I'm really sorry for not updating yesterday. I was pretty ill and wasn't able to get out of bed. :( Fortunately, I'm somewhat better now so I can update. Once again, I'm sorry about that. Luckily, I had already written this chapter. Anyway, I hope you enjoy.

BTW, I probably should have given this warning eariler but it slipped my mind. The Varia are included in this arc so they will be swearing. I'll try and moderate it to a certain extent but swearing/being vulgar is sort of the Varia's thing. I've toned it down on the previous chapters but we'll be getting some more of their prospective later on.

Chapter Twenty Six

Kyoya was disappointed as the silence continued.

He was very disappointed.

Why did everyone else have new, strong opponents and he got this crap hunk of metal?! He even stopped himself from fighting with the annoying carnivore (who, while annoying, was stronger than him -which was irritating but he could admit that- and so gave him a challenge every time they fought. It would be better if the carnivore stopped being a baby but Alpha was working on that) incase his opponent was stronger than he expected. Kyoya gave his word to his Alpha that he would win his fight.

Turned out his opponent was a herbivore pretending to be carnivore.

He felt cheated.

Well, if his opponent was weak than all he needed to do was seek out a stronger one. That was the one of the reasons why he was bothering to do this ring battle. With that thought in mind, Kyoya turned to the leader of the Varia, knowing he'd prove himself strong if he commanded the others. He ignored everyone's (excluding his pack because his pack knew of his strength and wouldn't doubt him so easily) shocked expressions. Did they think he'd play cat and mouse with the herbivore? Kyoya was already holding back enough as it was on his Alpha's order but that didn't mean he would make himself so weak that he needed to play with the herbivore, "You, the one sitting over there. Come down here. Until I beat you, I can't go home." Kyoya demanded. Alpha shouldn't mind if he took her opponent. She didn't really believe in this ring nonsense anyway and was only participating because the pack wanted someone new to fight.

The boss of the not-herbivores (they were so close to being carnivores but they felt retrained to him, like a tiger barely chained, he actually felt some level of sympathy for them. If he was chained like they were… Kyoya mentally growled, all of his instincts rebelling against the mere thought of something like that happening) smirked, seemingly amused, before jumping and aiming a kick at him. The wolf's jacket fell from his shoulders and on to the hard ground when he raised his tonfa to block the attack, effortlessly. There was power behind the strike but not enough for Xanxus to be fighting seriously. Still, the man's excited grin told Kyoya that he was lusting for a fight.

How convenient.

The not-herbivore boss jumped, using Kyoya's beloved tonfa as a launching pad and flipped in the air before landing smoothly on the ground, "My foot slipped." the not-herbivore commented, almost carelessly, his grin turning into a smirk.

"Right." a hint of sarcasm laced the wolf demon's voice.

"No, really. I only came down to get that piece of junk." Behind the carnivorous boy, the machine exploded, smoke engulfing its form, "We have lost."

"Hn." Kyoya's eyes narrowed, why was this man lusting for a fight if he refused to have one? "Your face tells a different story." and with that, the wolf charged at him. The man jumped out of the way, as Kyoya continued to chase him putting more and more strength behind his shrikes each time, feeling the excitement rush through his blood getting higher and higher...

"Why is Hibari extremely attacking? He's already won!" asked Ryohei as the gatling guns went off, firing at the two people running around the battle ground. It didn't even pause the two fighting in the area. Well, Xanxus had yet to technically attack, wanting to stay in the rules of the ring battles as much as possible. That thought made Tsuna pause and frown, her intuition going off.

"Haha, Hibari-senpai must not have been happy with his opponent." responded Takeshi, some of the land mines exploded. No one paid it much thought.

"Ah," started Fon, sounding slightly sheepish, "That might have been my fault. We had a small spar before the battle. I assume that it got Kyoya worked up a little." Tsuna didn't really mind that, stopping Kyoya when he was in this sort of mood was never a good idea and so she let him be. He looked like he was enjoying himself anyway.

Still… Her intuition buzzed...

"Stop!" shouted Tsuna, suddenly, understanding (somewhat) what her intuition was trying to tell her. At the sound of her almost panicked voice, her family stopped and turned to look at her. Kyoya jumping away from his opponent, doing the same, "Kyoya stop fighting, let Xanxus take the his guardian away." Tsuna ordered, sharply.

The wolf frowned but at the sight of his Alpha truly troubled by something, obeyed, letting his arms hang by his side but keeping watch on the not-herbivore with hungry, vicious eyes. It was a good thing he listened to his Alpha though because his instincts had him jumping back and dodging a red beam of light. The heat radiating off the attack brushed past his leg but it wasn't close enough to harm him. In the background, he could hear the not-herbivore saying something to the cervello but he wasn't focusing on him anymore.

