Disclaimer: I own the OCs, the rest is Akira Amano's work.

Fratellanza

We were crawling in the vents, me in front of everyone. I had the map just in front of my eyes, so it was the reason why.

"Aouch!" Tsunayoshi mumbled when he hit his head.

"Stay quiet. We're already in the enemy's hideout, let's stay hidden for as long as possible. Stay relax everyone."

"I feel like I'm in a movie," Takeshi commented idly and I smirked. I had the same thought back in the days.

"Tch, I swear..." Hayato grumbled in the back.

"I feel the same though," Tsunayoshi agreed in a low voice.

I unscrewed a metal grating without making a noise, Tsunayoshi and Takeshi commenting on it. I couldn't blame them, they were still relatively new to the business, so I remained quiet.

"Where are we?" Takeshi asked me.

"Above the second hangar," I replied shortly before stopping. Tsunayoshi bumped his nose into my shoe.

"Aouch!" I changed the settings of my goggles quickly, now seeing the infrared. "Senpai, what..."

"Infrared detectors." I pulled a small device from a pouch strapped to my belt. "It will give us five seconds, not one more. Get ready to crawl super fast." I threw it and saw the lasers disappeared. "Go!" I went as fast as I could, hearing the guys following closely. "Five!"

"That was close!" Ryohei stated, breathing heavily. I peeked at him above my shoulder. One of his foot was in the air.

"Al..." I widened my eyes when I heard a beeping sound. The canon...were getting ready to shoot us! "Shit!" If I used my my Flame, would it doom our cover?

I was ready to do it when the light was getting blinding but the metal under me disappeared and I fell. I flipped myself in the air and landed on my feet, avoiding pieces of metal falling around me.

"It was close!" Takeshi laughed off, putting his katana away.

"Yeah..." Tsunayoshi agreed, raising his abused face from the floor. He had a big red mark across his face. He accepted Hayato's hand. "I'm fine."

"They shouldn't have picked up on our presence," I told them, removing my goggles to let them rest around my neck.

A gross laugh resonated behind us and I turned around, to deadpan at the…thing in front of us.

"I pressed the button! I thought it was a mole but turns out it's human rats!" The guy was big, in height and weight from the ugly muscles he had.

He looked like the kind to talk a lot but be pretty weak.

Tsunayoshi was quickly done with him, although Ryohei explained that this Dendro guy had the title of Arrataco and that his lightning spear was recognized among all.

"Good job," I congratulated him as his Flame disappeared from his forehead, the trash unconscious on the floor. The guys tied him up so that he would not be able to move. "However, chances are now they know we're here because they picked up your Flames' signals Tsunayoshi."

"Do we change plans?" he replied, shooting me a look. I crossed my arms.

"Nope, we keep plans as they are until we have the certainty we're spotted. Let's go." We found the next ladder quickly, and Tsunayoshi went down first.

Once all of us on the level under, Ryohei healed the cut Tsunayoshi had on his cheek with his Sun Flames.

They freaked out because it was fire.

"Calm down, Sun Flames have the Activation Attribute, meaning used the right way they can heal you," I cut them off sternly. They stopped and Ryohei took advantage of it to heal his Boss.

"As Ana said, it activates the cells inside the body to speed up the healing process," he added with a grin.

"Humph, don't brag turf top! Your head is in need of maintenance as well!"

"What was that octopus head!?"

"Now, now, if we can heal injuries we're already winning!" Not really, they could as well… "Tsuna, your X-Burner was amazing! It's nice you can control it now!"

"Yeah, it was impressive Tenth! There was so much power in it!" Tsunayoshi rubbed the back of his head with a shy smile.

"Really? It wasn't...all of it I mean..."

"Half of the maximum power?" Ryohei tried.

"More like 20%..."

I raised a brow. Impressive indeed, but I wondered if he couldn't go above this because he just couldn't control it. Yeah, it was probably that, and who knew how much power his body could handle, trapped between two flames like that.

As they congratulated the short Boss and flattered his ego, he ended up saying the enemy wasn't using his full force.

"I agree, the flame was nowhere as pure as a Lightning Flame can be. Dendro probably didn't use his Box at its full potential." I nodded at Ryohei's statement.

We started moving again, until we were at the corner of a wall and I raised my hand to stop them.

"Don't move until I say so," I ordered them, lighting up my Mist ring. I hid myself and went in the open.

