A/N: Chapters 1 through 13 from the other side of the lens.

Ria Martillo had it all. Then she suddenly didn't.

Sawada bloodline was blessed with a lot of things, such as intelligence, courage and history. With name came recognition, came honor, came power. Came responsibility.

But every Sawada saw responsibility in a different way.

Ria wasn't a Sawada, she was a Martillo. Her father was a Martillo, and her grandmother also. Grandma had been a Sawada, but she'd also been the only child who thought preserving family tradition through a name was a joke. People were supposed to create their own names, give them their own meaning, not just inherit somebody else's fame.

Dad thought she wasn't being realistic. Most of the Family did.

Ria thought grandma had made up for it with sheer intensity, charisma and all-around badassery, but dad never talked about that. He talked about wrong choices and missed chances, about failures and mistakes. He wanted to be free, but then he got shackled with somebody else's responsibility, and the world wasn't as pretty as grandma made it seem.

He said Ria was like that too – a Sawada in spirit, but couldn't see past her own vision of reality and understand the big picture.

Ria thought dad was the one who was missing the big picture.

The Vongola Family was never about the name. It was never about the power, the glory. It was about family. About loyalty and perseverance, about fighting for those who couldn't fight for themselves, regardless of what the law said.

She just wished she hadn't been proven wrong in the worst way imaginable.

A year ago, Italy

The Family was in an uproar, and nobody bothered to tell Ria why.

People were coming and leaving, the entire upper management of the family was fighting, and the most that got out of the office was that somebody had screwed something up, again. Ria didn't know much about running a mafia family, but she was pretty sure there wasn't supposed to be that much shouting.

"What's going on? Is it a turf war again?" she asked one of dad's guardians who'd skipped out the meeting on purpose. Unlike dad, most of them seemed to understand that telling Ria there was trouble on the way was more effective than letting her walk out into the street thinking everything was fine and then get shot at.

Dad's Rain merely smiled and shook his head. "Naaah. One of those rings from Decimo's time popped up in Japan, it's gotten the wrinkly old geezers in a frenzy."

"Not too hard to get them all snazzy," Ria agreed. She bumped fists with the man and grinned. "Then I don't need a beretta at school. Should I bring a taser, just in case? Or some of that other lovely equipment you guys never let me have?"

"Keep trying, kid. If you were mine, I'd have you kicking ass day and night, but your old man's word is final on this."

"Shhh." Ria winked at him. "With Sofia as my best friend, I'm kicking ass anyway. Don't tell dad. He still thinks I can't punch for squat, I'd like to keep it that way."

The man laughed, and Ria moved on with her life. School was a mess, university applications were starting, and she'd set her mind on either dance or acting, whatever would put her on an international stage and away from home first. Dad wrote her off as an heir before he'd ever been made into one himself, so if she stayed, the best she'd get would be an office clerk or a hostage – both of which she'd tried and decided weren't worth her time.

In a way, she thought she had it all planned out.

Dad, unfortunately, disagreed.

He'd looked at her university application once, and said the exact thing she hoped he wouldn't. "Ria, for god's sake, I thought we discussed this? Anything other than the entertainment industry is fine. You promised."

"I did," she agreed. "But then you said hero industry is out too, and the only thing I want more than being an actress is being a hero, so I compromised. Your turn."

Dad shouted, dad complained. He never understood that she'd wanted to be Family before anything else, nor his hypocrisy in telling her to choose any career she'd like while nipping them all in the bud. Maybe Ria wasn't trying hard enough. Maybe he would've caved in if she'd killed a capo in public, and then every other family would be out for her blood. But if that was what it took, was it even worth to try?

When her university rejection email arrived in early July, Ria decided it was time to stop compromising.

She was eighteen, and she was useless. Granted, most other eighteen-year-olds were useless, too, but their fathers weren't running a crime syndicate. Ria had grown up surrounded by people capable of killing a room full of armed assassins. Her dad was a certified badass. Her best and only friend was four years older, head of an intelligence office and had a kill count of twelve before she'd started high school. Even her mom, for her trophy-wife status, could incapacitate a gorilla of a man without so much as breaking a sweat.

