A/N: Here comes a long chapter that I really enjoyed writing, and I hope you enjoy reading. And because I detest having complicated events occurring without any idea what's going on, here are the basic rules to Hold 'Em Poker as is played in this chapter. If you already have an idea of it, then skip the rest of the author's note. I like to think I made it fairly clear what was happening even if you have only a passing knowledge of poker, but I may have used some jargon that went undefined.
One variation of poker is Hold 'Em, also called Texas Hold 'Em. Each player is dealt two cards, and five community cards are put onto the table. The idea is to have the best five-card hand out of the seven cards available to you. After the first deal is a round of betting, then three community cards are turned over in what's called the 'flop'. There's another round of betting, then the fourth card is turned over, a third round of betting, and the last card is turned over; there is a fourth round of betting, and hands are revealed. Whoever has the best hand wins the pot, and you go as many hands as it takes until only one person still has money or tokens left.
On your turn during a betting round, you can either: pass, where you choose to skip your turn and come back after everyone else has taken a turn; set the bet, if you're the first person to place a bet; call, which means to match the highest bet thus far; raise, which means to match the minimum bet and increase it; or fold, ducking out of the round and giving up the opportunity to win the round, but also avoiding having to put in a bet if you have a bad hand. Alternatively, if you have a bad hand, you could try bluffing, usually by putting in a large bet that implies that you are very confident about your hand, trying to get the others to fold. If everyone else folds, you win the hand regardless of what your cards were.
Target 10: Poker and Jack
Another day, another session of getting attacked by Hibari for herding in front of the school. For once, Tsuna nearly looked forward to doing his homework, because it meant sitting down.
Before he walked into the house, he checked the mailbox and found at the bottom two letters with the addresses in identical handwriting; one addressed to himself, and the other addressed to Lambo. He turned over the one addressed to him, and squinted at the insignia imprinted in wax. "A 'C'…and two horses, from the Cavallone? Weird, Dino's never sent a letter before. And why would there be one for Lambo? Ugh, I've got a bad feeling about this…"
He pulled open the seal on his letter, and groaned when he realized that it was written in Italian. "Uh…wait. That's…Halloween? Invited to…costume…you've got to be kidding me. Reborn!" he called out as he stepped inside. "He's got something to do with this—Reborn!"
He stumbled up the stairs, plowed into his room, and held up the invitation. Reborn set down his coffee cup and looked up attentively as though he hadn't just been plotting. Tsuna shrugged his backpack off and said "What is this? I see something about a Halloween Party, and Dino's Family's emblem sealed it."
"The Cavallone Family Annual Halloween Gala."
"Annual? I've never heard of it before. And you'd take any excuse to drag me into something weird…"
"Two years ago you had not yet met Dino," Reborn said matter-of-factly. "And last year's was canceled, as it is held in the middle of the month and Dino was busy."
"The Ring Conflict," Tsuna muttered. "I guess that makes sense, but—wait, middle of the month? When exactly…" He scanned the letter, only to have it snatched out of his hand by Reborn.
"The Cavallone Organization's Halloween Gala, taking place the night of October 9th at the Salida Villa in the town of Veruda," Reborn read off. "Just outside Palermo."
At that, Tsuna held up a finger in triumph. "Palermo? That's in Italy, right? Well it looks like I can't go, since I don't have a passport," he said. Reborn produced a Japanese passport, complete with a photo of Tsuna from his last school picture day. Tsuna instantly deflated. "Of course…"
"Next objection?"
"I'll miss school. The ninth is a Thursday, yeah? And it's twelve hours to Sicily from Namida International. I'll miss at least two days of school."
"Five, actually. The Ninth Boss insisted that if you were to be in Italy anyways, that the time should be taken advantage of. Your flight leaves Japan on the eighth, and returns early in the morning on the sixteenth."
"The sixteenth? I'll be spending my birthday in Italy?! No way! You're not going to convince my mom to do it, especially after missing it last year because of the Ring Conflict!" And that just brought forward memories of the year before that, where he'd spent his birthday in the hospital after a magic trick gone awry.
"It's fortunate then that she's already given her approval. She agrees that it's important for a young man to explore world cultures, and it would be a shame to give up this opportunity."
