Author's Note: I lied about the meeting being this chapter. I have so many plot holes, it's not even funny. This feels more like a rough draft (the whole story) and if I ever find that I want to fix it up in the future, I may. And I'm flattered by all the reviews-- I never thought people would like this crossover that much. And... I took (mostly) everyone's advice with the whole 'new speaker, new paragraph' thing. But, my goodness, ladies and gents! I can read a suggestion once and remember to fix it, no need to remind me multiple times~ Mayhaps I get some 'fanart' underway for this when time presents itself. School is loading me down with lots of work. On the other hand English class is teaching me how to structure better sentences. -Happy.- I'll get around to 'editing' the first two chapters when I have time. Thanks for all the reviews/alerts/favorites!
"Haruhi!" the twins exclaimed as soon as she pushed open the doors to the third music room, a devilish looking man in tow.
H-hey! Who's that?! Tamaki glowered at the smug grin the young man had as he went into a half-hearted 'father' mode. "Romario-san!" the blonde cried, hoping he would take care of the man.
The called for man indifferently said to Tamaki, "Relax, Suou-san, that's just Rainero; he is your friend Haruhi's assigned protection." With a charming grin he pushed Haruhi forward gently and ushered her into the room before closing the door.
Rainero sported a smirk like no other, eyeing Tamaki with a challenge with his next course of action. "Someone could take you out from behind, and that wouldn't be nice of me to let that happen to a cute little lady like you," he almost purred to Haruhi. Romario sighed at the moves the new recruit was putting on.
"Thank you, Rainero-san." Haruhi blankly thanked him and marched forward to be embraced in a smothering group hug consisting of Kaoru, Hikaru, and Tamaki.
"Haruhi, you're safe!" The three all cried in their own special way for her protection, and in unison they glowered darkly at Rainero. "No way he's the one," Hikaru scoffed, pulling Haruhi closer to himself. "Oi, 'Rainero', was it? Don't you dare touch a hair on Haruhi's head," Kaoru warned, causing Hikaru to look at him when he pulled Haruhi closer to himself. Tamaki was left out of all of this and instead turned on his charm.
"Rainero, yes? Allow me to introduce myself," Tamaki said politely. He made his way out of the group hug and stood before Rainero. From behind Tamaki, Romario gave Rainero a perplexed look of confusion; he also had no idea why the teens were such a whirl of oddities. "Yeah, Rainero's my name," the young man smirked, arching a brow at how Tamaki now offered out his hand in a greeting to shake.
A snicker was evident in Rainero's throat as he swiftly took the outstretched hand and shook it-- a typical Western greeting. "I'm Haruhi's father~" Tamaki sang, starting to shake Rainero's hand with a faster pace.
"Really? I don't see the resemblance," the Italian related with a sarcasm that had even Duilio, who had been talking with Romario, reeling his head over to watch.
"Well, I am," Tamaki's smile was still charming as ever, but to the trained eye, it was put on out of polite manners. The half-French, half-Japanese teen tightened his grip on Rainero's hand and shook harder. Kyouya did not join the group with their blank on looking of the obviously domination-related handshake, instead opting to type away at the laptop on the small, round table in front of him.
Duilio muttered under his breath, ignoring the placid look Romario sent his way. "That kid really needs to learn some manners," he rolled his eyes from behind their shaded frames and turned away to stand in a corner to handle a private call. Romario sighed then cleared his throat to gain the now furiously hand-shaking men's attention.
"Got somethin' in your throat, anziano?" Rainero unexpectedly released his grasp on Tamaki's hand, the blonde face planting from the force he was still exerting afterwards. "Should I get'cha a glass of water or somethin'?" The young recruit smirked impishly at Romario's expression; it was very aware that even if he did request a glass of water he would not be getting one any time soon. "I could run down to the fancy cafeteria they've got 'ere and buy you water made of di dio tears!" His tone became overly snappish and Romario did not appreciate the gleam of malice in his dark sea blue eyes. He switched his speech into Italian to keep his meaning hidden from the others. "I bet you these kids get their asses hand wiped by lower-class peasants. Damn rich people," he scoffed.
Tamaki was recovering from his comical face fault with the help of the twins when Romario grimly frowned at Rainero. Rainero had always had a dislike for the rich, coming from a poor family in Italy that was enslaved to the mafia doing less than menial things. Dino had given him a chance to see the 'bright side' of the mafia -- a less dirty and bloody path -- but still dirty and bloody nonetheless. "Calm down, Rainero, no need to get personal."