Best Ria could do was punch a backstreet mugger in the face, and it wasn't even a good punch. If dad's Rain guardian and Ria's hypercompetent best friend hadn't taken pity on her after that public embarrassment, she wouldn't know how to handle a gun, which made her more useless than her cleaning lady.

Maybe it's time I take things into my own hands.

So, she'd grabbed her backpack, wallet and phone and left without a word. It was supposed to be a test of just how far she could get before dad's guardians hauled her back by the scruff of her neck.

Quite far, it turned out. All the way to Milan.

Dad's guardians showed up, of course. They went home once they realized she'd landed a job and an apartment in under a week, and returned with household appliances, wads of money and a beretta 92, to help her get started. Apparently, she'd beaten them all at some sort of an inane bet, and it was only fair they backed her up when she'd done the one thing they'd given up on before they'd hit their teens.

Given she'd been born into a mafia with the kind of history few could rival, Ria didn't know if she should take that as a compliment or an insult. Either way, she kept the gun.

By the time September rolled around, she really thought she'd made it. Working as a hotel receptionist wasn't as glorious as she'd been led to believe, cooking was hard and there were days she'd rather spend in bed than go out, but it certainly wasn't bad. Sure, her colleagues saw her as a little too paranoid, but considering they tell apart a businessman from a mafioso any day of the week, Ria was pretty sure they were the odd ones. At least no one showed up on her doorstep at two am while covered in blood, so that was a plus.

Of course, it didn't last.

Mom and dad waited in front of her apartment building one evening, and Ria didn't know how to take that. Her best friend slash CEDEF executive called. Dad's guardians called. Even chef Rossa called. They never did. Ria knew they'd be upset, thought them justified, even. She'd never stopped to wonder why she'd never called them instead.

An awkward hello later, she let them inside. Mom scanned the place, the frown on her face like she didn't know whether to complain about the shelves or the curtains first. Ria wondered how she'd freak out if she showed her the bedroom, and decided to leave that for last.

They'd barely spoken two words when dad decided to crush any last remnants of a good relationship that stayed between them, and handed her an envelope with the fake name she'd used for work.

"I applied you for business studies," he said. "Poilitecnico di Milano is one of the best in the country. They accept transfers, if you'd like some other department more. Their dance group is regarded as one of the best in the world."

Ria's first instinct was to tear the paper to shreds. Second was to breathe, keep it civil and explode later. Kind of like with annoying guests.

"Thanks, dad, but I have a job. You were right about foreign languages being the key to the future. My managers still can't believe I speak five, but they like me anyway."

Dad looked at her like she was a disappointment. Who knows, maybe she was. Ria didn't know what she'd done wrong this time, so she tried not to let it bother her. "Do you want some tea? Will you stay for dinner? I don't cook, but I've discovered this thing called delivery... It's a far cry from aunt Rossa's cooking, but it's good."

"I thought you'd be smarter than this," dad said. "Working in a luxury chain hotel, when you could own it...?" He shook his head, like the very notion insulted him. "You could do so much better."

Ria stopped trying to pretend her kitchen appliances are the most interesting thing in the world, and turned to glare. "If you thought so, then maybe you should've let me try."

"I did. Do you think you'd still be here if I didn't? Ria, you're a Vongola – no matter how far you go, you can't run from that."

"That's the thing, dad. Unlike you, I never tried," Ria said, as evenly as her voice would let her. "Do you think I left because of the family? I left because of you."

It hurt, she knew it did, from the way he flinched and tried to pretend it didn't. But he was stubborn, and maybe that's where she got it from, because he refused to let that put him down. "You're my daughter, am I supposed to let you become a criminal? I wanted a different life for you. You could do better. You could do so much better, so why should I let you ruin your life?"

"Then what am I supposed to do?" Tears were coming, and there was no fighting them. She tried to pretend she could, anyway. "I always wanted to help the family, you know. Uncle said I'd be boss one day, too, so I wanted to be strong, but you said no. Then you told me to do what I want, but isn't that a paradox? I find something else, something outside the family business, but you say no again. And the cycle repeats, over and over. If I said I wanted to eat pizza, you'd bust into my room out of nowhere and tell me to get something else instead, but you'd never say what. You'd never say why. It's like every choice I make is a wrong one and, well... I don't know. I'm never good enough. I guess I just learned to live with it."