No, he was focusing on the missiles flying towards his pack.

With an animalistic, enraged growl, Kyoya jumped in front of his pack (how dare that piece of junk attack his pack! The pack he swore to protect, to live for, to belong in) and raised his tonfa to defend them against the attack. Smoke filled the area they were standing in. All the Varia and the cervello could see was the black, thick smoke and the red fire-like glow that emitted from inside the smoke.

However, it wasn't the cloud boy that had defended the others like the onlookers thought but their sky, who bore flame-like wings on her back. The powerful wings summoned a gust of wind that cleared away the smoke with ease.

Tsuna, for her part, was concentrating. Revealing the supernatural to average humans wasn't against the law per say, but it wasn't done without thought. When she saw the missiles and Kyoya in front of her and his fellow elements, she just reacted. She had brought out her half-phoenix form and deflected the missiles before catching herself and using every ounce of control she had gotten from her training with Reborn and shifted slightly. She was now between her half-phoenix and human form. Her hair still retrained her usual brown colour, though if someone was to look closely enough they'd see a hint of colour that threatened to take over the brown, and her eyes glowed a golden-amber. As an extra precaution, she had encase her wings in her flame to make it look like she had merely used her flames to make wing-like shapes rather than actual wings. Reborn was still on her shoulder, the flames merely a comforting warmth to him rather than the burning heat others would feel if they wasn't recognised as part of her family. Still, this form felt wrong to her. She didn't like it. Not at all. It felt like she was suffocating but still having just enough oxygen to breathe at the same time.

At that thought, she breathed in, as if reassuring herself that she could breathe (she wasn't going to be using this ever again if she had a say in it, this was awful) before speaking, "Kyoya, you should know you don't need to guard us. You aren't the guarding type, remember?" her voice was soft, almost a whisper, but everyone managed to hear it.

Kyoya bowed his head slightly, relaxing his tense form, "Yes, Alpha." He should have known. Alpha did say something like that before his 'battle' but it was instinct. When he saw his pack in danger… Still, he should've know that with Alpha there they wouldn't need him to defend them. They had their pride too. He wasn't the only strong one in his pack, he realised, and defending them like that was like saying he didn't trust his pack to take care of themselves. That they were too weak to do so.

He'd need to correct that instinct. His pack was trained by him, after all. They could protect themselves. They didn't need him to jump in front of the biggest threat. Still, he thought as he looked upon his pack, that didn't mean he had to completely stop. He would just need to see if the danger that they were currently facing was something they could deal with and act accordingly.

Kyoya didn't guard people but he protected his pack. And to Kyoya, those two words meant two very different things.

To protect, meant to keep something (someone) safe, away from harm. Not because they needed someone to protect them but because you felt the need to take care of that person. You trusted that person to be able to look after themselves but wanted to contribute in some way. To guard, however, meant to keep someone safe because they couldn't do it do themselves. You didn't trust that person to take care of themselves.

Kyoya trusted both his Alpha and fellow elements to look after themselves but his instincts told him to protect them as well. They didn't need him to keep them safe from harm, they didn't chain him in one place by being too weak, they weren't weak herbivores.

He had… forgotten that for a moment.

He wouldn't forget again.

Xanxus stared in shock as, he was pretty sure, everyone else was doing. The mini-trash's flames flared out from her back to form vague bird-like wings. The orange flames had bits of yellow flashing into sight every so often. They were majestic, the wings, large (almost looking too large for the mini-trash, yet it somehow looked right) as well. The tips of the wings was only a few inches from the floor. Even though they were clearly made out of flames, he could sense the sheer power they must have held if they were real. They moved like real wings too, as the mini-trash stretched them, each wing having about a four foot width when fully stretched.

The mini-trash turned to him and he forced himself out of his shock (because wings? He'd heard of some vongola bosses having strange weapons, the fourth used a fork as his weapon, but using your own flames to form wings was a new one. He didn't even know you could get that amount of control over your flames to keep them in a solid form. If she was a mist, it'd be more believable but that was what their flames were geared towards, construction) and saw that the World's Greatest Hitman was still on the girl's shoulder. The cursed baby didn't even seem to notice the flames behind him as he didn't look like he was about to move anytime soon. And thinking about that cursed baby, what was Fon, the World's Greatest Martial Artist, doing here? He thought Colonello was the only other Acrobanelo around these parts apart from Mammon. Fon should be in China.

