Reborn silently approved of the outfit Asia was wearing. Her hair was in a tasteful bun, and she was in a highly professional looking female suit, complete with tie. Though he did have to help her tie that up, because it had been a while. She even completed the look with heels that were sharpened to the point that she could stab someone in the eye and guarantee permanent maiming.
Every inch of her looked like a proper Mafia woman, one trained to handle bullshit and insure that her will was done regardless of what other people wanted.
Asia's expression was set to the one she generally used while telling Kyouya and the others (often Reborn at times) that "No, you can't go and massacre an entire famiglia because the paperwork wasn't worth it."
The second the projector lit up with the video call, she just knew she was going to enjoy this.
Reborn was visible to her right side, and the way he was positioned made it clear who's side he was on. Timoteo frowned a bit, but hid it well thanks to long experience.
Asia hid her own annoyance at the fact Iemitsu was also present, likely to try and play the 'father' card.
He lost that chance the second she remembered her other memories.
Reborn was watching with dark satisfaction as Asia shot down every attempt by Timoteo to try and bring her into the fold. And then he saw her.
Xenovia had been waiting for the subtle signal from Asia to come into view.
Timoteo only had to take one look at the obvious Holy Sword and the exorcist gear, and then saw the way the girl stood next to Asia. Green lightning crackled along the edge, making it clear she was a lightning.
Hard realization hit the Ninth don. The girl had very subtly indicated that not only did she have Reborn as her Sun, but that she was also entrenched in the affairs of the Three Factions.
Unseen by him, Azazel was handing some more popcorn to Rias, among others.
"This is hilarious...he's being played so completely it's almost tragic to watch," said Rias.
"Indeed...if it wasn't for the fact that the Vongola have been spiraling downward in recent years, it would almost be painful," said Sona.
"I'm really confused at this point," said Issei.
Vali snorted.
"The Queen is teaching this lesser king who the real top dog is and is giving a shit ton of hints about how outclassed he was before the meeting even started," clarified Vali.
"...Is it weird we all acknowledge Asia as the Phoenix Queen despite the fact she doesn't have any royal blood or even territory to rule?" asked Issei.
"Does she give you the impression she's anything less than a queen?" asked Rias. Because seriously, she didn't need a kingdom to be considered a queen.
Some people just naturally had the right qualifications to rule... if Asia wanted to take over a kingdom, odds were they'd let her do it gladly and fall under her absurdly high charisma.
Rias was just glad she had made it abundantly clear she was on her side and favored her Peerage.
"Hand over some more cheese popcorn, will you? It's rare for me to see someone that high ranked taken down multiple pegs without any bloodshed involved," said Sirzechs. Next to him was his son Millicas, because Grayfia insisted her child take notes from a master.
Like hell was he missing this show. The Vongola had been getting very irritating of late, especially their investigative branch.
Serafall was just happy that someone was recording this for her to watch later, in multiple angles.
The aging don started out the meeting confident that he could bring the missing heiress to heel. What he left with instead was a young woman who reminded him distinctly of his own mother when she was in the mood to take zero prisoners and had exactly zero fucks given to anyone who got in her way.
What was more was that shortly after the meeting, Lal Mirch would return to Italy and give him the full scope of how narrowly he had avoided pissing off the Church.
When it was over, Asia didn't bother to hide her smirk at the loud applause from the peanut gallery.
Asia had to admit, it was slightly nerve-wracking returning to Namimori. Kuoh felt more like home at this point.
Still, she had an internal schedule to keep and she wasn't going to let the Vongola (especially Iemitsu) ruin the only decent flame actives in the town.
Her first stop was at Shoichi's home. It took her fifteen minutes before she tossed him in Azazel and Verde's direction before he started packing. Azazel could pay the repair bills, and to be honest there was no way in hell Reborn would let anyone else be her Sun Element.
The next stop was Kyouya...it took her an hour of sparring with him, no holds barred, for his interest to be well and fully peaked. She dumped him on Vali, since he was barely able to handle her at half-strength and told the two to have fun in the training grounds. The two became best friends almost immediately...in between trying to cave each other's head's in. Kyouya looked very happy with his new sparring partner. Tetsuya was just happy at the lowered repair/hospital bills.
Ryohei was a bit trickier, but honestly unlike his ancestor he had no real ties to the Church. Besides, Rias needed a bit more combat strength in her Peerage, and this meant Ryohei got someone who could reign him in a bit. It didn't hurt that Rias had zero interest in him romantically and got along surprisingly well with Hana.
Lambo...he took one look at her and attached himself to her before she even said a word. He recognized her aura immediately from his trips to the future and didn't want to be around stupid-Ieyasu anymore.
Last but not least was Takeshi. He looked very depressed as his arm hadn't healed correctly after he had broken it, and without a proper support base around his depression had only gotten worse. It was only due to the promptness of the Disciplinary Committee that he had survived.
Asia couldn't quite reign back her first instinct once she saw the shape he was in.
Takeshi rubbed his head where she had slapped him, hard.