Dad watched her for a long time, stony face barely changing. He looked… so much older. Ria still had photos of him from fourteen years ago, when he'd first become the boss. She'd been four, and she'd looked a lot like him. Now she didn't look like anyone in the family. Mom wore too much make-up to look younger. Dad looked like he was in his late fifties, even if he'd just hit forty-five.

That life was ruining them, and Ria hated it.

She hated what it was doing to her as well.

"Sorry," she said, voice barely above a whisper. "I didn't mean… you know. Forget it." She stumbled into the couch, wiping the tears away and ignoring their stunned silence as they stayed standing by the door. "I'm sorry. Just, go home."

"... okay," dad said, and Ria wasn't sure if she'd heard that right.

"Okay, I'll go home," he said again, and for a moment, Ria wasn't sure which one of them looked more lost. Then he looked around the apartment, looking like he'd much rather set a bomb in it than stay any second longer, like the place was somehow at fault that things didn't go according to his plan.

Then he sighed, and the look was gone. "Do you need anything? Do you want me to send you something? A microwave? Blender?"

Ria shook her head.

"Nothing at all?"

"I'm fine," she said. "But, if you're already feeling generous, send Sofia here for a few days. Make it a mission if you have to, she never gets a day off anyway."

"You know that's not my call," dad said softly.

"It never is, boss."

"There is maybe something I can do, if you promise to come home on weekends."

Ria just sighed, as he shrugged unashamedly. She should've expected nothing better, really. He was a politician, right down to the last cell in his body. Ria wasn't.

"Okay," she said. "But not every weekend."

Sofia visited in late October. She didn't walk around with bruises and broken bones anymore, instead she donned a suit and a tie and looked more like a rich businesswoman than a mafia executive. Ria hadn't seen her since she'd became CEDEF's second-in-command, and the change was staggering.

"You could call me mission control," Sofia said over one beer too many, after she'd unbuttoned her shirt and thrown the tie out the window. "But I'm more like your uncle's assistant, except I do all the actual work while he lounges around in his spinning chair and drinks mojitos."

Ria clicked her beer bottle against hers and cackled. "You forgot Christmas socks. Does he still punch people when they're late?"

"Nope. Since your dad put Kim in CEDEF, he orders him to do it instead. Can you imagine Kim punching anyone, that suit and glasses and all? Pffft. I told the Twins, if they ever get it on video, I owe them a trip to Haiti."

"Ooof, that huge of a stick up his ass?"

Sofia shrugged, then giggled. It was an alien sound. "Your dad's crew was always a little too formal. I think he's just starting to realize that, as fancy as it sounds, CEDEF is nothing more than a dysfunctional mess of an office."

Ria had only met her dad's new Cloud twice before he'd been transferred. First time she'd been at school, and some random kid from class threatened her with a beating because she'd cut in line. Kim had overreacted, to say the least, but considering what sort of stories the rest of the guardians must've told him, Ria couldn't blame him. They were pranksters at the best of times.

Second time, he'd visited her new apartment with the rest of them, and gave her a pen which Ria found out the hard way wasn't a pen at all. "Never hurts to be too careful," he'd said, after she'd almost set her apartment on fire, and that was her first cue he'd been fitting right in with the rest of the lot.

"He'll figure it out," she said.

"Don't they all?" Sofia shrugged. "But enough about me. I'm sick of being Agent Thyme all around the clock. Your turn. How's life? Your apartment is much better than your old man made it sound."

"Leave it to him to describe my living space as a haystack." Then she'd launched into long explanation of work dynamics, general idiotism and the overall boxed thinking that would've had her colleagues killed if they so much as attempted to step into organized crime. Compared to Sofia's job, it all sounded so incredibly boring, but Ria liked to think she didn't completely screw it up. Unlike Sofia, nobody cared if she got drunk on a day off. Then again, Sofia didn't really get a day off.

Not even today.

Dad might've made a promise, but her uncle didn't. The very fact Sofia was there meant at least one of them thought she needed protection, and both girls knew it. They just liked pretending they didn't. But when Sofia dropped all pretenses, that was the sign that something was really wrong.