Tsuna's eye twitched. "So this has been in the works for a while now and I only just found out now. Of course…" I guess I should be glad I know two weeks in advance. Knowing him, he would have put me on the plane while I was still sleeping. Good thing Dino sent the invitations…although, now that I think about it. "So, my friends are going too? There was another invitation, at least I'm assuming that's what it is, but this one is addressed to Lambo."
"I was against the cow-brat coming, but the Ninth insisted. All of your Guardians have been invited. For you, it's mandatory."
"Of course it is." Tsuna sighed. Well, Gokudera's guaranteed to come if I'm going. But Ryohei probably wouldn't want to leave Kyoko behind, and from the sounds of it, it's Guardians and Guardians only. Baseball season is over, so Yamamoto might come. He picked up the invitation from where Reborn had left it. Eh, it's not like there was going to be anything special for my birthday, anyways. And from what I've seen of Palermo, it looks like a nice city. Here I am convincing myself it's okay because there's no choice in the matter.
A realization hit him in the head like a brick. "Hey, Reborn, here's an idea—an offer. For the week that we're in Italy, I won't whine, I'll wear whatever stupid costume you want, I'll be the perfect little heir."
That caught Reborn's attention, and he turned to look at Tsuna.
"And in exchange, you set up a meeting between me and Aria of Giglio Nero."
"Aria? That may be more difficult that you're imagining. The Giglio Nero Family is not an ally of Vongola due to differences in policy. The Ninth might insist on an armed escort for such a meeting, and Aria isn't the type of person to appreciate that kind of presence."
"And! The entire night of the party, I'll keep Lambo away from you at all times. You won't even know he's there."
"Done." Leon turned into a cell phone, and Reborn started making calls.
Before starting in on his homework, Tsuna checked the lockbox he had stored behind the air vent in his closet. Still shut tight. That'll be one promise taken care of.
Tsuna had somewhat underestimated how much his friends would be into the idea of going to Italy for a week; every one of his Guardians confirmed that they would be coming, even to his horror and shock Hibari—although the fact that he might get to fight Dino again might have been a contributing factor. Yamamoto, Chrome, and Ryohei had not had passports yet, but before a week was up each of them got one in the mail.
"So I don't know if Reborn's just being secretive as ever, or if he really doesn't know what the Ninth has planned for the week," Tsuna said, as he walked beside Yamamoto and Gokudera to school on October 7th. "But all I know for sure is that there's Dino's party the one night, and apparently I'll be spending the day beforehand getting to know the city. Otherwise, I don't have a clue."
"Hey, I bet we can find something fun to do. Gokudera, you used to live in Italy, you know anything fun to do?" Yamamoto said.
Gokudera made a face like he was sick. "Uh, well, actually…I wasn't in Palermo for long. I'm so sorry, Tenth, I'll spend every minute between now and landing studying every piece of information I can about the city!"
"That's okay, you don't have to do that. You'll be helpful enough, since the only other one of us that knows Italian is Chrome, and Lambo I guess."
Yamamoto laughed as he put an arm around Tsuna's shoulders. "I guess you didn't get a word of that lesson Gokudera tried to give either. Fail buddies now and forever, eh?"
"Mm. Oh, that reminds me, we have a test today, don't we?" Tsuna shivered at the thought. I really was going to study yesterday, but then everybody showed up at my house and we got caught up in costume ideas. Well…man, this is different. Am I actually looking forward to spending a week with my friends, even if it is in Italy? How bad could it be, after all?
Very bad, as it turned out, and that was within a minute of takeoff on the tiny private jet owned by the Vongola. Tsuna had done his fair share of flying, and he figured that being in a plane wouldn't be much different from that. He was very, very wrong. It took about a half an hour for Tsuna to stop gripping the armrests so hard his knuckles were white. It had taken nearly two hours thereafter for him to stop thinking over and over again about the fact that he was in a tiny metal tube over 40,000 feet up in the air, and everyone around him was treating this as an entirely Normal Thing, totally not worth panicking about.
At some point, he slept for about four hours, woke up to Lambo bouncing up and down on his chest, and was ordered to come play hold 'em poker to make it a six-person game—Hibari had been sleeping the entire trip with headphones on, and Ryohei was by his own admission a horrific poker player.
