CHAPTER 14: BREAKING WALLS
Tsuna smiled as he waved goodbye to his friends, who were finally going home after a long meeting with Iemitsu. His smile vanished once everyone had left and he furrowed his brows, as he thought back on what had happened earlier in the meeting.
Iiya had left the room as instructed by Iemitsu, who told her that Lal Mirch was arriving with the package she had requested and asked her to go downstairs to pick it up. Once Iiya closed the door behind her, Iemitsu turned to face his son and his guardians, with a severe look on his face.
"Besides informing you about Xanxus' possible motives, I also have a request from both myself, as the head of the CEDEF, as well as the Ninth." Iemitsu said, fishing out a letter with the Ninth's Dying Will Flame on it and passing it to Tsuna.
Tsuna stared at his father in bewilderment, while taking the letter from his hands and carefully reading it. His eyes widened and he took a deep breath, piquing his guardians' interest and Lambo instantly snatched it out of Tsuna's hands.
"Huh? Why do we have to protect Iiya?" Lambo tilted his head to the side, clearly having no understanding of the situation at hand.
"You know of Iiya's tendencies to put others before herself, don't you?" Iemitsu asked them.
"More or less…" Ryohei muttered.
"She's very mature for her age because of the things that she has been put through since young. She always tries to put up a strong front. That's why she can gain the trust of her peers and her elders. But the Ninth and I both feel that her inability to value her welfare is going to be her downfall, if she isn't careful."
"But Dad… Iiya-san isn't the type to throw away her own well-being… Or her own life, isn't she?" Tsuna asked.
"She wouldn't throw it away… Unless people get involved with her problems and she feels that things would be better if she made a sacrifice on her part."
"And then again, how much about do you really know about Iiya?" Reborn spoke up. "How much about her past do you really know?"
Yamamoto gulped nervously and his eyes grew dark, sensing that there was something wrong.
"Because of this selflessness, there are also many things she would hide from you," Reborn sighed. "If she feels that revealing the truth would implicate you guys and endanger you, she would hide it. If she feels that telling you the truth would affect your relationship with her and make you lose your respect towards her, she wouldn't tell you. And even if you press her, she wouldn't confide in you."
"But she told us what Xanxus did to her!" Gokudera shouted, banging the table angrily. "She told me the whole story! And then she told everyone!"
"How do you know that's the whole truth, then?" Dino appeared out of nowhere, jumping through the window where Hibari was seated on and sitting beside him, much to Hibari's annoyance.
"Iiya never really talked about herself to any of you, unless she felt that it would be relevant to your training, right?" Reborn asked. "Has she told you anything about herself that you didn't know about?"
"She showed me her Mist flame before," Gokudera mumbled.
"Using which ring?" Dino questioned him.
"Her Varia ring."
"Hmph," Dino smirked. "She hid her real ring from you, then."
"Dad and the Ninth told us to protect her. But after all that has been said today, I feel like I don't know how Iiya-san feels anymore," Tsuna pondered to himself.
He thought about how his father had told him to think about the look in Iiya's eyes. Tsuna lay on his bed, trying to recall how it was when they first met. That day, at the party, he sensed her genuine willingness to befriend him. When they were training, he felt her determination to make him stronger and her happiness when he made progress. But lately, ever since Xanxus attacked her, he could see a slight hint of uneasiness in her eyes, almost as if she knew something was about to happen.
"Dad also said… To do our best to get her to really open up her heart to us."
"Open up her heart, huh?" Gokudera found that vaguely familiar, recalling how Tsuna was the one who took away his loneliness when he first got to Japan.
He lay on his bed and stared up at the ceiling as Iiya went to take her bath, thinking about the other line that Iemitsu had said to him, and to him only. He scratched his head, wondering what meanings could be hidden within it, given that it was a very simple yet vague request. He was about to light up a cigarette when Iiya came out and hurried him to take his bath. He grumbled, looking annoyed on the surface, but still deep in thought on the inside. As the water streamed down his hair and his body, he took a deep sigh, not exactly sure how to go about with Iemitsu's request. There were many ways to go about it, but he didn't know which was the best method.
He walked out of the bathroom to see Iiya lying on the bed with Uri rested on her chest. Shrugging his shoulders, he wondered how she could get Uri to warm up to her so quickly, while he was still having minor issues with the kitten. He waved his hand at Uri, motioning for her to get off, causing Uri to hiss at him before taking her leave. Getting onto the bed and lying on his stomach, he gingerly brushed her hair out of her face, looking at her sleeping face.