Technology picked up on illusions up until a certain level of quality. I had never been so happy about Alaric being so demanding about my illusions. I pulled the device with the fake camera screen from where I had put it and threw it at the corner of the real camera screen.

A mechanical arm came out of it and 'unfolded' others, which made a screen. I stopped my illusions and made a sign for the others to come as well. We kept on walking.

I frowned and stopped, pulling my mini-computer from the holster, putting the goggles on my head.

"There should be a storage room close by we need to go through."

"Is there a problem senpai?" Takeshi asked me and I frowned at the map.

"The black spot, I don't like that. We have no information on them, it could ruin our trajectory."

"There's mold at the vent," Hayato noticed.

"They could grow poisonous plants, it's not uncommon," Ryohei pointed out, frowning at said mold nonetheless.

We reached the storage room. It was completely dark, so put on my goggles once again.

"I'll inspect the room quickly, don't follow until I say so." I was careful, nothing appearing on my radar. I was about to tell them when I frowned.

Several attacks, all at once, coming my way.

"Don't move!" I yelled at them, jumping out of the way quickly. The shots, or lasers, touched the floor, but others were coming.

Let's beat quantity with quantity.

I took my gun, lit up my Cloud ring and shot, the bullet dividing in twenty in a matter of seconds. All of the yellow flames were disintegrated in my stronger Cloud Flame.

Someone clapped.

"Impressive, I have to admit it! From someone who's been part of the VARIA and the External Advisor, I couldn't expect any less!" Well, I was none of those things and was good because of my tutors and own person, not because of positions. You had positions because you were strong, not the opposite. The boy snapped his fingers and the light were turned on.

He was floating in the air, wearing a wizard hat and his eyes were full of stars. I meant it literally.

"That must be a magician's doll...Ginger Bread I think," Ryohei informed us. What kind of stupid name was this?

"This nickname is archaic now," the boy told us, back on the floor. "I am now the Millefiore's Eighth Squad Vice-Captain." He slightly tilted his head on the side, a sly smirk on his lips. "I have to give it to you though, I'm impressed you guys have gotten so far. I have to inform them of your presence. Although, killing you off isn't a bad idea either." I smirked and removed my goggles, throwing them at Takeshi, who caught them easily.

"It's an interesting plan you have trash, care to show me how you're going to execute it?" He shot me a confident smirk.

"My pleasure then."

"Senpai!" Tsunayoshi yelled behind me. I peeked at them. Sun spiders had made their webs in front of them, leaving me the joy of fighting on my own.

Ryohei put a hand on Tsunayoshi's shoulder and shook his head.

"You don't want to interrupt one of her fight."

"He's right Tsunayoshi." I looked at my opponent. "After all, you know fully well who's the one coming at me all the time for fights in our time, right?"

"That's right Tsuna, Hibari's always fighting her!" Takeshi agreed. Hayato mumbled next to them.

"She can't be that bad I guess..."

I ran at him. He could fight from afar and most probably liked showing off from the snap earlier. I needed to check if he also was a close-range fighter.

I wasn't surprised when he flew away before I could hit him. I aimed and shot again, him avoiding the bullets which landed in the wall behind him.

As if it would make them vanish. How naive of him.

He pointed his broom at me and blades came out of it. I didn't even try to dodge, gathering my Flame in the palm of my hand. We would use the good old way then.

I threw it at him. He dodged, but barely, and the blades were gone.

"It's an honor to see the Flame of Wrath in action," he told me, still with a sly smile. I scoffed.

"What can I say, if I lose here the jerk Kyoya is will not let me live it down." My Flame had landed in metal storage units behind, damaging them but not breaking them. Flame-proof then?

"Real..." He didn't finish and widened his eyes at the purple bullet going through his torso. "...what?"

"Trash, I don't miss my target." I twirled my gun in my hand, my finger at the trigger. He went down, a hand on his wound. Two more bullets shot through the floor and he stepped back, stumbling.

The bullets vanished in purple flames before they could be dangerous and I came out of them to grab his throat. He choked.

"And...I'm not interested in a piece of wood," I added in a quiet voice so only he heard me. He smirked, his eyes going dark, as if they were turned off.

"Heh...when did you notice?"

"'Magician's doll' I believe he called you?" On this note, my Flame was back and I made him explode. The web disappeared and I put my gun away.

