Welp, first the Bleach fandom broke open my ribcage with Walk Two Lifetimes(not looking forward to the next leg of the plot because I'm going to empathy squick so bad), My Little Pony pulled out my heart and intestines with Maternal Instinct(yes, kids show, this fic isn't and disabled-child-family-drama and Royal!AUs make me bawl), then KHR! used The Baker's Daughter(Yandere-esque romance done right, badass yakuza OC and damn my weakness for abused-child-family-drama!) to brutally crush my heart into tiny pieces and scatter them on the floor.

I...I need pointless fluff.


"I didn't do anything," Xanxus retorted over breakfast. "Getting rid of nightmares is more of a Rain-trick than any other Flame."

"Sky and Storm, right," Dino muttered in agreement, before catching the amused glance between Tsuna and Xanxus. "What?"

"He really thinks you're just a Stormy Sky?"

"Few people don't," Xanxus grunted, nibbling morosely at a bowl of miso soup and rice under the watchful eye of Lussuria. "Most just never bother to confirm it; others can't wrap their heads around it."

"Flames other than the primary seven do exist," Reborn added. "But the only one I know about and have had experience with, seen from a distance really, is the Night Flame of the Vindice. I guess I can add a second to the list. What does Wrath activate with, Xanxus?"

"Rejection," he growled after some hesitation. "Regret isn't enough, like with normal Sky. You see pain and suffering, feel it, and you say no. You say no more. I reject you; cease to exist." Even as he spoke, his eyes glowed.

"Wrath Flames, at their purest, don't burn, they disassemble," Lussuria added. "Boss prefers adding them and a touch of Sky to bullets for piercing power, but if you just light something...dust is all that's left. Even DNA."

"I..." Dino said slowly, "feel appropriately terrified now. And now I know why Secondo had unanimously the strongest Flame in the Vongola's history."

Squalo wandered back in, from where he had been talking quietly(!) into a phone in a rambling polyglot mixture of Mandarin, Corsican and Quebecois French with a dose of slang and nonsense words. "Voi! Boss, brats. We can get you on the plane tonight. I've already got Mists picking up your nearest and dearest, so pack whatever you got to take with you. You've got the next two hours."

Shock rippled through the room.

"Like fuck I'm leaving you here," Xanxus growled in answer to the unasked question.

In a furious scrabble, the kids dispersed, leaving an almost-afterimage of unprecedented joy behind them in the room.

Lussuria squealed delightedly. "We're keeping them, Boss?!" A slanted side-eye was his answer and he squealed again in delight, running after the nearest brat, presumably to help them get their things in order. Belphegor took advantage of the vacated seat, to immediately occupy it and lean against his Sky's shoulder, giggling ominously.

Being one of the few left at the breakfast table, Dino carefully continued eating and avoiding meeting the eyes staring at him.

"They'll be staying at the Varia, Horse." The unspoken challenge hung in the air. Dino took a hold of it with both hands.

"And you'll be accused of kidnapping? In your current condition, you'll never survive the ice a second time."

A growl. The shing! of knives. The faint click of a prosthetic hand tensing. "The Cavallone taking them? Kidnapping them?"

"Reborn asked for me," Dino bit out, raising his head to meet red eyes. "You showed up, with seemingly no reason to treat them well. What will seem most likely?"

"They're killers, Horse. Even the baby-Sky. Especially him." Xanxus' teeth bared in a mirthless smile; too many teeth.

Dino froze at the revelation, little things falling into place. But he merely tilted his chin defiantly. "You think I'm going to run from that?"

A sudden understanding passed between them, as Xanxus' dark chuckle resounded through the room. "Fuck; he got us both good, didn't he? You haven't tripped once in all this time."

Oh.


Fon noticed Reborn. Reborn noticed Fon. The Curse made sure of that.

While Dino and Xanxus had their little pissing contest, the Hitman slipped out to meet his colleague-in-misfortune on the town boundary.

"Viper told me," were Fon's first words, the abandoned customary greetings a tell-tale sign despite the benevolent façade. "Do not stand against me."

"I'll roll out the red carpet and hand out popcorn," Reborn scoffed. "And you're a bit late; Xanxus di Varia got here, took a shine to Tsuna and is taking all of them back to Italy tonight. And guess what," he met Fon's eyes with a sharp, questing stare. "Tsuna's a Transcendent. He's Harmonised with both Dino and Xanxus. And their Guardians, by proxy. Which makes him practically Viper's Sky."

The information sank in, but did not quite register; Fon's eyes glowing a bright and bloody crimson as his shadow warped. Lantern Warning. "My nephew. Now."

Then, like a thunderbolt from a wrathful god, Hibari arrived, a spectre of bared teeth and purple fire slamming into Fon's inferno and the resulting flare making Reborn duck behind the nearest house, until the clash abruptly died down.

"Yuánliàng wǒ," Fon was shaking, his small form buried in his nephew's sternum. "Wǒ méi kàn dào, yuánliàng wǒ." Hibari awkwardly wrapped his arm around his uncle as his own chest began to heave, silently burying his face in the mop of dark hair so like his own. Lichi, Fon's animal companion, snuggled into the boy's neck, chattering softly and gently pawing at his hair.
"Never before have I hated this Curse so much," Fon breathed, "that I cannot hold my nephew in my arms. Wàishēng, my child, let me turn the Vongola to dust for what they have done to all of you, wǒ qiú qiú nǐ."

"I want Hibird." Fon stilled. Ah yes, the little canary whose egg his nephew had found in a half-crushed nest, and had taken home to hatch and raise. Whose long lifespan was definitely tied to Hibari's Cloud Flames and his affection for it. The bird who adored the boy and had been cruelly taken from him.
"Truly I say to you today, it shall be done."


Kyoko Sasagawa lay very, very still despite her heart racing fit to burst. You were supposed to stay still and not provoke your kidnappers. And the fact that all of them didn't speak Japanese was not helping since she couldn't understand what they were saying when they looked at her and smiled wickedly.

A small comfort was that she was allowed to toilet independently, and she was fed and only her hands and feet were bound at other times. And not once had the two men leered at her, and there was a fellow woman as the third kidnapper who seemed to be in charge.

Kyoko wondered where this plane was going exactly; would country were they taking her to? And who, with enough money to own a private plane and a uniformed trio of kidnappers, would want a scholarship student from a backwater town?

A mobile phone rang, and the woman answered it, after looking at the caller ID and snapping at her colleague to stop talking. Answered, in Japanese.

"Captain!...Without a hitch, yeah...sensible, hasn't put a toe out of line, she's fed and watered...Nah, victims of complacency; the watchers never saw us coming...ETA for landing in two hours, ETA four hours for HQ, had to divert due to air traffic...Will do, Captain...Boss feeling better then?" She exchanged grins with her two compatriots. "Brilliant...yeah, I'll check in with Mammon in a bit." She hung up.
"Well boys, we're coming home, but we're a way yet. Yo, kiddo!"

Kyoko jerked at being addressed, her heart beating like a rabbit's.

"Look, I don't know what the Boss wants with you, but you got friends in high places if he wants you. And at HQ too!" The woman grinned, the friendly gesture greatly marred by the burn scar on her cheek that exposed the tendons beneath. "Boss says everything will be explained to you, but in the meantime,..." she pulled out a deck of playing cards, shuffling and snapping them out like a fan, in one hand. "You can call me Gléck. Know how to play Go Fish?"


Yuánliàng wǒ = Forgive me
Wǒ méi kàn dào = I did not see
Wàishēng = Nephew
Wǒ qiú qiú nǐ = I beg you

Gléck = Luck (Luxembourgish)