"I hope that I can give you happiness, Iiya."
Iiya dragged the package she had gotten from Lal behind her, with Tsuna and his guardians following behind, having no clue about where they were headed. She stopped in the middle of a deserted alleyway, turning to the wall on her right and touching it with her right palm, revealing a secret panel hidden under the cement. The panel scanned Iiya's entire face, causing cracks to form on the wall and uncover a secret door.
"Follow me!"
She walked down the hallway, surveying the surroundings and glancing at the infrastructure, given that she had never personally visited the Japanese headquarters of DS55 before. The greyish hues of the cement progressively became pink, causing Iiya to sigh in frustration as she knew that it had something to do with the person she had placed in charge of this facility. Eventually, they reached the end of the cemented walkway and Iiya pushed the button next to the door with her entire palm.
"If any of you want to come in here to use the facilities, you need to inform me beforehand. All of our doors are fitted with fingerprint scanners and facial recognition devices to prevent intruders from infiltrating our headquarters," she explained.
The doors opened and Iiya led Tsuna and his guardians into the high-tech facility. There were numerous computers stationed all over the massive area, with people handling a few computers at a time. The sound of fingers flying across keyboards and the alert tones from updates rang softly throughout the room. There was a staircase leading up to a second floor, lined with glass panels. Behind the glass panels were a few researchers, developing new instruments that could be used in combat, as well as maintaining different types of weapons, probably used by the combatants in DS55.
"Welcome to the Japanese headquarters of DS55, everyone!" Iiya gave a slight smile. "Reborn and Dino are already in here, one of my officers brought them in earlier."
"Officers?" Chrome asked.
"Yeah," Iiya said. "They're something like guardians within the DS55, but I didn't register their positions within the Vongola database. I kept the identities of my six officers confidential, so that Xanxus couldn't make them targets. Only those in the DS55 know who they are, and I trust that they wouldn't leak out their comrades' information to the Varia."
Just at this moment, Dino and Reborn were seen walking towards them, led by an unfamiliar young man. He was rather tall, sporting short blonde hair with light blue highlights. He wore a long-sleeved sky blue shirt, covered by a black short-sleeved jacket on top. Also, he had on a pair of dark blue jeans and dark brown sneakers. Something about his facial features made it clear that this man was not purely Japanese, and probably was of Italian descent as well. His dark blue eyes lit up with happiness as he ran towards Iiya excitedly.
"IIYA-CHAN!"
Everyone raised their eyebrows as he approached her, watching this strange sight unfold before them, with Iiya sighing and pulling him by his hair.
"You sure don't act like an officer, even after all these years, huh?" She grumbled.
"O-o-officer?" Tsuna said in disbelief. "THIS GUY IS ONE OF YOUR OFFICERS?"
"Yeah! Hard to believe isn't it?" Iiya sighed.
"Stop embarrassing me, Iiya-chan!" The guy whined.
"Who started embarrassing himself first, HUH?" Iiya retorted, letting go of his hair at last.
The young man used his hands to tame his messy hair back into place, before finally looking a little serious for once.
"Hello, Vongola Decimo and his guardians." He bowed before them. "My name is Andy Fujiro, but everyone here calls me 'Rush'. I'm one of the six officers in DS55, bearing rain flames."
"We're starting a tougher training regimen for all of you and we'll be using the training room here for your trainings, starting from today onwards. Rush is going to be helping me with this, I made sure he left free slots in his non-existent work schedule."
"I'll always have free slots for you, Iiya-chan!" He chuckled, provoking Iiya into shooting him a sharp glare with her eyes.
"I'm not sure if I'll be able to get my other officers to help, since they're stationed in different headquarters around the world. I always allocate one officer to one headquarter and ask them to take charge over there, so they're usually really busy," Iiya explained.
"Haha, still acting like one of the guys from mafia school, aren't you?" Dino laughed, patting Rush on the back.
"One of the… Guys?" Gokudera mumbled, causing Yamamoto to throw his arm around his friend and break out into laughter.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Finally got to introducing one of Iiya's officers! Hopefully I'll have time to introduce the others into the story, without overcomplicating the storyline. Next chapter, Rush will fight against one of the Guardians as part of the training and Gokudera will have a serious talk with Iiya. I'm quite excited to write the next chapter :)
Also, shoutout to Arthur Moebius, thank you for your review! :)
I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter! If you'd like to, do leave a review to tell me what you think :) Thank you for reading and do stay tuned :D