Hope this chapter pleases you, minna!

Inside the manor of Vongola and a week later, bosses and guardians with many people from Vongola alliance came to celebrate Vongola 415th birthday. It was a tradition that passed down through generation for the lasting of Vongola Family.

"It's lively as always, huh" Reborn said on Tsuna's shoulder as they were outside, greeting the guests.

"And Hibari-san is somewhere quiet inside the mansion, right?" Tsuna confirmed.

"Hey, get your eyes off me!" they heard a sudden yelling and looked to the direction where Scarso boss was glaring at a 10 year-old girl. Both glared at each other, but the girls stare was empty and void. "Huh? So, you must be the Mare Family. Heh, never heard of you before. You must be weak and small" the boss retorted.

Tsuna was surprised when he saw the girl had lightning Mare ring. As he was about to stop the Scarso boss, the boss poured the water in his glass to the girl's head mockingly. But she didn't budge and kept staring at him. Much to his annoyance, he raised his fist against her, but suddenly a hand caught his hand in an instant.

"Boss?" the boss blinked in surprise. "I hope you're not trying to hit a little girl" he glared at him, which scared him. "O-Of course not. I wouldn't hit a girl"

"Rieta?" the girl and Tsuna hastily turned, seeing Neve and Vel. The girl then ran towards her and ran to her hug. "You're wet. Who did this to you?" she asked and Rieta pointed at the boss.

"Hey, you old geezer! We don't tolerate your behavior towards our guardian here!" Vel shouted like trying to pick a fight. "She's your guardian? What a bad taste to pick one. No wonder you're not famous" the man simply kept laughing harassingly.

"I won't tolerate that kind of manner either, Corto" Tsuna spoke sternly and lowered his self-esteem because of it.

"Vongola, can I use an empty room for me to change her attire?" Neve picked her up.

"Sure, follow me. Oh, let me carry her. Reborn, I'll leave the greeting to Gokudera-kun and you" thus, the two walked while Neve was being eyed by the spectators.

"Hey, who's that woman?" one of the guest spoke.

"I heard they're from Mare Family" a man answered.

"Mare? I never heard of them. They must be a weak family"

"What are you looking at?" Vel glared at them.

"Forget it, Vel. They're not worth it. While the boss is taking care of Rieta, we should find the others" Covart tapped his shoulder, trying to calm him. Therefore, rather than being consumed by anger, Vel and Covart went to search for the remaining guardians.

While Neve carried a bag from her car and Tsuna carried the small girl, both entered his room instead. She started rummaging the bag and let out a dress for the little girl. But as he put her on the bed, the girl didn't want to let go and when Neve saw that, it was really surprising. Rieta was only close to her family, never to anyone outside it.

She didn't say anything, but from her pleading eyes, they knew she wanted him to stay. "Rieta, don't be selfish" Neve said. "It's okay. I have lots of free time" Tsuna said and then made Rieta sat on his lap. "Good thing you wear an undershirt" she said as she changed her attire.

The brunette little girl looked very happy as Tsuna was with her, but he had another thought to himself although he was happy with Rieta, a thought that lost his smile.

"Why her?" Tsuna voiced and caught Neve's attention. "She's too young to bear the Mare ring, don't you think?"

"You intend to butt in now?" she questioned rather cynically. "I appreciate you don't. Come one, Rieta. We have to find the others" she took her hand and with Tsuna, they walked the hallway to find her guardians. Silence mingled with the hall, but then he broke the silence.

"I'm sorry, about the guests. They just don't know your capability"

"Neither do you, Vongola" she replied.

"That's true, but still…"

"I don't need your sympathy or anyone's"

Having heard that, he fell in silence.

Again, with nothing to talk about, quietness mixed with their atmosphere. But looking at her with a little girl, it was like Rieta was her own daughter. Since Rieta was walking between them, she stretched her hand to him, much to his surprise. He took it, of course, but he was also very happy for unknown reason.

"Rieta-chan, do you like Neve?" Tsuna asked and she nodded in silence. "Neve onee-chan saved my life. I love onee-chan" she finally spoke and said it sweetly. Seeing that, Tsuna just smiled, but he was quite delighted by the girl's honesty.

