Hey guys, I thought I'd write another chapter for a special Guest follower, Loopy, who has been looking for story updates religiously by the sound of it. I hope you like this chapter and continue to read. Enjoy :)
Amaya felt her muscles ache as she opened her eyes and was greeted by the day's sun. Groaning, she remembered what had happened the night before including being given a pair of tracksuit pants and a black hoodie to change into while Squalo underwent surgery. She had only meant to sit down in the waiting room for five minutes but exhaustion must have taken over her and she ended up sleeping. Golden tresses of hair fell into her face when she finally decided to stand up, it was then that she noticed the four Italian men in suits that were standing at the entrances to the reception room and near the windows.
"Amaya," Dino called to his friend once he arrived to the room. He too looked dishevelled and like he hadn't gotten that much sleep, the Japanese woman raised her hand in greeting whilst gathering her hair in her hand and placing it against her back. "I'd though I'd let you sleep some, you looked quite tired." He explained.
"Thanks Dino," Amaya replied before turning to the men who were standing watch. "But I didn't need a guard detail." She didn't mean to sound annoyed but she was hoping Dino would think it's because she was only just waking up. She felt weak now. The fact that Dino didn't think she could handle herself, or that she needed to be babysat made her just a little bit angry.
"It's just a precaution, spending time with the Vongola family and my family could lead to making some enemies," He informed her with a cheery voice while scratching the back of his head, a tick both him and Tsuna possessed, when they realised they were doing something Amaya didn't like. Suddenly his demeanour changed and his face turned serious as he lowered his arm to his side. "He's awake now, the surgery was successful and he should be okay." Amaya nodded at this new information, looking to the ground briefly before locking her eyes back with Dino.
"Can I see him?" She didn't want the request to sound too hasty however she was pretty sure her words came out faster than she wanted them to. Brown eyes stared into her soul briefly before he smiled ever so slightly.
"You saved the man, I can't really stop you." His response was flat with no emotion. He didn't really know what to make of the situation in all honesty. Amaya didn't want anybody, including the Varia, to get hurt which is why she saved him and why she probably wanted to ensure he was better now. Squalo, on the other hand, had taken a liking to Amaya, going as far as to pursue her and attempt to murder her. Anybody who Squalo had his sight set on was going to end up in big trouble, he didn't want that for the feisty blonde who followed him as they walked to the Shark's hospital room.
Dino opened the door for her and allowed Amaya to walk in first. The room Squalo was in was similar to the one that Lambo was in a few floors further down, the only difference is that this room was a little bit bigger and had two armed guards by the door waiting for Squalo to escape. It seemed impossible for him to do that though as the man was covered in bandages. There was a whole layer of them around his torso and a few covering his face as well, one of his legs looked like it was in a cast as it rested on top of the blankets that covered the bottom half of his body. The assassin looked well and truly incapacitated, that however didn't stop him from glaring at Amaya as soon as she walked through the door and scanned over him. She stared right back him, a look of pity in her eyes at how low he looked in the moment. That just seemed to piss him off and he snarled at her. She expected a scolding or for him to at least growl at her but the Shark remained quiet and it confused her greatly.
"He hasn't said a word since he regained consciousness" Dino told her as he walked around her to the foot of Squalo's bed, glaring at his childhood friend who paid him no attention at all. No, Squalo's gaze was firmly on Amaya, seeing what she would do next.
"How out of character," Amaya sighed, finally breaking eye contact with Squalo so she could walk to the side of his bed opposite the door with her back to the windows. There was a chair on this side, one that she sunk into before lifting her legs up and crossing them under her. "Not a single word?" She asked Dino, facing the Bronco who placed his arms against the bed frame and leaned against it.
"Not even a whisper," He confirmed which earned him a look from the Shark, this time it was Dino's turn to ignore Squalo though as he turned to his female companion. "Hey Amaya, are you going to be okay if I left you alone with him for a while? My men and I need to return to our base of operation so we can rest, eat and report back to our allies in Italy." Amaya listened to his proposal and nodded along at the end vigorously.
"No of course, you guys go and rest," She told them, looking between Dino, Romario who had entered the room just after she did and the two men who stood guard at the door. "I can handle him for a while, don't worry." She flashed them an encouraging smile then looked to Dino. Once their Boss nodded, all three of them filed out of the room leaving the assassin, the mafia boss and the Vongola protector alone.
"Take this," Dino walked over to Amaya with a small pistol in his outstretched hand. Amaya looked at Dino and then at the weapon before she reluctantly picked up the gun and immediately placed it on the window sill away from her. "The safety is off so if he tries anything-."
"I know how to use a gun, Dino." Amaya interrupted him abruptly with an annoyed look on her face before she gestured to the door with her right hand. "Go on, your men are waiting for you." She told him bluntly. Dino wasn't sure what had angered her and, to be honest, he was too tired to go poking into her feeling right now so with a final look to both occupants of the room, he walked to the door and left.
"Fuck sake," Amaya breathed almost as soon as the door was closed, lowering her head to her legs and burying her hands into her hair. "He knows I don't want people getting hurt, and then he gives me a gun." She huffed out in exasperation.