The second thing he noticed was that the mini-trash's eyes were glowing orange. Xanxus expected them to feel like Timoteo (not his old man anymore, just an old man, not his father) but they didn't. They didn't even look the same. Sure, they both were orange but Tsunahime's looked almost gold in a certain light. Where Timoteo's were heavy, full of judgement and disappointment, Tsuna's were sharp, almost calculating and edged with a calmness that seemed otherworldly yet when she glanced at her elements (not guardians, she refused that title and Xanxus wished he did the same given the reason she gave. Well, there was time for that later), her eyes stayed calm but they turned soft and warm. No, the mini-trash's eyes were nothing like Timoteo's. Even when the ninth looked at his own guardians or Family, his eyes looked down at them. There was no one equal to him in that old man's eyes, not even the other bosses of the allied famiglias.

While Xanxus wanted Vongola to be strong, he didn't want it arrogant. The vongola family was crippled with its arrogance. It was only due to its reputation and his Varia's work that no one had found out how crap the security was around the Iron Fort lately. After all, no one would dare to attack that fortress. Xanxus snorted, you'd think the so called 'cradle affair' would get them to change that. Given that his people was able to sneak out his mostly ice encased form, they haven't even tried. Timoteo had started to release him and Xanxus had flared his flames to let his guardians know. They took him halfway through the process when Timoteo left to get some rest.

"What is this, Leader of the Varia? Are you attacking one of my Own?" The mini-trash's voice commanded respect, the words falling easily from her lips. Still, there was no judgement, only question in her eyes. She had a level head, she wouldn't attack without how the full story. It was better than some, he thought to himself (the ninth came to mind, the bastard). Xanxus managed a careless shrug (there was something in her voice, something that he didn't recognise but knew it was dangerous), "I was only trying to receive my junk. Your cloud stopped me and now Mocsa restraining system has been broken."

He wondered how they'd deal with this situation. He planned on this happening even before the ring battles were officially confirmed but he thought the heir that Timoteo had chosen would be different. He thought they'd be either an arrogant, self-entitled arse or a weak civilian that would be Timoteo's puppet so he could still control the family while not technically being the head anymore.

That wasn't what he got though and the mini-trash and her elements weren't so bad. They were Quality. She wouldn't allow herself to be controlled and she wasn't an arrogant piece of shit either. If he was being honest with himself, he didn't want the mini-trash to die because, well, she was alright in his book. The mini-trash treated him and his elements with the type of respect you'd give any dangerous predator (she was polite but she wasn't stupid. The girl had never once fully turned her back on him at all during any of the battles. Always keeping an eye on him. She didn't expect him to attack at any given moment like those idiot guardians of the ninth did but merely let him know that she counted him as dangerous and until he gave her a reason to trust him, she wouldn't).

Xanxus could see himself working with her regardless of the outcome of this battle.

Fon's smile threatened to turn into concerned frown as he looked upon the now rampaging machine, "It looks like it has gone berserk." he assessed, serenely.

"Haha, that doesn't look too good." laughed Takeshi, agreeing with the cursed baby on his shoulder. Reborn watched the two smile at each other, looking completely at peace with their surrounding despite the chaos (and he did approve of that) and couldn't help but think he was wrong. Oh, Tsuna and Fon did get along, perhaps too well for his liking, but Takeshi and Fon were like twin brothers or something. Takeshi was just more energetic than Fon in his constant calm.

"T-that's a compressed particle beam!" shouted Hayato, sounding more excited than terrified as the scientist in him leaned forward to get a better look as it destroyed more buildings.

"That's some extreme power!" exclaimed Ryohei, watching some bits of rubble fall off the building, a hole where the beam shot. The boxer grinned, with a fist pump, getting fired up.

"You're paying for all this damage, cervello chicks." drawled Tsuki, reminding them of their promise, as she kept one eye on her boss while still appearing bored. She didn't even know humans could cause so much damage on a whim. No wonder Tsunahime-sama found them worthy of her attention. This looked fun.

Mukuro and Chrome faded into existence besides Kyoya, who growled at the male mist on principle, "Kufufufu, it's been awhile since I have seen such beautiful destruction." his voice was tinted with sadistic delight. Mukuro was slightly leaning on his trident with a carelessness that was at complete odds with the fire, smoke and falling buildings that was going on around him.

"I-is everyone alright?" asked Chrome, hugging her trident like usual. Her lone eye jumping from element to element, even landing on Reborn and Fon for a moment, scanning them, and then moving on.

"We are extremely fine, Chrome!" shouted Ryohei, rushing to reassure her. His big brother instincts flaring up.

