Disclaimer: I wish I owned Reborn and all the wonderful character but I still do not. How sad.

I was twelve when I first saw him. He wore a dry look on his face as he observed me with skeptical and disbelieving eyes. Superbi Squalo-senpai was standing next to me and explaining to him in hasty Italian exactly why he had brought me here and how many different skills I had and what I vaguely understood to be a short explanation of my foreign looks and age.

He seemed disinterested, looking me over again, and only giving me a chance when Squalo-senpai began to scream at him about how wasteful it would be to let me go without even looking at my skill set.

Xanxus' crimson eyes wandered lazily from Squalo to me and leveled a glare on me that I returned with equal ferocity. His eyes widened the smallest bit when he realized that I was not scared of him one bit, "Your name?"

I had not been in Italy long so my Italian wasn't very good so I returned the kind display of Japanese by answering his question, "Kira. Hibari Kira."

He was not that much older than me but I took note of his surprisingly deep voice. Perhaps, he was in the midst of puberty. I knew nothing of his position or his relation to Vongola Nono. All I knew was what I was seeing in front of me right now at this very moment and right now, I was seeing a lazy, rude, violent man.

He snorted, not having moved even an inch from his place stretched out on the sofa. Lifting a lazy hand, he waved us away.

"VOI!" Squalo roared, his voice was always loud, "I finally got her to say she would come! Don't waste this, stupid boss!"

I didn't care much for whether or not I would come or go in this new place. I was offered a job to fight and I came to fight. There was no special attachment to such a place so I felt no emotions when Squalo told me that Xanxus had allowed me to stay. I simply stayed for the fights to come.

Our eyes met once more, his crimson red clashing with my deep violet ones. Something passed between us. It was mutual disinterest.

"Take her out on a job. If she survives, we'll talk again." Xanxus snorted, waving us away a second time.

Squalo pursed his lips and turned, motioning for me to follow. I took the hint. In this place, Xanxus was the king and there would be no arguments passed a certain point. I snorted, making a dull note of it as I followed Squalo out the door without looking back.

O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O

My gauntlets clanged heavily against the floor when I narrowly missed my target's face as he rolled out of the way. He could not scream, he could not beg for his life for I had already bitten his throat out. All that came from his lips were the sounds of blood gurgling up in the back of his throat.

He would not live much longer. He should have known that but at the same time, his herbivorous instincts drove him to cling to his meager life.

Unfortunately for him, this was all part of the plan. He ran down the hall and at the very end when he attempted to turn the corner thinking he had gotten away, Squalo-senpai cut him down in three lumps of flesh. It was the quietest I've ever seen him.

We met at school a couple years ago and he had been the normal, loud Superbi Squalo. But tonight, he was a silent assassin.

Our eyes met and a silent understanding passed between the two of us. This was my first time participating on a hit so he had come to test my skills. He had a plan all worked out. His instructions were for me to follow his lead. All I had to do was scare this guy enough for him to run down the hall towards Squalo, screaming for help but of course Squalo-senpai would have already killed all the guards by then so no help would come for him.

The victim was supposed to be killed at that very corner so the end result was just as planned but I had clearly not stuck to the plan at all since this guy never screamed for help.

I silently dared him to question me-to tell me I made a mistake here. He sighed but said nothing. Squalo looked back down at the corpse once more for confirmation and he cocked his head back down the way we had come. He was telling me that our mission was complete and now we were making our escape.

Our getaway driver that night welcomed us into his car with unnecessary concerns, "Did you get him? Was she in the way?"

"Shut your mouth!" Squalo snapped, "Drive!"

"Y-Yes sir!" He cowered behind the wheel when Squalo glared at him and I snorted, making a mental note that this man was an herbivore.

"Kira, why did you try to kill him on your own?" My long-haired upperclassman demanded, "You should have stuck to the plan."

"I did." I turned in my seat, taking my gaze off the passing scenery to lock eyes with him, "You killed him in the end, did you not?"

"VOI!" He shouted in complaint, "But you tried to kill him before then!"

"If I had tried to kill him, he would have died." I smirked at the stunned look on his face, "Squalo-senpai, this was a test, right? You were testing my strength and I showed it to you. I'm capable of following decently constructed plans but at the same time, I'm more than capable of making my own. I was clearly making a declaration here. I could have killed him without you so you don't have to babysit me in the future."

"VOIII You're so arrogant!" He snarled but he didn't tell me I was wrong, "Tch. I hate to admit it but you're a better fit for this job than most of the people here. Only problem is that you're a woman…"

I took a deep breath through my nose and let it out slowly, "Woman? Do you see a woman when you look at me?"

"Hell no." He blurted and snorted, "I saw a weapon. An animal at best."

"Then it shouldn't be a problem."

"It is because we don't have any female officers in our history since our founding."

I raised my eyebrow curiously, "I never said I have any interest in being an officer."

