A/N At last, an update!
Not gonna lie, this one took far longer than expected and my inspiration came and went way too fleetingly. We got there though, and that's the important part.
Welcome to what I'm calling the cleanup/the aftershocks/the consequences and all that jazz pt.1
(btw I've used Nana's voice actor's surname as her maiden name :D)
Also my keyboard and spellcheck have conspired against me so while I'll try to clean up as many errors as I can... well...
~Chapter 25 – It Crumbles at the Precipice
To the victor goes the spoils and Xanxus had claimed it all. He takes his win, takes the rings, takes all that would lead him to the crown, but he does not have to take Tsuna, for she comes willingly. "And who's this brat?" He doesn't snarl, far too pleased with himself currently, but there's enough irritation in his voice to make their driver nervous. Tsuna can only sigh as Kyoya ignores him, his disinterested gaze instead aimed out towards the streets. With the bomber gone, escorting Ryohei back and hopefully talking him down as she had asked, Tsuna unfortunately found herself sharing a limo with four black haired men that could be more different if they tried.
"Hibari Kyoya," Reborn answers in his place, "The current heir of the Hououkai who I'm sure you've at least met considering Namimori is their territory."
"Che, yakuza?" Xanxus scoffs at the response, but he's satisfied or uncaring enough that he doesn't ask more.
"You should've told us you were going to be with Hibari-senpai," Takeshi slips in as a reprimand, "We were worried, Hayato especially."
"Sorry Takeshi… some things happened at home and I wanted to get away," Tsuna explains fiddling with the sleeves of the borrowed kimono, "I had things to explain… a favour to ask, and ended up staying the night."
"A favour?" The older hitman presses curiously. But when isn't he?
"I assumed I would be leaving," Both Xanxus and Reborn had implied as much, and didn't seem to disagree with her assumption now, "I wanted to make sure Mama and Lambo would be alright."
"Fukami Nana has always, and will continue to be, under our protection," The prefect drawls indifferently, "And watching over an extra child is nothing. Namimori protects it own."
"Actually, the Hououkai has been looking out for us for a while now. After that incident in middle school…" She catches herself with a cringe, "Anyway, I just wanted to make sure they'd be safe."
"So? What's he doing here now?" Xanxus grumbles as he catches Kyoya's eyes. The rest of the passengers can just about feel the tension as they size each other up.
"As I said Namimori protects its own." Kyoya's steely gaze drags over the scarred man, scrutinising him from head to toe in a blatantly rude manner, "I won't agree to Ietsuna leaving with a herbivore." The silence is stifling as the car slows to a stop, the young yakuza heir the first to step out with a downright bloodthirsty grin on his face. Xanxus follows smoothly, the grace in his exit belying the obvious rage scrawled across his face. Their driver is ghost white and the three of them share a moment before also climbing out.
"Uwa…" Tsuna doesn't think she's ever seen Takeshi's eyes ever go so wide, "Hibari-senpai's definitely looking for a fight."
"And he'll get one," The brunette sighs already exhausted, her hand automatically grabbing Reborn's as he helps her out. The larger hand that swallows hers is warm, and she's slightly surprised to feel any callouses, although it should be expected from a hitman like him. He catches her staring and his mouth turns up in a roguish smirk… she couldn't have stopped the resulting blush no matter how hard she tried.
"Aren't I just the perfect gentleman?" The cocky sureness of his voice does a lot to help her though, "You wouldn't be the first woman to fall for these charms." She doubts she'll be the last either, wondering about how many broken hearts this man has left in his wake. Her hand had been planted in his for an awkwardly long moment, so she chances a tug. He doesn't seem to feel like letting go, smirk widening just a touch and a questioning eyebrow raised.
"Tsu-na," Another hand grabs her free one and when she turns to ask, she greeted by Takeshi's toothy smile, "Shouldn't we get going." He's quick to lace their fingers, giving her a light squeeze with a laugh.
"Voooiiii!" Squalo's loud voice calls out to them, impossible to not notice and impossible to then ignore, no matter how hard Reborn looked to be trying. "One of you explain why the boss and some trash are going at it behind the mansion!"
