Reborn stares contemplatively at the group of people waiting for them at the dock.
Alessandro Superbi - a Storm.
Sasagawa Ryohei - a Sun.
Lambo Bovino - a Lightning.
Yamamoto Takeshi - a Rain.
Hibari Kyoya - a Cloud.
And the girl that Tsuna had insisted on picking up is trailing behind Tsuna, starting hard at the back of his head - a Mist.
They're not all activated, so it's not a full guarantee, but . . . Reborn pulls the brim of his hat down to cover his smile.
"Ah, hello!" the young woman standing next to Hibari Kyoya calls cheerfully, and Reborn sighs at the reminder. He does rather wish his student hadn't snagged a Hibari. "I'm Yunque Yipin! Or, as I think you would call me here, Hibari Ipin! I'm here to serve as Kyoya-kun's escort."
"A pleasure to meet you," Tsuna says, bowing to her.
Behind her, Alessandro and Bovino's eyes are going from person to person. Reborn can practically see them counting, coming to the same conclusion he had.
"Are you in town for long?" Tsuna asks Ipin as Reborn ushers the group up the ramp.
"Not for too long," Ipin replies cheerfully. "I'm in Namimori for the family reunion, but since there's still a couple weeks before it truly starts, it was decided that I would be of more use escorting my baby cousin."
Hibari Kyoya's face is bright red, and he's making a concentrated effort not to look at Ipin.
"Ah - Reborn-san, if you don't mind, where exactly are we going?" Ipin asks.
Reborn smiles sharply again at the top of the ramp.
"Isn't it obvious?" he asks, turning and looking down at the group on the ramp. Nana's brows are furrowed as she looks past him to the logo on the banner that hangs in the cruise ship's reception area. "We're going to Mafia Land."
()
Lambo sets his suitcase on the suitcase rack and sits down on the bed to stare blankly at the wall.
It's green. Everything in the room is green.
The room's not very big, but everything in it is green.
The door opens, and Alessando comes in and sits next to him. Alessando glances around the room.
"My room was all red," he offers finally, and Lambo makes a sound that could have been a laugh or a sob.
"Hey," Alessando says gently as Lambo tips his head back, trying to blink away tears and slow down his breathing. "It's alright. You can cry."
"I can't-" Lambo gasps.
"You can."
"I can't stop thinking about Massimo!"
Lambo finds himself curling in on himself now.
"I've never been in one one of these rooms before! I've been to Mafia Land a lot, on this ship even, but I've never been in one of these rooms because it was always just me and Massimo and it just really wasn't worth it, not even when we had Erasmo with us that last time!" Lambo is breathing hard, his fingers digging into his arms. "It took Massimo his entire life to get just me and Erasmo, and over the course of what? Four months? Tsuna has a full set!"
Alessandro is quiet for a long moment. Then he says, "Yes. If we count that psychic Tsuna picked up a couple days ago and trust the stereotypes, Tsuna probably has a full set of guardians."
"I don't even know what I'm feeling, other than a lot," Lambo says. "It's not Tsuna's fault. It's not Massimo's fault. I don't even know if there is fault to be found here! It's just - Massimo's been dead a little over a month, and I'm already a part of another guardian set, and this one's whole and-"
"And you want to have had that with Massimo, right?" Alessandro asks.
"Yes!"
Alessandro sighs. His head tips back as he looks up. "Yeah. So did I."
Lambo closes his eyes, pressing his face against his knees. "Why did you leave us, Alessandro? You never said why."
It's not silent. The boat carries sound too well for that - far off footsteps, a banging.
"I didn't want to," Alessandro says. "Vongola didn't have any right to take me though. Not after they'd already taken Bianchi. We weren't like you and Romeo. Bianchi was the heir. Then Vongola took her. So Efisio Superbi went to the trouble of having me, and I was the heir. Bianchi could be forgiven. One is an honor, inconvenient as it was. Taking the heir twice?"
"You could have told us that. Refused the offering of being Massimo's guardian."
"I couldn't stay with Efisio and Urbana either," Alessandro says softly. "Urbana never forgave Efisio for my birth. She was trying to kill me, and she was using Bianchi to do it."
"What do you mean?"
"You remember the special way Bianchi's flames started to manifest around the time I left?"
"Her Poison Cooking? Yeah, they had to rush Enrico to the hospital after they cooked together, right?"
"It didn't just manifest all at once, it had been building up for about a year before that. And Urbana insisted that Bianchi cook for me at every opportunity."
"Bianchi wouldn't-"
"Bianchi didn't know! It . . . it wasn't that strong at first. I thought it was just food poisoning - and I was never in a position where Bianchi was consistently the one cooking for me. But . . . Urbana must have noticed because she started encouraging Bianchi to try making cookies. And . . . I started to develop something. Allergies, I think, or an intolerance - my body associated food with sickness and pain. By the time I ran away I couldn't eat a lot of food. It was hard to figure out things that didn't set me off. I'd even started having pre-emptive stomach pain and nausea when I saw Bianchi, which Urbana of course used as more proof that I was ungrateful."
"No," Lambo says, latching onto Alessandro's wrist.
"Lambo? Really I'm fine now -"
"Don't think Massimo and I didn't keep track of your activities! Don't think I've forgotten how you came to Tsuna! What did you think would happen?"
"Reborn would have killed me, obviously. Do you think I didn't know that?"
"Exactly! Reborn would-" Lambo cuts himself off, frowning. "Reborn would stop you."
"Obviously," Alessando says. "But that didn't happen. And I'm fine."
"Alessando, Reborn would have stopped you."
"Yes?"
"Reborn has the authority to countermand and reassign pretty much everyone in Vongola due to his position as Tsuna's home tutor. Reborn would have stopped you."
". . . Yes."
"Alessandro, you weren't a traitor. You were Vongola, acting on orders from Vongola Noveno. Reborn would have stopped you, but . . . You're not a traitor. And you're valuable beside. You would have listened if Reborn ordered you to stop right?"
"Of course."
"There wasn't ever really a chance - Reborn never would have killed you."
"But -"
"You came to us on orders no one would blame you for following, for a task only someone stupid would expect you to actually complete with Reborn around. Even . . ." Lambo frowns. "Even if the safehouse you were sent to wasn't the one I live in. Why did you choose that safehouse?"
"I didn't choose it, it was listed on my assignment papers."
Alessandro is frowning too.
"I mean," Lambo says slowly, "things might be less efficient since Xanxus-"
"That was the Noveno's fault," Alessando says immediately, "and if you think Squalo and Beelzebub haven't kept up in tip top shape, you really need a refresher."
"Right," Lambo says. "So, the Varia, who probably didn't even want to complete the mission anyways because Timoteo's the one who assigned it, assigned you, who's perhaps not Varia quality yet but still a valuable piece, to do a mission that Reborn would have obviously managed to stop you from doing without needing to kill you, and sent you to the safehouse I was living in, which would obviously lead to me knowing what you were in Namimori to do, if Reborn had, by some miracle, managed to miss you entering Namimori."
Alessandro contemplates this for a long moment, then his face scrunches up. "Those bastards! They could have at least let me keep the extra bombs!"
"That's what you're mad about?"
"Look, I'll admit, I maybe wasn't in the best mindset at the time, but I'd just come off several failed missions, and Belphegor didn't exactly like me. It felt like a lot of effort and setup for a suicide mission, but at that point I'd honestly figured that Belphegor was making the pint that I was so beneath him he didn't find it worth the effort to kill me himself - the Varia are weird that way. The bombs and grenades on the other hand were nice, and I don't exactly have any suppliers in Japan. Thy really didn't have to take the bombs I had leftover from other missions!"