xXx

What way was he supposed to go again?

Two streets down from the sushi restaurant turn right. A left as soon as he as he saw a black cat with three white paws and a crooked whisker crossing the street. Right down the seedy alleyway. And then turn again at the corner with the funny little bush that looked like an expressionist sculpture of a star. Or was that a left? No - he had to be going the right way because there was that piece of gum plastered on the floor exactly three inches south east of the orange fire-hydrant his friend talked about which meant all he had to do now was walk down the street fifteen more paces and the he would be...

"So this is Giotto's old neighborhood."

Finally. G had probably circle around this place a dozen times before he finally found it, though he suppose that was what he got for calling Knuckle of all people up for directions. Not that the priest didn't know the way; he had made it to the neighborhood after all. But it was the way Knuckle 'knew' that was the problem: by remembering every 'extreme' detail - from pieces of gum on the ground to stray cat roaming rotations - besides the goddamn address. And seriously, while G liked cats, cats should never be used as directional landmarks.

Unfortunately that was what G had to settle for since it slipped his mind to ask Giotto before his friend boarded the second commercial flight after G's over and was thus out of contact. Asari would have been the next best option, having lived in Japan with Giotto, but asking him was out of the question as well by virtue of him being on the same flight as the man, which left G two choices: Ask Alaude, who knew through extensive background check, or Knuckle, who'd passed by on one of his missionary travels. It didn't take a genius to know that Alaude was no option at all.

Thus G was here - several cats and three hours from when he called Knuckle later. But it wasn't all bad. On the bright side of things, he'd finally lost the brat and his sister who'd been tailing him since he left the airport, and he still made it here before Giotto. Speaking of here...

G took a slow look around, surveying the street. It was a peaceful little suburb; all quiet except the chirping crickets and the low buzz of the overhanging street lights. Well maintained and barely a chip on the pavement. A simple place with near-identical houses spaced evenly down the road. And while the houses were lined by walls reaching just over G's head, flimsy iron gates barring their fronts revealed it was merely for privacy rather than protection. All-in-all, it was as plain and ordinary a neighborhood as G could imagine which was exactly why it didn't seem to fit.

"Can't say it's what I expected," he said aloud, summing up his thoughts on the matter.

Giotto always had a certain presence about him; held himself with a steady confidence that seemed to speak both old nobility and hard work. Pride and humility. A balance of contradiction in the best sort of way. And even to G who had known Giotto since his stumbling youth after his friend had moved to Italy, Giotto always came off as, not bigger, but brighter than everyone else in any given room; he seemed to have a strength that went beyond wealth and might despite. And cheesy as it might sound, this neighborhood, this town, just didn't look like the kind of place that could have given birth to such a man. Yet Giotto had been and here G was standing in front of the house that his friend once and still called home.

...Or at least what G thought was (and secretly hoped wasn't) the house that his friend once and still called home because there was this horrible, horrible noise coming from the house that took G a second to recognize as someone screaming bloody murder and that he rather not associate with his friend's old house in any context.

And it kept stretching on and on and on until, abruptly, it cut off and had G worrying that there really was a bloody murder. Rather than give in to his initial impulse of barging into the house however, he turned to an approaching jogger instead, catching the man's eye. The jogger acknowledged G with a nod and slowed down to a stop before him, looking a little tired and sweaty but otherwise unconcerned for all that it sounded like a homicide just transpired.

"This is the Sawada residence, right?" asked G just to be sure, all the while trying to remember the jogger's name. G vaguely recognized him as one of the covert agents Giotto sent over to watch over his brother and mother and the man's name was on the tip of G's tongue. Something that ended with an "O"? He mentally ran down the alphabet to see if he could ring any bells.

"It is, sir," replied the agent nonplussed.

Which peeved G just a bit - because sir? It was like G was goddamn military or master. And old. Which he wasn't no matter what his pissant of a little brother said. Twenty-four was a perfectly respectable, young age to be. And with the average life expectancy in developed countries getting closer to somewhere upward from eighty, he still had about three-fourths of his life to go which still left G plenty of time to arrange his affairs and do whatever kids nowadays liked to do.

Well, whatever people his age liked to do these days, he meant.