"Why?" The sudden quiet voice made Amaya whip her head up so she was staring the Shark down. Silver against violet like it had been periodically for the past few nights, this time there was confusion and questioning in both of their eyes.
"You haven't spoken to anyone all day, and now you decide to talk?" She asked the white-haired assassin who didn't even blink as she asked him a question. He just kept on staring at her with those eyes that she could feel enveloping her very soul as she looked in to them.
"I didn't want to speak to them," He started angrily, Amaya fought against the urge to swallow but she lost and couldn't help the sound that followed his venom laced voice. "Why did you save me?" He spoke slowly, as if to a child, so that she wouldn't mistake the meaning of his words. He knew it was her, it was obvious he knew, but she was going to pretend for as long as possible that he was going crazy.
"I didn't save you," She told him, lying through her teeth perfectly. "Dino sent his men into the water while I waited on the roof." She kept eye contact with him, narrowing her eyes now as if she were daring him to question her.
"You're an excellent liar, if it were anybody else you would fool them," Squalo told her as he rose himself slightly off of the bed in order to make himself look more imposing. She never broke, he should know by now that he could not break this woman so easily. "I remember hearing you speak while I was unconscious, your wet hair almost smothering me," Oh god, he remembered which meant he knew exactly what she had said to him in the air pocket. She was never going to live that down. "Why did you save me?" He repeated his original question with much more vigour than the last time.
"You saved Yamamoto," Amaya spoke in a monotone as she returned her legs to their position on the ground, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms over her chest. "I repaid his debt." Squalo returned to his laying position, his hand coming up to his side where he had been bitten. The movement had caused it to start to throb badly. "Does it hurt?"
"Why do you fucking care!" Squalo snapped at Amaya who subconsciously flinched away from him a little. He wouldn't lie, he was satisfied with her reaction to him but he regretted speaking in the way he did. He wished he would have saved that tone for another time, not when she was hovering over him with a gun and he was vulnerable. Amaya hadn't expected him to bit back so suddenly and was honestly a bit shocked, her heart began to beat faster and her breath hitched for a moment before it regained its natural rhythm.
"Oh, now I remember," She spat back at him angrily. "You're a bastard, silly me for forgetting." She said in a sickly-sweet manner as she uncrossed her arms and rose from the chair, she made sure to grab the gun from the window ledge before walking over to the small sink in the room that had a pitched of water and plastic cups next to it. She poured water into two of the cups and carried them back to the bed in one hand while holding the gun in the other. She didn't speak to the white-haired man as she handed him a cup while she sat down, he wasn't going to take it from her but then he remembered how dry his throat was and he grabbed it from her roughly.
"It's the mist battle tonight." Amaya informed him after taking a sip of her water. Squalo threw her another glare as he sat the cup down on the bedside table.
"I don't give a shit!" He growled at her. He didn't expect Amaya to smash her cup down on the table, sending half the contents spilling on to the wood and the floor before snapping her hand back to her body.
"Fuck you!" She shouted at him in disdain. "Fuck this, and fuck you! I'm not going to say a single word until Dino gets back." She spoke angrily as she threw her legs over the side of her chair and proceeded to look outside the window.
"I've been in silence since I woke up, do you think not talking is going to upset me?" He smirked at her feeble attempt to get a rise out of him. Amaya turned on him with a smirk of her own.
"You haven't talked but people have been talking around you," She told him, her smirk turning into a grin as Squalo raised an eyebrow. "I'm not going to speak to you, look at you or even acknowledge you, let's see how long you last then."
"You're going to ignore me?" Squalo asked amusedly to which he was answered by a nod from Amaya. "You couldn't ignore me if you tried."
"We'll see who buckles first, I can be very stubborn." With that, Amaya looked away from Squalo and through the window where she saw people walking and cars moving outside. Squalo would play her little game, knowing that she would be the one to give in first, she was too curious for her own good and she would have to look at him eventually to sate her curiosity.
Just because she wasn't going to look at him, it didn't mean that he couldn't look at her. He had nothing better to do after all. He had been to Japan before but he had never seen anyone quite like her before, with blonde hair and purple eyes that were just so mysterious. He supposed that the blonde hair could be possible but rare and without knowing much about her parents he couldn't say for sure if it was genes or rarity. The purple eyes however, he had no idea how someone could have that eye colour and yet someone did, and she was right in front of him currently tracing patterns on the window.
His eyes trailed to her neck which was still marred from the cuts he made a few days ago. Speaking of cuts he made, his silver eyes moved to her hand which were still bandaged quite tightly. The bandages starting to look a little raggedy and off colour, he wondered whether she had changed them since she had retrieved him from the water because is she didn't she would have to soon to avoid infection. Shamal had told her that the scars would fade eventually and that the wound itself would take a few weeks to heal so Squalo must have done some real damage to her. Yet she was still able to grab him underwater and carry him up to the surface, no doubt causing some pain to her hands on the way.