"That means you have to follow orders." He told me.

I made face of pure disgust and changed my mind immediately, "Do I have to know this history stuff to be an officer?"

"Of course, trash." Squalo eyed me suspiciously, "We go to a mafia school. They teach you important things in class. Have you been paying attention?"

I hesitated and Squalo just knew. He let out an audible groan and pushed his head back, a hand over his forehead.

"I don't understand Italian!" I snapped, "Even if I wanted to pay attention, I can't!"

"So you're an idiot?" Squalo deadpanned and it pissed me off, "How the hell did you even move up a grade if you don't understand anything?"

"History is one of six topics here… You only have to do well in three to move up." I grumbled, "Math is my strong point."

Squalo thought about it for a second and sighed, "So let me guess, you passed with flying colors in math and phys ed and…?"

"My choice in foreign language…" I grumbled, "Japanese."

"I hope you know you'll be taking orders in this organization if you don't shape up with your Italian." Squalo groaned at the look of defiance that came onto my face, "It's a requirement that you can read and write to be an officer for us, stupid."

"Then I quit." I scoffed, "I don't want to-"

"VOI! So you just want to be an idiot?! LEARN ITALIAN AND GET IT OVER WITH!"

And that is how I began my spartan Italian lessons with Squalo-senpai.

O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O

Three weeks of lessons from Squalo put me at the top of my class. It was a shock to the teachers who thought I had zero interest in studying. In fact, it was a shock to even Squalo-senpai himself. I stared blankly at him as he stood in front of our school rank postings with his jaw slack. He stared blankly up at my name sitting at the top of every page on the board.

"Senpai, you're going to drool if you keep looking." I rolled my eyes when he turned to me with his mouth still hanging slightly open in shock, "I told you. I'm not an idiot. I just don't understand Italian."

"Didn't understand Italian." He corrected me, "Well shit, you piece of trash. Looks like you're on your way to being one of our officers already. But don't get cocky. We have a job tonight."

"We?" I sighed.

"You and me." He smirked at me as if he already knew he was getting on my nerves, "Tonight, you get to look at the file and you get to make the plans."

"Oh?" I liked the sound of that and Squalo knew it.

When we got in the car after school that day, Squalo handed me a package of my favorite brand of beef jerky and I found myself wondering when he started to get to know me this well.

O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O

I stared down at the papers on the table before me. Slowly, I reached down and spread them out across the wooden surface and then I looked back up. Squalo was watching me. He was half nervous and half expectant.

I turned, Xanxus' crimson eyes were on me despite the fact that his body was turned sideways on the sofa. I turned my eyes back down.

There was a map of the location, a picture of our targets, the request's specifics. I took a good look at each of them in turn. My reading pace was slow, very slow for everything was written in Italian. I paused to memorize the targets' faces one by one-a total of seven.

It was probably the biggest job that I've gone on since I've unofficially joined this group. It's only unofficial because apparently, Xanxus doesn't trust my skills… which also happens to be because I'm a woman.

There was nothing to think about. I slowly shifted my eyes up and they met with Xanxus' questioning gaze.

My lips pulled into an almost arrogant smile and I said, "Only 7 targets?"

His eyes narrowed dangerously, "Officially, only 7. There's at least two dozen guards in this hideout. Outside there will be-"

"It's too little for me and Squalo-senpai." I turned, gesturing for Squalo to take a look at the pages, "The patrol will be slaughtered first. There's three on the left and four on the right. We'll start the hit from the back of the building and make our way to the front."

"You want to walk in through the front door?" Squalo seemed taken aback by my bold plans, "That means we have to fight them all, you idiot!"

I grinned, "No. That means you have to kill three of them and leave the rest to me. I want you to circle around the left side and meet me at the door. I'll circle around the right. Once they're all dead, I'll storm the hideout alone. All you have to do is wait in the car."

"You're insane! I've seen you fight! You're good but not that good!"

Xanxus threw his head back and laughed wildly, surprising the both of us. When he finally stopped laughing, he leaned forward over the table to level a glare on me, "You're confident, scum. But you'll pay for failure with your life so you better have the skill to back that talk up."

My eyebrow twitched. I've never seen this man even get off that chair so what in the world is he even trying to do? He's definitely not intimidating me so he can just sit right back down in his chair and be the lazy ass he's been since I've unofficially joined this stupid organization.

Squalo was silent on our way out. I would find out much later in life that he had the utmost faith in my plan and he was silent because he was debating on how to tell me we were storming the hideout together.

We swept the outer ring of the hideout without anyone finding out. All seven guards were dead within twenty minutes and we met up outside the door as planned.

"I'm coming with you." Squalo's hand was already on the wooden panels hiding the doorway that would lead down into this hideout, "No objections. My head's on the line too."

"So be it." I snorted but the minute the panels were out of the way, I rushed in first.