"Cut the 'sir' and tell me what the fuck was that?" said G jerking a thumb back at the house; 'that' being what was quite possibly someone's last moments on earth. "I thought someone was dying, and I was going to have to go to court for witness testimonials"

And he still had half a mind to break into the house despite that chances were the 'victim' was already dead judging from how the screaming died off. The only reason G hadn't was because common sense told him if there really was a murderer in the house who knew he'd been heard committing the deed - because who the fuck hadn't and why the hell aren't the neighbors doing anything? - and if the murderer was even a little bit professional about killing, then he would be waiting for someone like G to do just that, weapon at ready. Which left G to do one of two things: go in with back up, preferably the agent, or ambush the murderer as he was getting out. And seeing as the agent still didn't look the slightest bit worried, G would have to make do with the latter, interrogating the agent while he waited the perp out.

"It's a usual occurrence," said the agent.

"That's a usual occurrence," G repeated slowly, tone drier than a desert. Then living here must be like living next to the main characters of The Ring and The Stepfather.

The agent elaborated. "It's been like this since I was first sent out here three months ago, but the neighbors say it's been going on for even longer. About two years according to them."

G mulled that bit of information over in his head. Two years? That that put it suspiciously close to the time Giotto decided to stop visiting Namimori altogether, around the same period when things in the criminal underworld started heating up.

It was a response to what was perceived back then as a rare moment of weakness for the all-powerful Vongola Family. Vongola Nono, Timoteo, was getting along in age and, if the rumors were true, the newly chosen head was conversely, absurdly young. Younger perhaps than even Giotto and himself. And seeing as no one had even heard of who the current Decimo was unlike the Nono's four sons and the fact that the Decimo was only selected after the death of the three former candidates and the disqualification of the fourth - for famiglia politic reasons G couldn't make heads or tails of - it would figure that the Decimo was either the most conniving heir to his position to date, or the most under trained and unsuited sack of shit ever which would mean the Vongola's leader-focused power base was as vulnerable as it would ever be.

Nowadays, most organizations (law, criminal, or otherwise), know it's the former case, but back then it was blood in the water and it had every mafia famiglia not allied (and a few that were) with the Vongola jumping on the opportunity.

Not long after the third candidate had died and the current Decimo was chosen, gang wars started breaking out everywhere in Italy: from the parks to the embassies; civilian casualties numbered in the hundreds. And incidents that the mafia was usually so good at cover up as gas leakages and accidents were popping up left and right on every other news station. and with grudges running rampant and some members of the mafia going as far to chase one man and his family down all the way to the other side of the world in at least one case, it simply seemed unwise for anyone in their band of vigilantes to return to their respective homes until the heat died down.

Which they did somewhat. It was enough that leaving behind Alaude - who was already formidable on his own - and his division of the police force, that hadn't been bought out by the mafia, could deal with the issues plaguing Italy, leaving the rest of them to focus their effort on their latest problem: the Vongola Decimo himself. The man who'd apparently made his headquarters in Namimori and whose presence here made these 'usual occurrences' all the more suspect.

G pinned the agent across from him a glare. "And you didn't see fit to include these incidents in your reports?" At least G hadn't seen any mentions of them when he done his own brief look over the reports.

Here the agent finally fidgeted, starting to get a clue. "Well..." He trailed off, looking the most consternated G had seen him since they'd first heard the screaming. "That is to say-" The agent started again only to cut himself off with a shake of his head, shifting his weight from foot to foot like a guilty child. "Well before boss sent me off, he said his brother was prone to these- these fits of sorts. That Tsunayoshi had a very weak constitution for certain situations and such."

In other words, Giotto's little brother was a pussy-footed wuss. G had forgotten that particular detail despite Giotto mentioning it to him several times before. Although his friend usually phrased it as "easily startled". But G never could get the image to stick in head. Everytime G envisioned Tsuna, especially after Giotto showed off his childhood photos, he'd always see a miniature Giotto instead.

"I figured this was an extension of that. And no one coming out from the hous ever seemed seriously harmed after the incidents," said the agent seeming to become steadily more confident in his decision as he went on. "Although, I believe Tsunayoshi does show up home injured on more than one occasion. But they're mostly minor injuries, and I've been led to believe they're the results of bullying at school or his own lack of coordination."

Which sounded reasonable. Normal, even. A breath of fresh air from all the mafia killings and 'accidents'. Perhaps being involved with the crime scene in Italy all the time was beginning to grate on G more than the thought. He was just being too paranoid for his own good. After all, the mafia could hardly be blamed for every accident or unfortunate event that happened. Just most most of them. G nodded. "Fine. I'll take your word for it. Any other odd 'occurrences' you'd like to tell me about that you haven't already reported to that bastard Alaude?"