"Boss" an old couple greeted him. "My, who is this lovely little girl? I didn't know you're married" the polite old woman spoke as she lowered her body to see Rieta. When he looked at Neve, she asked "Is this your wife? You have a beautiful wife, boss"

"No" Neve simply said.

"S-She's not my wife and I'm not married yet, Viola. And this girl isn't my daughter" he denied sheepishly.

"Oh, I'm so sorry. We just want to talk to you, boss"

"Go ahead. I'll go look myself. Rieta seems want to be with you" Neve said.

"Okay then. I'll see you later" with a wave of goodbye, he watched her as she walked further away from him.

She didn't know where to find them, she had tried to call them many times and no one picked up their phone. Then, as she was walking along the hallway and took a glance to the wall, she just saw a certain picture in a big frame. She stopped and stared at the picture of Vongola Primo. All of the sudden, she got a glance of him with a certain black-haired girl, smiling at each other as they were next to each other. It was like a smile of pure happiness. But the image abruptly hurt her chest, not the usual pain; it was more like a broken-heart pain.

She lowered her head as she gripped her chest with closed eyes. "Don't cry, Anna-san. I'll bring you the peace you deserve"

"Boss!"

She abruptly opened her eyes as she heard the familiar voice. As she turned her head, Vel and Covart with yellow blonde twins approached her. "Ah, you found Luogo and Altro, huh. Where's Riku?"

"I'm sorry, boss. You know what he's like. He's really obsessed about Hibari Kyoya, so he probably wants a death duel" Covart said.

"Where's Rieta?" Luogo asked. "She's at good hands, don't worry" she replied. "There's no such 'good hands' in here. All the guests consider us weak" Altro spoke in upset. "Don't say bad stuff like that, Al. We should have faith. Soon, no one will see us as weaklings. Stay positive, ne?"

"You really are the sun, Lu. As for me, I think I'm just a gloomy rain"

"Hey, you're not a damn kid anymore. Stop that kind of attitude. It's pissing me off" Vel rebuked roughly.

"To prevent any further fight, let's just go. I heard the Vongola boss has prepared a huge cake for the birthday" Covart pushed the twins to walk, leaving Vel and Neve there.

"Vel, how is it? Have you talked to that idiot boss?"

"Yeah, and they'll make it work, they said. Are you sure about that retarded boss? He's planning something outside our plan"

"I know. He's after something else. If not, why would he agree to accept our request?"

"True to that, but tell me. Why didn't you let me hit him?"

"Why, you ask?" she paused for a moment. "I have the best punishment waiting for him" she said with eerie smile. Then, she suddenly snapped and grasped her forehead with terror of a face as her visible eye grew wide.

"…I must hurry"

Everyone was awestruck, even though they heard about the cake, it wasn't as what they thought. It had 5 stories of cake stacking like a tower and each had artistic icing, beautifully decorated with Vongola insignia and other elements carved onto the cake.

As the classic music was still ongoing and as Gokudera and other subordinates were putting some kind of safe-looking dynamites, every guest was waiting eagerly. They also heard that the cake would blow up to them. Although it was kind of insanitary, the guests fully loved the idea, much better than a boring cake.

At that moment, no one left the big hall, except for one. The particular woman walked away from the room as she was seen by Tsuna. She was at the terrace, watching over the night sky. And then, she diverted her stare to a sky Mare ring she wore, lamenting the ring musingly.

"Anna-san…"

Her cold and stern looks had now turned soft as she gazed upon the ring, yet there were terrible guilt and remorse. As she closed her eyes, she could see the black and white flowers on the ground and a wavy shoulder-length hair girl shed her tears silently, as if she wasn't able to speak her sadness, as if she was bound by something beyond her force and it mingled very well with the white flower petals dancing around in the air, touching her beautiful sad face.

"A woman shouldn't be here all alone"

She opened her eyes as she heard the deep and charming voice.

"I can be at anywhere I want" she answered without looking back to him. "But there are many nasty wolves that want to get their hands on you"

"I'm capable of protecting myself"

Tsuna approached her as he stood beside her. It was a heavy silence yet mingled with the beautiful music from inside. "Have you heard about this music?" Tsuna voiced and be given a shook of her head.