"I've played poker once, once, and I was terrible at it," Tsuna muttered, as Gokudera dealt out onto the table. He was sitting with his left side to the window, Tsuna was across from him, Reborn sat on the table to Tsuna's left, Yamamoto sat on a seat across the aisle, Chrome to his left, and Lambo sat next to Gokudera, and from the moment that the cards were dealt Lambo was trying to peek at Gokudera's cards, and in trying to keep his cards out of sight Gokudera knocked over the pile of wrapped candies that they were using as tokens. Gokudera grumbled as he pushed his tokens back into a neat pile.
Tsuna sighed at his nine and jack of hearts, and put in two candies. Reborn raised it to three, Yamamoto and Chrome called it, and Lambo went all-in.
"Stupid cow! Don't you know how to play this game, you're the one who was begging to play!"
Tsuna and Yamamoto shushed him simultaneously, but Hibari did not seem to have been woken up by the yelling. Lambo got ejected from the game by a vote, and Gokudera re-dealt. Tsuna put in three candies, and everyone called it. Gokudera turned over three cards, an ace of hearts, a three of hearts, and a jack of spades. Tsuna considered his twos of diamonds and spades, and put in two candies. Reborn raised it to five, Yamamoto and Gokudera called it, and both Chrome and Tsuna folded. The next card was turned over, and Reborn put in another eight. Gokudera and Yamamoto both folded, and Reborn showed his cards.
"A pair of jacks," Tsuna said, deflated. It was better than junk, and better than the pair of twos that Tsuna had, but that was about it. "I forgot that we're playing with the biggest liar in the criminal underworld." Reborn only smirked at the easy bluff. Tsuna grabbed up the deck, clumsily shuffled it, and dealt next.
The next hand went to Gokudera with an easy straight after calling Yamamoto's bluff on junk. After that Chrome took a hand with a full house, and another with a bald-faced bluff; for all she had become a much happier and more open person in recent months, she was still excellent at keeping her emotions hidden when the situation called for it. On the fifth hand, Tsuna folded again after the flop was put down, and got smacked in the face with a Leon-Flyswatter.
"You've folded on every hand; you're in third place from not ever taking a chance," Reborn said.
"Yeah and the best I've had is junk or a single pair." Tsuna held up the cards he had had, which combined with the cards on the table made a single pair of fours. He perked up dramatically, put a hand to his ear as though to hear something far off, and said "Oh, what's this? It's the ghost of my home tutor, telling me that I shouldn't take on battles that I have no chance in." And somewhere around the word 'ghost' was the line that he crossed, and Reborn grabbed the offending hand and easily twisted it around to Tsuna's back at an uncomfortable angle. "Ow-ow-ow I give I give!"
"I expect effort and respect as deserved, no less than ever," Reborn said, as he released Tsuna's arm, and went back to the game.
Tsuna ground his teeth together, and on the next hand he gave an exaggerated sigh but called a ten-piece bet that Gokudera put in, and came up with two pairs and the win. The hand thereafter Chrome took, and cleaned out Yamamoto with it. Reborn got a flush and took over half of Tsuna's pot and wiped out Gokudera, while Chrome folded and lost little. Chrome moved over to sit next to Gokudera, and Reborn sat at the end of the table.
The next deal was Reborn's. Tsuna checked his cards, and hid his disappointment at junk. He thought about folding, consequences be damned, until he felt someone's foot tap his under the table. He looked up, and Chrome was very pointedly staring away from him and at her cards as she apparently thought about her bet.
Chrome put in five pieces, Tsuna and Reborn both called. Three cards on the table, Chrome put in another five, Tsuna called, and nervously tapped the table with his fingertips. Reborn raised to ten. Tsuna carefully met Chrome's gaze, and just barely perceptibly shook his head. Chrome met Reborn's bet, as did Tsuna.
Fourth card, Chrome put in fifteen from the start, and Tsuna called it, leaving him with three pieces of candy. Reborn called as well, and the fifth card came up. Tsuna passed, and Reborn bet ten. Chrome pursed her lips, and Tsuna kept tapping his fingers. She raised to fifteen. Tsuna folded, and prepared himself to get smacked again, but it never came.
"Nineteen," Reborn said, as that was exactly how much he had to bet with. Chrome called it, and Tsuna nearly broke out laughing when they each revealed their cards; Chrome had three of a kind, Reborn had been dead bluffing with junk.
"I don't think I stand a chance, at this point," Tsuna said, throwing his last three pieces of candy into Chrome's pile.
"Bah, it was beginner's luck," Gokudera grumbled. "It was a game of luck, Tenth, if it were a game of skill you would certainly win!"