The agent returned to his earlier impassive disposition. "Some old reports that were recently dug up by the Namimori police to aid in the search for the Decimo. They say a local yakuza gang, Momokyokai, was wiped out in under a day a over a year and a half ago without police intervention or rival gangs claiming credit. It coincides with the visitation of the Chiavarone Boss."

Which fit the timeline of when the Decimo should have been chosen and based in Namimori. "And they're thinking it was joint effort by the Vongola and the Chiavarone?" asked G. It figured that a mafia leader meet-and-greet would involve the takedown of a small-time, fellow criminal organization to make more space for their turf.

"Witnesses claimed to have seen a dashing man with a whip, two boys in school uniform, and one boy in nothing but his boxers walking away from the scene of the crime which the local enforcement chose not to believe at the time."

G could see why he didn't know any better, that sounded like the makings of a cheap, black-bar video to him. But he did know better, and while he wasn't sure what the three boys had to do with anything, the man with the whip did vaguely match the description of the infamous Bucking-Horse Dino - because who else carried out a whip for a weapon in this day and age?

"Although," said the agent continuing on, "to the police's credit, the locals have taken to making quite a few outlandish claims as of late. Something about killer infants and a kid who split apart the school grounds with nothing except his bare hands."

"Probably some mafia propaganda," scoffed G, pegging it as another criminal underworld quirk. He swore, there must be some competition among the mafioso to see he who could get off the hook with the most ridiculous alibi ever just to fuck with the police. Killer babies coercing people to commit their crimes was a particularly popular one these days. And then there was that strange trend involving Giotto and his brother.

G couldn't even keep count the number of times Alaude dragged in a guy for interrogation over the Vongola Decimo's identity, only for them to insist it was Giotto's brother of all people even after spending one whole hour with the detective (when most people cracked in one minute). Which G knew for a fact was impossible because not only was the kid still in high school, but Giotto and his damnable Intuition of his would know if his own kid brother was the ultimate, bottom-feeding scum of the underworld. And from what G heard, the kid was a complete wimp. And what respectable mafia famiglia - not to mention the most respectable mafia famiglia - would have a wimpy, sixteen year old kid as their leader unless he was their last resort?

None. Except maybe the Shimon because after what happened to the intended head, Enma really was the last resort.

Though G had to give the mafia credit where credit was due. They were a loyal bunch when it called for it because it took nothing short of utter-devotion or extreme brain damage to outright lie to Alaude like that. On second thought, Alaude was the one who brought them all in in the first place so maybe brain damage wasn't entirely out of the question.

"Is that all?" asked G.

The agent nodded. "Yes. Detective Alaude was very thorough with his questioning."

"Then you can get the hell out of here. I'll be taking over watch," said G, shooing the agent away and turning back to the house. "Rest up and help Amedea with surveillance over the school tomorrow."

"On it, si- G-san." Then the agent, whose name G still couldn't remember, was jogging off.

All too soon G found himself standing alone at the door of Giotto's home. G subconsciously ran a hand over his shirt and brushed at his what laid behind Door Number One? A man with a hatchet? A baby with a gun? G rung the doorbell and knocked tentatively, unsure of what to expect after the bout of screaming. It couldn't be too bad. It was just Giotto's mother and little brother in the house with maybe a few eccentric friends. Not like the Nono's top assassin, Reborn, was here.

G stifled a sigh of relief when he heard a perfectly normal sounding woman call out: "Tsuna, would you do me a favor and get the door?"

"On my way, mom!" replied a boy who G could only assume was Giotto's little brother. There was the pounding of feet on the floor as someone went down the stairs, a dull thud followed by an 'Umph' as said person presumably tripped on the floor, and finally locks were being clicked open and the door pulled away.

A bush of brown hair greeted G. "Hello, umm-" The kid lifted up his head from where it defaulted at G's chest level to up at him straight in the face. "Goku-?" The kid's face momentarily scrunched up in confusion, brows furrowed. "No, er, wait. That can't be right. Who are you?" Eloquent. The complete opposite of the ever well spoken Giotto.

"I'm taking it that you're Giotto's kid brother," said G instead of answering immediately. He looked the boy up and down, already picking apart the differences between him and his brother.

"Y-yeah." The boy nodded, shying away from G's critical examination. "My name's Sawada Tsunayoshi. But you probably knew that since you know Giotto-nii."

