A/N: WARNING! LONG CHAPTER !
The Varia Arc's end. After more than one year. Someone shoot me now (shot, as per usual; it's a routine thing now). It's not at humorous as usual, but the beginning and end have some. Hope nobody minds.
Chapter 11
Namimori Junior High
"We're going to drop you off near the observation area." Marmon announced loftily. "Regulations state that you can't enter, as a participant of the ring scramble. But—"
"Yes, the system's been connected to our server. No need to ask." Sabotage galore! Filai stumbled as Bel purposely screeched to an stop, almost knocking her over in the process. Fucking prince. Can't you just walk like you're NOT high for once in your life? "You're being oddly considerate today, Marmon. Did your fight with Mukuro Rokudo knock a few screws loose in your head, perchance?"
Marmon gave her a strange look. "How did you know that girl was Mukuro Rokudo?"
"I don't want to talk about it."
"You don't seem very happy."
"I suppose you can say that." YOU try chatting with a perverted psychopathic asshole in a happy, sunny place with birds and trees and flowers created by said perverted psychopathic asshole who, by the way, made it more than clear that he wants me dead despite not being my fault that I'm related to my relatives. It's as bad as it sounds, alright?
Bel and Marmon exchanged bemused looks. Bel grinned happily as Marmon shrugged. "Did the 'it' creature say something? Cause all I heard was blah, blah, blah. Ushishishi." Filai stomped on his foot. He didn't notice, and was about to make another snide comment when his voice was drowned out by another blast from the fight overhead.
Filai half gagged again as dispersed flames permeated the air. She shot the airborne pair a frown as she wiped her mouth on her sleeve. Thank god the Varia uniforms were made to be blood stain durable. Except—
"You know, the original idea was to get other people's blood on those uniforms."
Shut up.
They were somewhere near the side of the school when Filai shoved Bel and his shitty support away from her. "I'm fine here." She said as she leaned against one of the building's walls, a hand pressed against her ribcage. It was stinging again, probably close to reopening. The doctors at the hospital obviously never heard of super glue. "Go find Xanxus already. The sooner this is over, the better."
"Noble, aren't you?" Marmon said dryly as Bel happily reveled in his newfound freedom that was not supporting the weak idiot that he wasn't quite fond of.
Compared to you greedy bastard, I'm a fucking martyr. "You've kept Xanxus waiting long enough, haven't you?"
"Muu, perhaps." Marmon murmured thoughtfully, convinced. He nodded to Bel. "Let's go."
Ow, ow, ow, owww. Filai slowly sunk into a messy sitting position, still pressed unsteadily against the wall. She watched the (idiot) infant and the (idiot) prince's retreating backs, and despondently checked her injury. She couldn't see past the fabric, but the hand she was clutching the wound area with was dripping blood all over the place. I really need to wash my hands.
Moving on.
No, wait. She couldn't move on. Damn it, she couldn't even move.
A cluster of footsteps crunched through the grass. They grew louder, before stopping very close to her. "Filai?"
That voice. That oh so very sweet and nice voice. Of all the people in the world. She raised her head to find a slightly shell shocked Dino Cavellone standing in front of her.
And Superbia Squalo, who was slouching bitterly behind him, covered with as much bandages as she had seen him last with. His wrists were bound tightly to a wheelchair, guns aimed ominously at his severely patched up head. The scene just called for shameless staring.
A moment of pause. Dino was the first to speak up. "Filai, I think you're bleeding."
"Yeah, thanks for noticing." Filai waved a bloody hand at him in confirmation.
The Cavellone boss was tentative. He seemed very embarrassed. "No, I mean your nose. Not your ribs."
Filai blinked. She put a hand to her face. Oh, so she was. "Ah, well." She said muffledly, pressing back of her sleeve against her nose. "I guess sharks are better make-up artists than humans." The guns to the head don't help. Neither does the wheelchair bondage theme. I should've brought a camera. "You shouldn't be that indecently (too cute to stand) dressed, Squalo."
Squalo scowled, slouching in his seat.
"It's highly inappropriate for you to be wearing so many bandages. It's too cute. That plus the bondage and gun to the head themes are too blatant, aren't they—?"