"No, I think by the rules of the game that he was playing, he won," Chrome said, as she started splitting the candies up into eight even piles. "Thanks, boss."
Gokudera blinked. "Wait…what?"
"They were in cahoots," Reborn said, but it was in good humor.
Yamamoto leaned in. "Ah, that was what Tsuna was doing. You know how the kid lies, and signaled Chrome when he was bluffing, right?"
"Something like that," Tsuna said, as he picked up a piece of candy. He set a hand on the table as the plane rumbled over turbulence.
"So, you were actually paying attention. Most professionals would be ashamed to see the kinds of tells that I was playing," Reborn said.
"Hm? Oh, like how you kept adjusting your hat when you were bluffing?" Tsuna said. "I assumed you were doing a fake tell to throw off guesses. Same as playing with your sideburns. It was…too obvious? What, you made fake tells when you were actually bluffing as a hint?"
Gokudera frowned. "So, how'd you know he was bluffing, then?"
Tsuna thought about it. "That is…Chrome, how did you describe it? Like a spider-web?"
She went red at having the attention pulled to her. "Sort of…a thinly-distributed flame, projected from his ring, that when disturbed by the sudden activity of another flame in the vicinity, is bounced back as feedback. Like when an insect touches a spider-web, the spider can tell because of the vibrations of its prey struggling to escape."
"…I'd forgotten the second half of that analogy," Tsuna said, turning a little green at the idea of being compared to a hunting spider. "But, it's not perfect, yet? Like I can kinda tell if somebody's lying because their heart rate speeds up and their flame flares more frequently in response, but that's about it."
"And here I thought all those secret meetings with Chrome were for something inappropriate," Reborn said, smiling from beneath the brim of his hat. Chrome turned bright red, Tsuna fell over in his seat, Yamamoto started choking on his juice, Gokudera paled, Ryohei started yelling about things that were to the extreme not appropriate, Hibari woke up and smacked half of them in the head with his tonfas, and Lambo stole half the candy for himself.
The trip from Haneda International in Tokyo to Falcone-Borsellino Airport in Palermo, Sicily was a flight of about fourteen hours. The flight had taken off at 10 AM local time, which would suggest that it should have been around midnight when they landed. Despite this, even by the time they were through customs, the sun was still high in the sky.
It was 5:30 PM Local Time, when it was 12:30 AM in Namimori, seven hours ahead. First, this made for an interesting phone call to his mother upon landing, who spoke shortly as I-Pin and Fuuta were asleep. Second, this made dinner with the Ninth that first night unavoidable. And it was probably going to be a disaster, since Tsuna was barely awake enough to unzip the backpack he had carried on with his formal suit.
He managed it, somehow, and carefully got changed into his suit in the airport bathroom. It was the same suit that he had worn during Choice, in the other future, which just made it feel weird. The last time he had been dressed so formally, it was to echo the uniforms worn by the First Generation Vongola when they went to battle—not for power as Mafiosi, but to protect the people as vigilantes. And now, he was going to have pasta, probably, with Vongola Nono and his Guardians. Real heroic, he thought, as he checked himself in the mirror.
He was the fourth to get done changing—Gokudera had plenty of experience getting into formal suits, Tsuna had helped Lambo before getting changed himself, and Chrome hadn't had to jostle for space in the women's restroom.
Tsuna noted with some interest that both Reborn and Hibari had vanished, although he wasn't too concerned. Hibari could take care of himself, while Reborn probably had business to take care of, and it wasn't like he was a babysitter. Supposedly there was a driver waiting outside the international terminal that would take them to dinner, and from there they could figure it out.
He tilted his head at both Chrome and Gokudera. Gokudera wore his Vongola Gear as usual, but it kind of stuck out like a sore thumb in the formal clothing. Meanwhile, while Chrome's Vongola Gear was small enough to go unnoticed, she was also wearing her favored knee-high boots with skull pins on each side. It was her own style and she did it well—there was a reason why she specifically took the last name 'Dokuro', which was homophonous with the Japanese word for 'Skull'—but it still stood out.
Gokudera caught Tsuna's gaze, and upon realizing what he was looking at immediately started fumbling at his belt buckle. "I'm so sorry, Tenth, I'm just used to always keeping it on my person—Dokuro, take those skull pins off, they're not proper."
