A/N: Hope everyone's had a good holiday - and a good year to come, too!


Keeping Your Character – Chapter Twenty Nine


"Isn't the sunset in Namimori gorgeous?" Iemitsu asked.

He leaned back in his spot on the back porch of his family's home, and took a long sip of beer. He grinned goofily as he heard the tell-tale sounds of Nana puttering around in the kitchen, still cooking up a storm in her good cheer – because of his return, no less!

What he'd done to deserve her, he'd never know.

"If you like suburbia," Reborn said neutrally, hopping up beside him.

"It has its charms," he replied dreamily, obviously thinking of his wife.

Reborn kicked out at his elbow, aiming to make the man fall on his back. Iemitsu simply sat up to avoid it, his stupid smile untarnished.

"Focus, Iemitsu," Reborn said simply. "The Varia will be back sooner than you want."

Iemitsu's easy expression melted away, and he turned his gaze toward the half-drunk bottle in his hand.

"You think it will come to a Ring Battle?" Reborn prompted.

"Xanxus wants… no, needs legitimacy," Iemitsu said. "No matter the way he might usually do things, he can't just come in and kill everyone this time. It has to look official, or the Vongola's Allies won't accept him after his attempt at a coup."

Reborn tipped his hat forward a little.

"A Ring Battle requires a disagreement between the CEDEF head and the Vongola Boss," he stated after a moment.

Iemitsu's face twisted, and he took a long swig of his beer.

"It's not impossible that Nono's changed his mind. Guilt can be a powerful thing, especially when you're old enough to have many regrets," he said. "And Xanxus is his son, regardless of his actions – we still don't know who freed him."

"But you don't think that's what happened," Reborn said plainly.

"No," Iemitsu's face hardened. "No I do not. Which is why I'll be investigating things back in Italy as soon as possible."

Reborn nodded.

"What about Tsuna's Guardians?" he asked. "There are a few obvious candidates, but others will be more… difficult."

"Storm, Rain, and Sun," Iemitsu listed. "Easy, from what I've heard. And Cloud is predictable enough that he won't be too hard to get either, with the right approach."

He turned to face the sunset again, turning his bottle in his hands as he contemplated.

"Lightning and Mist are the real issue here."

"You want Lambo for it," Reborn stated bluntly.

"Can you blame me?" Iemitsu asked with a grin. "You don't find skill like that just anywhere. Or professionalism, for that matter."

"I can easily blame you," Reborn said immediately. "Lambo's one of the hardest people to manipulate that I've ever met – both in regards to lack of leverage, and her personality. She's not what you'd call a follower."

"I'm a little shocked that she isn't a Cloud," Iemitsu admitted by way of agreement. "What with the way she's avoided being tied down to a Family all these years."

"And that's not even mentioning her associates. She doesn't exactly keep pro-mafia company."

Iemitsu grimaced briefly.

"Yeah, that came as a shock. Her history has never been very transparent."

"Even for the CEDEF?" Reborn couldn't help but ask.

Iemitsu shook his head.

"I looked into her the first time I found her in Namimori – wanted to know who was near my family, you know?" he said slowly. "But even though I got a read on who she is, I could never find anything concrete about whatever got her there. There's no trail, and she's not a big talker. Not about herself, at least."

"You have to watch her to get anything," Reborn agreed.

"Or have bits of her past turn up out of the blue," Iemitsu pointed out wryly.

Reborn huffed a bit in amusement.

"They're roommates now, did you know?" he asked, still a little disbelieving himself.

"I know," Iemitsu said quietly, his tone strange.

Reborn easily identified it as a weird mix of admiration and determination.

"And the fact that she successfully bartered with the Vindice just makes you want her for the position even more," he stated.

"Wouldn't you, in my position?" Iemitsu rejoined calmly. "It's not as though any of the others in Tsuna's group currently show any skill with diplomacy."

Reborn took a moment to inwardly laugh himself sick at the idea of Lambo being described as diplomatic.

"It also points to her being even more difficult to recruit than you would have thought," Reborn pointed out. "It's not like you can intimidate her into it. Not if she can go through a Vindice shadow, and come out with pardoned convicts."

Iemitsu sighed wistfully, as though he wished intimidation was indeed an option. He looked into his bottle.

"What other candidate is there, though?" he asked quietly. "If I don't want Tsuna losing…"

Reborn eyed him for a moment, then smirked.

"You're gonna owe her for the rest of your life," he decided.

Iemitsu's shoulders sunk dramatically.

"I know!" he whined. "And I already owe her one, too!"

"On the other hand," Reborn said cheerfully. "If do you get her, you might just get the Mist in a two-for-one."