There were two men standing at the bottom of the stairs beneath us. I grabbed one, my gauntlets already stuffed wrist deep into the mouth of the first one that tried to scream. I roughly pushed him against the bricks behind him. His head split open from the speed at which his skull smashed into the wall. The second man was already cut down by Squalo in one swift move so I finished my opponent off with a fist to his adam's apple. We hurried inside.

All seven targets were going to be in the same room having a meeting so it made things easy for us. We killed nearly twenty men before they were screaming for help. Heads were rolling on the floor as Squalo-senpai picked up his pace. I have to admit that even I was afraid of being on the opposite end of Squalo's blade at times like this but our massacre continued.

Need I continue? We ruined them. My last target's jugular was bitten out in a savage display of strength fueled by the adrenaline from the earlier kills. Blood stained the floors and walls. The sounds of our murderers had already faded away to leave the bunker filled with the sounds of our harsh breathing.

I recounted the corpses in my head and indeed found that there were seven of them. I chanced a short look at Squalo who was already staring back at me expectantly. I blinked at him dumbly.

"You lead this operation so you've got to give the orders." He grumbled begrudgingly, "Are we done here?"

"Yeah." I couldn't hold down the quiet laughter at how formal he was being about all this, "Let's get out of here."

The silence was comfortable as we erased our tracks and made our way out to the car. The driver didn't speak. He already heard I was leading this operation and he already heard of my previous successes. He looked nervous.

"Drive." I said quietly, "It was a success."

He let out a sigh of relief, not speaking for a long while after that but he continued to glance at me from the rearview mirror.

Irritably, I demanded, "What?"

"It's rare for the boss to directly give someone a leadership position over Squalo. What are you…?" He grumbled, turning the headlights on as he drove away from our target location.

"Rare but not unheard of?" I turned to Squalo, "There are others?"

"Don't be stupid." The swordsman scoffed, "Of course there are. I test all our officers before they become officers."

"There is… a lot about the Varia that I don't know." I said quietly and Squalo read deeply into my words.

"I'll teach you." He stretched out his feet as far as they would go on the limo seat, "But there's nothing you need to know. You've already met our boss, Xanxus. Our previous boss was called the Sword Emperor, Tyr. I joined the Varia by killing him and taking that title. Our second in command is someone left over from Tyr's time, Ottavio. Other than that there's a few more officers but after I dethroned Tyr, some of them left saying they were only loyal to him."

"So why did you join?"

Squalo scrunched his nose, "Probably the same reason as you. I wanted to test my strength but the reason I'm still here is the boss. Xanxus is someone I'll follow until I die."

I couldn't really picture Squalo as a follower type but from the way he spoke I could tell that there was something about Xanxus that made Squalo submit. I couldn't understand that feeling quite yet. I didn't know if there were even any good points when it came to that lazy man these people called boss but I suppose I would have to discover that on my own sooner or later. I chose to discover it later.

"I expected you to give me names, ages, and specialities of the officers not your own reasons for worshipping a man that never gets off that stupid chair." I snorted making Squalo sneer at me.

"You don't do anything you don't want to do and he's no different." The white-haired swordsman reprimanded me, eyes wandering out the window as we approached HQ, "You'll be going on a mission with another officer soon."

"Someone other than you?" I didn't like the sound of that.

"Ottavio will probably take you on a mission later this week but tomorrow night another officer's taken interest in getting to know you. His name is Lussuria. Like you, he's a martial arts specialist. He takes pride in his muay thai." He explained, "He's a year older than our boss but he's not hard to talk to. He's eccentric if anything and he operates on a lower standard than the rest of us."

"Lower standard?"

"I haven't told you this since I'm not into scaring people off but the Varia has only one absolute rule. It's the reason we've been feared all this time." Squalo watched the driver pull to a full stop before opening the door and exiting our limo, "We don't accept failures or weaklings. If you fail a mission, we erase you from our ranks. But you haven't disappointed anyone yet."

I paused when he reached a hand back towards me as I made to get out of the car. I stared at the outstretched hand for a long moment before taking it, "I don't care about meeting or failing to meet your expectations or anyone else's. I'm only here to fight and make it clear that my size and gender don't have anything to do with my strength. If I fail to make my strength clear, you would be doing me a favor by erasing me."

That was the first time Squalo had heard my purpose for accepting his proposal to join the Varia. His eyes softened as he pulled me out of the car with a scowl, "I'm no different. I killed Tyr and joined the Varia to prove that I was the strongest swordsman the world would see. So do me a favor and erase me if I'm doing my title dirty."

"We'll see." For some reason, I couldn't imagine Squalo losing to anyone. We had known each other for a little over a year. That was not a long time but it was enough for us to trust the other's skills.

Thanks for reading and for all the messages/reviews. I'm glad so many people still want to see this happen. :)