"Ow, fuck!" Squalo ignored her, wincing slightly. "I think the stitches reopened." Being the brilliant creature he was (not), Squalo tested his statement by stretching experimentally, effectively ripping the wound wide open. "Yeah, they reopened."He confirmed ingeniously. Calmly too, as if there wasn't blood rapidly soaking his bandages, spreading in messy spirals down the length of his neck, and past the layered white fabrics that outlined shades of his collarbone, down his coat, and his shirt, and—
SPLURT. Shit. Thud.
A prolonged silence followed. Then, Dino whispered in a most horrified manner, "Damn, Squalo. I think you just killed her."
Observation Area
"Are you alright?"
Filai didn't answer for a moment, still a little sluggish, both from blood loss and from having just woken up mere seconds ago due to said blood loss. Apparently all Dino had to do was show the Cervello her dead/dying body to convince them to let her into the observation ring, so here she was sitting cross legged on the ground, neatly squashed between Squalo and Dino, in the company of brats and doctors and baby hitmen.
She tilted her head towards Dino in a small nod. "I'm fine. But..." Filai drifted off, sparing a private glance to her side.
She couldn't follow Tsuna and Xanxus' actions easily; they were too fast. But every once in a while they would slow down, just seconds at a time, maybe to plan attacks, or to anticipate them. Whatever. That then she could tell that Xanxus wasn't doing too well. He wasn't losing, per se, but he wasn't really winning either.
As much as she didn't like the idea, Filai was starting to think that maybe she should've killed Sawada Tsunayoshi when she had the chance. She was well aware that she was fractionally nicer than the rest of the Varia, and the constant (and unwanted) reminders from her dear coworkers didn't help. But between the Varia and innocent little kids, the former still won out (they were cuter).
Well, whether or not she regretted things, there wasn't much a point in moping about chances long gone completely extinct. But Filai's only seen Xanxus lose once before, and the sensation she was getting right now was rapidly gaining some melancholy feeling that made her want to throw up very badly.
And then there was Squalo.
The man in question was watching the Sky Battle silently, disturbingly rigid, except for his eye retinas that flickered after every movement, chasing the flame streaked path that their fearless leader drew through the sky.
(why couldn't they just use permanent marker when they wanted to draw? It lasts a whole lot longer)
He reminded her of something. Filai absentmindedly tapping the edge of her coffee cup, staring down at the muddy reflection. She frowned. That's...right. It'll be troublesome if Xanxus loses here.
"He's not going to lose." Squalo suddenly said.
There was some strangely solid note of faith in his lowered. Filai lowered her eyes uncertainly. So that was where the nostalgia's coming from. Because he's Xanxus.
Squalo shrugged. A tacit affirmation.
"That's...what you said eight years ago, wasn't it..."
That struck a nerve. Squalo's shoulders stiffened, real and prosthetic fists visibly clenching around the wheelchair's metal armrests. He didn't answer, and Filai was about to pull a forlorn withdrawal when he finally forced out through gritted teeth. "This time's different."
"Alright."
Squalo glanced askew at her, eyebrows arched skeptically. Or expectantly, perhaps. "That's it? No other bullshit to spit out?"
You just don't know how to take what you get, do you? Filai stifled a yawn; it'd stretch her injury too much otherwise. "Pretty much." She said mildly. "I guess I'll just believe you this time."
Then Sawada Tsunayoshi and Xanxus collided.
There was a flurry of flames. A sharp explosion rang as Xanxus and Tsunayoshi both crashed into the ground, all but splitting and crumbling and blowing up and virtually obliterating everything within a twenty meter radius.
"You best take some cover." Reborn called through the commotion, hand over his hat to keep the impact's resonating force from blowing it away.
Filai felt a certain sense of doom as waves of emitted dying will flames started blowing towards the spectator's area. Yeah, great timing to get utterly fucked up—
"Hey, you alright?" Dino kneeled down next to Filai who had suddenly assumed crouching defensive position; face buried in her knees, hands over her head, etc. It didn't hit him until the gust of flame radiation hit them. "Oh, crap. I forgot. You're—"
Deciding that spitting out a shitload of blood was NOT going to get the Cavellone off her case, Filai swallowed. Hard. God, that was nasty. She then muttered under her breath. "I'm fine. Piss off." And the guy wouldn't get out of her sight. Xanxus. She needed to see what happened.
