Kyandi: Hey, guys!
Roksana: Do I really remind people of an Absol?
Kyandi: Hey, I think that's cool! A lot of the pokemon suggested are pretty cool. If I can't make up my mind, I might have to do multiple drawings.
Roksana: She was so into the idea, that she stayed up late last night assigning a pokemon to all of us in my immediate group of friends.
Kyandi: I found some really perfect matches, if I do say so myself!
Roksana: Even I agree that some of them were really good.
Kyandi: That aside...Xanxus turning into Hibari?
Roksana: I don't want to speak of it! That won't happen!
Kyandi: No, no, of course not...
Roksana: Was that sarcasm? Kyandi-sama?
Kyandi: Anyway, everyone, enjoy and review.
Roksana: Kyandi-sama!
Kyandi: Say your line and we'll talk about it later.
Roksana: Ugh! Kyandi-sama does not own Katekyo Hitman REBORN.
Chapter 50 Two Can Play That Game
"You've got to be kidding."
Squalo frowned at the dirty glare that Roksana shot his way. The look she gave him was one that said she thought he was crazy. He could just imagine all the dirty names she was calling him in her head as she glared at him.
"What?!" he demanded.
"There is no way that this is training." Roksana retorted, jerking a hand towards the tray of food on the counter in front of her.
Roksana and Squalo currently stood in the kitchens of the Varia headquarters. While the staff continued about their jobs, sneaking glancing towards Squalo and Roksana, Roksana had anchored her hands on her hips, stubbornness pouring from every pore.
"Just take him the damn food!" Squalo snapped.
Upon entering the kitchen, Squalo had informed Roksana that she, during her stay, would be responsible for taking Xanxus the meals he took in his office. Roksana had instantly protested, her metaphorical hackles raising with her feelings of annoyance and feeling insulted.
"Not a chance. I'm not a maid." Roksana retorted.
"That's not why I'm telling you to do it, brat!"
"Then why?
"Take it and find out. I'm not telling you anything else." Squalo told her.
"Then I'm not moving." Roksana retorted, Squalo slapping a hand to his face. "I grew up with an overly strict father telling me what to do all hours of the day. Trust me...I'm far more stubborn than you are."
"Take it!" Squalo demanded.
"Go suck a lemon."
"Ugh! Just do it, brat!"
"Up yours, sashimi."
"Just take it to him! He gets worse if the meat gets cold!" Squalo snapped at her.
"Worse? What does he normally do?" Roksana asked.
"If you want to know, take the damn tray!"
Normally, Roksana would have carried on this back and forth until Squalo was ripping his hair out, but her curiosity got the better of her. Looking down at the tray, she finally heaved a sigh.
"Fine, I'll take it, but only because I'm curious." Roksana said finally, picking up the tray.
"Whatever floats your boat." Squalo retorted, just glad she had finally agreed.
Arguing with her was almost worse than dealing with Xanxus.
With the tray finally in her hand, Squalo lead her to Xanxus' office, the two of them passed Lussuria, Levi, Bel, and Mammon along the way. The four trailed after them, interested to see how this panned out. When they reached the office, Squalo opened the door to usher her in. The moment she was in the room, he ducked back out of the room, making Roksana look over her shoulder at him. Curious, and now suspicious, Roksana turned back around to face the desk across the lavishly decorated room.
Xanxus, it seemed upon first glance, was asleep, leaning back in his chair with his feet propped up on the desk. His arms were draped over his stomach, his ankles crossed. Roksana was sorely tempted, after his agreement to keep her there, to dump his food on him, but she decided against it.
For now.
Approaching the desk, she sat the tray down and started setting out the plates, silverware, and the glass of whiskey as she had been told to do. She didn't once glance up at Xanxus, not really caring if the man was awake or not, but she could tell he was watching her with one eye open for, almost immediately after she placed the glass of whiskey on the desk, he snatched it up. Roksana finished placing everything on the desk, picked up the tray and turned to leave.