"Going at it?" Reborn echoes with a light tone, "My I had no idea that Xanxus swung that way-"
"Voii! That's not what I meant and you know it!" The Varia's second in command screams back with enough force that his face starts to tint red. A loud explosion goes off somewhere nearby followed by a plume of smoke that has Squalo tearing at his hair. "What are those two monsters doing?! Do they have no self-control?!" Grabbing her by the collar he all but drags her to the scene of the fight, following a trail of destruction that said they didn't quite make it to an open area before someone swung the first blow. They catch a glimpse of the brawling duo and the matching grins they wear sends shivers down her back. "Ahh…" Squalo just crumples at the sight of the destruction, fingers pressed to the bridge of his nose as he groans, "Mammon's gonna kill me."
"Sorry Squalo-san." It's landscaping on a whole new level, craters and uprooted trees nothing compared to the caved in sections of wall. It's impossible to tell who cause what, and with they way the two were going at it there was no end in sight. "I'm sure Kyoya will be willing to help with the reconstruction." His family would at least, considering their heir was fifty percent responsible.
The fight last for hours and doesn't even get resolved, drawing a bit too much interest from those who care to look. The Varia's men seem to look at Kyoya, and by relation her, with a healthy sense of respect/fear now. All Tsuna can feel though, is unsettled at the fact the two get along. Perhaps 'get along' is too strong a term to use, but with the words 'quality' and 'carnivore' being tossed around, she thinks that they at least respect one another. They both come out with cuts, bruises and burns, yet somehow give off a satisfied air that no one wants to question.
"You found a carnivore." Kyoya tells her as she tends to his wounds, the both of them sequestered in an empty room while the rest of the mansion parties and celebrates. Luckily for them the artistry on his back remains unmarred, and she can't help but trail her fingers over the vibrant crimson feathers.
"It's more like he found me." The firebird that claims his back is proud and elegant, soaring amongst a dusting of petals that can only be Kyoya's favoured sakura. "It's finished?"
"Hn." He tilts his head in a nod and it almost feels like someone has wrapped their hand around her heart. She knows this feeling and it aches. A deep regret, a longing and a yearning wrapped around a question she can't ask. Not anymore. With the ink buried under his skin it's far too late, especially for a coward like her. "When are you leaving?"
"I'm not sure." She doesn't think Xanxus will want to stay any longer though, maybe just enough to sleep over his eventual hangover. Kyoya stands with a sigh, dusting himself as he straightens his kimono, rough and uncaring about his new bandages.
"You won't have to worry about your mother or the child, regardless of their familial relations, and your clothes have already been delivered back to your house by one of the maids." He walks to the door, steps sure and steady, and when he pauses he doesn't look back. "Ietsuna," He seems unsure about his words for once, hand lingering on the doorknob, "Your welcome to return if you ever feel unsatisfied." It's not quite what he wanted to say and they both know that.
"Thank you, Kyoya… for looking out for me all this time." She bows her head even though he won't see it, and by the time she looks up he's gone.
"What an awkward pair you two make." Tsuna's honestly not surprised at this point, so instead she turns to look at the lounging hitman with something akin to resignation on her face. Reborn sits along the previously closed windowsill as if he'd been there from the start, and she almost doesn't want to know how long he'd been listening in for. "So?" He drawls, swirling a glass of wine he had swiped from the festivities, "Why didn't you ask him to stay?"
"I couldn't." She thinks she must look pretty miserable right now, "I never had the right, or the courage. And now? It's far too late."
"Hmm," Reborn hums thoughtfully to himself, he too knows about obligations, "He'd go with you, if you'd ask-"
"He wouldn't," The girl cuts in firmly, because no matter how good the hitman may be at profiling, he doesn't know Kyoya like she does, "Not anymore…" There's a sigh from Reborn and she can feel his warmth before he drops his hand on her head. Maybe if all this had happened earlier, maybe if she had been pressed to ask before a needle had been taken to his skin, but those were all uncertainties and her reality had already been decided.
Tsuna wakes up in an unfamiliar bed for the second night in a row. Although the western style of the Varia mansion is vastly different from Kyoya's traditional one, the luxury she feels in the silken sheets is similar. There's a familiar snore to her left and as she extracts herself quietly a roaming glance confirms that it is indeed Takeshi.
