Well, couple things: one, yes - another two-part. Two, yes, Iemitsu shows, as well as an explanation as to why Tsuna hasn't brought him up before. Three, the second part of 'Mardyakhowr' will explain the more common names and who all adopted the thing, but since the oldest form is the one I'm using, the explanation here is the pertinent one.

Also, I'm a bit busy for the next couple weeks, so updates won't be quite as quick unless I find a spare moment or three. Sorry!

Mardyakhowr
(Part I)

Born in Persian folklore, the name itself is telling: mardyakhowr literally translates to man-to-eat, or 'man-eater'. Always vaguely feline, but the remaining description varies. It walks on two legs, or perhaps four. Generally believed to be red to red-brown in color, this creature may have a tail like that of either a scorpion or a dragon, that can sting or perhaps shoot poisoned spikes. It may have wings, it may not. Horns or no horns, many rows of terrible teeth or only a great cat's fangs. The face of a man, or perhaps a beast. Nevertheless, all the legends agree on one thing: this creature is a vicious one, and not to be trifled with. The oldest lore claims that when it devoured its victims, it left nothing behind, not even bone, clothes, or possessions. If the mardyakhowr caught you, no one would ever know unless someone bore direct witness to your fate.

xxxx

Being in Vongola Mansion with the Brat was an… interesting experience. On general principle, Xanxus was inclined to hate being there. He'd hated it when he was a brat himself, being raised amongst a bunch of people who expected him to know all their high-class ways even though he'd literally been brought in from fighting to keep himself and his Ma safe and fed.

(They didn't seem to realize that his Ma'd been left out there with no one to protect her, that she'd probably died within the week thanks to that, sick as she'd been when she'd passed him off on the old man. Didn't seem to get why he'd be so angry.)

He'd hated it when he got pawned off on the Varia, still hated it when he'd blazed his way up the ladder to being Boss (and, no, he hadn't offed the last one no matter what the Vongola rumors said. She'd passed him the spot with a smile and retired as much as a mafia assassin could, was living a mostly quiet life in Rome) and had to go back for meetings and assignments.

He loved Vongola, sure. He loved their strength, that they could do whatever the hell they wanted and nothing and no one could stop them. The prejudice and stupidity and slow-weakening age of those in the Vongola Mansion, on the other hand… he didn't have good associations with the place, and the weakling morons still there just made it fucking worse.

The Brat, though… well, he'd found out within the first two days of meeting him that it was damn difficult to be actually unhappy in Tsuna's presence. Angry, sure, he could get that. But the black kind of sickening, resentful hate that he'd long grown used to having fester with those memories? That was a hell of a lot harder to find with the Brat's too-wide, too-bright, too-accepting Sky right there.

Also, the looks he was getting from the mansion staff were hilarious, with them not knowing what the hell to make of a polite Varia Boss. (Yes, he knew his own 'polite' was pretty damn rude by normal conventions, but he wasn't shooting people or blistering his Wrath at them, and he was the fucking Varia Boss, so even the hardasses in Vongola proper would call his current attitude 'polite'.)

The fact that the Brat looked like a brown-haired, fluffy little Primo clone only added to the confusion. Toss in the fact that said little Primo-clone was wearing his Arcobaleno again?

Xanxus, for the first time in his memory, was actively enjoying being in the Vongola Mansion proper.

Naturally, there was no way that could last. Lal Mirch's appearance should have been a warning, and the Sun and Storm Arcobaleno heading out to bicker with her while Mammon floated after them (probably to either mock them or make a profit, because there were no other reasons that little miser would do anything without a direct order), the mini-Cloud choosing to claim the spot in Tsuna's arms that Reborn vacated.

At some point, they'd lost most of Tsuna's brats to the training rooms, only the Storm-brat, who was acting like a good little mafia subordinate in front of the prying eyes of supposed but untried fellows, and (possibly) Mukuro still with them. Xanxus had been obliged to leave the Peacock and his own dog—Levi was a definite sycophant—to keep an eye out for the brats, because they might be strong brats, but they were still brats and they were Tsuna's, which meant they'd damn well better stay safe or the little Sky would burn Vongola to the ground without so much as batting an eye.

And Xanxus would help him, because if a calm Tsuna made it hard for him to rouse his anger, a murderously furious Tsuna would have him damn well eradicating the source of the rage with extreme fucking prejudice.

Which, naturally, was when the idiot Iemitsu showed.

"I don't know what you're playing at, you twisted bastard," he started the instant he rounded a corner to find himself face-to-face with Xanxus, not yet having noticed the much smaller form at Xanxus' side and likely ignoring the others entirely.

Xanxus didn't even have a chance to cut in before the Brat did it for him, clipped and coldly, threateningly polite. "Do you have a problem with my Wrath, sir?"