"Um...I'm sorry?" he said confused.
His father was giving her a dirty look, mostly because it had come out of nowhere.
"Takeshi, you're an idiot. Why in the name of the baseball gods did you let those pathetic slackers dump all the responsibility of winning the games on you rather than telling them off for not taking their roles seriously? Last I checked, baseball was a team sport," said Asia flatly.
Takeshi's confusion only deepened, and he wasn't the only one. Asia huffed, before activating Twilight Burning. A warm, healing sensation flowed through his body as the sacred gear got to work.
You could imagine the shock on his face and that of his father when he was able to actually move his arm properly for the first time in months. The doctors had said it was unlikely he'd ever be able to play baseball again with how badly he had damaged his arm.
He stared at her wide eyed in shock and no small amount of hope.
Asia stared back at him calmly...while his usual habit of treating everything like a game could be irritating, she did genuinely care about the idiot and he was a reliable person to have around.
"Who are you?" asked Takeshi.
"My name is Argento Asia. And I came because a certain spineless jackass is almost guaranteed to try and claim some of the flame actives in this town. And frankly, he doesn't deserve either of you," said Asia.
Tsuyoshi narrowed his eyes at her.
"I'm retired and Takeshi isn't active. And you're dangerously close to breaking Omerta."
Asia rolled her eyes at him.
"One, you can claim retirement all you want... Takeshi is a natural hitman. Two, that man won't care about Omerta so long as he can successfully force one of you to work for him or at least the main house...the fact you're descendants of someone tied to the Primo's generation makes it worse. Three, your son is a hair's breath away from going active. And this is the most important part... the Vindice aren't going to care about me telling him before he's active because I'll toss a much bigger fish they've been trying to catch for quite some time their way as a distraction if it comes down to it."
Tsuyoshi clearly wasn't happy.
"Who exactly is going to try and claim my son?" he asked.
"Sawada Iemitsu. I see you've at least heard of him," said Asia.
Tsuyoshi went from unhappy to straight up pissed. That blasted hit man had been trying to nudge his son towards the entitled brat that was Ieyasu for months before he stopped after it became clear he wasn't a Sky. He had thought they had given up.
Asia gave them both a look.
"I'm here to give you and your son an out. One that will insure that the only way the Vongola get their hands on either of you is if you voluntarily join them. Besides, it'll give your son some fun people to...play...with regarding your family sword style. Iemitsu is aware of your existence...it would only take ten seconds for him to realize you're Asari's descendants and the Vongola need something to keep the wolves at bay. Dragging in the heirs of the Primo's generation would be a good way to start," said Asia.
"What's in it for you?"
"I get to piss off the Vongola by poaching potential Guardian candidates from them, and I insure that the jackass does not get his hands on someone I care about," said Asia. "If it helps, I can personally guarantee the protection of the Fallen and some of the higher ups in the Devil faction."
"Can we have some time to think about this?" asked Tsuyoshi.
"We'll be staying at the hotel in town. We're leaving in three days, mostly to insure that all the other flame actives in town are alerted to vacate the area for a while," said Asia. Those that were aware of their powers anyway.
Three days later, the father-son duo came to a decision. Takeshi and his father found a small apartment in Kuoh and thanks to Azazel's contacts, the restaurant would be swiftly moved to Kuoh for the foreseeable future.
To be fair, once the Grigori had a taste of Tsuyoshi's mastery over his food, they became regular customers without any nudging from their leader. On the plus side, Takeshi easily fell into Asia's Sky as her new Rain.
Kawahira stared nervously into the eyes of the less than amused Phoenix Queen. He had attempted to tell the Arcobaleno of the 'tournament' in which they might be freed of their curse once and for all.
He was not expecting the current holder of Twilight Burning to capture him before he knew she was there and put him in a block of ice not even he could escape from.
"Can we talk about this?" he asked.
"Are you planning to trick them into a fake tournament to wear them down one final time before forcing the next generation of Arcobaleno to be chosen from their representatives?" she asked.
He stared at her in shock. Reborn looked pissed, but stayed back as he knew how...persuasive...Asia could be.
"Who are you?"
"Someone who is going to clean up Sephira's mess once and for all," deadpanned Asia. "You are going to stay in that ice until we're ready to transfer the system to something far more stable, and Bermuda has a proper chance to bitch you out for all the trouble you caused him."
"The system is too important to mess with!" he said angrily. There was a large amount of resignation and exhaustion in his tone.
"No, it was a flawed system meant to stabilize the energy after Yahweh died. By this point the three factions have settled enough that if something did happen, they would be the first to handle it as they're not particularly keen on restarting the war. Sephira's system needs to be dismantled, even if it happens a century or two from now," said Asia firmly.
Sephira's system was never meant to be permanent. Kawahira was just too stubborn and mourning the loss of his Sky to recognize this fact. It could have been dismantled centuries ago, but he was too caught up in the same old rut to even try.
Asia was going to fix it and insure Reborn didn't have to deal with that blasted curse for much longer.