"Hey, Ria, be careful, okay?" she said later, out of nowhere, inadvertently confirming any worry Ria might've had. "Maybe I'm overreacting, but I want you to be safe."

"What's going on?"

"There's a potential heir outside the family. Some kid from Japan."

Ria's first thought was, Well, that's bad news. Outsiders always were. Her second thought was even more disheartening. No wonder dad's okay with me here, he finally found a replacement.

It was widely known nobody in the upper ring of the family thought Ria was a viable heir, much of it thanks to her dad not wanting her to be one. But apparently, she'd been replaced by a kid. That ought to bother at least some of them. It bothers me. What makes him fit but not me?

She took that question and stomped on it, because, damn it, last thing she wanted was to be a mafia boss. But unlike this kid on the other side of the world, she'd spent a short part her life thinking it might happen. She'd like to think at least that made her more qualified for the role, but what was the point if no one else agreed?

"Thanks for telling me," she said instead, as lightly as she could. "I can take care of myself, but I'll keep it in mind."

Sofia grinned. "Liar. But don't worry, I got your back."

Early February, Italy

Sofia just canceled her visit. Or rather, she'd canceled her visit during Ria's visit, which was arguably worse.

Ria didn't come home very often, in spite of her promise. She'd kept it down to once per month, to keep things fair. In that time, Sofia visited twice in total. She'd never showed up when Ria was home. When even uncle found time to visit in December and Sofia didn't, things started falling in place. Ria was spiteful, and finally she saw where she'd been getting that from. Uncle was still upset she'd left without a word, and he wasn't above dumping all his work on Sofia as revenge.

Now, Sofia canceled last-minute, it was one day after the funeral and her parents had shown up at the station in person. Ria was done waiting for answers.

"What's going on?" she'd asked, no preamble, no greetings. "Why are you here?"

"Not even a hello? Really?" Dad might've said it as a joke, but it didn't come close.

"Don't joke around, your Rain guardian is dead. What's going on?"

In the end, mom said it was a mission, which translated to "none of your business". Dad said they'd talk later.

But there'd never been a later. They didn't make it two blocks past the station. A pick-up truck slammed into them at one of the crossroads, and the only things Ria remembered after the car had stopped spinning upside down was pain, more pain, and gunshots. First one for her dad. Second one for her mom. Third one should've been hers.

She didn't remember it.

She didn't remember anything up to and including waking up in the hospital a week later. She only found out she'd been awake from somebody who was actively talking about that when she came to her senses, and whose voice sounded familiar but she couldn't exactly place it. By the time the cotton in her ears went away, she had other things to worry about.

"Sofia?" Ria tried, only to be met with a dry throat and barely functioning tongue. She couldn't open her eyes. Or rather, she was pretty sure she'd opened them, but she wasn't seeing anything. Uh-oh. Somebody gave her water and she swallowed it, but it tasted weird. "Sofia? What…" happened?

Restraints. That's what kept her from moving, it had to be. That could be the only thing that would explain why her body wasn't reacting even though she was trying.

"Breathe," a voice said, unknown. Young. "You just came out of your third surgery this week."

"Alright, but what happened? Why can't I move? Why can't I see?"

A hand closed around hers, and Ria felt grateful that at least she could feel the touch. Her mind was coming up with things she'd never wish on a worst enemy, and she desperately needed someone to tell her she was wrong.

"It's experimental treatment. Doctors said you responded well during the process, so it'll be a couple hours before you can see," Sofia said gently. "Don't panic."

"Then what about the rest of my body?" Ria was trying really hard not to panic. She was pretty sure she was failing miserably.

"You suffered spinal cord injury in the crash," the stranger's voice informed her. "We had the best medics working on it, but we'll know the results once the anesthesia wears off. "

Oh, Ria thought. And, in a slightly more accustomed part of her mind, there goes the dancing career. She couldn't even blame dad for screwing it up this time. Then she remembered the gunshots.

"What… dad… and mom…" she didn't finish it. Couldn't, and didn't need to. The way Sofia squeezed her hand was more than enough.