"G," he returned absently, still looking the other over, "one of Giotto's friends." Brown hair, brown eyes, and still a bit of baby fat around the face that Giotto himself had already lost at that age. Took more after their mother while Giotto bore a closer resemblance to their father. And maybe the same slight build, but none of the posture. A shade of Giotto's own confidence that kept Tsuna's back straight, but definitely not the mini-Giotto G had imagined, and he couldn't help voicing his observations outloud. "Heh. Besides the hair, you look nothing like him."

"Yeah, I get that a lot," said Tsuna almost casually. However, G didn't miss the ways his eyes blanked a little and his tone turned absent as if he'd heard as much a dozen times before. A common comparison then. And looking at how Tsuna's chin subtly tucked towards his chest and his back hunched, losing the shade of confidence, G couldn't help but feel like he'd kicked a puppy. Or a kitten - because screw Asari and his puppies, kittens were obviously superior.

"Not that's there's anything wrong with that!" G rushed to reassure Tsuna. The last thing he needed was Giotto to be on his case for upsetting his precious, little brother. Plus, Tsuna did seem like a nice enough kid. G coughed into his fist before regaining his composure. "I mean Giotto brags about you all the time." Specifically about how fast Tsuna could run when being chased down by a chihuahua which wasn't exactly something G would like to brag about himself, but it still had to count for something, right?

However, Tsuna's expression seemed to say, 'No, it didn't and his eyebrows furrowed in doubt.

So G pressed on. "Yeah, he goes on and on about how good of a runner you are when you put your mind to it and-"

And this wasn't going to work because there really wasn't much that even Giotto had been able to compliment his brother on and G was never good at laying it thick which called for a quick change of tactics on his part "-and, well, it doesn't really matter what Giotto says when he talks about you. Just know that if anyone does say there is something wrong, you can always come to me to deal with it because Giotto's little brother is my little brother," declared G which finally got a smile out of Tsuna.

"Er-Thanks. I'll keep that in mind, G-san."

"And just call me G. I said we're brothers, right?"

Before Tsuna could respond, G found himself being roughly pulled away from the doorway and shoved back towards the streets. What the hell? An enemy? Caught off guard, G stumbled a few steps backwards before he regaining his balance and pulled out his gun. Only to put it down the next second when he saw who it was, a boy with gray hair and several sticks of dynamite fisted in each hand. It seemed G's real and infinitely more annoying little brother had finally made his appearance.

"Oi, you old bastard! What the hell do you think you're doing here?" asked Gokudera as he position himself under the door frame and between G and Tsuna.

Damn it. G thought he'd managed to ditch the annoyance after turning right at the fourth cat. How the hell had the brat found him so fast? "Che, I could ask the same thing of you," said G, crossing his arms and relaxing his grip on his gun, a contrast to Gokudera's open aggression.

"Gokudera-kun!" cried Tsuna attempting to intervene and step around the other boy.

But Gokudera only shook his head and extended an arm to keep Tsuna back in the house and behind him. "Stay away from him, Tenth! He's a filthy cop, and he's here to arrest you!"

Tsuna froze. "A c-c-cop?!" A beat passed by. "Arrest me?!"

It didn't take long for G to figure out Tsuna and his brat of a brother already knew each other somehow. But it did take G a second for him to process what Gokudera just said. "Wait. Let me get this straight." G held up a hand and used the other to pinch at the bridge of his nose to help ease the incoming headache. He directed his gaze over Gokudera's shoulder to look straight at Tsuna and asked, "You're Tenth?"

Tsuna's eye jerked nervously to the side. "Um-"

"You don't have to answer anything, Tenth," said Gokudera butting in again and pretty much answering G's question for him. "There's no reasoning with cops anyways. All they do is twist your words so they can use them against you in court. Every single one of them is just a power-hungry bastard that gets off oppressing people and pretend they're doing them some good!"

How was G related to this brat again?

Several long seconds of silence followed that pronouncement in which Gokudera kept glaring threateningly at G, G continued to wonder how they were related, and Tsuna looked about as ready to bolt as he had when G had first whipped out his gun. It was Tsuna though that finally took it upon himself to break the silence.

"But Gokudera-kun, couldn't you say almost the same exact thing about the mafia?"

"T-That's different! At least the mafia don't act as if-" began Gokudera.

But G cut off his brother. "Stop trying to brainwash Giotto's little brother with your deluded perception of the mafia. He's not falling for it anyways," said G, noticing the way Tsuna had started backing away from Gokudera as soon as he started ranting about the cops. Or perhaps that was the effect of Gokudera waving his bombs around as his speech got more vehement? G sighed. "Seriously, you and Bianchi. I thought Bianchi was bad enough with her obsession with Reborn, but now you're nicknaming your friends after the Vongola Decimo?"