"Ah, Tsuna-sama," She finds Hayato loitering outside with a pair of bags in his hands, "Reborn let me know which room to find you in but I wasn't sure you'd be awake." His eyes wander to the flimsy, perfectly fitting, slip of a nightgown Lussaria had suspiciously just happened to have on hand, and his cheeks immediately go firetruck red. "Here!" He shoves one of the bags at her and averts his eyes, "I picked up some spare clothes for you and Yamamoto," He spits out quickly, "Where is the idiot anyway?" Tsuna glances to the room she just came out of and suddenly Hayato's red for an entirely different reason. He barges in, already letting loose a torrent of insults disguised as a very rude awakening, and Tsuna decided then and there she would rather change in the hallway than go back in for the bathroom. She pulls on the jeans, throws the loose orange jumper over her nightwear, and starts walking away from the budding disaster. She shuffles her way to the dining room, following her nose for the most part, and is greeted by the moans and groans of half-dead Varia officers. She thinks Belphegor and Mammon are the only functioning member, the former likely to have purged the alcohol with flames and the latter a non-drinker. She thinks Xanxus might've forgotten he could do it too, a regretful oversight for sure.
"Good morning." Ietsuna greets quietly, even though the sun says it's several hours past. The important thing is that they're serving breakfast, a greasy fry up that they're all plenty happy to eat. She gets about two half-replies, a whine from Squalo, a snigger from Bel, a grunt from Xanxus, and actual words from Mammon.
"Reborn has gone to see how the idiot men of your family are holding out," The illusionist explains unwillingly, "He will also be gauging Lal's attitude to last nights…reveal."
"Ah, right," She figures the Mist Arcobaleno is more than a little annoyed they weren't privy to such information earlier, "Sorry I didn't think to let you know." There's no visible reaction other than a shrug.
"I assume Reborn is to blame, as he often is…" The second half is muttered rather darkly and she's curious about the history behind those words.
"Ietsuna." Xanxus' voice cuts through their conversation, and she looks up in time to catch the glinting ring he tosses to her. The cloud ring is heavier whole, a cold weight that sits like a rock against her collarbone when she slips it back on its chain. "We're leaving on Wednesday," It's a meagre three days from now, "Tie up your loose ends and let me know how many I should be expecting." He grins, like a cat that caught a canary, the sky ring glinting softly on his finger.
To say Tsuna disliked confrontations was more than just a slight understatement, but even she knew as passive as avoidance was, it too had its consequences. Now though she was turning over a new leaf and saying goodbye to cowardice. She'd confront her problems head on starting right this moment.
"Ah, it just feels like something troublesome has started." Reborn meets her at the front door of her home, and the fact he felt the need to do so is worrying. "I thought I'd offer my services since Mukuro and his followers have made themselves scarce and neither of your usual knights are at your side." He holds the door open for her, slinging his arm around her shoulder as she enters, "Not that you would need them, we're only dealing with family after all, not famiglia."
"Tsuna…" Yoshi spots her first, as Reborn guides her to a seat. It happens to be the same one she sat in coming back from the hospital. "Oh now you come back? After what you did?" He can't quite keep the venom in his voice, and she watches him grimace at the end of what should be a snarl. He's still too confused, too lost and too disappointed, to know where to direct his anger and grief. Their father doesn't seem to be doing much better, his endless gaze focused on a nearly empty glass of water.
"Did you want to become Decimo, Yoshi?" She asks him gently, softly. There's no need for lies anymore. There should have never been any between them to begin with. Her twin falters, and then all the fight he's tried to hold onto, escapes.
"Only to protect you," He says with a certainty that does not waver, "For that I would have done anything. But I see it's already too late."
"I thought the same too Yoshi, I was willing to fight you for it at one point, I think. Seeing as my blood is just as valid, I was told I could wear the target instead," Yoshi hisses at the implications, and ever-intuitive his eyes flicker to Reborn as he seethes, "It didn't come to that in the end, but I was forced to realise something regardless. Neither of us will get what we want Yoshi, no happy ending for either you or me. Because we are mafia Yoshi… because the blood never lies." And she knows, she understands that even if she goes with Xanxus now, Yoshi won't be magically given a happy civilian life. That he wouldn't take it even if he had a chance for it. She wouldn't have have either, they both simply cared too much to let the other suffer alone.