Maybe it was part of the experimental treatment, but Ria didn't cry. Maybe she couldn't. Or maybe she'd always thought it would end this way. Mafia careers typically ended before they hit their forties, even the best of them. Ria's grandma had been a boss for a long time, but she was the exception that proved the rule.

None of that should've stopped her from crying.

"Now what?" she asked, eventually. It's not like she had many people who cared about her, and whom she cared about in return. Without them, did anything have a point?

"You're Nineteenth Boss of the Vongola family," the stranger informed her. "The Family needs you."

If Ria could've, she would've cried. Instead, she laughed. "Are you fucking kidding me? I can't move my bloody fingers, how am I the boss of anything?" Ridiculous. Dad would've never, under no circumstance, left the Vongola to her. "Oh no, don't tell me that kid in Japan is dead too. For fuck's sake! So what if he's a potential heir, he's a kid! Oh God somebody please just… just shoot me now, I can't do this. I can't deal with it, just shoot me, damn it!"

"Ria? Ria, calm down! You're panicking, you have to calm down or you could—"

"If I'm gonna die, just let me die. Get out."

Ria remembered being put back to sleep, and she remembered being angry about it.

Next time she woke up, it didn't matter. It was just the first breakdown of the many to come.

Sofia hadn't been lying about her eyes. Ria's sight returned within a day, but it was never quite what it used to be. Blurry at the edges, not much detail in the distance. Moving properly came later. To a certain measure of 'properly', anyway. She could sit up. She could lift things, provided they were lighter than a glass cup. On a good day, she could stand up, even if she'd fall back down after less than a second. Nerve damage was such that she could barely write. It'll get better with time, doctors said. Ria believed them. Part of her wished she didn't.

Ria couldn't talk to Sofia during recovery period. Sofia would start apologizing, and that would make her feel worse. Sofia must've gotten the hint, too, because she'd showed up once over the next two weeks, and stayed less than five minutes. Instead, Reborn kept her company, and 'kept her alive', in his own words. Apparently, she'd almost strangled herself in her sleep once.

Ria wasn't sure if that made her an asylum case, but she certainly felt trapped enough.

"So why would you do this?" she asked at some point, days after he remembered to introduce himself. Reborn was a legend. The best assassin Vongola family ever had. He was also a traitor in spirit, and somebody who left the family the moment his vision of it crumbled apart. Ria didn't know if that made him a person of integrity or its polar opposite.

"Consider it a favor," he said.

"Get me a gun so I can shoot myself and then we'll talk about favors."

"You'll need plenty of favors as a boss. You need to learn how to ask for them properly."

Ria glared. Reborn stared back.

"I hate you," she said.

"You hate everyone."

Ria just sniffed, pouted, and turned to sleep on the other side.

Later, she was upset with herself for being such a brat. Reborn made her angry, but he also kept her focused, so maybe it wasn't fair to say she hated him. What she hated was what happened. The people who shot her dad. The people who made her into something she was never meant to be.

"Cause Ria would hate it if I involved an innocent child," Reborn paraphrased dad's will at her at some point. The hitman liked it, and Sofia let it slip that Reborn was tutoring the kid who was dad's initial pick for the boss. For someone who was famous for training multiple bosses over the years, Ria didn't see why he was so against it now, and Reborn's answer was fucking disappointing.

"My student wants to be a hero."

There had to be a grand cosmic joke on her expense somewhere in there, and she didn't appreciate it.

"What is it with the Sawadas always wanting the one thing they can never have?" she asked.

"What is it with the Sawadas deciding they can't have something before they even try?" Reborn deflected.

Ria didn't have the answer. The more she thought about it, the more she wanted it. Therein, the paradox.

At roughly week four of her stay in the underground hospital, Reborn came to say goodbye.

"My student is starting school soon," he informed her. "I missed his entrance exams because of you. I can't miss anything more."

Ria ignored that jab in favor of a much more personally relevant fact. "He passed?"

At Reborn's nod, she wondered if she would've made it, if she'd tried. Unlike dad, at least she had a Quirk, even if it was never put on any register. No Quirk in the family ever was. Either way, Ria's wasn't a very useful one, other than to land herself a job by foul play, which didn't exactly count as heroic behavior. Then she remembered her dad's stunt with the arts school, and realized choice had never been hers to start with. It made her illegal Quirk use feel a little more justified.

