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The second she took a step into that aircraft, Watari had greeted her with a stern look on his face. Oh boy, was she screwed.
On the bright side of the situation, she saw Mei and Kyoya safe and sound sitting together on one of the seats.
Apparently, her plan had gone perfectly planned. Both Fon and Mei were very surprised at how mature Kyoya had treated the situation. They spoke of his wild tendencies to love to try and brawl with other people that got too close.
Lu just smiled and laughed, she was incredibly impressed and grateful that he took the whole situation with a grain of salt. If he didn't, they might not have made it at all.
The poor boy's eyes darted to the side as a slight blush flickered over his cheeks. Such a tsundere~
Through the intercom system of the plane, Stefano, AKA Curly 2, notified them that the flight was going to be a long one back to Italy, around 12 hours of non-stop flying time. Watari informed them that he would be flying the second half of the trip so if they required something from him, they were to ask Luculia or Verde as they know where everything was placed.
Shuan and Lu had unclasped the table from the aircraft floor and moved it to the side, creating space on the floor for them all to gather round. Lu had deemed herself too icky to take a nap so she was going to do the next best thing, play games.
She pulled out a deck of cards from her pocket and placed them in the middle of the slowly growing circle of participants. Watari had chosen not to participate as he decided that he preferred to complete his work but the majority of the others -excluding Curly 2- had gathered around.
Lu rolled onto her stomach and laid on the fluffy rug, Kyoya joined her shortly after seeing the crowd of animals surrounding her. It'd be ironic to see him so keen to crowd if they knew how he'd be like in about 10 or so years.
Shuan had planted himself next to the girl, sitting with his legs crossed. He swiped up the desk of cards and started shuffling. Kyoya had been sending him odd looks so he raised an eyebrow at the younger cloud.
"What's wrong?" He asked. Luculia waved him off, "He's Japanese-Chinese, so speak one or the other. Also, he's probably worried because I threw a bomb that looked worryingly identical to the cards you're toying around with."
Shuan sent her a flat look, "There aren't going to kill me, right?"
She smiled a little too innocently for his liking, "No it won't, and Japanese, please." He rolled his eyes and started dealing the cards, "Kyoya-kun, you playing?"
The boy looked up from the little monkey in his hands meeting his eyes before looking back down at the apparently more interesting monkey. A vein popped on the older boy's temple, "Oi…"
Lu sweat dropped and pulled a book from one of the drawers under the chairs, "Kyo-chan~" she cooed.
Shuan gave her an unimpressed look, she stuck her tongue out at him.
Kyoya raised an eyebrow at the girl. She beamed at him (he was so cute), "Wanna read this book with me~?"
Shuan was sending him the oh-come-on-you-didn't-even-acknowledge-me look with a slightly irritated glint in his eye. Kyoya eyed the book for a moment before glancing at the old cloud and smirking, "Okay, nee-san."
Shuan half-glared at him, "You can read the book if you play a game of speed with me after. Your reflexes seem decent."
His eyes shone at the challenge, a slightly disturbingly murderous grin made its way across his adorable face. "Deal."
The older cloud grinned equally as evilly back.
Lu rolled her eyes and opened the picture book and laid it flat on the group in front of her. She flipped to the front page.
"…An introduction to AP Biology – The Animal Kingdom." Shuan read out loud. Kyoya was immediately interested and grabbed at the book, holding it upright so he could read it.
Lu grimaced at it, "Verde!" she whined, pushing herself up into a sitting position.
The arcobaleno in question lifted his gaze from his laptop and raised an eyebrow at her, "Yes?"
She twisted the book so she didn't stop the future carnivore from reading about his brethren but so she could still give the lightning a good view of the cover.
"What's this thing? Why do you have such a skinny AP biology book? I thought it was a picture book!" She released the book to the younger boy and sighed.
Verde snorted, "If you read the title, you wouldn't be having this problem."
She grumbled under her breath, "Clearly."
A tug on her sleeve alerted her to the dormant cloud, she tilted her head. "Hmm? What's wrong?" He pointed at the picture of a lion mauling what looked like to be a gazelle goat. She paled, Fon might kill her.
She laughed nervously and Shuan snorted at her predicament unhelpfully. She shot him a glare. "That's a carnivore," She explained, "It's an animal that eats only meat."
He looked at her with wide eyes, his eyes darting back to the image with clear excitement. "It's strong because it only eats meat?"
