Chapter 3

The second fight goes rather well, which is to say: Lambo doesn't die. Sasagawa-sempai hadn't died either. Maybe, just maybe, it will be okay.

But Natsu can't help but stare at the man desperate for the boy's approval, and remember when she was like that, and remember that she's never changed.

Or hasn't she?

In any case, it doesn't matter, because the sky ring is gone. Natsu catches herself missing its weight around her neck, and shakes herself. She's glad it's gone. She doesn't want to be Boss.

But they have to win. They have to win, or die.

Still- stomping on a five-year-old? Even no-good-Natsu can't help but think so uncool.

.0.

Even though he's faintly aware of how incredibly lame it is, Xanxus turns up to Levi's battle anyway, not that the trash has the guts to lose.

Natsumi interferes and saves the brat from being killed by Levi, and looks- so different. But it doesn't matter that she can use the flame. It can't stand up to his. Nevertheless…

"Natsumi…" he says, and her trash hangers-on erupt with indignation, which they both ignore. "What's with that look? Don't say that you think you can take the position of boss away from me."

"I never," she says. She's still holding the little brat, face defiant. Fool. "I never wanted to be boss! I- I just- I just don't want my friends to die!"

Anger surges through Xanxus familiar and life-giving as blood. Of course the stupid girl never wanted to be boss, and of course she then got it handed to her on a silver platter. She doesn't deserve it. She doesn't even want it. He should be the one, and yet he isn't. Isn't.

The cervello bitch barely merits attention. But her fatal intervention checks him. He'll crush them. Make examples. No one will dare ever challenge him again.

He feels a smile stretch his face, and, like the Varia, Natsumi's breath catches because that smile always precedes some vicious victory of his. It can't bode well for her, and it doesn't usually bode well for them.

"You- really haven't changed, Natsumi." He smiles again. Gasp. Shock. Awe. He's never told the Varia about his little 'cousin' (his little pet), and she's clearly never said a word to her 'friends' about the time she lived in Italy. This reference to their history shakes her, as they had both been perfectly happy to pretend it never happened- at least, in front of the peanut gallery. Natsumi turns eyes like headlamps on him, wondering what he's going to say. "You're still so stupid and weak."

Before they can decipher that comment, Xanxus throws another bombshell. "Is this how you act towards someone who saved your life?"

The Varia nearly riot at the idea that Xanxus would ever lift a finger for anyone but himself. The stupid trash do riot over the idea that their precious angel Natsu might ever owe anything to that bastard. Natsumi trembles. He knew perfectly well how she'd felt about him, and why. Their gazes lock. If Natsumi is the girl he knows she is, she'll concentrate on what she owes him- won't consider that it was more than paid with what he did to her four years ago.

"Really?" says an unwelcome voice. "But didn't you say then that she would never have been in danger if it wasn't for you?" Iemitsu. Now he chooses to speak up? Also, one would think the Outside Adviser would be smart enough to have worked out that Xanxus chose to make himself look good against his fucking cousins.

Taunting Iemitsu distracts him from the warmth of the ring, half of which had been fished out of Natsumi's shirt, where she'd worn it against skin. Is it still smooth and- no. The ring. The ring is all that matters.

The next match-up is announced, and Xanxus fires one last parting shot before he turns to go. "I'll destroy everything that's precious to you," he tells her, cold, cruel. And, sweetly, so sweetly it could not have been anything other than poison, "Natsu-chan."

.0.

Natsu can't stop trembling. Lambo was so badly injured, and Gokudera-kun is next up against those horrible monsters.

And eventually she'll have to face the most horrible monster of them all. She knows Xanxus, knows his moods and preferences, knows his capabilities. She saw that Cervello woman die with an offhand hit, held Lambo's small body in her arms and felt how close to death he was. But Xanxus saved her, all those years ago, and has he really changed so much that he'll lift his hand against her? But- he will. She knows it. If he gets his way, her and all her friends and family will die.

That can't happen. She can't allow that to happen.

The Vongola have no use for the type of boss who would leave a subordinate to die.

Natsumi doesn't want to be that type of person either. She's only recently gained these friends, she doesn't want to lose them.

"Reborn," she whispers, and her teacher stops but doesn't look back.

"I…"

"I can't hear you," says Reborn almost idly.

Natsu lifts her head. "I want to become stronger!"

Reborn smiles, soft and secret, and he says, "It's only going to get harder from now."

.0.

Storm battle aftermath, and Xanxus is tense, nerves twanging off the air like too-taut strings. It shouldn't be like this. He has the ring, at last, at last. His real birthright is close, even with Lus's humiliating loss to Natsumi's boxer.

Even with the Arcobaleno on her side. (Even with the distant cast of her face topped by the flame and the gloves on her small hands, so unlike her that Xanxus almost wants to laugh.)

It doesn't escape his notice that all of her guardians are men, and he wonders that they will stand to have her above them- weak as she is, and not just because she's a woman. Girl.

Squalo, predictably, brings it up, 'celebrating' the 'retrieval' of the sky ring and the storm ring, drunk on the Varia's dollar and Xanxus's largesse.

"Stupid little bitch," he says, grinning sharply. "Bet she whores around with the lot of them, that's why they're so happy to let a woman be their bo- " CRASH. Xanxus's glass is still full, so there goes the table. And hey, there's always some suck-up to get him another goddamn glass. SMASH.

"VOOOIIII, WHAT THE FUCK-"

Flame. Xanxus narrows his eyes over the glowing hand. "Shut. Up."

"If you don't like to hear us talk while you're drinking, fucking go DRINK SOMEWHERE ELSE, VOOIII!" caterwauls Squalo, and Xanxus does.

.0.

There is such a thing as hate at first sight. It's Rokudo Mukuro bending over Natsumi's hand, holding her gaze and whispering dark promises of takeovers. It's that mist bastard having the audacity to try and warn Xanxus away, like a convict failure has any right at all to speak to him. Or to her.

All the same, Reborn's voice carries over to the Varia contingent when Natsumi still stares at the girl who replaces Mukuro with eyes open as a wound.

"Don't forget what he's done to you."

Natsumi's gaze lifts and fastens on Xanxus's glare, and Xanxus feels it again, that feeling of being frozen alive, burning worse than any fire you can imagine. He rips his eyes from hers. Where is her hate, her resolution? Just because he was nice to her a time or two, she thinks he's some nice guy?

Natsumi will never forget what he's going to do to her with the Mosca next to him. Maybe this time she'll even fucking learn.

-tbc-