In the center of the field, dust was still billowing thickly. Tsuna and Xanxus couldn't be seen, damn it. Xanxus. She had to see if he was alright, and—
Then the dust thinned.
A tall figure was hazily visible inside the cloud.
If she hadn't already been sitting, Filai might've just collapsed in relief. Holy crap, I'm going to murder that guy once this is over. Not that the bastard cares if he gave his subordinates a freaking heart attack. Well, all the more reason to kill him.
The field cleared out more. So did the problem.
Filai rubbed her eyes. She was hallucinating, wasn't she? That had to be it. Why does he look so angry? Is something wrong? If it's something like he wrecked his favorite pair of pants, then I'm seriously going to run him over with a bulldozer.
"Voi, don't look."
She looked at Squalo. "Pardon?"
Then all hell broke loose.
"GOD DAMN IT, WOMAN! JUST LISTEN TO ME FOR ONCE IN YOUR MISERABLE LIFE! DON'T FUCKING LOOK!" Squalo strained against his binds, ignoring Dino's alarmed demands for him to stop. Filai stared at him confusedly, and almost instinctively turned towards Xanxus. Then he became nigh hysterical with anger. "DON'T TURN AROUND! GODDAMN IT, FILAI! CAVELLONE! KNOCK HER OUT OR SOMETHING!"
"Eh? What? But..."
There was something truly desperate in Squalo's voice now. It clung and clawed, and when was the last time he had sounded like that? Just once, long time ago. She sort of knew when, actually, and she didn't want to think about it. "FUCK, I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU DO! JUST GET HER AWAY FROM THIS!"
"...yeah." Dino gently took her wrist. "Squalo's right, Filai. You shouldn't see this."
Squalo used to slaughter people right in front of me. So what's your problem?
And Xanxus was fine, wasn't he? He was fine, and standing, and...just, fine. He—
All but screamed bloody murder.
Dino and Squalo might've said something else. Really, they must've of. But Filai ignored them. She turned around.
Squalo had told her something before. Eight years ago. Something like how Xanxus was unstoppable, and how him being Xanxus just automatically made him the highest power in the entire universe. Something like that.
"Fuck." Squalo muttered strainedly. Defeatedly. "I've never seen him this angry before."
It didn't really work out in the end.
He said it again this time. He shouldn't say that kind of thing anymore. It was probably a jinxed phrase. It was jinxed, wasn't it? That was why this happened again, even though the Ninth should've been the only one who knew that technique. Even though Xanxus was freed only not so long ago. As if he hadn't lost enough of his life already.
Filai clutched at the nearest thing her hand touched. One of the metal poles on Squalo's wheelchair. Iron pole? Just what she needed. "I-I feel sick."
"Do you need to throw up?"
"W-wha? Throw up? No, I-I don't need to..." She needed to. And she did, all over Dino's shoes, in fact. She'll buy him a new pair later, if she ever remembered. He'll have to remind her. She couldn't possibly think straight enough to commit that to her long termed memory. "So...rry."
Dino didn't mind. He said so. What a nice person. She suddenly appreciated Dino infinitely more so than usual.
It's alright. Holding her breath, Filai stole another weak glance at Xanxus. It's alright. I'm just overreacting. It's just his hands. He can't evoke his flames anymore, but...but he's not trapped in...
It got worse from there.
Tsuna was standing in front of Xanxus. His expression was set determined as he lifted his gloved hands towards his opponent's shocked face.
"Tsunayoshi kun...he can't be serious..." Filai felt that perhaps crying like an absolute idiot would be appropriate, but she didn't. Crying was for absolute idiots, so she opted for staring, still like an absolute idiot, and perhaps crying might've been better. It was hard to see with crying. The tears tend to blur the vision, you know? And she didn't want to see Xanxus being frozen again, when his red eyes widened in mad hatred and anger as the unmelting ice crept up his body. Not even fear. Even now, he wasn't afraid. A fearless bastard who hated everything and destroyed everything he hated. Xanxus in a nutshell.