"Train him well," she said.

"Does that mean you decided to be the boss?"

It was like the question was designed to rub her in all the wrong ways, but Ria liked to think she was getting better at this Reborn game. "Sure," she said. "The odds of getting a gun are that much better, so I can't complain."

Reborn didn't look too surprised, which meant he was getting better at his Ria game, too. "Who're you gonna shoot first?"

"The bastard who killed my mom," she said. "And then the bastard who ordered the murder of my dad. And then, probably some other bastard who was involved with it all… and if I ever end the cycle of revenge, the last bullet is for me."

"You really decided to take this to the extreme, huh?"

"Sasagawa style."

"You're not that good," Reborn said, just like he did every time Ria tried to cheer herself up. She didn't mind.

He picked up her decimated family photo, and frowned. "I take it Thyme told you the order most likely came from the inside?"

No, she actually hadn't, but Ria guessed as much. People on the outside profited while Vongola warred on the inside, but few would dare to cause it. And historically, the only things that could defeat the family was the family itself. "I'm okay with that," she said.

"No, you're not."

"It's not like anyone asked."

Reborn had nothing to say to that. He'd left her a phone instead, in case you ever need advice, and an address, in case you ever need comfort. He didn't say goodbye, but he said Ciaossu, and when things came down it, it meant all the same.

Ria burned the paper before he'd made it out the front door. For his safety, for Midoriya's, and for her own.

She memorized it, though. She'd hate herself even more otherwise.

In early April, Sofia filed in for what she'd called a final transfer. Ria didn't need a hospital anymore, not after it had turned her into a ghost. Pale, weak, with an ugly scar on her temple and long hair cut short for the brain surgery. It was like a skeleton with her rough features took her place, but apparently, she didn't need a hospital anymore.

What she needed was wheelchair, human interaction and quite possibly her first alcoholic drink of the year, which Sofia had snatched before she could even open the bottle.

"Nope, none of that until your bloodwork analysis comes back right."

"You do realize that the only reason it sucks is because I didn't get what the rest of the world is entitled to? Namely, proper food."

But Sofia ignored her the way she usually did, helped her into a car, and from that moment on, she was no longer Sofia. She was Agent Thyme, and Ria was forbidden from addressing her as anything but. In return, Ria was Miss Martillo, Boss, the Nineteenth, or Diciannovesimo, or whatever other stupid title people had come up with. From this moment, she stopped being a person and she became a symbol, and maybe she'd been destined for it after all, because the change had come all too easily.

Then again, maybe not.

Running a mafia turned out to be a much smoother ride than Ria expected. Which meant she'd been doing it wrong from the start. She tried not to take that to heart. Ria knew nothing about running a business, and mafia was much the same.

Two weeks of her bossing around taught her that half the family was working behind her back. Dad's guardians were just that – dad's guardians. They were used to the way dad used to run things, so that's how they'd kept the family from tearing itself apart while Ria was still recovering. They thought Ria would return as a blank slate, follow-our-advice kind of person, but she proved them wrong from the get-go when she ordered a total report on all their underground businesses. She wanted to know it all, and they only showed her half.

They loved her, but they didn't respect her. They wanted to protect her, but they refused to listen.

Ria's first plan was to send them away. But she couldn't. They'd lost their Rain, they'd lost their Sky. Before all that, their Cloud had joined CEDEF, and they were doing things the only way they knew how. So, she let them.

It's not like she was handling it any better.

Sofia and Kim weren't hers either, and that had been a tough pillow to swallow. They both cared about her, but her uncle was their boss, and CEDEF worked separately from the rest of the family. It was only now Ria was beginning to understand why dad could never keep Sofia around when she'd asked, and why Sofia never tried to stay.

Maybe she'd been spoiled sweet a little too much. The more she learned, the more she missed her apartment in Milan.

Family didn't see it fit to inform her of what they were doing, so Ria returned the favor, which lead up to a lot of complaints, visits and insults. It had also led her to the first hint of foul play on the inside.

Namely, one associated family's hitman was arrested in Japan around the same time Reborn left.