"No, no, you really don't have to, either of you!" Tsuna said quickly, and to make his point he pulled the Sky Ring from his pocket and slipped both rings on. "I just—actually—I was just thinking about how it's weird to be wearing these clothes when it's just dinner. But you know I hate all this stuff." He tried to keep it vague, even if it was really minimally necessary—it helped that they were speaking in Japanese, and the terminal was sufficiently busy that nobody paid any mind to a few teenagers that were probably on a school trip. "It's actually kinda neat. Like…micro-aggressions is the wrong word, but it's big enough to be noticed, small enough that anyone that did notice might not feel comfortable saying anything. In fact, I just got an idea." He pulled off the knotted cufflinks that he had received with the suit, dropped them into his backpack, and reached far into it to get a tiny plastic bag with a pair of metal cufflinks. "My mom got me these after she saw the suit."
He carefully pinned the cartoony tuna fish-shaped cufflinks into place, and crossed his arms confidently over his chest.
Gokudera seemed painfully torn between wanting to yell out "Fight the power!" and the fact that he would look a little ridiculous doing so. He settled on "Alright, Tenth! We'll show those old men who's really in charge!"
The idea made Tsuna's stomach sink into the floor. Wait no I just wanted to be passive-aggressive—
The last two came out simultaneously, and neither Ryohei nor Yamamoto had their ties on, and Ryohei's shirt wasn't tucked in at all. Yamamoto was smiling, but not in the normal way, more like he was so tired he did not know where he was way—he was the only person not to fall asleep at some point on the flight and had gotten little sleep the night before.
Gokudera groaned and grabbed Yamamoto's tie out of his hands. He tied it loosely around his own neck, then handed it back so that Yamamoto could set it under his collar and pull it tight. "Thanks, I'm still no good at this."
Tsuna sighed as he picked up Lambo, who was napping away. At least he wasn't running around the terminal bothering people. He started walking as Gokudera argued with Ryohei about his tie, but the older boy insisted that it made him feel like he was choking.
On the far end of the international terminal, there was an older man in a driver's uniform complete with cap, holding a small dry-erase board that had 'Sawada' written first in smooth Latin lettering, then in precise hiragana beneath it. The driver was unmistakably Italian of features, but he spoke Japanese easily when Tsuna approached him.
The driver's eyes went to the ring Tsuna wore before he spoke. "Mr. Sawada? A pleasure to make your acquaintance at last," he said. Gokudera stepped up beside Tsuna and raised an eyebrow without a word. "Of course, sir." The driver held out his hand to indicate a ring he wore on his middle finger, inscribed with a simplified Vongola Family Emblem. Gokudera tapped the surface with one finger, and seemed satisfied. The driver nodded and said "If you'll follow me, please, your luggage will be taken care of separately."
"Your Japanese is very good," was all Tsuna could think of to say.
"Thank you, Boss." Just outside the building, the driver opened the back door of a waiting nondescript black car with six seats in the back, three facing forward and three facing backwards. Gokudera stopped Tsuna before he could step inside, and walked around the car occasionally tapping on the engine cover or kneeling down to look inside the wheel wells. It took a minute for Tsuna to realize that he was checking the car for bombs. He felt sick at the very idea of it. Well, I guess that's the good thing about Gokudera working with explosives for so long—he won't miss if there is one.
Gokudera slid into the shotgun seat, and everybody else piled in. Tsuna sat down with Lambo on his lap. As the driver checked his mirrors, Tsuna said "I didn't catch your name."
"Few care to know it, but if it please you, call me Jack, boss."
"So, do you know where we're having dinner, Jack?"
"The Entrare, it is called." Tsuna could see the smile on Jack's face in the rear-view mirror. "It servers mainly traditional Italian cuisine for a high class crowd."
"Oh?" Yamamoto said, perking up. "Well, count me out, class isn't exactly my strong suit."
"He admits it!" Gokudera yelled out in disbelief.
"So, Jack, um," Tsuna said, trying to think of another question to ask. Anything to avoid either fighting, or awkward silence. "You must drive a lot of important people. Hear anything interesting lately?"
"Rumors and gossip, boss."
"What kind of rumors?"
Jack hesitated before continuing, but seemed to understand that Tsuna wasn't trying to bait him into saying something unseemly. "Well…the Don has apparently been healthier than usual, lately. The Don's son, the vicious one you know? He's making some waves, but I can't give many specifics."