Just as she was about to reach the door, he finally spoke.
"Where's the bottle of whiskey, trash?" he demanded in a growl.
"I wasn't told anything about bringing the whole bottle." Roksana retorted.
Roksana only had a low groan from the other side of the door as a warning for the impending danger. With how fast his throwing arm was, Roksana only had time to raise the tray as a shield as Xanxus threw the glass in his hand, at her head with whiskey still in it. The glass shattered against the tray, splattering her skirt, stockings and boots with whiskey and shards of glass.
So this was why Squalo had wanted her to bring Xanxus his food.
Annoyed at both Squalo for not bothering to give her some kind of warning and Xanxus for acting like a petulant child, Roksana lowered the dripping tray to fix Xanxus with an icy glare.
"Really? That's how you want to act? Fine, then...two can play that game." Roksana retorted.
Concerned about what she was about to do, Squalo pushed the door wide opened just in time to watch Roksana throw the tray with enough impressive force to bury the corner of the metal tray in the back of Xanxus' chair, just half an inch shy of his ear. Gasps of shock and outrage sounded from behind Roksana, but the girl wasn't going to apologize.
Not that she really had to worry about that.
Squalo and the others behind her, were sent scrambling when Roksana suddenly dived to the side to avoid the gunshot Xanxus directed in her direction. Roksana popped up from behind an armchair to look towards the now destroyed door, Squalo and the others peering around the broken bits of wall and door. Turning to face Xanxus, Roksana let out a loud, "Ha!".
"You missed!" Roksana exclaimed.
She saw the tick in his eyebrow and took the warning for exactly what it was. Ducking back behind the chair, she dodged the next shot, this shot hitting a book case and sending books flying in every direction along bookends and other little decorative pieces that had been sitting on the shelves. Roksana scooped up a glass figurine and popped back to her feet, throwing it at Xanxus. Xanxus shot the figurine before it could reach him, as well as the book that she followed it up with, but the smoke and scattering pages blinded him to the second book, which nailed him in the face.
Laughter filled the air then, a little tinkling noise that only grew as the person responsible for it, lost control over their laughter. As the smoke and book pages settled, Xanxus and the other fixed their eyes on Roksana, who was half draped over the back of the now destroyed armchair, laughing so hard, her eyes were watering. They were all surprised to see her laughing, and to see her laughing so fiercely.
Xanxus, though, didn't appreciate it.
"I...hehe...I actually...hahaha...got you! I actually got yo...oh, shit!"
Roksana ducked back behind the chair as Xanxus fired again, and remained there, sitting on the floor, her back to the destroyed chair as she continued to laugh.
"Are you crazy?!" Squalo snapped at her from where he was taking cover.
"Just a little bit!" Roksana replied between giggles. "I never...hehe...I never knew...haha...how much fun it was to destroy a room like this! We don't...hehe... do things like this, back home!"
She was...actually having fun?!
Realizing this surprised all of them, even Xanxus, who finally lowered his gun. Instead of being scared or angry, as most people were when they found themselves in a situation like that, Roksana had found amusement in it.
"Are you stupid, brat!?" Squalo demanded, which only got him another round of laughs from her.
"If you intended for me to get angry, then sorry, that's not how it ended up! Oh, God...I haven't laughed this hard in...well, ever." Roksana said. "I'll give you boys one thing...you're good for a laugh. Can't wait how you handle yourselves in the field."
"I thought you were against this." Mammon remarked.
"Yes, well...If I get to do this," Roksana jabbed a finger over her shoulder at the mess she and Xanxus had made of the office. "everyday, then, hell, I'll stay a year!"
While she got to fight with Hibari all the time, it never was to the point of collateral damage since Hibari was strongly against damage to the school and that was the only place they ever really fought. When compared to that, this was a lot more fun.
Even if Xanxus had been somewhat serious about trying to kill her.
Shifting as she finally reigned in her laughter, Roksana got to her knees and peered over the blown away back of the chair at Xanxus.