And he was frozen again. For god damn good.
"LET ME OUT OF THIS SHITHOLE!" Squalo struggled angrily in vain, as Dino's men looked at their boss hurriedly for help.
Dino rushed over to the raging swordsman. "Stop it, Squalo. You'll only hurt yourself at this rate!"
"FUCK YOU TO HELL! LET ME GO!"
"Filai, where are you going?"
"Out." Was the short, extremely bad moody reply as she stormed over to the laser mechanics. Before anyone could enlighten her that there were in fact, fucking lasers ready to vaporize her on contact, Filai gingerly turned them off.
Reborn was suspicious. "How did you do that? Those machines should be under Cervello control only."
And yeah, he had a right to be suspicious. Because we sabotaged the mechanics. Like hell I'm telling you that though. After stepping out of the box, Filai clicked the lasers back into place. Because modern technology was a beautiful thing to behold.
"Because I'm smart. And no, I'm not taking you with me, Squalo." She interrupted as Squalo angrily opened his mouth.
"Fuck you, that's not what I was going to say!"
"Well then, what?" She said impatiently.
He was incredulous. "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING TO DO?"
Filai winced. With all the explosions and screaming and whatnot, her hearing sensitivity was at an all time high. "Isn't it obvious?" When the look she received was a clear 'fuck no', she sighed. Idiot. "Sawada Tsunayoshi kun." She said. Simple and clear. That, and she was in a bad mood. That was all there it was to it. Filai sighed tonelessly, running a hand through her curtailed hair to smooth the bangs out of her sight. "I'm just going to go and kill him. That's all."
Too bad Dino didn't notice his own gun was missing until it was too late.
Ah, they caught up. How nice. Now that was that, Filai observed them, amusedly, or perhaps they would say malevolently. Maybe both? Well, she did, and just watched as a horrified Dino ordered his men to, quite plainly, stop her.
Or if you want a more poetic, proceed to turn her to Swiss cheese. They could do that. Bullets are quite scary.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you." Was the deadpan advice "Those equipment are pretty advanced. They sense any firearms being used inside and they'll blow you all to kingdom come. Of course, I wouldn't mind, but I left Squalo in your care, and I'm already in a very bad mood. If Squalo dies, then I'll be in something worse than a bad mood."
Of course that was a lie.
The machines only exploded if someone tried to destroy them. Idiot people, there wasn't any kind of technology in the world advanced enough to react on bullet heat from so many feet away. But it worked quite well. They lowered their guns, sporting terribly unhappy expressions, the unsportive people they were.
They say that there was a fine line between pissed beyond sane reason and plain homicidal. An invisible fine line, if she might add.
Tsuna was sitting wearily on the ground, panting heavily. He looked up weakly as Filai stopped in front of him, his brown eyes soft and doe like as ever. "F-Filai san?"
Her finger absentmindedly flickering the safety switch of the gun behind her back. On, and off. On, and off. On, and not off. "Yo, Tsunayoshi kun. Congratulations on your win. I'm impressed."
"Eh? Oh." He shot an impudently pained glance at Xanxus' frozen body not too far away from them. As if he was in a position to feel sorry for Xanxus. "You-you're not angry? I thought that..."
"What are you saying, Tsunayoshi kun? I'm very angry." Was the short response as Filai gingerly sat down next to Tsuna's fallen form. "I love Xanxus very much, after all." Then, as an afterthought "Platonically. Always platonically. Do I even have to add that anymore? Hm, I should. Just in case you get the wrong idea. I don't like it when things become unnecessarily complicated, and misunderstandings tend to do that very well."
Tsuna was starting to look cautious. "Are you sure? You're acting very strangely." He mumbled. "I feel like there's some kind of bad feeling coming from you."
How rude. "Really? What feeling? I can't tell at all, so you should tell me. It'll be like fortune telling, except, well, not fortune telling." She contemplated things puzzledly. "Did that even make any sense?"
"Oh, I'm sorry. I really don't know—"
Tsuna stopped. Dead.