"So you know nothing, essentially," Gokudera said, and nearly spat before remembering where he was.
"Oh, don't misunderstand me, I do it out of loyalty; I am a driver, yes, but I was originally scouted for the Varia."
There was a long moment of pause as they registered that information, then Gokudera leaped right back in with "Now hold on! Your loyalty is to the Tenth Boss!"
"Gokudera, stop it! I can understand not wanting to talk about Xanxus in too much detail, he probably blows people's heads off for less!"
"Well not really, the most he ever does to his own subordinates is loud threats and throwing shot glasses at them occasionally. Bad for morale if you kill everyone."
Oh, god, that casual attitude toward murder, he's Varia alright.
"But you seemed a bit surprised to learn that I was Varia. Wouldn't expect it, eh? To be fair, I haven't taken a job in a decade, since I drove me and three other guys out of a job gone bad on gasoline vapors." He laughed at the memory. "But believe me, boss, I make it my personal policy that I will not allow any harm to come to my passengers, whether it be the Don or a servant, and never once have I been so much as late." He paused to merge onto E90 going east.
"What officer did you work under, during your time with the Varia?" Yamamoto asked lazily.
"I worked under the Mist Officer, Mammon, though I'm no spellcaster myself. They thought I had something of precognition, but if there's anything up there," and he tapped the side of his head for emphasis "It's only about the road."
Gokudera's eyes lit up. "You mean like a routewitch?"
"A what?"
Gokudera launched into a rapid explanation of a type of individual said to roam the byways of the world. Tsuna didn't really get it, and he drifted into his own thoughts for a while.
"Eyes up, boss," Jack sat, ten minutes later. "We're gonna be in the middle of the city in a few minutes here."
"Alright, everyone—not you, Tenth, you'll be amazing as always—pay attention." Gokudera didn't even bother to turn around as he addressed the other Guardians. "I was looking up this restaurant, and it's right on the water. If a situation comes up, we run it the same as back in Choice. Yamamoto on point, I'll be on defense. Lawn-Head has the best mobility, he'll be supporting you. Dokuro, we'll be depending on you to keep the Tenth out of sight of any possible enemies."
"Now hold on!" Tsuna said loudly. "I'm not going to sit and hide!" He coughed. "And besides, who says anything's going to happen?"
Gokudera bit back a retort, but Jack just about read his mind and spoke up. "Boss, you're in the heartland of the Sicilian Mafia. Your visit's been kept pretty tight under wraps, because every two-bit gang-banger imagines cutting off the head of the Vongola—figuratively speaking, a Decapitation Order is a plan that involves assassinating a family's leadership—and some might just be crazy enough to try it."
"Exactly, and as your right hand it is my responsibility to ensure that doesn't happen!"
Jack made a buzzer noise with his mouth. "Wrong. That's the head of security."
"Oi, piss off old man, this doesn't concern you!"
Jack continued on as though Gokudera hadn't interrupted him. "The boss says to his right hand 'I don't want to die at this meeting'. The right hand says to the head of security 'you ensure the boss's security at this event.' And the head of security organizes everything to ensure that the meeting goes off without a hitch."
"But I don't have a head of security," Tsuna said. I can't believe I'm getting into this. "Or—no, wait, I guess, Gokudera would be, since he's the only one of us that knows anything about how all this works." Checking the driver's ring for his identity, checking the car for bombs…
"Which works, but that just means he's got two different hats," Jack said. "One as the right hand, one as the head of security. It isn't the right hand's responsibility to ensure security. Anyways, I think the Miss there can attest to the fact that concerns over security will be…minimal."
Gokudera twisted around to look at Chrome. She said quietly "There's a pair of men in the car behind us that I recognize from the Inheritance Ceremony. Kyoya is on a motorcycle a few cars further back."
Gokudera muttered something incomprehensible, and turned back around.
A/N: Not a lot of plot, but it was getting really long. At least what I consider to be really long. Jack was originally just a regular driver working for the Vongola, then I realized that I wanted him to actually have some idea of what kind of situation he was in, so he became an ex-Varia assassin. He's like 50-something, was scouted for the Varia when he was twenty-something, so he's been in this game for a long while.
Got a poll up on my profile which may affect this. Essentially, should I have Japanese characters use honorifics even in English, and use speech patterns more like the original Japanese rather than anglicizing it as I have been doing?