"You didn't need to go that far!" I scoffed at Tsunayoshi.

"He wasn't real. Look." They did, widening their eyes at the pieces of wood lingering on the floor. "Ryohei called him a magician's doll, and when my bullet went through him something was off." Even if I would have done the same if it had been a human being.

From the look on the Sun's face, but also Takeshi's, they knew that as well. Tsunayoshi was relieved though, and Hayato was glaring at the remains on the floor.

"For the past few years, Ginger Bread has always been spotted when Families got eradicated. It's like a fairy or something," Ryohei told us, arms crossed.

"Scary..." the Sawada replied. "Senpai, are you alright?"

"Yeah, he didn't land a hit on me. It might have been longer otherwise." Thanks Fon and Reborn for being stupidly fast.

"It was awesome!" Takeshi said with a big grin, handing me my goggles.

"Tch, it wasn't half bad..." the Storm agreed grudgingly.

"I've been fighting for most of my life and trained by Arcobalenos for half of it, you kind of become skilled at some point." Was I bragging? Yeah, I was. Even if the reason for which I was trained was not a nice one, my reason for wanting to train being more honorable, at the end of the day I was trained by skilled people and it was all that mattered.

The lights turned red out of sudden and a loud alarm started ringing.

"They know we're here!" Takeshi looked down at the doll with a hard look.

"He said he would tell them about us, didn't he?"

"We can't stay here, we have a surveillance system to destroy," I reminded them, running away.

"Hey woman, wait for us at least!"

We stopped shortly after.

"It's my turn?" Tsunayoshi asked me and I nodded. Hayato was fidgeting.

"I still don't agree with you acting as the bait Tenth!" The Vongola smiled at him, but still took his device with the map.

"Tsuna has the best mobility though," Takeshi reminded the Storm, who glared.

"I know baseball freak!" I took a deep breath of my inhalator, the alarm still ringing. "But as his right-hand man, it's killing me to send him on such dangerous task!" Ryohei threw his arm on his shoulders.

"Don't worry octopus head! Sawada will extremely handle the situation!" We all looked in front of us when the hallway was blocked by a door, that came out of the ceiling and floor.

"We have to move."

The future Decimo nodded, I nodded back at him and he left as I turned around to leave as well. The others followed me in silence.

There was nothing really interesting and I remained quiet for a while. We had been cut off from HQ since those doors appeared earlier, so we did not hear from Tsunayoshi or Reborn. Hayato tried to go to his Boss but Takeshi kept him from doing so.

We fought, or Ryohei fought, against a guy with a huge snake. It made me step back as I was not fond of snake. Penguins? Sign me in, I had loved these ones since I was a kid and loved having themed stuff with them on them, to everyone and I meant really everyone's utter ignorance.

Arro thought he knew me so well.

Ryohei was a pro now though.

After the fight, we kept moving, Ryohei and Hayato behind. There was a sudden earthquake and I grabbed Takeshi's arm to keep me balanced. I widened my eyes when the floor started going down, separating Takeshi and I from Hayato and Ryohei.

"Yamamoto!" Hayato screamed, stretching out his hand for him. Takeshi just smiled, knowing it was too late.

"The black spots on the map!" I told them before they were out of sight.

It stopped moving after a few seconds. As Takeshi wasted his breath on screaming, trying to get an answer from any of the two Guardians above, I looked behind us.

The whole hallway was clear, just waiting for us to go in.

The guy was playing with us.

Seriously, what was the plan older Kyoya had going on at the moment?

"They can't hear me," Takeshi ended up saying, giving up as I looked at the map. "The map is useless now, isn't it?"

"Yeah," I agreed grudgingly. We walked in silence for barely a minute before a closed door opened.

We shared a look and he took his sword, my hand going to my gun.

The room was big, with construction machines around like small cranes and girders.

"'For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.'" I froze immediately and Takeshi looked back.

I didn't know the male voice, even if the smugness in it was bringing back bad memories. I pinched the bridge of my nose, memories of old bitter nuns and of a fat, bald all-knowing preacher flashing through my mind.

"Keep going, I know you know how it goes," the man said, mocking me.

"'For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.'" I said clearly, attracting Takeshi's attention.

"Senpai?"

"John 3:16-17," I added. "In other word, it is an extract from the sixteenth verse of the third chapter of the Gospel of John." I looked at Takeshi. "New Testament, the Bible."

