Couple things, both relevant: this chapter involves a 'should have seen that before' moment instead of a new myth. One that is, ironically and probably unintentionally, canon to KHR even not in this story. (Perhaps not quite as fun, but I felt they needed to be recognized.) Also, I'm starting to compile a bunch of canon-to-this-story side-stuff that doesn't really fit in properly but belongs all the same. I'm going to clean some of it up and start posting it in no particular chronological order aside from 'not outpacing this story' under the title of 'Mythos'. Next new myth will show up next chapter, but I'd been meaning to point out this for a while, and this was the first good place I had to do it in.

Also: Varia = Bad Language. Sorry!

Draugar

Norse undead. A draugr could come about in one of two ways: cursed to be so (the most hostile and least intelligent varieties were amongst these) or by sheer force of will. A refusal to die that was so strong that one's own dead body re-accepted the will thereof, and could be used in much the same way as a living body, though still dead. Draugar could be killed or otherwise 'die' a second time with the destruction of their bodies; whether by complete dismemberment, fire, decay, or other means.

xxxx

Getting off the plane in Italy was simple enough, and Tsuna had several ideas about where he and his immediate Elements (not including Xanxus, who definitely hadn't admitted anything) could stay, though he was fully intending to offer the Varia a place with them.

Xanxus pre-empted it with a "Come on, brat. Let's get you and your lot set up in the Varia mansion."

Skull asked first. "Why not Vongola Headquarters?"

Xanxus snorted, "Because I don't trust the old man. He may not cause direct harm, but his security's shit. Just because no one's dumb enough to off him directly with Guardians as powerful as his, doesn't mean they won't take a shot or three at the kid."

Fon frowned slightly, "And you believe we would allow harm to come to Tsunayoshi-sama?"

"Fuck, no, and he ain't the kind of trash that needs protection, anyway. I just don't want to deal with cleaning up afterwards."

Tsuna grinned, understanding the subtext completely. Xanxus wanted him close by for exactly the same reason Reborn did; he was an overprotective bastard who didn't know how to express his feelings. That was fine. "Thanks, Xanxus. It saves me the trouble of arranging something else."

Xanxus grunted and jerked his head at his Rain, and Squalo shook himself. "Right, Boss. We'll have a couple vans here in ten minutes."

Tsuna glanced around, doing a headcount. He had Fon, Reborn, and Skull. Mammon was on Squalo's shoulder, and Levi was being all silent giant-y while Belphegor sulked beside him, clearly still smarting over the telling-off Tsuna had given him on the plane. (Xanxus had given him an interested look when the blood-crazed Storm had ended up slinking into the closest thing the plane had to a corner like a scolded puppy, knives confiscated and thoroughly dressed-down. Tsuna wasn't returning the knives until they were in the Varia mansion.)

Lussuria was next to Ryohei, and those two were either a great combination or a terrible one, and Tsuna was going to have to talk to Xanxus' Sun about keeping his fetishes away from the boxer, because the Varia could be as twisted as they liked so long as they didn't hurt innocents or allies or infect his Elements with it. Gokudera was scowling heavily at Takeshi while Mukuro and Hibari glared at each other with dear, wonderful Chrome keeping them from going for each others' throats in the middle of the Sicilian airport.

Tsuna considered the slowly rising tension and sighed, "If you guys don't settle down on your own, I'm going to end up having to douse you in so much Sky you'll end up Flame-drunk for hours."

"That doesn't actually sound like a bad thing," Skull told him. "The plane ride was awesome."

"You're small enough to be carried," Tsuna told him dryly. "The ones that's a threat for will have to try to walk, and I know Reborn brought a video camera."

Xanxus snorted, "Brat, you have a scary mind."

Tsuna beamed at him, "Thanks, Xanxus! Reborn's been teaching me all about the merits of blackmail."

There were several whimpers of horror behind him, and Squalo snickered while Mammon nodded approvingly. Xanxus smirked, "Come on, brat. Gather your minions and follow me."

Tsuna huffed, "These are not my minions. Those are still in Japan," he paused, then conceded, "…and China. These ones are my… Elements."

"Not Guardians?"

"Eh, from what Reborn's said, that's mostly Vongola terminology, and I've got more than six anyway."

Xanxus tipped his head in acknowledgement. "Guardians just going to be the ones with the Rings, then?"

Tsuna nodded, "Gokudera-kun's the Storm, obviously, and Ryohei's got the Sun Ring. Hibari's my Cloud. Not sure what Mukuro and Chrome are doing—they kept the Ring split in half and each of them has one, which I don't mind, but since the Rings are part of the Tri-Ni-Sette that might not be safe long-term. Takeshi's got the Rain, and I know that Lambo wants the Lightning Ring, but I'm not going to let him have it until he's at least fifteen. I might need a stand-in for a while."