"They don't know how good they have it! We're their fall guys if anything happens!" Rainero's devilish face started to stain with gut-wrenching hate as his smirk grew into a twisted grin. "I'm only here because Boss wanted me to have more 'experience' as a mafioso, but I bet he really just wants me to get killed in this 'mission'!" Complete with air quotes, Rainero's tone and posture grew positively tense and hostile. He glowered at everyone in the room before stuffing his hands into his pockets and letting out a childlike huff. "Now these guys are going to think I'm crazy or somethin', ha, shoutin' in a language they don't know, lookin' so mad..." His face was still twisted in an angry sneer, but he had calmed down considerably. Romario nodded to his outburst, knowing not to comment lest it urge him on even more.
The room had grown considerably quiet. All eyes were on Rainero. Duilio was busy with his cell phone in the corner of the room, but his squared shoulders gave away the fact he heard every word accusing the Cavallone boss of being just as heartless as the family that enslaved Rainero's family.
"Sorry all~ Just had a relapse." Rainero's flippant tone gained attention from everyone in the room save Duilio. "It won't happen again." With pleading eyes he looked at Romario, silently begging him not to let their boss know the implied hateful words of his. His tone, however, stayed a cocky one. "Great men have great emotions, you know," he puffed out his chest with a certain sense of pride when he noticed Haruhi staring at him with what everyone else had on their face -- shock.
The foreign, Italian men in the room consisted of only Romario, Duilio, and Rainero at the moment. Romario's assistant Tino had been sent out to scout out possible places attempts on the Ouran students' lives were the highest and Ermanno had taken the hour-long ride to Namimori to inform Dino personally of their actions thus far. Honey and Mori had yet to arrive, most likely to bring with them the last of the foreign bodyguards, the queasy Angelo.
Duilio groaned into the cell phone, unknowingly lighting Ermanno's reserved smile on the other end of the line.
"I see Rainero is handling the environment well," Ermanno hummed, his pale brown eyes darkened with his dry humor.
"He's doing great," Duilio rolled his eyes and continued on in a business-stern tone. "You've told Boss everything we've done so far, right? Tell him Rainero's doing okay while you're at it." He merely heard the light chuckle of his junior and a fading 'ah'.
Absent-mindedly fixing his sapphire cufflinks, Ermanno talked in his casual way into the blue-tooth headset. "Dino left already." His smile grew crooked at the disapproving grunt on the end of the line. "But I'll be seeing him in a few hours." After messing with his cufflinks the man did a double take in the mirror and was pleased with what he saw. "Tsuna and Hayato are waiting to follow me to the meeting place." Duilio had offered a quick 'arriverdeci' before his junior hung up.
He was still looking in the mirror, now staring into his own pale eyes barely covered by equally pale lashes. "Ah, Dino is so stupid sometimes. Kids should not be doing the jobs of adults." Ermanno's tone was jovial and kept quietly to himself. He left the Sawada bathroom with an eternal smile plastered on his face. Facade or not, it was his job to remain calm and protect not only the Ouran students but the -- as he put it – children from imminent danger. The question of whether or not he liked the work he did always ended in a bemused hum of him brushing the topic away from his mind.
Tsuna and Gokudera were idly minding themselves in the living room; Tsuna nervously looking down at his shoes while Gokudera took to staring at Tsuna.
"Ready?" Ermanno tilted his head and let his smile dwindle into a more relaxed hint of a smirk.
"It's... a briefing? Why do I have to go?! I'm not going undercover--" Tsuna was about to go into one of his incoherent babbling sessions until Ermanno pressed forward.
"You need to be there, as you are the head of the family, no?" He offered a trifle little smile to both Tsuna and then cut his eyes to Gokudera. "And you'll be attending as well." Ermanno turned on his heels and headed for the door. He set a hand on the doorknob when the door opened on its own accord and Tsuna's mother walked in.
"Oh! I'm so sorry!" Nana blinked worriedly and checked to see if the door had hit Ermanno, but the man had stepped just out of its range.
"It's fine, miss~" He shoved his hands into his pockets and walked past her casually enough. Tsuna bid farewell to his mother and hesitantly followed Ermanno out the door, Gokudera close behind.
Shifting his eyes at Ermanno's air of suavity that surrounded his casual steps, Gokudera pondered on the idea of if Ermanno actually cared about any of this at all. He had been friendly enough with Dino, and the genuine sparkle of adoration was very evident in Ermanno's eyes during the conversation with his boss. Gokudera noted how casual Ermanno had been with Dino. Not knowing if he was just being paranoid or his gut just did not settle well with Ermanno, he volunteered to sit next to Ermanno in the limo that had pulled up, keeping Tsuna away from the man.