"I didn't know you were into religion." I snickered.

"Oh, I'm far from that." I turned around, my eyes immediately finding the man.

"Byakuran-sama is pretty similar to the Son described in the verse." He jumped down from where he was sitting. His clothes were white, indicating he was from the White Spell, a wicked grin was on his features. Brown hair was spilling in his brown eyes, certainly blocking his sight, tan skin clashing with the white of his clothes.

He was your typical Italian guy. One from the South, from poverty.

"Do I know you?" I asked him and his grin vanished, to be replaced by a frown.

"You don't remember be?"

"I mean...from your little religious speech, I'd say we were in the same orphanage but..."

"You forgot everything after running away you freak!?" I grabbed Takeshi's shoulder when he made a move, not liking the way he was talking to me.

"You were one of the bullies?" He nodded. "What a small world it is." He smirked again.

"Are you going to cry and beg for mercy again?" I deadpanned at him.

"I don't care half enough about you to do that." I stepped forward, stopping in front of Takeshi. "However, I'm not going to let the chance to burn you alive go to waste trash." I shot Takeshi a look. "Do you mind?"

"He's all yours," he said, walking away to lean against the wall.

"Before we start, do you know what this is?" he asked me, showing me his right hand where a ring with a purple stone and wings was.

"Your ring?"

"It's a Mare Ring, ignorant brat." I narrowed my eyes a little.

They looked like this? It was less practical than the Vongola Rings with the wings.

I started running when he threw a hatchet at me. The hatchet was bound to a chain, and I slid on the floor to avoid the second one. I put some distance between us and shot at him.

The hatchet was immediately covered by purple flames and destroyed my bullets.

"As long as I keep them in sight I won't have any bad surprise." I kept avoiding the hatchets, staying out of range as much as I could.

Until one of them grazed my side. I put a hand on my wound.

There was barely any blood, yet he was smirking.

Wha…

I tried to move my hand, but my foot moved instead. I dropped on one knee.

"Having troubles controlling your own body?" he asked me, totally smug and a bat on his shoulder, with ears covered in purple flames.

"Poison," I muttered through gritted teeth, falling flat on my stomach.

"Yeah. A graze is enough as the ultrasound my bat makes that no human can hear will spread it in the whole body in a few seconds. Right now, your brain doesn't understand what limb you want to move, the electric signals are all messed up." He was right.

My body was not obeying me. A movement of finger became a moving elbow, trying to move my foot made me turn my head.

Stay calm and focus Luciana.

"Aren't you going to help her?" he asked Takeshi.

"No, she's going to win."

"Oh? Aren't you overconfident?"

"No, I know she will. Losing is for trash and she's not trash." I smirked against the floor, remembering the school festival and how I told him these very words.

Well, he was absolutely right about this. The enemy being one of the bullies at the orphanage, where I couldn't, or more like refused to defend myself because I was afraid of killing someone, made me want to kill him even more.

I tried to move all of my body to see if a certain pattern was there, and there was. I needed to memorize it and then used my Mist Flame to give my body a temporary state of normalcy.

I had to be fast. My stamina was just average to begin with, I would not be able to keep up an illusion in my entire body for long. The shapeshifter thing plus the stupid serum running through my veins were a bad combination.

He threw his hatchet at me once again and I rolled on the side to avoid it, lighting up my Mist ring.

I jumped on my feet, him staring in disbelief.

"What the hell freak!?" He made it clear my Cloud bullets could be outmatched quickly.

I needed to get rid of the bat.

I went to the cranes and hid behind one of them. I put a hand on Federico's gun.

I could make a diversion, create a maximum of Cloud bullets without putting too much control in them to keep him occupied and shoot the bat with Federico's gun. Trying to shoot him might make me lose the opening a diversion could get me.

The Flame of Wrath...Sky and Storm. Harmony and Disintegration. Petrifaction and destruction.

It wasn't as strong as Xanxus', I couldn't fly like him, but I could use the Flames' properties to my advantage.

I frowned at the weapon above my head and dived to the side, dodging it, but I was slower than usual because I was focused on my illusions.

I had a cut on my cheek, blood running down just under my right eye.

"You piece of shit," I groaned on all four. He grinned like a maniac and I slammed my hand on the floor.