"Nonono-"She waved her arms around in front of her, "Carnivores are strong, yes but Omnivores are also strong. They eat both veggies and meat, you see."
His jaw dropped slightly open, "Oh, so Carnivores are the strongest but Omnivores are Carnivores that act like weak herbivores but are still strong?"
She sweatdropped, parenting was hard. Oh well, he'll learn about it in middle school. She beamed at him, "I guess so! Carnivores and Omnivores need to be strong to get their food after all!"
He beamed at her, "I want to be a carnivore!"
Oh-fucking- boy. She paled several shades, "A-ah, you have you ask your mom okay?"
The boy nodded strongly and walked over to his mother, book in hand and a determined look on his face.
Shuan leaned back on the couch," You're screwed." He stated.
She huffed, "I know I am" she sulked. "Leave the wi-fi modem with my body, preferably powered and subscription paid?"
Shuan snorted, "No."
Verde sent her the most exasperated look, "What the fuck?"
She shrugged, "I need wi-fi to live. Even if I'm dead, I'll be a happy and entertained ghost."
Watari smiled kindly at her, "Whilst I will leave a modem on your grave, powered and paid, I won't be updating nor sheltering it from rain. Nor will I be paying for premium speed like you have at home."
She puffed her cheeks and pouted. "I don't wanna die anymore."
"Good. Keep it that way and start saving up your post-death fund." Viper wisely advised her, "I'll happily use your money to maintain for your post-death wifi for you… so long as I'm in your will."
She stared at him dryly, "Gee, thanks."
…
"…only Kyoya and Watari are gonna be on my will now."
About a week into the Hibari's and Shuan's integration into their new Italian residence (i.e. Watari's Base), everyone was quite accustomed to having them around.
Both Kyoya and Shuan had taken upon trailing along with Lu to whatever adventures or experiments she did. This was absolutely fine with her, that is until they got into a glaring competition (mostly one-sided) and ended up destroying her latest contraption. The one in which they didn't even know what it was.
The sky sat them down and scolded them at breakfast in front of everyone else. She was somewhat hoping the embarrassment would make the lesson stick in their heads better since what they had done was extremely dangerous. They were so lucky that they only destroyed magnetic wire connectors rather than a flame bomb test or a poison gas experiment.
Kyoya huffed, feeling annoyed but resigned to his mistake under the patronising flat stare that his mother was currently giving him. Shuan just looked to the side. It's not that he triggered, nor actually fought the younger cloud. He just sort of… let the kid do what he wanted and dodged away from getting hit. How would he know that it would only make the younger cloud agitated, attack more aggressively and subsequently blow up one of his sky's machinery?
Okay, he did look down slightly when she started to tear up before getting mad. He did feel a little bad. He vowed to never be the cause of her crying again because the feeling he got when he saw the tears was just nasty. It was disgusting and he never wanted to feel it again.
Lu sighed, "Just don't ever do it again, okay? It's really dangerous."
The guilty pair looked away and nodded. The sky smiled brightly, clearly satisfied with their compliance.
"Good!" She grinned, "Now, eat up. We're going on an adventure to the streets today~"
Shuan's mood visibly brightened at the suggestion. He was going to flaunt his street smarts as much as he could.
The cloud smirked at the younger boy beside him and nudged him, "Hey, Kyoya-kun."
He eyed the blonde suspiciously, that plotting grin was slightly unnerving. He grunted an acknowledgement.
"Wanna learn how to pickpocket?" Lu sparkled at the suggestion.
"I do!" She exclaimed.
The smaller boy nodded at the idea, agreeingly. "Hn."
Mei looked doubtful about the idea and Watari sighed, "Take Viper with you." The said mist glared at the sun before turning to the conspiring trio.
"I get half of the profits."
"Fiiiine." The girl drawled. She sent Mei a comforting look, "Don't worry, we'll take real good care of Kyo-chan!"
The woman smiled gently at the little sky, "Thank you, Luculia. Do stay safe."
"But, of course we will!"
The trio was currently situated, crouched down in a small circle within a dark alleyway. The buildings they were between faced directly to the busy village market place, they were quite the distance from home. Viper had decided to not actually go with them, per se, but preferred to watch over them from a safe distance. He would intervene if he really needed to.
"First step. As a newer pickpocket, it's easier to work in a group."
Kyoya grunted in displeasure at the idea and Shuan sympathised with him.
"I know it's not ideal but at least your team is just going to be us. When I started, I had to work with a gang and I despised them."