"You done?" Roksana asked, raising an eyebrow at him.
Growling to himself, Xanxus dropped back into his seat, putting his gun away. When she was sure that he wasn't going to fire at her again, she completely got to her feet.
"Seriously, haven't I already said something to you about your anger?" Roksana asked.
"Shut up, trash." Xanxus replied.
"Whatever you say, spoiled daddy's boy."
Roksana rushed out of the office as Xanxus reached for his guns once more. Out in the hall, she turned to stick her tongue out at Xanxus before she vanished from sight. While Levi and Squalo stayed behind to see to the clean up of the office, Roksana headed off down the hall, Lussuria, Bel and Mammon walking at her side.
"Maybe that will keep Squalo from asking me to do stupid things like taking Xanxus his food." Roksana remarked.
"You did that on purpose?" Lussuria asked.
"I might be blonde, but I'm not stupid." Roksana retorted. "He wouldn't stop badgering me, so I thought on my feet and found a way out of it."
It was almost terrifying how use to manipulating others she already was.
As Roksana continued to walk and talk with the three, they passed a group of Varia's common members. Unknown to Roksana, one of the men stopped and turned, watching as she vanished off down the hall with Lussuria and the others.
Roksana didn't know it, but she was in for a long night.
-0-0-0-0-
That night, silence and peace reigned over the Varia headquarters. Roksana had gone to bed after dealing with a long, screamed, lecture from Squalo. He hadn't been happy with her egging Xanxus on and causing him to destroy a vast amount of his office. For the most part, Roksana ignored Squalo. Making sure her door was locked, not that it would stop a pro assassin if they wanted in, Roksana had gone to bed, making sure her sansetsukon was close at hand.
And that was what saved her.
A loud crash resounding through the building, was what woke Xanxus and the others.
Following the sound of yells and crashing, they all came flying into the grand entrance of the building.
"What was that?" Lussuria asked.
"I could have sworn it was coming from in here." Levi remarked.
"Get off, you son of a bitch!"
The sudden yell has them all looking up.
"Was that the brat?" Squalo asked.
The answer soon came as there was an annoyed yell before someone went flying over the banister for the second floor. A man, one they all recognized as an underling of the Varia, landed on the ground with a grunt. A second latter, someone vaulted themselves over the banister, landing heavily on the man and driving all the air from his lungs.
There before them, dressed in nothing more than an over-sized dress shirt, her hair let loose from its usual pigtails, was Roksana.
She had her sansetsukon in her hands, jabbing the end into the floor beside the man's head, making him jolt when it came a little too close to his nose.
"What the hell is going on?" Squalo demanded.
"I want to ask the same thing." Roksana retorted, looking up at him with a hard, icy glare on her face. "I was sleeping just fine...until this asshole broke into my room and tried to kill me. If you guys have a problem with me, then tell me to my face."
"Wha...!? You can't think we had anything to do with this!" Squalo snapped.
"What the hell else am I suppose to think? You're an assassination squad. It's literally what you do! And he's one of your men!" Roksana replied.
"We honestly don't have any idea what's going on here, sweetie." Lussuria told her.
"None of us gave the order." Levi added.
"Then why did he attack me?!" Roksana asked.
"No idea, but we sure as hell will find out." Squalo told her, looking down at the man still trapped under Roksana's feet. "Hey, shitty boss! What do you want to do with him?"
All eyes turned to Xanxus, who wasn't in a particularly good mood to be awoken in the middle of the night. The man's crimson eyes fell to the man currently pinned to the floor. The look on his face was unforgiving and mean. When he gave the signal to take the man and restrain him, Lussuria shooed Roksana off the man. The girl didn't really want to hand over the prey she had caught being foolish enough to attack her. She had never shared her captures, had always been the one to deal with them. Having someone else willing to deal with it for her...was a new feeling.
Heaving a sigh, she moved, climbing off the man. Levi seized him by the collar and hauled him to his feet. Lussuria stepped up to Roksana's said, checking her for injury. Roksana waved him off.