While her brother seems to struggle to accept her words, her father has relented to them. He meets her gaze and there are a lot of things she sees in there. Where once it was filled with enough intent to make her blood boil, now it just gives her with heartache. "I explained things to Nana last night," He begins with a sombre tone and she thinks the lack of her mother's presence in the house is telling, "I never even thought… She, she already had her suspicions, between another family and being a criminal, and in a way both are correct. She didn't shout, I wouldn't say she wasn't mad, but she didn't shout, just had a couple of choice words for me… I had forgotten all about that sharp tongue of hers. And then she cried, I don't think I've ever seen her cry outside of sappy movies, but she did and then she left."
"I sent her to Tsuyoshi," Reborn intones, "I figured he'd be the best bet at calming her down." Tsuna mutters a quiet thank you, because she'd hate to imagine her mother going through this alone.
"I broke her heart." Iemitsu tacks on, and only after admitting that does Tsuna find herself willing to speak.
"You're mistaken if you think you were capable of all that in one night," She paces out slowly, her words carefully chosen, "Mama loved you, enough to marry a man she knew almost nothing about, enough to give you the prime of her youth regardless of what you did with that dedication, but you broke her heart a long time ago." She wonders why it feels so hard to talk when he's right in front of her, despite all the things she had wanted to shout when he was off gallivanting across Europe. "You'd spend months with us when we were younger, fewer after taking Yoshi, and then visits became weeks and then days, sparser and sparser as the years went by. Your calls went from every other day to bi-weekly, weekly, fortnightly, monthly. In the past couple of years we only had a handful of calls to last us an entire year, and we wouldn't dare hope you and Yoshi visit because it was painful enough last year and the year before to hope for what wouldn't happen."
"I know you're busy," She holds up her hand the moment one of them opens their mouths, "I know and I've known about the mafia for a while now, but Mama didn't, she didn't known anything and that sort of ignorance is terrifying. You left her in the dark, no you put her there, and try as she might to smile and ignore it, everyone has their limits. It weathered away at her heart, eroded it. In the first place, how do expect to keep a flower alive if you don't water it?" Her father looked like a man lost at sea with only a plank of wood keeping him afloat and no land in sight. He is her father though, the only one she has no matter how disappointed in the current him she is, so she throws him a buoy. "Mama's not completely faultless though, as much as I want to blame you for your negligence, it was her that held on to her love too tightly in such a hopeless situation. She tried so hard I couldn't say anything to her, no matter how bitter I was I couldn't say a thing. So for that, and only that, I thank you. Thank you for finally being able to tell her the truth." Iemitsu takes her gratitude in silence, with a wry, barely their quirk of his lips. She can see the self-hatred, the regret, the loss, and she knows it's because he loved them. Loves them still, but not enough… not nearly enough to trump his loyalties.
"When did you find out Tsuna? About Vongola?" Her brother asks as the silences stretches, one of her comments stuck and cycling in his head, "Dad told me when I turned twelve, though I knew for a while before that something was off."
"When I was seven, the year I came to visit." The shock only lasts a moment.
"Was it Xanxus?" It seemed that her brother's intuition was on point tonight, and he's already bowling through, knowing that his guess is spot on, "That friend you went to see whenever dad dropped us off at the mansion. It was him right? He told you? Dad told me the whole mansion was ordered to keep it a secret."
"He didn't know, didn't have much of a choice either," Sensing the confusion in the room she freely continued, the past didn't seem to matter much anymore, "He had to tell me something after he killed a man in front of me. A bullet to the knee and then one in the skull in a matter of seconds, that hitman never stood a chance."
A/N I literally have nothing after this chapter except for vague ideas that I don't know how I'll execute.
I won't make any promises at this point when I don't know where I'm going (I'm just as much a passenger as y'all), but if I was to estimate our next stop, I'd say way more DIALOGUE. Hah!
...I'm sorry...