The kittens were finally old enough to give away. As promised, Chrome picked a tiny calico kitten she had become smitten with. The fluffiest of the lot was determined to stay with Vil. Tsurara picked a tiny black kitten with white paws, and was delighted to have her new best friend.

The last kitten, Vil had plans for. He had paid attention to how Idia treated Professor Trein's cat Lucius and had taken note that the bluenette apparently had a love of cats.

He was sure the Shroud brothers would love that sort of surprise.

"Eh? You have a surprise for Nii-san?" said Ortho.

"Actually it's for both of you, but I think he'd take it better coming from you than from me," said Vil.

Ortho's scanners told him it was a small living creature inside the box. He couldn't detect anything malicious from the box, which he accepted from Vil.

Once he returned to his brother's room, he almost forgot all about it.

"Eh? What's with the box? My next delivery isn't for a week," said Idia.

Before Ortho could reply, there was a faint sound from inside the box.

Idia nearly freaked out, until he realized what it was.

"Is that...a cat?"

"Vil-san said it was for both of us," said Ortho.

Idia opened the box to reveal...a kitten? It was a tiny thing, and was predominantly black with a white chest and white-tipped tail and paws. It stared at him from inside the box, before mewling loudly to demand food.

"Right... I think I remember hearing about him taking in a litter of kittens recently," said Idia, mostly to himself. Some of the Pomefiore students had commented on it to the other houses.

There was even a few odd pics of him online with a baby kitten that could have passed for a much younger version of Lucius.

Idia heard the meow, more insistent this time. He looked at the kitten, then at Ortho who was openly fascinated.

It took all of a grand five seconds to come to a decision.

"Ortho, look into what kittens eat," said Idia.

"Nii-san, I think Vil left some food in the box he handed me."

Sure enough, he had. There was a small container of formula, enough to keep the kitten fed if used correctly until Idia could get some proper kitten food for it.

Within three days, Idia had a new little buddy he was never seen without. It had the miraculous ability to calm his anxiety enough that he was actually present at housewarden meetings.

Vil smiled knowingly at the introverted shut-in.

"So what did you end up naming them?" he asked.

Idia was stroking the fur of his kitten as he sheepishly replied "Cait Sith."

"From Final Fantasy VII? I would have thought you'd go with Red XIII...then again, the fur is the wrong color..."

Cait Sith purred against his human. He liked the excess warmth Idia gave off.

"What did you name yours?" asked Idia. He wasn't the only one who brought his kitten. Vil had one poking out of his pocket.

"Lucy insists on hiding in my bag or pockets. At this point I've given up trying, besides most of the professors don't care since she usually naps."

Riddle eyed the kittens but said nothing. The feline was the only reason Shroud bothered to show up to meetings in person, rather than send the tablet. He wondered if Idia had ever considered getting it registered as a legitimate emotional support animal.

(He did end up bringing that up to Shroud, and rather than dismiss it Idia looked thoughtful at the idea...then immediately went to look up the requirements for it.)

Vil's intuition was blaring. While he wasn't interested in the whole Spelldrive tournament, he did know it was important to the rest of his dorm so he put proper effort into attempting to win it.

However something told him to get to the Savanaclaw dorm immediately.

Vil had learned a long time ago never to question that instinct. Which was why the second he saw Leona attacking Ruggie he didn't hesitate to put the lion in his place.

No one expected Vil of all people to show up out of nowhere and slap Leona like that.

"What do you think you're doing here?" he growled.

"Are you an idiot?" demanded Vil. "I know you're irritated Malleus has been beating you at Spelldrive since he showed up, but using your dorm to target the other teams in order to cheat is low even for you."

Leona had a snarl on his face.

"Stay out of this," said Leona. It was clear he wasn't about to listen to reason.

Vil had an annoyed look on his face, as he realized that he was going to have to deal with Leona the same way he dealt with Xanxus in a pissy mood with no liquor to calm him down.

What happened next had several people reevaluating the Pomefiore housewarden. No one expected him to go from 'fashionista' to 'one-man demolition expert'.

Fortunately, Leona could foot the bill for repairs. It was positively exhilarating to know he wasn't responsible for the repair paperwork, among other things.

"Holy shit," Ace blurted out.

"Since when can Vil do that?" said Riddle in shock.

Vil clearly didn't care his outfit was in tatters, his hair was an absolute mess, or the myriad of minor cuts and scrapes which healed abnormally fast.

Why his forehead blazed with orange fire was strange too, never mind the fact he was quite literally flying unaided. Or throwing around massive blasts of flames that melted parts of the stadium when it hit them.

Leona didn't stand a chance, Overblot or not. He went down hard, and it all happened so quickly that he would have little time to make sense of things.

The orange fire also seemed to have a purifying effect on Leona's magic, as something in him settled with a contented purr once he submitted to Vil's magic. The negative effects of his sudden Overblot were subdued by the blaze, which caused a brief glimmer of purple to flash across his green eyes.

Once he came to, he stared at the damage done to his turf.

"What...the actual fuck."

Vil looked more annoyed than anything.

"I am not paying for damages," he said flatly.

Leona stared at him.