While he couldn't really see them, he knew that she had strong arms. It wasn't everyday he saw someone that was able to go toe-to-toe with him in a battle of strength, granted she had lost but she still put up a good fight. How was a regular woman like her so strong? She must have been doing some work so that her muscles could withstand the pressure they did. It must not only have been her arms that were strong though, she had carried him underwater which must have taken a great deal of strength, he was lean but quite heavy with muscle. He had watched her kick Shamal across a field, this was a woman who, after some training, shouldn't be messed with. She wasn't aware of her strength and at the moment it was a good thing as she would become a formidable opponent when she realised.
A deadly Mafioso.
Amaya saw him looking at her through the window. There was no way she was actually going to turn a blind eye to him but he didn't have to know that. He thought that he could ogle her without her knowing, she took him for smarter than that. She watched him as he stared at her, her eyes being drawn to the stump that used to have his artificial hand attached. Question burned inside of her that she desperately wanted to ask him but because of the statement she had made about ignoring him and the fact she refused to lose to such a pompous dick, she made mental notes of the questions instead so she could ask him them at a later time.
She was getting quite bored, which is what made her pick up the pistol that was next to her. She was taught how to shoot by her Dad. He wanted her to know how to use it in case anything happened to her while he was incapacitated. They had a gun in their house which even her mother knew how to use, a safety precaution after her dad got named the Yakuza Cop. The fact that he had so much involvement with the Yakuza is why he was allowed to take his police issued firearm home, usually in her country police had to hand in their guns after their shift but her father had a different circumstance to regular police. Safe to say, Amaya knew her way around a gun at the young age of four.
Amaya pressed the magazine release and slid the thin compartment out of the gun, catching it in her left hand before lifting it up to see how many rounds were in it. There were 6 gleaming metal bullets looking at her in the magazine. Squalo watched as she took the magazine and carefully placed it on the window ledge on the opposite side of her. She then worked on removing the slide of the gun, working remarkably quickly for someone who has had no association with the Mafia until recently. How did she know about guns? Did she have a secret past that nobody knew about? Squalo now had questions of his own he would like to be answered, but he was too proud to speak to her first. Once she had removed the slide, she placed it perfectly under the magazine then proceeded to remove the spring, then the barrel of which she looked through and tutted. It was dirty and would need a good clean. Luckily, she had put napkins in her hooded jacket when she went to get water.
Squalo admired the way that Amaya carefully cleaned the gun parts with precision to ensure that nothing would clog up the system. She even took each of the six bullets from the magazine and made sure they were in a good condition before placing them back in the magazine. She paused then, for a brief moment, then she worked rapidly and reassembled the gun in under 20 seconds. She smiled smugly at her work, knowing that Squalo was watching and that he probably had thousands of questions running through his head. It just got all too much for him, he opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted when the door opened up to reveal a smiling Dino.
"Nice to see you both still alive," He commented joyfully as he crossed the room and retook up the position at the end of the bed. His eyes went to the gun that was still in Amaya's hand and he raised an eyebrow. "You didn't have to use that, did you?" He asked her and Amaya wasn't sure whether he was joking or not so humoured him anyway.
"No, I was just inspecting it," Amaya told him before handing him back the gun, glad to be rid of it a little. "Did you manage to rest?" She asked the blonde Italian as she changed her position, feet on the floor and leaning forward.
"Yeah got two hours sleep which was nice," Two hours... How long had she been in the room? Amaya looked at the clock on the wall that had said 10am when she first arrived, now it read 2pm. Four hours had passed in the space of what felt like half an hour. "Has he said anything?" Dino asked as he gestured his head toward Squalo. Amaya's eyes flicked towards the white-haired assassin who seemed to be looking anywhere other than at her.
"No, hasn't said a word," Amaya's lie was easy and fooled Dino. There was no reason for her to lie so she wasn't quite sure why she did, however there was no taking it back now. No matter how much Squalo looked at her quizzically. "It's been kind of boring actually." She admitted, feigning disappointment as she stood from the chair and stretched out her back.
"Heading out?" Dino enquired.
"Yeah, I'm going to get a shower before the battle tonight," She told him as she walked past him toward the exit. She opened the door before turning to the men in the room for the final time. "Let me know if he says anything, see you later." Then with that she was gone, leaving the two childhood friends alone in an uncomfortable silence.
"She's in danger staying with the mafia," Dino said out of nowhere, making Squalo turn to him with a face giving away no emotion. "She has a big heart and something tells me she might not be strong enough for this." How very wrong Dino was. Squalo would have laughed out loud and belittled him while defending you if her was controlled by his emotions. But the Shark was quite apt at keeping his emotions in check which is why he simply kept staring at Dino through the bandages over his face. "I thought you might have spoken to her at least, she seems to have caught your attention." Squalo snarled at him, holding back a hiss that he really wanted to release. Dino decided he wasn't going to get anywhere with Squalo at the moment and left him in the room with two guards at the door.
This woman is messing with my head, making me curious like herself, Squalo thought to himself as he looked up towards the ceiling. Damn her to hell.