Skull's helmet thumped lightly against Tsuna's chest, the tiny Cloud jerking back upright with a odd little sound. Tsuna rolled his eyes and shifted his grip, tugging off the helmet and tossing it at Gokudera.

Startled, his Storm fumbled to catch it, "Juudaime?" he asked, clearly having been absorbed in his bickering with Takeshi.

Tsuna wondered when sniping arguments had become so much a part of his life that they were comfortable background noise. He didn't even notice them anymore, and even Ryohei's volume had become a thing to tune out. His life, why?

Skull made a halfhearted sort of protest, and Tsuna held him like the baby he looked like, "Go back to sleep if you're that tired, Skull. We can manage without you for a while. Gokudera-kun, do you mind holding onto that for me for a while?"

Skull muttered something that ended in a sleepy 'great Skull-sama' while Gokudera took to the simple assignment with puppy-ish enthusiasm.

Xanxus wasn't the only member of the Varia staring, and Leon promptly turned into a baby-backpack, giving Reborn his own free-ride nap zone. Fon gave off a sense of 'pouting' and Tsuna rolled his eyes, "The news stand over there has baby slings if you really want one, Fon. And how did I turn into Arcobaleno Mom?"

Xanxus snickered outright at that, and Chrome took it upon herself to go over to the stand.

"Get two of the damn things," Xanxus called to her, eying Tsuna appraisingly. "We can stick the Storm in one and the Cloud in the other."

Squalo snickered, too, "And the blackmail photos will be stupidly cute."

"Stupidly cute only works as blackmail if you're embarrassed by it," Tsuna informed in a perfect echo of Fon's usual serenity. "If I'm going to be Arcobaleno Mom, I am going to rule it."

Mukuro cackled at the dumbfounded looks on most of the Varia, "Dear Tsunayoshi, you are truly impressively audacious."

"Balls of steel," Xanxus agreed, grinning. "Which of you trash has the video camera? I want this fucking immortalized."

(Levi had the video camera, and he did indeed film Tsuna with Fon and Skull tucked in slings across his chest while Reborn's unruly puff of black hair showed over the green strap of Leon-carrier on one shoulder, fedora hung from the other Leon-carrier strap. Later, even Tsuna had to agree that, yes, it was stupidly cute. He also got a double-baby backpack for the return trip, since it would be easier to get around with only one sling hampering his arms.)

xxxx

Travail was a lower-rung Varia. If one of the Elite gave an order, he obeyed. If Xanxus told him to shoot himself, he damn well would, because it'd be a sight better than what Xanxus would do to him for disobedience. Varia Quality meant loyalty, obedience, and a certain streak of ruthless efficiency that no other Vongola-associated subsidiary had.

But the Varia—all the Varia—were loyal to Varia over Vongola.

Except maybe Xanxus, who was loyal to Vongola over Nono.

Either way, when everyone was ordered to mobilize in the mess—the only area of the training mansion in Sicily capable of holding all of them at once—and Xanxus and his five Guardians showed up arrayed loosely around seven teens, the Greatest Hitman Sun Arcobaleno Reborn, 'The Eye of the Storm' Arcobaleno Fon, and The Immortal Stuntman Cloud Arcobaleno Skull, he wasn't sure what to think.

The Varia 'training mansion' in Sicily did not get guests. Recruits, yes, but recruits were not introduced by the Elite. Ever.

The silence was uneasy, and there were a good sixty assassins in the room.

"VOI, trash, listen up!" Squalo snapped, getting everyone to straighten sharply. They were assassins, not military—the posture was not a regulation requirement, but it was impossible to pretend to be relaxed with one of the Elite used that tone.

"Che," Xanxus casually reached out and smacked his Rain upside the head hard enough to make him stumble forward, and one of the teens (a fluffy-looking brat that was weirdly reminiscent of Vongola Primo) gave him a look. Xanxus took a step forward, rolling his eyes, "Brat. Get where everyone can see you."

'Brat' did something horrifying. He rolled his eyes right back, "Xanxus, this is completely unnecessary."

Xanxus scowled, caught the kid by the scruff of his shirt, and pushed him forward, not nearly as roughly as he'd smacked his Rain. "These are mine, brat, and I'd rather not have to kill one for laying a hand on you."

The kid twisted to eye the much larger man oddly, "Do you think they'd actually be a problem?"

"After how you threw me around? Fuck, no, but it's a matter of principle."

Threw Xanxus around? Impossible—the kid was a twig!

"Who said that?" Xanxus snapped, eyes sharp and hard and gleaming.

"It's not like he's wrong, Xanxus," the kid pointed out. "I am a twig."

Oh, god, Travail had said that out loud?

