A/N And hello again!
By the way, There are a couple changes I'm making;
This is set two years after the original start point. (i.e. Tsuna and co. are high school students) and the Arcobaleno have, for the most part, regained their adult bodies. (though are prone to sporadic transformations to their younger selves).
And obviously, Tsuna/Ietsuna is a female with a twin named Ieyoshi (it's the name Tsunayoshi split in two, seeing as Nana was only planning for a single child)
Other things I'll mention as they come and go, and if I forget, feel free to PM me.
For now I'll just be skipping ahead until everything comes into play :)
~Chapter 2 – There was a Mansion, a Man, and a Murder
Italy was frighteningly different to Japan, in its people, its language, its culture, and its appearance. Similarly, Palermo was nothing like Namimori. Quiet streets became bustling roads, and small rural houses become a cluster of tall buildings. "Ciao-su? Sono ie, Tsuna?"
"Try again Tsu-chan," Her father said ruffling her hair, "Ciao, io sono, Ietsuna." It was cute that her she fumbled over her words, but he had to make sure she knew what to do if she ever got lost….not that he would let her out of his sight, his sight possibly being the sight of his subordinates, or bring her anywhere dangerous…
"Papa, we're gonna be late." Yoshi whined, tugging on the older man's pants.
"Alright, alright," Iemitsu smiled toothily, "You'll take care of your sister, right Yoshi-kun?"
"Of course!" The tiny blonde puffed out his chest with innocent bravado, "Amo mia sorella!" Iemitsu laughed loudly, patting his son heartily on the back.
"That's my boy!"
Despite her father's initial thoughts, and her brother's bold promise, it wasn't long before Tsuna found herself lost and alone in an unfamiliar place. This grandiose mansion, with its crimson carpet and marbled pillars, was far too large. The moment they entered her father had left with faceless suit-wearing men, promising an early return. And then, a moment after, her brother had scampered along, shouting an unfamiliar name as he sprinted across the hall. It took too turns around a corner, and the fear of an asthma attack, for Tsuna to stop chasing him, remaining stranded in a hallway with no clue where to go.
"Where is everybody?" Just a second ago, she recalled the maids and butlers quietly going about their business, and the guards stationed at each corner. So where was everybody now? She knew better than to assume that the section she was in could be deserted, but the silence did little to reassure her. Tsuna resorted to wandering, her legs taking her wherever the wished, as she slowly tried to map out the building. Despite her efforts though, she had the distinct feeling she was going deeper into the mansion instead of towards the front door. Eventually she stopped, her legs too tired to continue. She collapsed on the floor, prepared to cry until someone heard her, when her gaze travelled up to a harmless painting.
She had already seen countless of them along the way, and like most of them, it was a portrait. The man was handsome, young, with blonde hair that reminded her of her brother's, but what really caught her was his eyes. The colour was even more striking than her own, an orange that reminded her of a sunset. Under his powerful gaze all she could do was sit silently.
"Che cosa stai facendo qui, ragazza? E chi sei?" A harsh voice snapped her out of her daze, as she was roughly pulled up and forced to face the owner. There was a flash of something, a smouldering, deep orange that clouded her vision for a brief fraction of a second. When it disappeared Tsuna was rewarded with the white of a buttoned shirt. Bringing her gaze up, she flinched meeting his angry red eyes with her own amber ones. Her mind blanked, as his intimidating red-eyes pinned her in place.
"Mi d-dispiace," Her words were heavily accented but she managed to stutter them out, all the while trying to translate his previous question. The young stranger glared her down, an annoyed growl building in his throat as he tapped his foot impatiently. Her eyes though blurred with tears, were an unusual colour, and as his gaze flicked up to the portrait behind her, he felt a strange feeling pool in his gut. There was an uncanny resemblance between the two, so much so that one would have to be an idiot to miss it. "Ah, io sono Sa-Ietsuna Sawada."
"Sawada?" He growled out the name in distaste. To think he had let his child wander the mansion as if it were a playground. Though the stranger thought he was supposed to have a son, not a daughter. "Your Italian is choppy and bad," He criticised harshly, turning to what should've been the kid's native tongue, "What are you doing here, you should've been told it's out of bounds."
