain gender.
It's obvious a provocation, Nozomi sure would laugh at him sarcastically, knowing him, but the storm can't swallow those insults.
Now, completely out of control, she pulls Scarlet and Raven out and starts firing wildly at the young man, who immediately throws his cigarette away, hopping on the wall and dodging the bullets, jumping on a nearby garbage dumpster.
She knows he's strong and he wouldn't have problems dodging the shots, but she wanted to hit him anyway.
Arashi: I'll stick the fucking insults in your throat, you asshole!
The cloud sighs, he doesn't really want to fight and he only wanted to be left alone to compose music in his mind.
But he has no choice since the lady storm keeps shooting him and recharging her guns.
Cloud: Silly weapons, you can't take breaks during a fight.
He gets close to her, and she jumps backwards. The girl finds protection behind a corner, she felt a danger and she almost was hit by something small and fast, that's now stuck in the wall. Silently she approaches it, checking the weapon: it is a Compact Disk.
She's perplexed.
She already knows Cloud is obsessed by music and wants to become a maestro, but it's really weird to fight with cd.
Cloud: Bullets are too weak, for useless thugs. Is with this level of strength that you want to protect the woman you love? Are you serious?
He's actually scolding her, but the redhead throws herself toward him, trying to hit the boy with a quick hail of bullets, but the cloud dodges them easily and jumps high, throwing other spinning cds as shuriken.
Suddenly they start cloning themselves, enveloped in a purple light.
"...What the fuck?"
Arashi can't avoid all of them and she is wounded by some cds, that tears her shirt up.
Arashi: This is impossible... the attribute of the cloud? You don't even have the ring, how the hell can it be?
She trembles. Is also Cloud able to use his flame, besides Shinji?
"Why... Why has he succeeded before me?"
Cloud: You wanted to become the little shell's right-hand woman, but don't you even know the basic things?
Arashi: Stop blather and speaks.
Cloud: Shinuki. Your boss told us about them, don't you remember? Well, it seems that the only one who was actively interested in studying this curious "latent capacities" was me.
He fixes his glasses with a know-all look.
Cloud: It seems that I'm more qualified to be the right-hand man then an incapable like you.
She opens her mouth trying to offend him, but there's no voice. She doesn't know what to say, after his last insult to her.
Her confusion is interrupted by his laughing.
Cloud: Obviously I was joking, I'm not interested in your game.
But Arashi is humiliated and is burning of envy. It's probably true that Cloud seems to be more suited to be a better right-hand man than her, only because he had the smartness to educate himself about the flames Nozomi told them. She knows that story since she was a child, and she was never actively interested in studying her own flame.
She wants to hit him, this time with a punch on his face, breaking his glasses and humiliating him as he just did with her.
Anyway she doesn't have the time to do a step, because some cds are thrown against her, forcing her to back.
She quickly points the guns in front of her, in the spot where the guardian of the cloud was just before, in that moment disappeared into thin air.
Arashi: Where the fuck ...?
After a few seconds Arashi is still perplexed, and in the night she can only hear the notes of a melody coming from the pub.
Cloud fled under her nose, there isn't any trace of him, and the redhead is alone in the middle of the back road, under the dim light of the street lamp.
She puts down her weapons, shivering.
The storm is really upset and destroyed. The boy's words still echoes in her mind, she's still incredulous about his amazing skills and the flame he managed to use, without having the rings.
Can't even believe about it.
She screams, falling down and repeatedly beating her fists on the ground.
"Damn piece of shit!"
But she knows that that guy is right. Her Beretta M9 with 15 bullets are powerful weapons against normal thugs or common enemies, but they're too weak against people with flames.
Shinuki flames are the dying will flames that every human has inside their bodies, but only a few of them can use their strength. They represent different elements: she has the storm flame, Haname has the rain, Kaito has the sun, Luca has the lightning, Shinji has the mist, Cloud has the cloud and Nozomi has the sky.
Yet she doesn't know how to use those flames, she has heard that they need rings or special bullets. But Nozomi managed to use the shinuki hyper mode only by her willpower, Shinji usually uses his flame to amaze people or read his tarots, and now just Cloud used the attribute of the cloud flame to multiplicate items.
Leaving Nozomi alone, now there are two guardians who can use them, and they succeeded easily and before her, the storm, the boss's right-hand woman, the one who should be the most reliable and powerful after Nozomi.
She can't lose, she must study a method to use her flame.
How had Cloud done it? How can also she do that?
She has to become stronger to protect her boss, she has to create something that can help her and other guardians to use their real powers.
She won't lose any more, never again, she couldn't allow it.
*Shinuki: (死ぬ気) The Japanese word that means Dying Will. I decided that I will use this word because it is the proper name with which they call it and I think it is the easiest name to indicate the flames.