"Don't get me wrong, Tsunayoshi kun." Filai leaned back, one arm propped taut against the ground. The other pointed the gun at Tsuna. "It's not that I don't like you. When you're a wimp, you're cute. When your forehead's harboring dying will flames fit to kill, then you're kind of cool. But then you decide to make Xanxus suffer even more than he already had, and then that's just-"
"I'm sorry."
"Excuse me?"
"I'm sorry. That I took your boss from you." Tsuna mumbled. There was genuine sorrow and guilt in his eyes, the kind that Filai's never really seen before outside of movies and TV dramas. "I guess I won't be able to understand why you follow him, even though he treats you so badly. But I know he meant a lot to you! And I know that...it's painful for you. I'm really sorry."
Skeptically, Filai raised an eyebrow. "You sure you're not saying this because you've got a gun pointed at you?"
His cheeks reddened, and suddenly he was just normal cute Tsuna. That kid she spent hours pounding chemical formulas and scientific facts in, verbally abusing, reducing to babbling tears; cute and sweet, being his ever so fumbling little self. Where did that barbaric thing go? The one with the ironing gloves and the burning forehead.
Filai almost lowered her gun.
"Well, I guess I'm scared of that too." He admitted, embarrassed. "But you're still my friend. I never wanted to hurt your feelings."
Filai stared at him in complete awe. "My. God. You little twit. Just how many," She raised her gun. "fucking dramas," Tsuna's eyes flashed in fear. "DO YOU WATCH," Then they eased into sad resignation. Acceptance of death, it appeared. Such a stereotypical Mafia boss trait. Pity the few who displayed it didn't live very long. "ON A DAILY BASIS?"
She pulled the trigger.
Click.
Click. Click.
Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.
Pause. "No bullets."
Another pause. Tsuna slumped in dumbstruck relief.
Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.
"Eh, Filai san." Tsuna said hesitantly, voice trembling so badly that she could hardly make out his words. "Wh-what are you doing?"
She shrugged, finger still pulling away at the empty gun's trigger. "Calming myself down" Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. "Listening to empty guns do wonders for the temper." Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click "Plus its fun." Click. Click. Click. Click. "You should try it too sometimes, if you ever get overly pissed. Just make sure the police don't catch you." Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. "I think it's illegal to hold firearms, even empty ones, around here."
Tsuna was reluctant. Then he asked. "Were you really going to kill me?"
She stopped pulling the trigger; her fingers were hurting too much. Filai didn't answer for the moment, before setting the gun down next to her. "Even a partially trained assassin can tell the weight difference between a loaded and unloaded gun." She finally said.
His eyes brightened.
Filai treated him with an exceptionally psychopathic look of amusement. "But I didn't notice it at first. I initially had full intentions of killing you." It was cute, how fast Tsuna's cheeks paled like chalk. "Sorry, Tsunayoshi kun." She was apologetic for once. Authentically so. How rare. "I showed you an ugly side of me."
"Aw, so you snapped? Too bad we missed it, Ushishishishi." Belphagor called from behind her, hobbling a little. Still had that irking stride of a noble. It must've been an innate thing; if that were the case, she was glad the rest of the family was dead. "You don't wanna go nutty and kill the Sawada brat anyways, do you?"
Filai irately fired her empty gun at him. Click. "Where's Marmon? We need to..." She glanced at Xanxus again, grimacing at the sight. What are we going to do with Xanxus?
"Melt him."
Marmon came floating into view, just being his ominous, baby self. He was holding out the six Vongola rings in his hands. "The preparations took some time." He said, floating towards the boss. "I did some research. This is the Zero point breakthrough ice." Behind him, Bel gleefully swooped the Sky ring from Tsuna's neck. The other six rings began glowing in Marmon's hands. "If I am correct, then the Vongola rings hold the capability to melt the ice."
One, Christmas came early. Two, Marmon, I love you. Fucking marry me. "So Xanxus will be alright?" Crying tears of happiness would also be appropriate in this situation. Filai opted for devising plans to forge Marmon's signature on the marriage certificates.
The rings' glows eventually spread to the ice covering Xanxus' body. Slowly, but surely, the ice began to melt. It gained speed as it spread downwards. Within a minute, Xanxus was completely unfrozen. He laid sprawled on the ground, a bloody wreck, and nonetheless alive and, good god, unfrozen.