Iemitsu shot him a curious glance.

"Haven't heard a peep from him, but he's been living in Namimori for weeks," Reborn explained. "It's at least half because he's following Lambo's 'guidelines' of not tearing up her territory."

Iemitsu thought on that for a long moment.

"…Sometime you've got to wonder whether or not she doesn't follow easily because she's better at leading," he said.

"I don't think she likes doing either," Reborn said with rare honesty.

Iemitsu snorted.

"Might be easier if she did. Power and influence are supposed to be pretty universal incentives," he grumbled.

The conversation cut off as the two of them heard light footsteps approaching them from inside, easily identified as Nana's. The door to the patio slid open, and she greeted them both with her usual warm smile.

"Darling! Reborn-kun! Dinner's ready," she chirped. "And we have such a full table, it's so wonderful – I had to bring an extra one out from storage so we'd have enough room for everyone!"

"That's great, Nana!" Iemitsu gushed, leaping to his feet to twirl his wife in an embrace. "My wife is so adorable when she's happy!"

Reborn rolled his eyes, and walked inside, ducking the illusory hearts and flowers that spewed from the couple. Any further conversation would have to wait.


Meanwhile, Lambo had already decided on her course of action. Spitting out her worries and thought processes about the whole thing (most of them at least) to Mukuro had helped, even if he'd mostly just sat there – slowly shifting from slightly poleaxed to sinisterly contemplative.

That there was possibly a bit worrisome, now that she thought of it.

But Mukuro would do what Mukuro would do. She was mentally busy enough right now that she wasn't keen on worrying about what went on in that particular noggin. So long as he wasn't breaking anything important, she'd leave him be.

And honestly, the fact was that he was where she'd gotten her current idea.

Once Lambo had determined that narrative causality was definitely a thing, worries about Amano's canon warping all of reality had become very real. So she wasn't entirely certain that she would even be able to avoid becoming a Guardian, as she'd contemplated before.

But no one said that she had to stay one.

(Though, if she thought about it, permanence was kinda implied in the manga – or at least assumed. Undying loyalty to the Sky, and all that rot. She was ignoring it.)

Anyway. Temp Guardian-ing.

She'd take up the role for the whole Ring Battle Arc, and stay a bit. Long enough for "canon" to no longer be a thing, at least; and maybe just long enough for Tsuna to be all established, if she felt generous.

Then she'd go off and do her own thing again. Albeit, probably in a similar position to Reborn's current status as a non-Family affiliate, given that her reputation would likely be linked to the Vongola's at that point. But there were worse Families to be associated with than the Vongola – especially Tsuna's version of the Vongola, which was implied to be less crime-y, more vigilante-y.

It all came together rather neatly, and was the best of her options, as far as she could tell. In her mind, at least; she wasn't too sure that Iemitsu – who was the one arranging Guardian-related things – would agree with her in practice. He was definitely the type who would want the whole "undying loyalty" thing directed toward Tsuna.

Which is where the Mukuro-inspired idea came in.

Contracts. Albeit, not in the usual Mukuro-y sense of blood and possession.

Lambo glanced over the sheet of lined paper she carried. It was rather simply written, but it covered all the major points.

"I, Tsunayoshi Sawada, declare that the following conditions apply:

1. Should Lambo become my Guardian, she has my permission to leave the position if she wants to.

2. During the course of her Guardianship, Lambo is only required to take orders that come personally from me.

3. Should any of the above orders conflict with Lambo's morals or her wisdom, she may decline them."

She'd made the language as plain as possible to avoid loopholes and/or Tsuna disagreeing – she'd even avoided using the title "Decimo" in case they ended up going with the "Neo Vongola Primo" thing (and, again, so Tsuna wouldn't automatically object). And she'd left a little spot on the end for him to sign, and more importantly, leave a bit of Flame as irrefutable proof of his approval.

She took a deep breath, a bit anxious to be honest, then knocked on the window to Tsuna's bedroom.

Tsuna naturally whipped around at the noise, starting at the sight of her crouching in the tree outside, and falling off his bed in a flailing stack of limbs. He recovered well enough, scrambling to his feet. He inched over to hesitantly pull the window open for her.

Honestly, he seemed more surprised at the fact that she'd knocked than her actual presence.

"…Lambo?" he asked. "You aren't on duty right now, right?"

"Nope. Nana invited me to dinner," she said, smoothly sliding inside. "But I also got something for you to look at."

He eyed her warily.

"It's not dangerous or… gross, is it?" he mumbled, having experienced similar tricks from her or Reborn before.

"Fair assumption," she admitted. "But no. This is my serious face."