"This music tells a story of a young man who had his first love. He was really in love with a princess, but he was a prince from another country and sadly, their country opposed each other. In each war, they had to face each other and fought each other, but the prince loved the princess too much and he couldn't afford to hurt her. The princess, too, had always loved him, but their parents didn't allow them to be together. One day, he knew her secret, that the kind and beautiful princess was actually sinister and the reason she stayed close with him just for her to gain her win. She was caught almost killed him by the prince. As she put her eerie smile, his heart was torn apart…"

"Then, what happened?"

"The prince didn't make any contact with her ever since. He didn't come to her room like he used to. Before their next war, a sudden guilt struck him. The prince felt bad for leaving her and despite she had been using him, he felt guilty for leaving her. The princess was always smiling and he kept imagining how sad she must be after he left for a month. So at that night, he decided to sneak into her room again, but this time, he was surprised by a sight he couldn't imagine. He wanted to say sorry to her and said that he would always love her, but…"

"But?"

"Inside her room, blood sprayed in every corner and in the middle of the room, the princess was there, with body that painted with her blood. His eyes at that moment resembled horror. When he saw a knife on her hand and a diary near her cold body, he read the diary. It was contained with pure remorse, pain, and sadness"

"In each page, all she had been wanting was to die because she had a split personality that she couldn't control. She thought she could be happy with him, but when she went out of control, she began to realize she couldn't" he added.

"This song is beautiful and for some people who can't feel the story behind it, they may think it's just beautiful. But it contains much profound sadness and regret of the prince who wasn't able to ask for forgiveness"

She might have set ears onto the story and put a calm and cool expression, but it was at that moment she wanted to show him that she was sad hearing the story, but she couldn't. Behind that wall of ice was actually the Miura Haru everyone knew, only the problem was; she shouldn't melt that ice. Just the thought of couldn't be herself was already torturing enough let alone to have something beyond her force to control her life.

She might be able to hold her feelings, but not her trembling hands. To her surprise, she felt a warm touch and it was Tsuna's larger hand that intertwined with hers. His warm and kind gaze towards her was melting her ice, but she immediately averted her face away from his gaze.

"Let go of my hand"

"I won't let go until you calm down"

"I'm still maintaining my calmness"

"No, you're not. Don't underestimate my hyper intuition" having heard that, she snapped and shouted, "I said—"

All of the sudden, a loud bang was heard from inside, startling the two bosses. Therefore, they hurriedly scampered to the hall. Corto and his family had taken over the situation as they pointed their weapon at everyone there. Corto's family was ranked 10th as the most powerful family.

"Decimo, I won't hesitate to blow up everyone here if you won't hand me the Vongola gears!" Corto commanded him. Every guest at that moment was crouching of the situation. "I'll count to 3, if you don't…"

"W-Wait a minute!"

"3…"

Before he could count again, much to everyone's surprise, two people came in from the ceiling and that persons were actually Hibari and Riku who were raised their weapons against each other and their appearance caused the ceiling to be crashed brutally.

"Riku, huh. You're not a herbivore at all" Hibari said with a satisfying grin. "Hm? Who are these herbivores? Are they trying to interrupt our fight?" both guys stopped as they saw the Scarso Family. At that moment, everyone set their eyes on those two maniac fighters.

That distraction gave Vel opportunity to shoot the subordinates with sniper rifle and with perfect accuracy even when he was crouching in the middle of the crowd. Then, the twins used their martial arts skill to knock every one of the Mafioso and they did it in remarkable combination.

"Tch. Don't move!" one of the Mafioso aimed at them, but all of the sudden, he was shot by his own boss. "Boss… why…"

"Hey, he's not me!" the boss screamed was heard and to his surprise, there were two boss. The one that shot the Mafioso smirked and then mist covered him, but when the enemy boss shot him, it penetrated the mist instead. Covart reformed from that mist and he immediately jumped from the middle of the chaos as well as the twins.

He was confused at their action at first, but all of the sudden, they were struck by a green lightning, paralyzing the foes. Lambo felt that lightning was stronger than his and surprisingly when he looked closely, a little girl stood in front of Corto with lightning Mare ring on her finger.