Lu ruffled Kyoya's hair and smiled as the boy tried to swat her offending fingers away. "It's okay, Kyo-chan. I believe in you! We'll be there to back you up if something happens."
His somewhat displeased look spun into determination, his eyes glittering purple. With a firm nod, he stood up.
Shuan mimicked the movement and lead the pair to the edge of the alley, staying within the shadows but still in a position so they had a decent view of the street.
"See all the people?" Kyoya nodded once. "-Since it's crowded, it's a lot easier. The aim is to either slip it from the person without them noticing or to accidentally bump into them and take it before apologising as if it was an accident."
The older cloud's eyes scanned the crowd for an easy first target. Hm…
"Lulu, you have to stay here."
The girl puffed her cheeks into a pout, Shuan rolled his eyes at her typical reaction and flicked her forehead. "Your flames, idiot. It'll give him away in a second."
She opened her mouth to protest but decided against it and shut it choosing to settle with a deeper pout, "Fine… but I get to watch from here?"
He gave her a nod which triggered a bright smile. Shuan sighed in fond exasperation before ushering the younger boy closer to the open street.
He raised a finger, "See that woman buying things at the street vendor? The one with the fruits?"
Kyoya grunted an acknowledgement, "Hn."
"That's your target, kiddo." Kyoya glared at the older boy from the corner of his eye for the 'kiddo' comment. The cloud gave him an encouraging grin and pushed him forward, "Go for it. I'll be a few behind you, your target is the coin pouch."
He then ventured into the Sunday market crowd towards his target.
Both Shuan and Lu watched him with a careful eye, the second he seemed distressed or in trouble, they were going to commence their extraction plan.
Lu would shock their core with a sudden but gentle zap of flames. This would allow Shuan to slip quickly through the crowd and usher the boy to safety, covering them in a basic crowd blending illusion. A simple and flawless extraction, given the younger cloud didn't make a fuss about it.
Lu hummed in contemplation about the situation, her eyes still glued on Kyoya's movements, "Hmm… I'd say he's doing pretty well."
Shuan shot her a dry look, "You say that like you have at all any more experience than he does."
Her cheeks puffed in annoyance, "Oi! For your information, I'm sure I could steal anything with minimal effort. MI-NI-MAL!"
"If you mean that you could go up to someone and knock them out before taking their stuff, that doesn't count."
She looked so offended it was comical, "Noooooo…." She trailed off. "…I would, y'know, maybe flaunt my acting skills instead. That'd be easier."
He blinked for a moment in thought, "That… is true. You could probably pull off a decent distraction technique with that face."
Her face flushed, "W-what do you mean by 'that face'?!" she stuttered out slightly offended.
The boy didn't react, his eyes still locked on the streets and shoved her attention to where he was looking.
"We need to get him out of there," He said hurriedly, "Distract the street vendor from the stall to his left. I'll grab him."
Shuan dashed out onto the street and disappeared from her view under the shelter of his own illusions. Lu morphed her vision to view the large array of stars that filled the streets, it was so blinding it somewhat hurt.
Quickly locating the familiar semi-purple star that belonged to Kyoya and seeing the brighter, more vibrant mixed shade purple one quickly approaching him, she needed to work quickly.
It was difficult though, there were so many people and they all weren't flame active, thus all their flame cores were presented as a dull white colour. She flickered her vision between standard reality and grabbed onto the, what she assumed as, the star of the left street vendor and quickly shot of a string of flames and poked his star in the side.
She shifted her eyes back to reality and paled as she saw the wrong person double over in pain. The person that she had secured was not too far off her original target and she honestly didn't have much time left so…
She just poked all the stars within a 5-metre radius of the one she had gotten previously.
It wasn't the best tactic at all but it worked…? Oh well, at least she did her job in the end.
Shuan had noticed the wrong person keel over and tsked in annoyance knowing Lu likely got the wrong person. He still pushed on and quickly swiped the boy from attention. A single droplet of nervous sweat made its way down the side of his neck when he realised that Kyoya had already been seen by another person that was near the target he had identified for Lu but not quite the person.
He chucked the younger boy over his shoulder and prepared to bolt out of there when suddenly a whole group of about 8 or so people just keeled over and fell to their knees.
Kyoya was kicking and punching him to make him let him down when Shuan's muscles froze along with his expression towards their current predicament. The younger cloud used that chance to slip out of his grip and glare at the blonde as he landed on the ground.