And as much of a selfish asshole as ever.
"T-The ring." He spat hollowly, blood spilling out of his mouth with every word. "Give...it."
He's still a complete, bastard! I never thought I'd be that happy about it. Filai knelt next to him. She smiled, not cheerily but it was getting there; a little wavily too, since defying gravity properly took much practice. "Don't strain yourself, Boss." She pressed her hand against his shoulder as Xanxus painfully attempted to sit up. "Bel has it."
The prince skipped over, the Sky ring dangling precariously at the edge of one of his knives. "Here you are, Boss. Fresh from that shitty brat's scrawny little neck." Xanxus lifted his hand up, and Bel slipped the ring onto their leader's scar strewn finger.
Much glowing, and much laughter. All there was that came with inheritance of epically proportioned powers.
There was a flash of light.
And then the ring rejected him.
Filai blinked as Xanxus' blood suddenly scattered in the air.
"...Xan...xus?"
He collapsed, breath heavy and harsh, his entire body racketed with agonizing coughs that splattered blood and spittle everywhere. The Sky ring slid from his hand.
Son of a...oh shit, Xanxus? Filai didn't know what to do. The ring, why did it...? Her eyes narrowed at the blood strewn all over him. Blood. No, this wasn't cute. This wasn't cute at all.
Marmon and Bel were in similar states of shock. Behind them, Tsuna stirred feebly. "The ring rejected him." He murmured softly, straining to keep his half lidded gaze on Xanxus' torn person. "It rejected his blood."
Xanxus laughed. Hysterically. Never mind that he was tearing himself apart, or that he was giving his entire squad the fucking creeps, or that he had just been so call "rejected" by the only thing that deemed him the successor of the Vongola crime empire. He just laughed, and kept laughing like the lunatic he is until the shabby remains of his lungs nearly gave away, leaving him like fucked up waste gone wrong.
"Yeah, just as the fucking brat says." He spat, blood spraying. "I don't have the fucking Vongola blood. I have no blood relation with the senile old shit whatsoever!"
Senile old shit. As in, the 9th. He was Xanxus' father.
His father...
Something clicked. His...father. Xanxus' father.
His...adopted...father.
And then hell froze over.
Well, no it didn't. But it very might as well have.
Unlike many, Filai didn't need an improbable amount of time to register the fact. This was just it. Xanxus couldn't become boss anymore, no matter what kind of holy divinity in the world interfered. Forget the rival candidates, who he could just kill (he did). Forget Sawada Tsunayoshi and his bratty guardians, who he could also kill. Forget the tournament, which he can rig and win (well, the rig part he did quite well), and damn it even forget the ice thing, which he can apparently MELT. Which he did. Twice, apparently.
Xanxus couldn't change his blood. Never. Ever. It wasn't going to happen. It never will happen. It was just straight and flat resignation of eight entire years of being blocked in a slab of ice come to waste, and fuck, did it put a damper on the already screwed mood.
Nobody in the Varia took it very well.
Three Days Later, Namimori Hospital
Sure, just make fun of me and get it over with. Filai squirmed in her hospital bed (which was, thankfully, in a hospital this time), glaring daggers at Squalo. Of all people to visit her. I fainted. Like a bloody wimp. For three days. Alright, yes, I'm a wimp. Rub it in like the dick you are. God knows you've done it enough already.
Squalo snapped irately. "Voi, just because you're fucking embarrassed, don't go shoving it on me!"
Filai bristled, before folding her arms crossly and indignantly avoiding eye contact. "Fine." I'll let you win this time. Be grateful.
They fell into an awkward silence. Hesitantly, Filai inclined her head to take a peek at Squalo. Finally, grudgingly. "Are you...alright?"
"Of course I am. Who the fuck do you think I am?" Squalo, being his Squalo self, had already graduated from (bondage!) wheelchair to crutches. His face was still ridden with bandages, though less heavily. His right arm had healed. His left was still trapped in a cast, sword-free prosthetic hand hanging limply at the end.