"I'm fine. He only barely nicked me before I knocked him silly." Roksana told him.
"We'll deal with this." Levi told her, before focusing in on what she was wearing. "What are you wearing!?"
Roksana looked down at herself, pulling at the front of her shirt. The thing was so big, the sleeves fell way past the tips of her fingers.
"I had to find something to wear to bed." she remarked.
"Where did you even get that?" Levi asked.
"Uh...you don't want to know." Roksana replied.
"Is that the boss' shirt!?" Squalo snapped, making Xanxus turn to look at Roksana.
"Like I said...you don't want to know." Roksana said simply before turning on her heel to head for the stairs. "I just took something from the laundry. Didn't matter to me whose shirt it is. I'm going back to bed. Night."
Roksana took the stairs up, two at a time. Xanxus, by this point, didn't know what to think of the girl. She didn't care if she angered him, didn't care what they thought, and pretty much did whatever made her comfortable. While he didn't know what to say or how to feel about her parading around his headquarters, in the middle of the night, wearing nothing but one of his shirts, he had bigger fish to fry.
He needed to find out why one of his men had attacked her without an order.
Deciding to revisit the shirt issue later, Xanxus had the man dragged to the meeting room, since his office was a destroyed wreck. There, Xanxus dropped to sit in the head chair, propping his legs up on the table. No one even had to ask a question for the man to spill his guts.
"I didn't do anything wrong!" he insisted.
"Why'd you attack her?" Levi asked.
"She's my hit! I have the order in my target. I just got it yesterday." the man replied, pulling the paper and picture from his pocket.
Taking it from him, Squalo looked it over before handing it to Xanxus. Sure enough, there on the paper, was Roksana's name, day of birth, and other bits of information along with the order to kill, her picture attached to the paper.
"Who made the order?" Squalo snapped.
"I don't know. It was passed to me along with some small fry. Just left with my equipment. Sometimes others pass on hits they don't want to deal with like that. She just had the biggest payment on her, so I was going to head out and deal with it, but then she showed up here." the man told him.
Squalo turned to look at Xanxus who was still staring at the order in his hand.
"What do you want to do?" Squalo asked.
Xanxus was quiet for a moment before he threw the order on the table.
"Rescind the order and make sure everyone knows. The girl's not to be touched." Xanxus said simply.
As annoying and aggravating as she was, Xanxus actually, somewhat, liked Roksana. She wasn't scared at him, she had spunk and sass, and not above giving back what he gave, even if that meant throwing glasses back at him. She also wasn't weak, handled her business, and effortless messed with Squalo. The last one was always a bonus with Xanxus. With that said, Xanxus wasn't going to allow an assassination attempt against her while she was with them.
Squalo passed on the order, the man getting dragged away by two other underlings to spend a few days locked in the basement. Once he was gone, all eyes turned to Xanxus, Mammon picking up the order off the table.
"This is a lot of money for little, annoying girl." Mammon remarked. "I wonder who would be willing to shell out this kind of cash just to get rid of her."
Lussuria leaned over his shoulder, letting out a whistle when he saw the amount. Taking the picture attached, Lussuria was confronted with a younger picture of Roksana. In the picture, the girl had to be about twelve, her hair only reaching her shoulders. In the picture, she was walking between a man and a woman that Lussuria was sure had to be her parents, though Roksana didn't look anything like the black haired beauty that held the hand of Roksana's father.
"Judging from the photo, this order has to have been circulated through organizations and hitmen for a while now. That or they couldn't get a more recent photo." Lussuria remarked.
"This is a lot of fucking trouble for just a brat. There's no way this is just some damn political thing." Squalo remarked.
"I don't think she'd tell us if we asked, though." Lussuria said.
All of them had to agree with that. Roksana seemed like a very private person, and, from what they had seen during the battle for the Vongola rings, she hadn't even bothered to tell her friends that she had dealt with assassination attempts in the past.
Well, the only way to find out, was to ask.
