Thank you to all you beautiful people for the reviews/follows/faves! I hope you enjoy this latest chapter of Storm Clouds. c:

Disclaimer: FANfiction. I only own the OC. Any changes to the original canon story is due to the fact that this is fanfiction.

Warning: May contain coarse language.

There was very little in what the Varia could accomplish by being in Japan. That was the truth. So why were they in a country that was practically an island, thousands and thousands of miles away from the beautiful country they called their home?

Sawada Fucking Tsunayoshi.

Riko knew very well that the very mention of the Vongola Decimo was enough to send fine, antique china that had costed about a million euros to procure in an antique auction, flying and crashing into the wall, courtesy of the man that met his ultimate humiliation at Tsuna's hands. Xanxus became belligerent when it came to the teenage mafia heir — so much that he was the number one taboo subject in the Varia headquarters. (They checked already — they bought a ranking list from Fuuta de la Stella after a horrific bloodbath ensued because an underling mentioned serving tuna for dinner, which, yep, sounded a lot like Tsuna. Number two was, oddly, bell peppers.)

The only reason why Xanxus had even agreed to move to Namimori, Japan, where Tsuna — the object of his hateful, borderline psychopathic, obsession — lived, was because Timoteo explicitly told him he had to. "Get to know your future boss!" he'd said, "Then you can come back!"

Xanxus had stormed away from that meeting and brooded in furious silence in his room for three weeks after that. The only time he emerged was when he was feeling particularly murderous, and shot the brains out of anyone that either foolishly or bravely dared to cross his path. He could have said no — he did say no. But Timoteo was adamant and refused to budge, and so after six months of frenzied planning and preparations and crash-courses in reading and writing Japanese (they could all speak the language without a problem, surprisingly), the Varia moved their headquarters to Japan.

Which brought Riko back to her current predicament.

"Hell will fucking freeze over before any of you try to make nice with that fucking scummy trash. If you do, ti ucciderò," had been the baleful warning he had growled on the flight to Japan.

Well, it was going to be a bitch of a blizzard in hell, thanks to Hibari-I'm-so-fucking-great-Kyoya. Knowing how sly Reborn was, he probably already had a 'friendly' and 'innocent' letter in the mail, filled with contents gushing about how great it was for Riko to take the initiative to begin making friendly ties between the assassination squad and the Decimo Vongola Famiglia.

It wasn't like she as incapable of dealing with what she had christened as 'Boss's Bitch Fits'. Her first few weeks with the Varia had been somewhat unstable, but she had fit right in after Squalo had uncharacteristically — maybe her heritage reminded him of a certain rain guardian back in Japan? — taken her under his wing and became a mentor of sorts (of course he was every bit as abusive with her as he had been with the baseball ace).

The ability to talk to Xanxus was one that the silver-haired swordsman had passed down to the girl, and so she was able to spread her 'annoyingly infectious happiness' — as Bel and Mammon called it — to the sullen man they called their boss, who seemed to only disregard the girl with scoffs and snorts if he was in a gaming mood. Otherwise he mostly ignored everything she did or spoke at him. The only time she was sure that her life was in danger was if she did something she wasn't supposed to — something that would definitely put the volatile man into a foul mood.

The bridge thing that Reborn had mentioned? That was one of those things.

Riko reluctantly pushed the doors of the mansion open. It was quiet. Eerily quiet? She couldn't tell — it was either always too quiet or too noisy in the headquarters.

"L-Lady Riko!"

Oh, fuck no.

The ebony-haired mascot turned with a forced smile to see a shaky man, dressed in the standard-issued Varia underling uniform. He seemed unharmed — physically, anyway. Xanxus had the power to inflict as much mental disaster as he could physical.

"Er, yes? Do you need something from me?"

"L-Lord Xanxus wants to s-see you…"

Fuck. "Did he say why?"

"N-No…"

Riko nodded tightly — almost mechanically. "Right," she marched herself up the elegantly arched staircase, and into the west wing, where Xanxus's — Riko found this hilarious and made a reference to Beauty and the Beast which Xanxus, when he was in one of his better moods, merely rewarded with a derisive snort — rooms were.

She came up to an identical set of heavy wooden doors like the ones in the front entrance. She stood there for a long time. In those minutes, she mentally prepared herself as she pulled down her goggles and left them around her neck, and stretched and warmed-up her muscles. If there was any danger of dying during this encounter with Xanxus, she wanted it to at least not be due to the fact she had pulled a muscle running away. There were better ways to die, and getting a cramp was not one of them.

Raising a sleeve covered hand, she tentatively knocked on the polished surface. "Boss?"

No answer. Well, Xanxus never answered anyway. Riko turned the handle and forced herself to step inside. "Boss?" she repeated, boots tapping quietly on the velvet carpet as she took one timid step at a time.