Damn him and his inhumane healing speed. Filai had barely recovered from anything, not even the scratches on her face.
"That's because you were fucking running around the entire school like a lunatic." Squalo pointed out generously, as if she wasn't exactly aware of that herself. "You nearly split your rib injury halfway across your stomach! How the fuck do you expect to recover from that in three days?"
I could always hope. "Alright, so you told me everything that happened after I was unconscious." You guys set fifty Varia members on a bunch of teenagers. You ARE bastards. What's more, you FAILED. "So why are you still sticking around here? Lonely?"
"You wish." Squalo snorted at the baseless accusation, glancing askew at the lavish decoration of flowers overflowing from Filai's bedside table. He frowned as he read the tags. From Dino, from Tsuna, from Yamamoto. He grimaced at the last name, and busied himself with forcibly shoving the bad memory out of his head.
"Are you alright?"
"Are you stupid? You asked me that ten seconds ago."
"I'm not referring to your injuries this time."
Silence. Squalo uneasily slouched in his seat. His prosthetic hand busily twirled strands of his hair around his finger. "I don't get it."
"You knew that Xanxus wasn't the 9th's real son." She stated, unsure. "You could've only found it out during the Cradle Affair, right?"
"So?" Squalo spat.
Filai frowned, well aware of the darkening tone in his voice. She persisted carefully, innocuously preoccupying herself with picking at stray threads in her blanket as she did so. "You should've told me."
"Why?"
"I could've helped."
"What the hell could you have done?"
"I don't know."
"You're being an idiot."
"Was it painful?"
Squalo's shoulders shifted abruptly in a barely controlled flinch. Unsurprisingly. The only thing worse than salt on old wounds was salt on reopened old wounds. Freshly so, with the blood still spilling in cracks and places. "What are you getting at?"
"You were the only one in the Varia who knew." Filai said, picking idly on the peeling green edges of her biology book cover. Shimmery plastic dye fluttered off, coating her fingertip. "Even though it would probably hurt you more than anyone else. It's ironic. You know, Squalo. I think maybe I should become a psychologist instead."
Squalo kept his gaze down, still half heartedly. He muttered with forced disinterest. "You decided on biology when you were ten. Why'd you change your mind in, what, five minutes?"
"I'm not good with situations like these." Filai stated, shoving her book away defeatedly. It slipped and fell messily onto the floor, pages bent and smeared against white tile. "You know, Squalo. After Xanxus was frozen, you carried a very abysmal expression for a long time."
Squalo didn't answer. It didn't mean he wasn't listening though. He shifted and shuffled in his seat, uncomfortably, at all the right times.
"It kind of reminded me of the expression you always had before you met Xanxus. Only worse, because at least back then you had your convoluted ambition to go and slaughter every swordsman alive. It wasn't much, relatively speaking. But it was something. And then..."
He didn't need to hear the end. They both knew it. Then Xanxus was frozen. A sad story. Nobody wanted to finish a sad story if they knew it was coming.
Filai propped a knee, precariously balancing her chin on her palm as she studied him. "I wasn't sure what to do at that time. I thought that it'd just come to me some day, but eight years later the same thing happened again and now it did and nothing really changed. It's depressing."
"So that's why you want to be a shrink?" Was the toneless statement.
Not a career that she had ever seriously considered, truthfully enough. "I'm not a natural at comforting people." It's a byproduct of living with the most insensitive humans on Earth for almost a decade. You should try it sometime. "I can't learn it myself—"
The chair legs screeched unseemly against the tile floor as Squalo stood up abruptly. Ignoring the blank look he was receiving, he leaned over.
"What are you—" She had no way of seeing it coming.
CRACK.
He slammed his forehead against her, force full and blunt and holy shit did it hurt. It was a miracle she didn't faint again.
"There." Squalo said plainly, voice easily rising over Filai's mad stream of swearing as she painfully clutched her bleeding head. "I feel better now."
"Wha...what in the...?" Filai sputtered, in too much shock to formulate a full sentence. She opted for floundering hopelessly in place, unsure as to how to make the extent of her bewilderment fully clear. What the fuck was that?