She pointed a finger at her deadpan expression – which was much the same face that she wore when the aforementioned jokes had occurred.

Still, though Tsuna shot her an incredulous look, he seemed to sense that she was being genuinely serious for once.

"What is it then?" he asked with hesitation.

She looked him over for a moment, wondering if she'd have to talk him down from another round of denial before anything could actually get done.

"It has to do with the Rings the long-haired guy was after," she said simply.

He immediately backed away from her a couple steps. But his face didn't seem to indicate he was at 'about to shriek' levels of stress. Yet.

"I'm not gonna take them," he said quickly.

She gave a long, thoughtful blink.

"That's fine," she said.

"Huh?" he blurted, some of the tension shocked from his body; he was very unused to someone agreeing with him at this point.

It was a reaction she'd been hoping for.

"It's fine if you don't want to take them. But this is because you might get dragged into it anyway – and I might too."

He paused for a long while.

"Because you're my bodyguard?" he asked slowly, as though he already thought that it wasn't quite the truth of it.

He really was quite perceptive when he wasn't about to blow his top with sheer panic or denial.

"Not this time, really," she said, wondering where to start with an explanation – or how much to explain, for that matter.

"There was more than just the Boss' Ring in that case," she settled on saying. "It's a full set, and a person is required to wear each one – and to take up the position that comes with it."

She paused for dramatic effect.

"The people deciding who gets what Ring want me to wear one of them."

Tsuna's face twisted somewhat amusingly as he tried to parse the implications. She could practically see steam coming from his ears. (Honestly, considering he regularly produced Flames from his forehead, it wasn't that far a stretch.)

"…They want me to be your Boss?!" he shrieked eventually. "Who's stupid enough to have that idea?"

Lambo suppressed a laugh, still trying for a serious face.

"Either way, you know Mafia people have ways of making things happen, regardless of what you – or I – want," she said instead. "So I'd like you to sign this, just in case."

She pushed the paper in front of his eyes.

He grasped at it with shaky hands, eyes roving it a couple times over before he seemed to actually take it in.

"…Guardian?" he asked.

She shrugged. "That's the traditional title for the position."

He was silent for a long moment.

"And you're really worried about being… forced into this?" he asked hesitantly, glancing at her for a moment like he was scared he'd offend her by implying she did normal human things like worrying.

"Yes," she said simply.

That, more than anything, seemed to startle him. He looked over the paper again.

"So this just means that… you have a way out and no one can order you around in the meantime?" he asked after a long moment.

She nodded, watching him closely.

For a brief second, his eyes flashed with a determination that was nigh unheard of outside of his Dying Will Mode.

"I don't want to force anyone into something like this anyway," he said quietly. "It's wrong."

She shrugged.

"People in the Mafia don't really have the same morals as people like you," she said. "They focus less on whether they should do things, and more on whether they can. That's why everyone steamrolls over your objections – they don't understand why you wouldn't want the power."

Tsuna frowned for a long while, seemingly taking in what she was saying; honestly, he'd probably be more open to Reborn and the others if they didn't try to steamroll him – it only triggered Tsuna's automatic-denial response, apparently. Actually explaining things to him – even if at a slant – worked much better.

"But you don't," he said finally, confusion written on his face. "You don't want a position like this either" – he wiggled the contract – "so why…?"

"Oh, I mostly steamroll you because it's fun," she said reassuringly. "And because I think you're going about your refusal in completely the wrong way."

Tsuna, whose face had slackened at the first bit of what she'd said, refocused.

"…what do you mean?"

"Well, like I said," she replied, wondering at the way the conversation had derailed without her intentionally derailing it, "Mafioso process things in terms of power, so if you can't overpower them either physically or mentally, you've got an ice cube's chance in hell of changing their minds."

She paused, watching him practically deflate at her words.

"Or you can be sneaky."

"…Sneaky?" Tsuna, who she knew often chose to play stealth characters in his video games, repeated thoughtfully.

"Well yeah," she said. "Like, you could learn Reborn's lessons, then use them to avoid the Vongola. Or you could do something that makes you unviable as a candidate. Or you could accept the position and then run the Vongola like a legitimate business – or even a vigilante squad, like it was back in the good ol' days."

She shrugged again at Tsuna, whose eyes had steadily gotten wider.

"Life isn't about just 'yes or no' kinds of binaries. You can usually find better options if you're creative."

She glanced him over.

"You could probably find inspiration in your manga or video games," she suggested dryly. "Writers like clever plot twists."

Lambo let him percolate for a minute or two, then cleared her throat.

"So, will you sign that?" she nodded at the contract.