Gokudera looked about ready to blow a gasket." But Tenth really is-!"

"Nobody!" Tsuna interjected this time, somehow managing to ease out of the door and around Gokudera.

"I wouldn't say you're nobody," said G. "But here I was worried that my brother here was talking about the Vongola Decimo the the whole time whenever he talked about the Tenth. Since he'd never shut up about the 'greatness' of the Decimo back at home, I'd always figured his 'boss' the 'Tenth' person the same guy." G let out a chuckle, and felt a tension he hadn't known he'd had lift off his shoulders. "It's good to know that wasn't the case."

Tsuna stared at him, looking a cross between terrified and a little confused.

"I forgot. You don't know who the Vongola Decimo is do you, Tsuna?"

Again, the shift eyed look. Poor guy really was a nervous kid." Um, no, kinda?"

"Well, Giotto didn't want me telling you but I suppose there's no helping it since you know this idiota," said G nodding towards Gokudera and ignoring his brother's warning growl. "Better I tell you a little bit than you having this one misinform you of the dangers. At least this way you know what to look out for."

Gokudera took a step forward, looking as if he was either going say something cutting or blow someone up, but Tsuna caught his arm, giving an almost imperceptible shake of his head. Which worked, much to G's surprise. For as long as he knew his brother, he'd always been a brat who never took kindly to orders from anyone - at least not since he stopped doing piano recitals for their father -, started fights left and right, and was a general pain in the ass with a love for the mafia. But here Gokudera was, going along with a kid who clearly couldn't fight and probably knew next to nothing about the criminal underworld. Perhaps there was more Tsuna that met the eye. G tucked the thought away for later.

"First off, you have to know who the Vongola are," explained G. "The Vongola are a mafia family - a powerful one at that. I might even go far as to say their the most powerful. Politicians, big business, police, you name it, they've got their hooks in everything. Almost everyone worth buying out, the Vongola have bought out. And if they couldn't couldn't be bought out, they're blackmailed."

"I could have told him as much," said Gokudera finally withdrawing his dynamites and settling for mulishly picking at his sleeves.

G ignored him and continued on. "And that family has recently chosen an heir, the Vongola Decimo, and word in the criminal underworld says he's made his base here in Namimori. That's where I come in in - or rather me, your brother, and our friends. We're here to catch him."

"Like vigilantes, right? Wait, hold on a second," said Tsuna. "What exactly makes this Decimo guy a bad person anyways?"

It was good that Tsuna was trying to look for the best in people but G would have to dispel his illusions. "What sort of mafia boss is a good guy?" asked G in turn. "Especially considering this is the same man who'd willingly employed that monster, Rokudo Mukuro." Then he remembered Tsuna might not know who Mukuro was and explained, "He's a notorious criminal in the underworld who's committed crimes considered too atrocious to consider even amongst the mafia - murdering his entire famiglia being the least of them. Not to mention all the other crimes the Decimo committed personally."

"And, hypothetically speaking, what would you do if you caught the Vongola Decimo?"

G's response was immediate. "I'd castrate the bastard of course. Then crush all the the bones in his hands one by one and feed them to the dogs." When he heard Tsuna choke though, he tried to tone it down. "Well maybe not castrate him, but we can't exactly throw him in jail. As I said before, the Vongola practically own everything. So really the only choices we have are to-"

Gokudera apparently had enough and dynamites fuses were lit. "You're going senile if you think I'm going to just stand here and tolerate you speaking about the boss that way!"

"Stop, Gokudera-kun!"

"B-but, Tenth!" Despite Gokudera's protest the fuses went out.

At that, G couldn't help but let out another chuckle.

"What the hell are you laughing at, you fucking geezer?!"

G waved his brother off. "Nothing, nothing. It's just you two reminded me of Giotto and me when we were your age. Although more often than not it was me stopping Tsuna's brother from going overboard." Whenever Giotto wanted to rush in and stop an armed robbery bare-handed. Whenever Giotto went out hunting for mobsters. "But really, I have to thank you, Tsuna."

"Eh? What for?"

"For looking over this troublesome little brother of mine and keeping him out of the wrong crowd. For a while now, I'd thought he'd come to Japan looking to join the Decimo but instead he met you, the 'Tenth'."

"I-It's nothing," said Tsuna. Unknown to G however, he was thinking: But G, I'm the wrong crowd you're worried about!