Iemitsu's eyes jinked to the side and down, seeing the amber blaze of his son's glare heading back at him. Xanxus blinked and decided he was damn glad his Sky had never turned that look on him, because, damn, that was unnerving.

"Tsuna?" Iemitsu seemed quite taken aback, but not smart enough to recognize the threat.

The chill didn't ease so much as smooth a bit and he glanced to Xanxus. "Xanxus, do you know this man?"

He heard Squalo give a snicker behind him, but his own flash of amusement was drowned in something between fury and dread the instant it appeared.

Tsuna wasn't joking. Wasn't mocking or snidely hinting at too-long a time between visits. There was genuinely no recognition there. Holy shit, what was he supposed to do with this? There was going to be fucking fallout, and he had no idea how to handle it—"Squalo, go get the others. Everyone here, fucking now. Mist, if you're skulking in the shadows, get a chain on the fucking incompetent moron in front of us so I don't end up blowing a hole through what little brain he's got. Shit. The hell did I end up being the one here for this?"

He felt more than saw Tsuna frown at his side, but Squalo was already heading to obey and the Mist did Xanxus one better and wrapped the moron up in a nest of hissing, live snakes. Considering his freaky eye's Animal Path's abilities, they might not even be illusions, but since the Mist in question was still staying out of sight, Xanxus couldn't confirm that.

"Xanxus?" Tsuna asked sharply while Iemitsu choked with a snake around his windpipe before casting a quick glance to the side, "Mukuro, don't suffocate him. I get the feeling I'll be wanting to have words with this person."

A moment later, the snake eased its grip just enough to let Iemitsu breathe, and Xanxus couldn't dodge the question a third time when Tsuna gave him a pointed look, not even having to speak aloud. "That's Iemitsu Sawada, head of the CEDEF, which is the Vongola's external advisory group. He's your father, Tsuna."

Tsuna stilled.

Xanxus tried not to tense, or worse, relax into an assassin's ready-state. Thing about the brat was, even when he wasn't physically moving, his Flames were. Even when he wasn't actively using them, they shifted around him like ocean currents, like wind in the sky, a constant flowing motion.

And for that instant, even his Flames were still, and Xanxus was suddenly and sharply reminded of the unnerving dead-air that preceded a hurricane.

Then they were moving again, a deceptively languid curl that reminded Xanxus of nothing more than a lazing dragon debating whether or not you needed a good bat across the clearing—and the fact that he'd actually seen that remained surreal—and he shivered.

There was a fucking reason this tiny little fluffy brat was his Sky, and it had a whole hell of a lot to do with that hidden power.

x

Tsuna wasn't quite sure how he felt. He could tell he was making Xanxus nervous, though (it stung for an instant before he realized why, but Xanxus was his and had nothing to fear from him, would never have anything to fear from him, he would fight to the death to keep his own safe), but the nervousness was that of someone out of their depth, not afraid.

This tall blond man was his father. And, yes… he could see the match to pictures left on dresser-tops, an old postcard visibly photoshopped with penguins and this man with a pickaxe.

He'd honestly thought the man dead. If he'd ever called, it was when Tsuna hadn't been home, and years before his mother had said that Iemitsu had gone off to 'become a star'. He'd assumed dead, because he'd not seen or heard from that man since.

To find out he was not only alive, but part of the mafia he'd been dragged into (he didn't regret it, not with so many of his own already having been hopelessly entangled, but some warning and an explanation would have been nice), that rather than having lost his father he'd been abandoned by the man…

As if the sealing hadn't been bad enough.

He didn't particularly mind for his own sake, if he were honest. He didn't need a father, though he resented that he could have had one if only he'd been a better man. His mother, though… some nights he'd heard her crying over her missing husband, but the one time he'd gone to her she'd wiped away her tears, pasted on a fake smile, and told him not to worry. (Her smile had been fake the next day, too, and he didn't do it again. When she had her nighttime cries, she looked a little tired in the mornings, but at least her smiles were real, and even if she wasn't the best mother, she tried and he loved her. Listening to her tears on those nights was a lot like torture.)

He didn't need a father, but his mother had needed a husband, and this man had failed in that not only horribly but completely and Tsuna felt the first stirrings of true fury. He'd been angered when this stranger had begun to accuse his Wrath of something yet unnamed, but to find out this stranger was the same one that had asked the Nono to seal him and then abandoned his family—it wasn't the chill the anger had been. No, this was a hot-cold spark like the Vindice's Flames, an all-encompassing rage that was equal parts blizzard and bonfire.

(Hands on his shoulders, broad and hot, smaller hands on his chest as Skull twisted around to grab the front of his shirt. The wild-edged blaze of Gokudera's Storm rising to match his own Sky's bite even as the green-eyed teen's arm moved to press against his own shoulder. Mukuro's Mist curling through the hall, cool and calculating. Xanxus' Wrath, roiling almost as badly as the first time he'd met the man.)