Tsuna started, seemingly having forgotten how their little conversation had started. He looked down at the paper, then nodded, groping around his desk drawer for a pen. He wrote out his name – thoughtfully, in both kanji and rōmaji.

He tried to hand it back to her, but she shook her head.

"Needs a little more than that, considering."

"What do you mean?"

"A little bit of Flame on the end would mean no one can contest that it's legit," she explained.

Tsuna frowned.

"But I can't do that," he said, tone between worry and frustration.

"Sure you can," she said with deliberate casualness. "When you aren't panicking, you can be pretty determined. And you know what your Flames feel like by this point."

She'd thought it over before, what to do upon getting to this step. Quite frankly, there was no real reason that canon!Tsuna had needed pills or a bullet to activate his Flames. She was pretty sure it was half a psychological thing on his part – the special abilities can't come from him, they must come from these weird outside sources – and half a decision on Reborn's part to make him psychologically dependent by having him think the ability to magically solve his problems was only accessible via the Mafia (at least up until the point where he accepted the Decimo title).

And, to be honest, she didn't steamroll only because it was fun. It was possible that she'd, just a smidge, taken on the whole Mafia mindset.

If Tsuna wasn't able to call up his Flames by his own accord… well, she'd make him able to by dinner time.


In the end, it'd taken some minor psychological manipulation and a few teensy illusions to get him in the right mindset, but Tsuna had managed to press a fingertip of Flame onto the end of the contract and have it adhere. He'd stared at the result, flickering merrily without burning the paper, for a long while – eyes filled with something like wonder as he glanced between it and his hands.

Given the way of things, it probably wouldn't result in any huge changes. Maybe a little bit better mental health for Tsuna? Whatever. She'd got what she came for.

'Just in time, too,' she thought, as Nana called for them to come down for the meal.

She patted him on the back in thanks, which he barely registered, and left for the dining room – tucking the precious paper into the inner pocket of her coat as she practically skipped down the stairs. She wondered if she could laminate it, what with the Flame and all. Or Solidifying would probably work, she supposed.

So. That was that. It left narrative causality assuaged, and her free to do as she liked in the future.

And honestly, while she hadn't wanted to mention the whole narrative causality thing (and thus the "this world is a fiction" thing) to Mukuro, she also hadn't wanted to mention some of the more potentially-concerning benefits. Firstly, it would have been difficult to explain where she'd gotten the knowledge of them in the first place – and secondly, it was perhaps not very wise to tell Mukuro that the Vongola Rings had time-warping powers.

She, maybe more than anyone because of the whole Ten Year Bazooka thing, was very intrigued by time-related abilities – and honestly, the Tri-Ni-Set in general, given the whole "foundations of the world" thing they had going on. She'd always been pretty interested in them, and the mechanics behind Dying Will Flames in general, but information was scarce. In fact, it was practically nonexistent. She imagined that entrance into the Vongola Family, or the Gesso or Giglio Nero, was one of the few possible avenues of learning about the Tri-Ni-Set – if only by personal observation. (Which, knowing herself, was likely why Byakuran had seemed so familiar with her; at least one version of her had probably been seduced by her own curiosity.)

But she hadn't been willing to join any of them – hadn't thought such a position would be foisted upon her, her regardless of her own wishes; so, she'd put it out of her mind.

Either way, the idea of finally learning more had her excited. And she felt a lot better about pursuing the knowledge now that she had a way to extract herself from most of the rabbit holes.

She sank into a seat between Reborn and Fuuta with a smile.

"Everything looks lovely, Nana-san," she complimented cheerily, taking a sip of the Earl Grey that had been set out for her.

Nana responded in kind with a brilliant smile, and soon pleasant conversation and the clinking of dishes filled the room, interrupted only by Tsuna clattering down the stairs a couple minutes later. Lambo ate her fill, utterly ignoring the preoccupied looks that Iemitsu was shooting her.

The best part was, Iemitsu didn't know about her arrangements – which meant she could negotiate him out of his own name, if she so chose. In fact, it'd be suspicious if she didn't drive a hard bargain.

But she'd probably settle for a little less than his name. Probably. (What even would she do with it?)

So when Iemitsu caught up with her in the entrance hall, and asked to meet with her the next day, she gave him a cool glance over and accepted with every appearance of reluctance. But she nearly skipped on the way home.


OMAKE

Italy, for all that it was warmer than a lot of places during Christmas, didn't exactly have beach weather year-round. So, when some tradition didn't dictate otherwise (like White Elephant: Vongola Style, which frankly resulted in way too much property damage to be held anywhere other than at home – and thankfully happened only once every five years), the typical practice was to travel somewhere hot.