They should probably be more worried about their situation, thought Reborn, then again Tsuna was emitting her sky flames. Even showing her wings, though they were encased in flame, so they probably thought they were as safe as they were going to get. Reborn couldn't disagree with that thought, to be honest, being so close to the flames, as he was flooded with the feeling of home (dammit, he wasn't even harmonised! If this was what he was like now, then if he ever became apart of the bambina's sky… Reborn didn't what to think about it, he'd be a mess). The bambina wouldn't let any harm come to any of them. Though, Tsuna did seem to struggling a little, observed Reborn. Was it because she was only showing her wings and only partially at that? He had thought that the hair, eyes and wings came as a package deal. Not able to have one without the other, sort of thing. He'd have to ask her after this thing has been sorted out.

"How are you going to deal with this, mini-trash?" Reborn looked away from his bambina to see Xanxus smirking at them. Reborn frowned minutely, that smirk didn't look high and mighty like the hitman had expected it to be but more challenging. It was a smirk he often wore when sparring with or training Tsunahime. Like he had set her an difficult task that was nearly impossible for an average person but wanted to see how she'd get past it. Xanxus's eyes also held curiosity hidden beneath the arrogant mask he wore. More importantly, the man's flames reflected his expression. Flames couldn't lie. To Reborn, it… it looked like Xanxus was testing Tsunahime.

Tsunahime just attracted dangerous people, didn't she?

"Deal with this…?" she repeated, tilting her head to properly look at the wrath (he suppressed a shiver. Dammit! Tsuna got really, really attractive then she acted like this! It wasn't fair that he was stuck in a baby's body). Reborn wondered if she picked up on the same thing as he had, "Something like this is easy to solve." She looked up and gazed calmly at another round of flying missiles heading towards her that the Mocsa had fired, "You attack the source." Tsuna stretched her wings to their full wingspan before giving one mighty flap, summoning a gust of wind and lifting her slightly off the ground before giving another flap and then another...

Reborn, who refused to be dislodged from her shoulder, stared with masked wonder as Tsuna flew through the sky. Oh, he knew she could fly. The wings being a dead giveaway, but he had never actually seen her fly. It was probably made even better in his eyes because he was flying with her. He had seen her use her wings to manipulate the wind behind her and give her a boost of speed or catch the wind beneath her wings so she glided after a jump but never actually fly. Tsunahime looked like she belonged in the sky. Which made a lot of sense given she was a sky and a phoenix was, technically, a type of bird. He was definitely making Tsuna fly more often with him. The sense of freedom it gave him… It was like nothing could ever chain him down, even his curse took a backseat as he reveled in his amazement.

Tsuna's wings sliced through the missiles she couldn't reach as her fists, covered in sky flames, punched through the other ones, making them explode in the sky. She easily dodged the blast, the sky was her domain and she couldn't be matched it in, least of all by programed missiles. Getting rid of all the missiles in a single moment, Tsuna headed towards her next target, the thing that was the source, and struck.

Tsunahime personally thought it was a nice touch to take the machine's other arm, completing her cloud element's job. The wires sparked as she held the arm within her grip before letting it go. She said nothing as the machine fully focused on her and away from her family. She wasn't worried about Reborn, he was on her shoulder and she wouldn't let him get hurt if something came up that stopped him from defending himself. She dodged the multiple attacks that came from the machine but didn't strike back just yet.

This machine had a flame, she could sense it now that it was in this berserk-like state and she was so close to it, it felt vaguely familiar to her, like a long forgotten memory, "Something isn't right…" muttered Reborn in her ear, not needing to say anymore because she already knew. This whole setup was backwards and put her on edge.

Tsuna frowned, "Reborn, get ready." she warned. A flame could only come from a living being, and most of those had a humanoid-like shape, so she needed to stop the machine and take out whoever was inside, preferably safely. Easier said than done, she didn't want to hurt the person inside if she could avoid it. The hitman nodded his head in response, one arm tightening his hold on her neck and the other holding his fedora, shadowing his eyes. Leon moved closer to his human's hands, within easier reach.

After dodging even more bullets, she finally attacked. With a great flap of her wings, she fired out some of her feathers that were encased in her flames. They struck true and covered the machine's joints causing sparks to fly. The feathers, which were in a way made of flame, seemed to melt (she could destroy them at will, a natural defense any phoenix had, in case someone stole their feathers and attempted to use them) and the heat resulting this melded the joints together, making it so it was unable to move.

Quickly, now that the machine was confused, she ripped open the front, only for a old man to drop out of it. The wires that were attached to the man ripped, letting him go, "This is…" Reborn trailed off in shock but it didn't matter. She had recognised who this was.

"The ninth boss…" she finished, half in shock and half in disbelief.

And done!

A wild ninth appears! Sorry, couldn't resist. Tsunahime shows off her phoenix side a little in this one. Even if Xanxus doesn't know what that is what it is. And Kyoya has been given a heart!

Hope you've enjoyed it and thanks for the reviews!