-0-0-0-0-
The next morning, Roksana entered the dinning room, adjusting the position of her pigtails. She was back in the clothes she had been wearing when she had arrived at the base and had a lollipop stuck in her mouth. The others looked up as she took a seat at the opposite end of the table from Xanxus, flicking the now adjusted pigtail over her shoulder.
Looking up at to find the majority of them staring at her, Roksana raised an eyebrow.
"What?" she asked. "If the looks are about that shirt, I'll return it once I get something else."
"No, no, that's not it." Lussuria assured her.
"You sure? Because all of you are seriously burning holes in my head." Roksana retorted.
"It's just..."
Lussuria trailed off, trying to think of how to brooch the subject. Roksana reached out, picking up the glass of ice water sat before her to take a drink, raising an eyebrow once more. Squalo, growing annoyed, just blurt it out.
"Why the fuck do you have a hit out on you?" Squalo demanded. "We know it can't just be because your old man is a fucking politician."
Roksana heaved a sigh, sitting the cup back down as she leaned back in her chair, running a hand down her face.
"Not you, too. Why does everyone insist on getting into my business? Does it really matter why assassins want to kill me?" Roksana asked.
"It would help us to best understand, and to keep them away while you're here." Lussuria told her.
"I don't need anyone to understand, or protect me. Thanks for the concern, but I don't need it." Roksana replied. "You guys might be pros, but this is a matter you're better off staying out of."
"Are you fucking looking down on us?!" Squalo snapped.
"Not in the least. I'm well aware of what all of you are capable of. Believe me...it's not out of concern for you." Roksana told him. "It's a matter of privacy. If I don't want to share, I'm not going to share. Would you want me nosing into your affairs?"
That point instantly shut them all up. If anyone could understand the need to keep things to themselves, it was a group of assassins who had to work in secrecy.
"But if the hit has gone as far as to reach us in the Varia..." Lussuria began, trailing off when a grin curled Roksana's lips.
"Just goes to show that he's getting desperate. Can't blame him. After almost ten years of one failed attempt after another, I'd get frustrated too." Roksana said, getting to her feet. "But, as long as his attention remains on me, I'll deal."
Roksana pushed back her chair and turned away from the table, heading for the door.
"Where are you going?" Squalo demanded.
"Since the hit out on me has even reached you, I think I'll make my own food, thanks." Roksana replied, over her shoulder.
"Can you even cook?" Mammon asked.
"I might be a trust fund kid, but I do know how to cook." Roksana retorted as she walked out the door.
They watched as she left the room, humming to herself like she hadn't just been discussing people trying to kill her. As assassins, they were use to people trying to kill them all the time. Death went hand and hand with them, regardless of whether it was them trying to kill someone else or someone else trying to kill them.
But a teenage girl?
Had she been raised around all it, like Bel basically had been, then they could understand it, but Roksana was, as she had said, a trust fund kid raised under the strict but indulging hand of a politician father. She should have been pampered, spoiled even, but that wasn't the case.
"Oh, by the way," Roksana popped her head back into the room. "It would be great if I can could get to a store today. I really don't want to have to take anymore clothes from any of you. Especially since...I need undergarments. Don't think you want me taking those from you."
With that, Roksana popped back out of the room, leaving all of them in silence as they tried to digest what she had just said. As it sank in, Squalo was able to put to words what all of them were feeling at that moment.
"What the fuck!?"
END
Kyandi: Would you actually wear their underwear?
Roksana: Oh, hell no! Doesn't mean I wouldn't take it and hanging from the roof or something. Anything to get them to take me shopping.
Kyandi: But you hate shopping.
Roksana: Yeah, but, in this case, it's a necessary evil.
Kyandi: True. Anyway, everyone, continue to give me your pokemon suggestions.
Roksana: So far, she's having a hard time picking one.
Kyandi: Yep. So, everyone, enjoy and review.
Roksana: We'll be back tomorrow.
Kyandi: Bye-bye!