"I-, this is my first time here, sir," She said softly, turning her eyes down and trying to be as polite as possible, "I was following my brother and I got lost."
"Brother?" it was a plausible explanation and he allowed it, turning on his heels and all but dragging her along with him.
"Ano, where are we going?" Tsuna asked nervously, running a little to keep his brisk pace. The hand that held her was rough and calloused, much like her fathers, except with a warmth that somehow put her at ease, regardless of how hard he seemed to be gripping.
"Back out to the foyer," The stranger replied, "There one of the servants can take you to your father, tra-" he cut himself off just as a bad habit seemed to pop out, almost biting his tongue in the process. He had promised his own father that he would behave, cutting down on the swearing and slander was merely part of that. In fact he was counting helping the lost girl as his good deed for the day.
"Ietsuna," The girl replied, assuming he had just tried to call her name, "That is my name."
"Right." He didn't know why but she seemed to smile at him. She was as idiotic as her father and the runt that was her brother.
He found that tiny girl again the next time the CEDEF head came in to hand in his report, roughly two weeks later. She was right there, sitting on the rug, entranced once again by Primo's picture. He stood by to observe her, wondering how long a kid could sit there. His question was left unanswered as in the end it was his own patience that ran out first. He cleared his throat loudly, satisfied when she spun around shocked and scared. And for a reason unknown to him, she let out a sigh of relief after seeing him, the complete opposite reaction he got from most others. "I thought I told you this place was off limits." He didn't grab her this time. Very conscious of the fact Iemitsu had been distraught at the bruise he had left on her arm the first time, not that the blond idiot knew it had been him.
"I got lost again," She said a little despairingly, "I thought that if I waited here you would find me again." It almost made him laugh. In the end she had been merely waiting for him to show up.
"And if I never came?" he asked, feeling himself in a rare good mood. There was something about the child, maybe it was her innocence or apparent inability to do him harm, that brought a lightness to his heart. It was refreshing in a place like this.
"But you did." Tsuna replied with a bright smile that didn't belong in a place like this. Papa her told her and Yoshi to always trust their guts, and in this case she was glad she had.
"So I did." It was his own intuition that had brought him back here at this time, something he noticed acted up a lot around her. "Your father won't be done for some time," He stated, walking ahead and indicating for her to follow, "As such I'll see to it that you stay out of trouble."
"Ah, thank you." She stumbled in her haste, her steps not nearly enough to keep up with his long strides. He didn't slow though, merely waiting for her in front of a pair of heavy set doors at the end of the hall. "Where are we? Um…sir."
"My name is Xanxus, not sir," He corrected awkwardly, pushing open the ornate door, "And this is my office."
Tsuna quickly found residence on what she believed must have been the comfiest couch in the world. After the first few visits she had memorized the path to the painting and from there it wasn't very hard to find Xanxus' office. It was as extravagant as the mansion itself, shelves filled with a range of books, expensive vases put on display on high pedestals, and furniture made of only the highest quality material.
The owner of the room wouldn't have settled for any less, a discontent frown sitting on his face as he read through pages and pages of detailed paperwork. Similarly, Tsuna was sitting in the corner of a long couch, flipping through the pages of her own book. It was a guide to Italian written in Japanese, and a gracious donation from her brother who claimed to have finished it already. It was tough, seeing as her Japanese was limited to that of a seven year old's, and more often than not she was forced to request help from the scowling teen. He helped once, reluctantly twice, and after the nth question, he decided he was going to stop speaking Japanese completely. Xanxus reasoned, if she only spoke in Italian, she would learn it quicker, ignoring the fact that they hardly talked to one another.
"Xanxus." A lot of people frequented his office for one reason or another, and in particular Tsuna recognized a glasses wearing brunet who never failed to set her nerves on edge.
"What have I told you about interrupting me at this time, Ottavio?" The young leader said irritably, glancing at the small girl who tried to hide herself behind her flimsy book.
"Not to do it." His subordinate replied with an uncaring shrug. Once or twice his eyes slid over to his guest in interest, but he knew to stay silent about it.