He snapped back to himself, reigning in his emotions by sheer force of will even as Reborn and Fon blurred to his side, hasty footsteps and familiar presences not so far behind them.

(Reborn growled in disgust as he saw the problem, and Tsuna fought back an entirely inappropriate giggle.)

Behind him, Squalo's phone rang as the rest of his own joined in glaring at Iemitsu, and Tsuna could all but feel most of Xanxus' and a stranger doing so as well while Squalo answered his phone with an irritated bark of "What?"

His attention switched to the new presence when an Arcobaleno he didn't know (clear pacifier with threads of grey, not the Vindice's black hate but more broken, and what had happened to cause such a thing?) stalked up beside the two of his on the ground, clearly a little surprised by the Flames sparking off Reborn's hands and flickering up to Fon's shoulders but setting it aside to snarl at the tall blond.

"Iemitsu, you moron! What have you done this time, that you're antagonizing the Decimo? I don't care if he's your son, you need to show some propriety in Vongola halls at least!"

Tsuna answered for the still snake-bound man, cutting off his attempt to do so himself, "He came around the corner and immediately began to accuse my Wrath of something—I did not allow him to finish the sentence, but it sounded like he believed Xanxus to be manipulating me somehow. I did not allow the Ninth's Guardians to make such an assumption in my presence, and I will not allow this… stranger to do so either. Xanxus has informed me that he is my father. I will deny this now: he may be my mother's husband and my own gene-donor, but I have neither seen nor heard from him in eight years. He clearly married my mother under false pretenses and has lied to her so much that she doesn't even know who he is—this man is no family of mine."

Xanxus whistled, low and impressed. The blond gaped, "Tuna-fishy-!"

Tsuna didn't even have to say anything; the snake around the man's neck tightened its coils once to choke off the sentence before loosening enough to let him breathe with difficulty.

Reborn immediately dismissed the snake-bound man entirely, instead turning his attention on Tsuna and giving a quick introduction, "Tsuna, this is Lal Mirch. She's also part of the CEDEF, but far more competent than the moron over there. Lal, this is Tsunayoshi, my Sky."

Lal openly gaped, and Tsuna smiled at her, "It's good to meet you, Lal-san. I'm sorry it wasn't under better circumstances."

"What the fuck? Voi, you're only telling me this now!? The fuck's the matter with you? Decimo's been staying with us—you don't let shit this important slide!"

Xanxus' head snapped around to stare at his Rain, shoulders tensing sharply.

Squalo snarled in disgust, "Once this is fucking handled, the whole damn place is getting remedial training. Shit, I don't care what it takes, track him down! If he's not dead or dying, get him in a fucking interrogation room! You don't take fucking chances with this fucking shit!" The phone snapped shut with an audible crack, the casing fracturing under the force of the Rain's grip.

"Squalo?" Xanxus demanded.

"One of the wall guards turned up missing. Damn camera on his path's shorted out, and he didn't come out the other side of the blind spot when he should have. Fucking hours ago. Something about weird tracks by the wall—they at least had the fucking sense to keep those clear and set up a shelter so we could take a look when we got back, but fuck, that kind of late report ain't funny."

Tsuna frowned, reaching out to wrap Xanxus up in his Flames again, though this time was more for the others' sakes than Xanxus', considering exactly whose Flames were hitting scalding levels.

"Traitor?" Xanxus asked, short and sharp and blazingly Wrathful.

"… I don't know, fuck, maybe. It doesn't make sense, though, Shiv's a street-rat with a stupid name, but I was sure he was fucking loyal. If the damn camera was cut on purpose, though, he might've been taken. He's still just a green trainee."

Tsuna watched as Xanxus' fists clenched, as his Flames started to spark visibly around his shoulders. "Damn it, I need to take care of that, but…" red eyes glanced towards Tsuna, clearly torn.

Tsuna sighed, "It's fine, Xanxus. We'll all go—and you know I can handle myself."

Xanxus made a sound like an unhappy cat but didn't protest and Reborn told Lal to pass on the message as Tsuna and Xanxus got the whole group moving. (Tsuna ignored the urge he had to reach out to Lal's broken Flames. There was no time, at the moment, and that grey-break was so much worse than Xanxus' guttering Wrath had been. Maybe after they settled this possible-traitor, possible-kidnap.)

Tsuna didn't realize until after they were halfway back to the Varia Mansion that he'd never asked Mukuro to dismiss the snakes. He smirked quietly, not feeling even a little bit guilty. They had more important things to worry about than how an idiot got away from a bunch of venomous snakes.

(Sooner or later, they'd figure out those snakes weren't illusions, and Tsuna was slightly sorry he'd miss it.)

xxxx