Lambo squidged the sands of a Barbados beach between her toes as she sat on a florescent green beach towel, glancing with mild interest at the various other beach-goers from behind her retro sunglasses (which she'd largely picked because they were big enough to hide half her face, and thus her people-watching). She was just in the middle of raising an eyebrow at a particularly orange man in a speedo, when someone flopped down next to her in the shade of the huge beach umbrella.

It was Ken, half-covered in sand due to rough-housing.

"Haah! I love the beach," he sighed. "Sand, sea, and sunshine. There's nothing bad about it!"

On her other side, Hana gave an indignant sniff, though she didn't look up from her book.

"Oh, now what?" Ken whined, having learned to be weary of arguing with the lawyer – but not weary enough to stop doing it in the first place.

"One word: shaving," she deadpanned.

Ken shot her a look.

"It's like an extra five minutes in the shower, isn't it?" he asked dubiously.

"It depends," she said. "Either way it's stupid, and sometimes painful – and something that boys don't have to deal with, despite them usually being the ones who smell worse" – she shot a look at Ken – "since shaving legs is ultimately an arbitrary social standard that only applies to women. It's inherently unfair."

"You don't have to go on a whole rant!" Ken shot back, somewhat offended by the smelly implication. "It can't be that horrible!"

"It kind of is," Tsuna commented, passing by on his way to the volleyball net.

The three of them stared after him for a long moment.

"Ah! That time he lost a bet with Mukuro and had to dress as Cinderella for Kyoko's birthday ball," Lambo realized.

"Ohh," the others said in stereo.

"Kyoko made a good prince," Ken said sagely.

The other two nodded.

A second later, Hana turned a flinty eye toward Lambo, seeing an opportunity to win the argument via Ken's natural tendency to follow along with Lambo's opinion.

"What about you, what do you think?"

"I don't really have a stake in the argument," Lambo said, going back to her people-watching. "I don't shave."

Both of them shot her a dubious look. Ken poked at her very smooth shin, then shot her a doubly-dubious look.

"Self-electrolysis," she explained simply.

Hana gave an uncharacteristic sputter – a mix of "I can believe I didn't think of that" and "why haven't you offered such a treatment to me" – and Ken pointed at her, letting out a near-braying cackle at the look on her face.

Lambo left before Hana could shove his face into the sand.


OMAKE 2

White Elephant: Vongola Style was met with mixed opinion, to say the least. At first, the rules had sounded completely normal to Tsuna – draw numbers, #1 picks an anonymous present from the pile and opens it in front of everyone, #2 can either pick a new one or steal something that was opened, and so on.

Then, he'd considered the implications of these rules when applied to the people he knew. Specifically the word "steal." To a normal person, that would mean walking up to the person with the present you wanted and playfully asking them to hand it over.

To a Vongola… well. It would definitely involve violence. And probably no small amount of stealth steals, rather than one-off attempts when it was your turn.

And that wasn't even considering the types of presents these people would think appropriate to bring.

Tsuna usually regretted the mere idea of having an open bar – but this time, he'd allowed it, if only because he knew he personally would require many, many, many drinks.

He was right.

It started bad when Reborn, naturally, got #1 – and promptly opened up a shoe box-sized gift to find the slickest-looking gun Tsuna had ever seen, engraved with a subtle golden flame pattern along the handle (plus several packages of specialized ammo that went with it).

Xanxus promptly began eyeing it. And by association, his minions did too – regardless of whether they'd usually be dumb enough to challenge Reborn.

In the end, Tsuna felt he'd only survived the night due to the presence of his beloved Kyoko (who'd ended up with an extensive baking set) by his side – plus the fact that people were generally at least a smidge less lethal when pointing a gun or blade near her – and copious amounts of alcohol. It had eventually erupted into an all-out brawl as people got drunker and the shots went wider (though he'd shamefully admit that he'd waded in for a moment himself to snatch up the remote-control, completely-functional mecha figure that could have only been contributed by Spanner); he made a mental note to dock everyone's pay for completely trashing the ballroom, extremely elaborate chandelier included.

Except Fon and Lambo, who he'd spotted sitting nonchalantly in a corner, sipping drinks and dodging bullets with the slightest movements, perfectly content with the gifts they'd ended up with: a Jackie Chan movie box set, and a dubious-favors coupon-booklet (which she'd waited toward the end of the night to pry from a near-unconscious Gokudera's drunken grip) respectively.

And the music, which had been stuck on the children's choir bit of an ironic Happy Xmas (War is Over) for the past three hours (he blamed Fran, personally), played on.