What he wasn't expecting was to see Shuan's expression completely blank in shock whilst staring at something. Kyoya looked completely exasperated when he saw the group of people on the floor, clutching their chests in pain.
"Hn." He grunted out, tugging on the older boy's shirt.
Shuan shook himself out of it and coughed slightly to regain his composure, "Ahem, right let's get out of here."
With Kyoya in the lead, they ventured back into the alley where Lu was waiting. Her eyes shined in pride as well as in waiting for praise for her utmost, well in her opinion, very good contribution to their escape.
Shuan sighed at the sight of her and patted both her and Kyoya's heads absentmindedly, "Good job, you two. Now let's go home."
Watari full on snorted when he watched the events play out. It wasn't against his own morals to bug his little wards with cameras when they left the house without him, it was for their own safety, after all, he was just being cautious.
Clearly not too cautious, having now collected a recording that would be kept for a long time he was extremely happy. It likely would be broadcasted on one of their 18th or 21st birthdays, maybe both. He chuckled to himself at all the possibilities.
Verde raised an eyebrow at the man and sighed in exasperation when he started giggling to himself.
What the fuck happened to the strict and scary man he portrayed himself to be years ago.
When the trio of misfits returned from their adventures, they were welcomed by the amused face of Watari and the joyful face of Mei, happy that they were back home safe and sound.
The woman glomped the three as soon as she saw them, "Welcome back, you three!"
She turned to Kyoya and crouched down to gather him in her arms. Unsurprisingly he didn't even protest the slightest bit.
"How are you, Kyo-chan? Did you have fun?" He gave her a small bob of the head, which in her opinion was absolutely adorable.
"So, did you win?" Verde asked from the couch near the fireplace.
Viper smirked from his perch on the cloud-mist's shoulder as the said cloud dangled the small pouch of coins from his hand for them all to see. "We only grabbed at her coin pouch and not at her actual wallet. We're not that mean."
Kyoya snatched the pouch out of hand when he lowered his arm back to his side. The 6-year-old showed his achievement to the his mother, which she beamed at.
"Ahh~ Mama's so proud of you, Kyo-chan! Kyo-chan's so cute!" She cooed.
Lu grinned evilly, the evil part flying directly over the mother's attention, "I know right! We should make cute clothes for him, like the overalls I used to wear but tailored to boys, it'll be adorable! I have some onesies too!"
The woman beamed at the young sky as Kyoya simultaneously glowered at her from outside of his mother's attention. "Oh, please do, Luculia-san!"
Lu snickered, "I'd be honoured and call me Lu-chan, Mei-san!"
"Okay, Lu-chan~"
The other men in the room sighed and gave the youngest of the bunch a pitying look. Good luck, Kyoya. You've got to deal with the women now.
"Come, come with me!" Lu called behind her as she hopped down the corridor to the stairs. "We can go to my room and draw up some ideas!"
Mei placed Kyoya gently on the ground and smiled at him before trailing along behind the only other girl of the house.
Once she was out of sight and hearing range, Kyoya plonked his behind on the floor and slumped back in defeat.
Shuan walked over to him, crouched beside him and looked down at the boy. Verde, Fon and Viper gathered round the half-dead child moments later.
"How are you, Kyoya?" Fon asked innocently.
The 6-year-old glared at his biological-but-not-acknowledged-to-be great uncle and threw the coin pouch at him. Viper intercepted the throw and took the money for himself.
Kyoya grumbled. "Hn."
Verde gave him a brief pitying look, before turning to walk towards his office. He paused mid-step for a moment when Watari spoke up.
"Whilst the girls are planning your demise in the form of adorable clothing, why don't we make you a weapon?"
The young cloud was so hyped and excited by just the suggestion of a weapon for himself that he shot up so fast and slammed his forehead into Shuan's, causing them both to fall back and clutch their aching heads.
Verde spun on his heel and walked back to the group gathering an array of questioning looks. He stared straight into Watari's soul, the groans of pain turning into plain background noise, "I want the details of the weapon after you decide." He demanded.
"Say please, Verde. Demanding things is rude."
The lightning grumbled and begrudgingly drawled out a "Please…" to which Watari nodded happily at and dismissed the poor scientist.
Verde swore that if the little Hibari wasn't in the vicinity, he would have just gone along with his demand but noooo… he has to set a good example on the kids, the leaders of the next generation as he told it.
Verde was positive that Lu had way too much influence over the old man.