"Trash," Xanxus mumbled under his breath, sighing as he stood, "Ietsuna, I'll be back in a bit. By then your idiot father should be done." They left her alone in the room, exchanging sharp sounding words on the other side of the door. Tsuna's little book seemed to lack a lot of the key words so it wasn't as if she could make sense of the conversation. Instead she let her gaze flit about the room. At Xanxus' ornate chair, the filled bookshelves, fancy pens and numerous emblems. There was one thing she could see though, clearly labelled on nearly everything in the mansion and sometimes uttered by the swarms of suited men if they were feeling chatty. Vongola.
"Where do you go?" Yoshi finally asked after two months into her move, and consequently four of Iemitsu's report hand-ins. Maybe he was curious, or maybe he had actually begun to feel a little bad after the lecturing he had been given about abandoning his sister the one time Tsuna returned late.
"I found a quiet place to read," She answered with a smile, "And usually someone leads me back to the foyer when Papa is finished."
"Is that so?" He narrowed his eyes, looking as sceptical as a child could.
"How about you?" His sister returned the question, "You always run off straight away."
"I have a friend in the mansion," Ieyoshi said, confessing much more easily than his twin, "We usually play in the yard together. You can come too if you want."
"It's ok." She declined. It was strange, considering the whole reason she had come to Italy was because their mother believed they couldn't live apart. "I'm alright by myself." She said slowly, as the realisation slowly sank in.
"Tsuna?" Her brother gave her a concerned look but her thoughts had already flown far away. Their family wasn't like all the other kids she had seen in Namimori. Papa had always been gone, sending postcards anywhere from the arctic to a desert. Then Yoshi had gone as well, and because she was too weak she had gone ahead and left Mama alone. Their family was split she realized, not because there was a lack of love, they just were. Mama wouldn't be coming here, and if things stayed the same they wouldn't be going back. Tsuna began to feel the beginnings of guilt. If she was fine without Yoshi then she didn't need to be here, and in that cases Mama shouldn't be alone.
"Let's go." She was staring at Primo's portrait again today, and he may or may not have come to find her after she failed to arrive 10 minutes after the usual time. His intuition, however weak it was, had been acting up today. It put him on edge, and had his hand twitching to touch the gun tucked away in his waistband.
"Xanxus-" He felt his heart stop as the girl seemed to gaze frightfully at something, someone, behind him. Everything around him halted briefly before his body and mind clicked into action mode. He drew his gun before anything else, firing the moment he knew it would hit. The man fell to the ground with a scream, clutching his bloodied knee, not even given enough time to plead for his life before a second gunshot rung out, leaving him dead with a bullet in his head. Quick and efficient. He sighed as the prickling feeling of potential trouble faded.
"A-a…" Her eyes widened to an impossible degree, her already light skin paling to an ashen tone as she watched dark blood, stain the already red carpet. He was silent and unmoving, eyes dulled like fish at the market, and mouth agape as if he was still gasping. Her ears were ringing from the blast of the gun, and her throat seemed to clench, refusing to take in more than short puffs of air. In horror she grabbed at her throat, eyes tearing as less and less oxygen made it into her lungs, her body refusing to work as her heart rate sped up.
"Oi!" Someone shook her shoulder and she tore her eyes away from the red of blood to meet a whole other shade entirely. "Ietsuna, calm down," He spoke to her comfortingly, a rare tone in his usual gruff voice, "Breathe." Xanxus turned the child away from the body, going as far to pick her up as he doubted those trembling legs could walk. Once again he looked to the benevolent face of his predecessor. Those sharp, fiery eyes looked down and watched over them, imbuing a sense of obligation in him. Primo lived to protect, it was his raison d'etre, and as Xanxus looked to the frail girl in his arms he felt that maybe the Vongola Primo hadn't been a complete idiot.
A/N And that's it :)
Most chapters will end up being about 2000-2500 words, a bit on the short side.
Just an introduction to Xanxus, who will remain a memorable figure to Tsuna and a kick start to the mafia life.
Basically what he says to her early on is "Oi what are you doing, girl," and "Who are you" and Tsuna is just apologizing and trying to introduce herself. Usually I'll be writing english in italics but for this instance it's in Italian just because :)