"What the actual fuck, Schoenhiet? Since when can you throw around fire magic as if you're Malleus fucking Draconia?" demanded Leona.

"I would have to agree. I was unaware humans were able to still use Soul Fire so easily," said Lilia. Especially since the amount of magic and flames Vil threw around was on par with what Malleus could produce when royally pissed off and not even trying.

"We call it Dying Will Flames," said Vil. "I'd be more than happy to elaborate later once this tournament is over with."

Diasomnia won the whole thing anyway, but that was a given at this point.

Several hours later...

"Unca Leona!"

"OOF!"

A trio of missiles slammed into the still recovering Leona. Closer inspection revealed them to be Cheka, Lambo and I-Pin.

As much as Leona didn't like dealing with small children, the kids instinctively knew he was a better person than he would admit.

Leona glared at Vil for recording the entire thing, the ass.

"And send," said Vil smugly.

"You bastard," said Leona.

"I'm sure your brother is thrilled to see you getting along with your nephew. And kids, don't crowd too much around him...he's still recovering from his recent bout of idiocy," said Vil.

"Uncle Leona is hurt?" said Cheka worriedly.

"We may have had a...disagreement...earlier that he lost," said Vil.

Leona glared at him. Vil smirked sweetly back.

"Uncle Leona, you shouldn't fight with your friends!" scolded Cheka.

Seeing Leona getting scolded by his five year old nephew and his two best friends was hilarious. Ruggie couldn't stop snickering at it.

Vil decided to host this particular discussion in the garden outside his dorm. Rook was already keeping any nosy students from overhearing things they shouldn't.

Lilia, Leona, Azul, Riddle, Malleus and oddly enough Idia Shroud were all present.

"I can get Lilia and the rest, but why are you here?" Vil asked Idia.

"Do you have any idea the headaches I'd get from my family if they caught wind of not one, but two Overblots in the same area on top of the sheer amount of soul fire you were throwing around?" said Idia incredulous. "You lot are just lucky I never reported the first incident."

Vil thought back to what he knew of the Shroud brothers before wincing. He was right, they didn't need that headache.

"Whatever happened to the broken mage stones anyway?" asked Vil.

"Broken stones? What broken stones?" said Riddle.

"I noticed after the first incident that you had to get the mage stone in your spell pen replaced, because the cut was slightly different. Leona did as well," explained Vil.

Riddle and Leona looked at each other.

"I don't remember anyone picking up any sort of stone," said Leona.

"Wait...I think I remember Grim picking something up after mine," said Riddle. "Ace made some comment about Grim's weird eating habits."

"That...is not good," said Vil. "We really need to look into what Grim actually is at some point in the very near future."

"Forget that...what was that fire you used against me?" demanded Leona.

"I'm curious as well," said Azul.

"It's called Dying Will Flames...and the reason you've never heard of it is because there are some very strict enforcers who make very, very sure that information about them doesn't leak out to those who aren't already in the know about certain matters. Have you ever heard of the Vindice?"

Most hadn't, except for Lilia and Idia. Idia made a pained grimace at their name.

"Ugh...those guys are too OP even for me to deal with. Grandfather already hates them because they're walking undead," said Idia.

Vil snorted at that.

"That doesn't surprise me that the Underworld hates Draugr," said Vil.

By the end of it, Vil was so glad that none of the people present were idiots or worse, civilians. Most of them understood the concept of the underworld, and that this wasn't something one talked about in polite company unless it was around others who was already involved.

It took all of a week for Leona to figure out how to awaken his flames and unsurprisingly he was a Cloud. It made perfect sense, because he shared a lot of parallels with Kyouya save for the fact he wasn't a battle nut and caused far less paperwork.

"I don't like being the subordinate of anyone," said Leona.

"I know. The idea of making an actual prince my subordinate was too ridiculous to contemplate, especially once I realized you were being drawn to me as more than just a partner. Side effect of being a Sky, unfortunately," said Vil, sipping his tea. He noticed how Leona's tail twitched in irritation.

"How do you want to handle this?" Leona asked. Because this was a damn mess.

"What are you talking about?" said Vil amused. "I already set things up so that you'd still retain your autonomy even if you ended up bonded as my Cloud."

"What?" said Leona blinking.

"The island? Remember how I set it up so we all have unilateral power over our sections and the others can only intervene if the 'ruler' fucks up and does something to impact the other sections?" Vil reminded him. "None of us are inclined to be 'ruled' over by others, especially you. Hence why I set things up in a way that would allow you to do what you wanted in your part while at the same time making it clear you were working as part of my group."

Leona thought over how the island worked, as he had become so used to it that he rarely gave it a second thought. It was clear Vil had created the island using a similar set-up that the Vongola's Primo used (which had been explained after Iemitsu's death), but with far greater autonomy and independence from the two outlying groups.

Something in Leona relaxed. Actually, now that he thought about it Vil usually had Skull act as his Cloud element or whatever. Kyouya had bonded to Tsurara as her Cloud, and the only time Vil brought Leona and Azul around was to act as his two Hands since most of the time it would impact the island as a whole.

It looks like he had been overthinking the whole thing.