Watari gestured the group to follow him to his office to discuss ideas for the young cloud's own weapon.
Needless to say, Kyoya exited that room with a pair of training tonfa and a promise for a future, modified pair of tonfa with features when he had gathered more experience.
About a week had passed and Kyoya now had a fully fleshed out wardrobe of clothes that he never would want to wear in his life but still ended up wearing at the discretion of his mother and resident sky.
For this particular day, he was dressed in a white short-sleeved shirt layered under a cute yellow overall. It was designed by Mei and based off of one of her favourite species of birds, Canary. Kyoya was even gifted with a stuffed Canary to match his outfit by Verde out of pure amusement.
Kyoya held the present in his hands and glared holes into it as his mother and Lu flicked around his form taking pictures and saying how cute he was.
He wasn't cute, he was vicious and strong!
"Clearly not, Kyo-chan~" Shuan sing-songed in amusement having read his expression. "Wait a few years before you can transition from cute to scary."
The boy growled at him before plonking his arms down to his sides and sighing in resignation. He wasn't going to get out of this for a while.
He hissed internally. He was a carnivore! Carnivores were meant to be strong, not resigned.
The psychic smiled, "Carnivore-in-training, kiddo."
Kyoya grumbled under his breath.
Lu stood up satisfied and smiled, "These are perfect!" (Perfect future blackmail material)
Viper floated up to the girl and landed on her shoulder, observing the photos as she flicked through them.
"Ah, "he started, stopping the girl from flicking further, "I want that one. I'll give you 10% of the profit."
She smiled, "Okay~"
Watari sighed as he watched the girl flick through her whole album of Kyoya photos with Viper stopping her occasionally to demand access to some of them. He needed to work on her bartering tactics before Viper drained too many resources out of her leniency.
He turned to the undisturbed cloud that had positioned himself a decent distance away from the chaos and was leaning on the wall that separated the kitchen from the main room.
"Shuan," He called out, catching the boy's attention. He tilted his head slightly in question.
"Do you have plans for the day?"
"No, not really."
Watari smiled and swapped the language so that the Japanese residents of the house could listen in as well. "I will take you all to our local church tonight. A great portion of Italians are religious, it would serve you all well to know some of their religious customs."
Luculia perked up, "We're going to visit Father Nicolas?" The old man smiled and nodded.
Watari had been friends with Father Nicolas for a long time since they were in primary schooling. It was quite the sight when Watari had taken Lu to her first mass. Lu had gotten along swell with the ageing priest as the man organised her Sacraments of Initiation.
He was very impressed with the girl when she made no fuss during the ceremony of Baptism like most other children did with regards to the holy water.
Whilst Watari was loyal to the Catholic church, he did not force the young sky to attend all the masses that he did yet she still decided to tag along. Honestly, Watari was not quite sure whether her reasons were the religious kind or simply to visit her new found friend in Nicolas.
"Yes, for the most part of the morning we will be going into town to show our new residents the streets of Capo. We will be attending evening mass."
She beamed at him and cheered, "Yay!"
Kyoya looked at them curiously. A church? How interesting.
Mei looked rather stoked at the idea as well, she had yet to explore the area and hadn't been able to see much of Italy at all. She was very keen to get to know the area.
Omake:
The machine that brought Lu to safety.
The girl crawled herself over to the lightning and tugged at his lab coat, a hand swatted her offending fingers away.
"What is it this time?" he asked dryly, pulling his coat towards him and straightening the creases out.
She pouted at him, "I just wanted to ask what the getaway flying thingy you made was and how Cosmo knew how to use it, but I didn't."
The scientist sent her a dry look, "I did tell you how to use it and Cosmo was there. You clearly weren't listening then."
She plonked her back onto the rug and curled into a fetal position, "…No, I guess not." She sulked out.
He rolled his eyes, "To repeat myself, that mechanism was a hover board prototype that was programmed to return to base. It's purely powered by flames, the more flames put into it, the faster it goes. If there aren't enough flames, it'll fail and fall. Simple as that."
"Wait, prototype?" She asked, her body shooting back up.
"Yes, you were my guinea pig."
She blinked for a moment before lying down and curling back into herself again.
"Ohh, okay. Thanks."
He sent her a side glance before returning to his work, "No problem, brat."
Shuan deadpanned, "That is not how one should react when told that they were used as a guinea pig for an experiment they didn't know about."
Next time - Ch 11: Adventures through the streets of Sicily and bumping into some unexpected Italians.