"So," Gokudera bit out, almost holding back any suspicion he had, "how long have you been with the Cavallone family?" His pale green hues flitted over to Ermanno's impassively amused face.
"For a while now, I've known Dino since we were teenagers," Ermanno hummed delightfully and drummed his fingers along the car door's armrest.
Tsuna shifted nervously in his seat and looked from Gokudera's studious glare on Ermanno to Ermanno's bemused smile and relaxed eyes staring out the window. "Um, Ermanno-san..." Tsuna adverted his gaze quickly when Ermanno smoothly looked over to him, Gokudera still stuck in his glowering observing. "You never told us exactly why we're both going," he had muttered, but he locked gazes with Ermanno, not wanting to look more timid than he already looked. "If we aren't doing anything, why should we go?"
Gokudera quirked a brow and whisked his head to look at Tsuna. "I thought you wanted to go!" At the possibility that all of this was not necessary and his friend's whims swayed the other way, Gokudera was sure he could manage to distract Ermanno with a flash bomb and get himself and Tsuna out of the limo with little difficulty.
"Ah," Ermanno chuckled to himself. "Cute, cute~" he commented on Gokudera's brusque loyalty. Those pale brown eyes of his took in Tsuna's hesitant posture of defiance and uncertainty. Ermanno replied in a smooth enough voice, "You will instill confidence in the Ouran students that your family will do everything in their part to protect them efficiently and without fail. That is your job."
He sunk back into his seat and mirrored what he was doing in the living room before they had departed; staring at his feet. Tsuna could see Gokudera looking at him from the corner of his eyes and because of it turned his head to face out the window. Tsuna let out a small gasp as he noticed the scenery had changed from an urban Namimori to something akin to a gardened forest. If the thicket of trees framing the rugged dirt road could reflect his current feelings, Tsuna was sure they would have been constantly withering and greening again, cut down then grown back, swayed by the wind then hold ground steadily. It had not even been one day! He let out an audible groan and alerted Gokudera to his worries.
"It'll be fine, Tenth! Don't worry," Gokudera, being the kind to worry along with Tsuna whenever convenient, produced his pack of cigarettes from his pant pockets and quickly lit up inside the limo. Ermanno had reflexively pushed the button that rolled the windows down before Gokudera even had his first puff.
The lengthy car ride consisted of Ermanno humming merrily to himself while tapping his foot, Gokudera keeping his eyes wary of the mysteriously happy man, and Tsuna grimacing out the window at all the trees.
Tsuna did not do well in the silence and before he knew it had brought up the subject of Dino again. "Ermanno-san, you never told us how you actually met Dino-kun," he turned in his seat and looked past a grumpy Gokudera to meet eyes with the man.
Ermanno's humming became excited and he parted his lips to say in a dark amusement, "Amicu ca non ti duna, parendi ca non ti mpresta, fuili comu la pesta." Tsuna could have thought he saw him snort before looking back out the window. "Hayato."
Cringing at the use of his first name, said as if they had been friends for the longest of time, Gokudera answered with a bitter tone, "What?" The Italian proverb Ermanno had recited did not sit well with him either.
"The smell of smoke lingers in my lungs."
The Vongola Storm Guardian gave a harsh, 'heh' before extinguishing his cigarette in the car's ashtray and disposing it into the compartment located nearby for such things. "Do I get to do anything any time soon?" His tone was impatient and matched the fire burning in his cool eyes.
In a flippant tone that mirrored his eyes, Ermanno waved Gokudera off with a light, "Not yet."
The answer was not one Gokudera cared to hear and he showed it by sinking down into his sink and biting his tongue to keep back from cursing. After all, Tsuna did not seem to oppose the offer. It would have been in bad taste to act up now, and in such a small space that they would be in for who knows how long.
Ermanno continued his soft humming, not bothered in the least by Gokudera's now wayward glare and Tsuna's gaze that seemed to give away the fact he was contemplating on all of this.
It was not his job to care; it was only his job to do what Dino said.
End Notes: I hope this is easier to read now~!! Ahaha! Updates are going to be really slow, but I have the basic plot set up. (I may add in a few 'flashback' chapters later on to further explain the original characters' stories, but people read fanfiction only for their fandom, not original characters. I must remember this.) Ah, I think I should take it slow with how fast the story moves along. I hope the original characters aren't too intruding. And sheesh, writing for this many characters is very difficult to keep up with. Haha!
Translations:
anziano - old man
di dio - God's (if the rule in Spanish applies to Italian!)
arriverdeci - until we meet again (formal)
Amicu ca non ti duna, parendi ca non ti mpresta, fuili comu la pesta. - Friend who won't give, relatives who won't lend you a hand, avoid them like the plague.