"Stress relief." He snapped with ill placed triumph, as if his head wasn't also trickling blood fashionably down his face. "And I do not need a fucking dork of a shrink with a PhD framed in his office for stress relief."
The sheer idiocy of the statement was enough to unhinge any trace of rational that the (completely unwarranted!) head ram had failed to knock out in her mind. "Squalo, you can't dismiss years of (effeminate) moping as merely 'stress'—"
"FUCK OFF." Squalo snarled, eyes flashing dangerously, evidently pissed at god knows what as he furiously shoved a tissue in her face. A weak attempt at reconciliation, perhaps. "AND YOU ALWAYS THINK YOU'RE SMART? DON'T FUCKING MAKE ME LAUGH!"
"What does that have to do with—"
"DID YOU NEVER CONSIDER" He continued. "THE GOD DAMN POSSIBILITY THAT IF YOU WEREN'T FUCKING THERE, I'D TURN OUT EVEN WORSE?"
Filai opened her mouth, reeling for a counterargument, and realized that for once, she had absolutely no viable comeback in mind. She couldn't even think straight anymore, and she was beginning to suspect that half of it wasn't the head butt's fault.
"I don't give a shit if you quit biology." Squalo imperiously pointed a rude finger at her, the tip a threatening inch away from her nose. "But if you take psychology as your fucking major in college, I'll break your fucking neck in half."
Filai stared at him, wordlessly, for the very longest time. How strange. She was sure that her aesthetic tastes were innately confined to blood and gore and matters of the psychotic sort alone. Nothing wrong with her tastes of course, personal as they were. But why was it Squalo suddenly seemed that much more attractive than normally so? As in, less as a homicidal crackpot of an assassin and more as a...just a person; a member of the opposing gender, to be more specific. Was it the bandages? No, it wasn't the bandages. It wasn't the blood either. Funny. She's known him for nine years and she's never really noticed how handsome he was beyond those killer faces he had habits of putting up. Was her eyesight getting better or worse?
She spun away uneasily, forcibly directing her attention the blank wall on the other side of her bed. "I-I'll stick to biology." She gave in reluctantly, or was it embarrassedly? "So make sure you get hurt a lot, so I have a reason to patch you up more often. Go, I don't know, pick a fight with Xanxus or Bel every now and then. I don't want to waste my life in med school for no reason."
Squalo contemplated things.
Hey, sounded good to him. He grinned the shark grin.
Omake
Filai had accidentally smeared a copious amount of blood on her homework once before, when she was in elementary school. Filai couldn't remember if it was hers or not, but either way she had turned her homework in without noticing the stains. Consequentially, Milan obtained a new replacement staff in its social welfare's child abuse sector.
Or, more like, Filai's teacher called the police after seeing the blood. Squalo was subsequently arrested despite being wholly under aged(since technically he was the closest thing she had to a legal guardian at the time), dragged to the government offices dealing with domestic abuse, and was so rudely manhandled that he lost it. And slaughtered the entire staff. Without a sword. No, in fact, with a safety pin and three paperclips. And the receptionist's nail clipper (the guy wasn't going to need it anymore). And the lobby's fish tank, which became home to more than just fish.
Actually, Squalo took the fish. Lussuria had one less person to cook for that night.
After that incident, Filai washes her hands a lot.
A/N: First things, for anyone who wanted to see Filai's reaction to the scenes in the manga after she fainted, I apologize. But Squalo confessing that he knew everything about Xanxus' past was seriously one of the very touching scenes in the manga. And I just didn't see the point of ruining it by putting Filai at the sideline making snide comments the whole time (snide comments or just being like "holy shit holy shit holy shit the armagaddon has arrived", which isn't much better).
Second, the Future arc isn't here quite yet. I was going to put her family business AFTER the future arc, but 1) I guess people want to know about it now and 2) the future arc's fucking long, and 3) without family thing, she'll just be a lump of person being shoved around like an idiot during the future arc.
Third, sorry about the slightly longer update. It was the end, I wanted it to be good (or at least scrappy decent). Sue me (is sued). Damn. Oh, and did anyone catch the romance?
(review? Cause this chapter was evil/slightly serious and I'm not sure if it suits people's tastes as much as usual)
Thanks for reading!