A pang of worry had Ria using her powers for the first time. But she'd been worrying for nothing. It was public secret that Reborn and his student kicked the assassin's ass, and Ria was proud.

On the other hand, mission had come from someone inside the Family itself, and that was a problem.

Ria's dad had utterly refused to bring Midoriya Izuku into the fold by naming Ria the boss at the last minute, and ring retrieval had been pending, but in the end overlooked, because Ria found out about it too late, and half the family wanted it regardless of what she said. Ring was capable of selecting the next boss, they said, therefore their decision made a wicked kind of sense.

They're already looking for my replacement.

Ria would be perfectly fine with that, if it didn't also mean assassinating a fifteen-year-old who could actually use the power left by their ancestors. Not that she wanted him as the boss either, but there had to be a better way of doing things. The Vongola family survived without the ring, and succession crisis now wasn't nearly as dire now as it had been in Decimo's time. Ria wasn't the only heir, she was just the direct one. Her uncle was next in line, but being CEDEF put him out of the running.

That left dozens of others, all of them part of the bloodline one way or another. Ria would've gladly left the family to either one of them, if doing so didn't also mean potentially leaving it to dad's murderers. She was way too spiteful to do that.

I need to know who did it.

Who killed her dad? Who was running things behind her back? Who wanted Midoriya dead? Were all these the same person, or was there more of them? So many questions, but at home she was powerless to get the answers.

Everything the family knew about her amounted to what her dad did – and that, as much as it pained her, meant they only saw her as a spoiled brat, in way over her head. She didn't have the grit, the charisma of a boss. She didn't have the education. She didn't even have a tutor, which made her job that much harder. Therefore, she wasn't supposed to be just a boss. She had to be the Boss. The meanest, the scariest.

Limited sight couldn't stop her. Wheelchair either. They tried to kill her before those happened, and now it made her that much more vulnerable. She couldn't let them exploit it.

So, after she'd spent days planning, she finally made her move.

She'd picked up her pen, Kim's gift, and headed for her room, smiling at dad's Storm as she passed him. "Keep me safe, alright?" He was the only one aside from Sofia she'd trust with that. "And send someone with cookies."

A couple minutes later, Ria Martillo was asleep, soon to be transferred to a hospital based off of faint pulse and chronic anemia, and aunt Rossa was walking out with a step a little too hurried for her old age. By the time she was in the kitchen, a security officer was leaving the house a little too early, and then a passerby called a taxi. Ria had never learned how to drive, so she didn't even try.

Before long, she'd found the connecting flight, and the right passenger.

Soon after, she was in Musutafu city, Japan, possessing a shopping mannequin she'd snatched out of a mall, because one thing she'd hate the most was if she got someone else hurt in her stead. And what she'd found wasn't what she'd been expecting at all.

CEDEF is after Midoriya... Kim's team... But why?

She thought assisting them may provide more information, but she'd been wrong. Kim and his team seemed convinced the orders came from Ria, but they hadn't. Using her and Siren's Quirks in tandem, she hoped she could get everyone out of prison, get Midoriya to melt Bruno, and possibly form a team she could count on, but...

But.

Standing on top of a skyscraper and using the phone she'd taken off a police officer earlier, Ria watched as Bruno's frozen body was being loaded on a helicopter. Belatedly, she remembered to take photos.

Is that the government? What is going on? Why would the government get involved?

It didn't make sense, it didn't make any sense.

She'd come to Japan hoping she'd get another perspective on the problem, but more and more she truly felt like she had no idea what was going on.

I want to go home.

But that had stopped being an option the moment dad died. She didn't have many options now. Waking up back in her prison of a body would do nothing but give the family more reasons to off her the first chance they got. She didn't even have the luxury of knowing who'd be the first to try.

The only choice she had now was keep going the way she'd started, and hope Sofia could find her enemy for her. Meanwhile, all she had other than Siren's borrowed body was a phone number, for advice. And an address, for comfort.

Looks like time for favors had come.

A/N: The interlude is over and all the players are in place. Get your seatbelts on, things are about to get wild.

On a less related note, kind people here informed me there's been a copy of my profile floating around that network. To keep things clear, this story is posted here and on ao3, nowhere else.

Situation is resolved now, so thanks everyone for letting me know.