Scowling, the Wrath turned his glare on the kid, who only shrugged unrepentantly back. "Fine," he bit out. "Trash! This is Sawada Tsunayoshi. He's the Decimo. He asks you a question, you answer. He gives you an order, you obey. He tells you to go against my orders, you fucking obey. You lay a hand on him, you die. Kid's my Sky, and you'll treat him like it."

Xanxus'… but Xanxus was a Sky! Was that even—it's not like the man would lie about something like that, but how?

"Transcendent," Squalo coughed, grinning behind a fist.

… wasn't that a myth? Or, rather, a scientific theory that it was highly doubted that anyone would ever be able to prove, because first you'd have to find a Sky both strong and pure enough, and have them compatible enough to Harmonize the weaker Sky?

Which had apparently just been proved. With Xanxus. Travail wasn't the only one a little wide-eyed. He also wasn't the only one to squeak out a "Yes, sir," in response to the scalding glare sweeping over the mess.

That was apparently that, and Xanxus turned on his heel and walked out, the Decimo huffing as he turned to follow. "So impatient."

Travail felt the hysterical urge to giggle. It was true; Xanxus—all of the Elite, really—was impatient, but hearing such a tiny teen say it like that, all resigned exasperation like a fond parent was a little surreal.

Oh, god. Decimo was Xanxus' Sky. That was terrifying.

xxxx

Tsuna considered, jogging a few steps to catch up with his apparently overprotective newest Element while Luss-nee and Levi vanished down an adjoining hall, Belphegor staying behind for food. "Xanxus, I need an… audience with the Nono. Would you like to come?"

Xanxus' stride faltered only slightly. "You want me to, brat?"

Tsuna shrugged, "That's not the question, Xanxus. Do you want to? Because I'd welcome you if you do, but if you'd rather not see him, I can bring someone else."

Xanxus eyed him speculatively, "I'd rather you didn't meet up with the old man without me."

"So, you don't want to see him, but you don't trust him enough to let him near me without supervision. All right. We'll work out who should come tonight, then. No more than six, I think, not including Reborn. You, of course. Hm… I'm half tempted to ask if Bermuda can spare Jager…"

Reborn growled on his shoulder. "Tsuna. Stop inviting Jager."

"Who's Jager?" Squalo asked from behind.

"The Vindice second-in-command," Fon replied serenely, and there was a audible stumble, a thud, and a lot of cursing immediately following that information.

Tsuna turned to see the Varia Elite Rain on the floor with Mammon standing on his back while Tsuna's own group blinked at them in confusion. "What's the problem, haha?" Takeshi asked, grinning at the assassins. "Sure, Jager's not their leader, but Bermuda's just too busy to come himself, most of the time."

(Xanxus kept his mouth shut, not wanting to say something stupid. The kid had everything from unicorns to assassins flocking to him; why not Vindice?)

"Someone owes me money for taking out my transportation," Mammon informed flatly, drifting up to land on Ryohei's shoulder and ignoring the 'extreme' greeting for the personal space intrusion.

"Jager's nice to Kaa-san," Tsuna decided to ignore everything but Reborn's order, which he addressed directly, "and Kaa-san likes having guests. I'm not going to stop inviting him over just because he's a draugr."

It had taken some research to find a type of undead that applied to the Vindice, but the old Norse draugar fit the bill.

"What the hell's a draugr?" Xanxus asked.

"What the Norse called their undead. Well, singular; plural is 'draugar'. There were two kinds—the cursed kind and the kind like the Vindice, where their Will was strong enough to bring what they called the 'hugr' back to the body. It sounded like the same thing as Dying Will, even though they considered it more animate or moving will," Tsuna explained cheerfully. "From what I've managed to get Bermuda to tell me, he's that kind, and it's his Flames that brought back the others, so Jager's really more like a cross between a zombie and a draugr, but still."

Reborn covered his eyes with one hand, sighing. "Of course they're undead."

Tsuna blinked, "What?"

Gokudera whipped out a notebook and started scribbling, muttering to himself as he did so while Hibari scoffed and looked away, the present Varia not quite sure what to make of this particular information while Ryohei declared that Bermuda was very extreme.

Mukuro chuckled again, "The Sun Arcobaleno is right; it all makes sense now, dear Tsunayoshi."

Xanxus went back to striding down the hall with an expression very much like that Tsuna had seen frequently on Reborn the first few months after Venna had shown up. "Fuck this, I'm done. We don't get paid enough to deal with this shit."

Tsuna hummed thoughtfully. Xanxus really was being a good sport about all the worldview-shifting, and Xanxus was his, now—acknowledged in front of a large gathering of lower-ranked Varia, at that. He should see about getting the poor man some kind of bonus.

(Reborn, on the other hand, deserved every minute of confusion-induced shock for being such a crazy chaos-inciter every chance he got.)