A chill washed down her spine; it was as if someone had poured a bucket of water down her back. Whipping her head around, she could vaguely make out a glowering pair of eyes in a darkened corner. A brooding man sat laconically draped in a plush armchair, his feet propped up on the coffee table next to him. His chin was rested on the back of one hand; the expression on his heavily-scarred face was very unreadable.

This was bad. Unreadable Xanxus was worse than openly raging Xanxus. You could never tell when he was going to pull a gun on you.

Skittish green eyes landed on an open envelope and letter lying next to a tray of crystal lowball glasses and a half-empty decanter of amber-coloured whiskey. The Vongola Decimo seal seemed to wink up at her tauntingly; the brazen X practically laughing at her impending demise.

The bloody fuckwit! Riko seethed quietly as she plotted revenge against Reborn (which was unlikely anyway, because literally no one could touch the legendary hit man). Xanxus continued watching her; like a predator that had cornered its prey. He was now taking his time to make the kill.

Fucking carnivores. Riko hated them. First Hibari Kyoya, and now Xanxus? When would it end?!

"Oi."

"You asked for me, Boss?"

"I got a letter. From Reborn."

Jesus Christ, he worked fast. It had barely been an hour or two since her encounter with Hibari.

"Did you?"

"He said something."

"Wow, and here I thought letters were meant to be empty."

Shit. Wrong move. She had forgotten one very important rule when entering the Boss's chambers when he was pissed — park your snark at the doors.

"He said that you had a little encounter with Hibari Kyoya."

Huh. He hadn't reacted to the snark. Maybe he was waiting for a fast, excruciating kill.

"Er, yes. An encounter." A boot slid up to rub self-consciously against the hour-old bruise that had bloomed brilliantly over her shin.

"Did you win?"

"It was more of a stalemate, really."

"I'll ask you again. Did. You. Win?"

Riko deliberated the choices of answers she had. On one hand, she could easily say yes, and if he believed her, she would get away scott-free. If she said yes, and he caught on to her lie, she would probably be six-feet under before next Tuesday. On the other, she could say no, and he would still kill her anyway.

"In some ways. The ways that only matter, anyway." A half-truth was the perfect solution! Riko quietly congratulated herself.

Xanxus scoffed. Riko froze.

Blood-red eyes focused on her. "All the ways matter."

Riko swallowed thickly. Her throat felt dry and parched. "Come again, Boss?"

"All. The. Fucking. Ways. Matter. We're not fucking second-rate assassins, are we?"

A sleeved hand ran over the Varia shield stitched onto the shoulder of her sweater nervously. "Uh, no, Boss."

"We don't settle for anything less than victory. That makes us champions. Campioni."

"Right you are, Boss."

CRASH!

Riko squeaked as she reflexively dodged and rolled out of the way, when a projectile had been launched in her direction. What was once a priceless, crystal tumbler, now laid in shattered pieces on the carpeted floor; the whiskey dampening the dusty red into a wet maroon. Rivulets of amber liquid dripped down the cream wallpaper. The girl turned to look at her boss in alarm — Xanxus had a bored expression across his face, as if he hadn't tried to harm her just seconds earlier.

"I want a champion," came the icy growl.

And what the fuck did that even mean?!

"Get out. Scompaia!" a tanned hand slid down to an empty lowball glass, and before he could chuck that one at her as well, Riko sprinted out of the room and into the hallway, yanking the door shut with a loud slam.

The green-eyed girl heaved a breathy sigh of relief. At least that ordeal was over. But what had the boss meant by wanting a champion? If he wanted someone to fight for him, she was definitely the last person he should have been asking. After all, he was better off asking Squalo, who was the emperor of chopsticks or something similar (Riko couldn't be bothered to remember).

Running to her own room, Riko went straight to the desk and sat down on the chair, pulling out a Naruto calendar (This month's character was Gaara tee hee). Flipping desperately through the future months, Riko stopped at the final month, December. Nothing had been marked in the calendar, she noted darkly. Pushing the calendar aside desolately, Riko stood up from the desk and flopped down onto the massive bed in the middle of the room.

She stared up at the ceiling.

"QUANDO POSSO TORNARE A CASA!?"

The official mascot of the Varia was in for a very, very long stay.

Phew. That was hard to write. I kept coming up with conversations with very little dialogue and a lot of things being thrown, but I think this one turned out rather nicely! Oh yes, footnotes to show you translations of the Italian used in here...

ti ucciderò - I will kill you

campioni - champions

scompaia - get lost/disappear

Quando posso tornare a casa - When can I go home

Do let me know how you liked it! I enjoy hearing from you guys. I'll be updating slightly less frequently this entire month, for I'll be off to Italy on Thursday. Stay tuned, though! I'll try to keep up with my writing. c: Hugs and kisses for all!

Delphoxi