It broke under the pressure of my Flame being released at once. He was surprised and I shot him. It was no surprise when he avoided or destroyed by bullet, and I took Federico's gun, which was too big for my hand.

I aimed the bat and shot, touching it immediately. It remained in the air, until it started to turn to stone.

It was destroyed with no further action and my bully just stared with wide eyes.

"You're a bitch!" I got up. The chain was now covered in purple flames, proving he was using the Cloud Propagation attribute to overcome the range issue of his weapon.

Smart.

I was smarter.

I covered my hands in Flame of Wrath and ran at him, bending down to avoid the blades, and grabbed the flaming chains, putting them both between my hands. I stopped running, my legs apart enough to keep me stable. I smirked at the trash before I yanked him toward me.

I absolutely adored the sound of his nose breaking under my closed fist.

He flew a few meters away.

I stumbled a little, feeling dizzy.

I put a knee down and rubbed my eyes, my sight being all blurry.

More, and more.

"Two poisons now bitch." The sound of chains moving against the floor reached my ears.

He was about to attack again and my eyes were not working.

I grabbed my Box Weapon and opened it, Cloud howling as he came out. I took advantage of the cub fighting, and most likely slowly but surely absorbing the flames on the bully's hatchets and chains like the sponge he was, to focus on my eyes.

I managed to get some vision back, but it was bad. It was blurry, kind of like when I didn't have my glasses or contacts and I was trying to read something far from me, and it was taking a toll on my body.

A big one.

I took a quick breath of my inhalator.

It was taking too much time for a simple trash like him.

As Cloud howled again, a very particular howling, I shot in the floor. Focusing on the bullet to divide it in only two, I followed Cloud's movement to know where he would drag the target.

"Fucking mutt!" He yelled, kicking Cloud in the gut, who rolled away.

He widened his eyes when two purple bullets came out of the floor, going for his kidney and liver. Blood spluttered from his mouth and he fell to his knees as I stumbled toward him.

"How…?"

"Someone experienced enough with Dying Will Flame will not lose track of them once they're out. A Box Weapon...lives off these Flames." I grabbed his throat, a deadly glare in my eyes. "I didn't learn how to use them in this era trash." I made his carotid explode, blood tainting my finger. I dropped the body, stole his Mare Ring and stumbled back and fell on my butt, Cloud coming to me right away. "Good job buddy, you can rest now." He went back to his box whereas Takeshi came up to me.

"Need a hand to move?" I nodded, my throat dry.

"I used my illusions kind of like Mukuro for Chrome to keep walking, and see because the second poison had my vision but...it's taking too much energy." I saw him nodding before my eyesight went black, putting the Mare Ring in my jacket pocket before zipping it up.

I put my gun away and I was on Takeshi's back.

"I think I'm done for, sorry..."

"Don't worry senpai, he was a big deal, wasn't he? This Gamma...he had a ring like that as well, so he was as strong."

"'Ana.'"

"Hum?"

"Call me 'Ana' or 'Luciana', I think senpai is too formal by now." He chuckled.

"Okay Ana!" He tested it out a few more times. "It feels a little weird."

"Aren't you going to ask about it?"

"About what?"

"The guy. The Bible thing." The atmosphere grew more serious.

"I've understood a while ago your childhood was not a happy one. At least before you were adopted by Dino." I smirked wryly. He had no idea. "But I know a bully when I see one."

"I don't think...I ever talked about the orphanage to anyone but Alaric maybe.." I whispered softly. "After Mukuro was captured again, one of the workers found me and took me in. It was an Italian orphanage though, and sadly a religious one. They tried to hammer their religious beliefs in our heads. I never believed it. Coming from the Estraneo hell, it was hard to. I was young and didn't understand anything though. I used my Flame once, and some kids saw it. I already had red eyes, which was not well seen, but with this? I was bullied, and beaten, the workers, preacher like nuns, wouldn't help me out. Shit, they agreed with it because I was...different I guess. I left one day, found Alaric, and he took me in until he left me at the Cavallones." I sighed. "Sorry, it's not a happy story."

"I wasn't expecting one," he confessed. "And don't worry, I'll take it from here, just rest for now."

"...alright, you're in charge Takeshi."

Fratellanza

Thanks for reading this chapter! Thanks to Pein's number 1 Girl, Maistyria, janinesherynasalalila for their reviews!

Bye!