"Dame-Tsuna, I heard that."

Tsuna only grinned. (Oh, gods, Reborn was contagious.)

Reborn smirked smugly, reaching up to pat Tsuna's head. "You are learning well, my student."

Tsuna refused to feel bad about the horrified sounds from several of his Guardians as he trotted off after Xanxus.

They'd be fine with some sleep. He had other things to worry about, like figuring out who to bring with him to talk to Timoteo Vongola when 'talking' was synonymous with 'dressing down for incompetence with family' which, according to everything Reborn had told him about Vongola and where Timoteo had been trying to go with it, was also synonymous with 'not worthy to lead Vongola'.

But Xanxus was Tsuna's and Timoteo had failed not only Xanxus, but Tsuna and his three blood-sons. Clearly he wasn't good enough to keep a handle on an entire Famiglia if he couldn't even watch over his own personal family.

(Tsuna didn't particularly want to include Vongola in his growing empire, for all that he'd have to eventually, but if that was what it took to ensure decent treatment for his own—which included the Varia, as Xanxus'—then that's what he would do.)

xxxx

Xanxus' decision to claim the Brat as his Sky had been near painful, if he were honest with himself. And he was—Xanxus wasn't the kind of coward to lie to himself, even when he fucking longed to. Now that he was thinking a damn sight more clearly—the Brat's doing, he had no doubt, because the Brat had linked to his Flames and done something that… he hadn't felt so stable since he'd been a brat himself. The roiling uneasy flickers that had made it damn hard to use his Flames for anything other than blazing destruction had been settled, and the Brat looked at him like he was something to be protected.

Xanxus didn't need the Brat's protection; he could damn well handle himself. But the Brat was acting less like he needed it and more like he deserved it, and the hard edge to that terrifyingly vast expanse of Sky whenever anyone mentioned the old man was…

Nice.

Not that Xanxus was going to be admitting that out loud any time soon. No need to hand over blackmail to the kiddie crew and Arcobaleno. (Brat'd probably only be happy about it and never mention it to another soul, but Xanxus didn't trust any of the rest of them—or his own Guardians—not to hold it over his head forever.)

Still, the entirety of his Varia had taken the announcement in the spirit of 'oh, god, Decimo's terrifying' over 'Boss is losing his touch', which Xanxus could work with without blowing any limbs off.

That said, if the Sun Arcobaleno was groaning in realizing exasperation over the Vindice being undead (he'd had seen the Vindice, and that might actually explain a lot) instead of, oh, telling the Brat he was nuts… Xanxus didn't actually want to know the stories behind anything but the dragon. And dragon. Fucking actual real dragon.

Just. What was with the kid? It wasn't even just the dragon—he'd seen the hou-ou (hadn't known what it was, but seen it dropping the Brat's dual Mists into the fight) and the fucking unicorn (which the Brat had him sit still in front of so it could look him over, and looked relieved and happy when it had whickered at him before trotting off), and the tóngshī at the doors outside the holding cells had stood up and greeted the Brat when he'd been leading Xanxus to a very grumpy Squalo. And then there was the bit about an akhlut, whatever the hell that was. All Xanxus knew was what the Arcobaleno had said, which was 'man-eating whale-wolf'.

Yeah, Vindice being some kind of undead Norse monster? Completely reasonable in comparison.

Also, the admonition the tiny Sun had given of 'Tsuna, try to go at least one trip without bringing home any more supposedly mythological creatures'? Fucking scary.

(Xanxus wasn't going to say it, but he did not want to know. He had the feeling even the unicorn would happily skewer him if anything happened to the Brat on his watch, and it hadn't even been looking at him like a threat!)

"Venna's a girl," the Brat informed absently, and Xanxus was sure he hadn't said anything out loud.

The Arcobaleno on his shoulder smirked.

"Fuck it, you know what? I'm not even asking," finally at their general destination, Xanxus shoved open the door to the Elite's wing and gestured down the much shorter hall on the other side, "Three doors down the hall on the left, set of unused suites that're yours as long as you want 'em. Mine're across the hall from 'em, and Squalo and the rest are scattered about. There should be enough space for all of you, and so long as you don't bust down any load-bearing walls, you can do what you want with 'em. Get settled, then get back to me on picking your escorts for tomorrow."

The Brat gave him a smile that was all sunshine and rainbows (Xanxus had to blink a few times to be sure he wasn't actually seeing drifting sparkles) and thanked him chirpily before herding his entire lot of overpowered pipsqueaks down the hall.

Squalo slid up beside him quietly, a disgruntled Mammon on his shoulder. "You know, Boss, that kid's fucking scary."

Yeah. He'd already noticed that.

"You think I'd settle for anything less?"

Brat was his Sky, after all, and Xanxus was a Wrath.

xxxx