"Surprised, Corto?" Neve walked towards him with phoenix on her shoulder that tail emitted a sky flame. "I-Impossible. I though your family is…"

"Weak? You have done your role, Corto. Now, rest in peace" the phoenix floated and was about to discharge a sky flame towards him, but suddenly, a person came out in the middle of the crouching guests and threw a smoking bomb. And as the smoke got clearer, all of Corto's family had gone.

However for Reborn, impressed he might be, but he had something else on his mind that raised his suspicion.

"Did you see what they did there?" some whispers were heard and all were in the same topic.

"Yes, and I misjudged them. They're not weak at all"

"You're not the only one"

Due to that event, the guests were told to go home and after all went home, the Vongola, Varia, and Mare gathered in the hall.

"Trash! Why did you let them go? Those scums have disgraced the Vongola and I say we should kill those bastards" Xanxus raised his opinion. "I know you're humiliated, Xanxus, but you can't kill them" Tsuna rejected. "Shut up, trash! You're too soft!"

"He's right. I don't think you have much of a choice" Neve voiced as she leaned against the wall. "Your family and friends will be targeted as long as he's alive. He'll do anything to take your gears"

"Still, we can defend ourselves. We don't have the rights to take lives"

She maintained her cold stare at him silently. But then she spoke "Okay, I'll comply with your rules"

"Really?"

"Your wish is my absolute command. That goes the same for you, Varia. We will take no lives"

"We?" Squalo blinked in confusion.

"I'm going with you guys and I won't take no as an answer. I won't slow you down, since it's just me. My guardians will go back to my base, understand, everyone?" she eyed on her guardians and they just nodded rather halfheartedly. Neve who was leaning against the wall alone, as no one was looking at her, she was actually feeling reluctant as it was seen all over her face. She could just ask her guardians to help the Varia, but as Vel looked at her, he knew the reason why she volunteered herself.

Without anyone's looking, Hibari was staring at her from afar thoughtfully. "Oi, Hibari" Reborn jumped to his shoulder. "I need you to find information about Haru's guardians"

A red alarm echoed throughout the building, screams, noises nullified the silence.

"D-Did you find the intruder?"

"I-It's useless! I knew it; we shouldn't underestimate the Vongola at all"

"VOOOIII! Damn right you are, scums!"

"AAAHHH!"

In a blink of an eye, Squalo slashed the group of Mafioso. Like a shark that craved for its food, he slashed everything in his path without any knowledge of stopping. With the Varia did their job wonderfully and Xanxus due of the humiliation took action this time, the ambush seemed to go well—no, far too much as Xanxus burnt down the entire building and the Varia just looked at the burning flame of rage blazingly.

"Shishishi, what a wonderful flame, boss. What happened to the unconscious Mafioso, though?"

"Lussuria had taken those trashes out of the mansion" Squalo replied. "Where's that Nevose Neve?"

"Who knows? I'm not her guardian, I'm a prince"

Squalo put thoughtful looks as he was wondering where Neve was.

Meanwhile elsewhere at the shore, one terrified person climbed up to a lighthouse as if was being chased, repeatedly looking at his back as he climbed up until he got on to the top. He was so sure and glad that no one knew where he was.

"It's pointless"

A female voice was heard, much to his dismay. The person he wanted to avoid the most was there sitting on top of the lantern and then jumped down approaching Corto. "I-I did my part correctly, right? S-So, I can go, right?" he asked apprehensively as he backed away.

"Maybe, but I never leave witness. And also, you have done a terrible sin with what you did to my youngest guardian" with eyes of emptiness yet vicious, she raised her sword with frightful aura and voice.

"N-No, stay away, monster!"

"You will be punished for your terrible crime"

The Mare boss went outside the catwalk and stared at the night sky as she felt the cold breeze of nightfall. Then, her phone rang and the screen showed Tsuna's name. "Is everyone alright? What about the boss? You didn't kill him, right?" Tsuna questioned worryingly. With a brief look at the back, where the lens of the lantern was sprayed with blood, she said "He ran away. I spared his life, just like you want"

"Thank you, but are you hurt?"

"I'm unhurt. I'll be back with the Varia soon" and then, she hung up with a satisfaction smile.

While Varia brought the report to Tsuna, Neve went to her home and greeted by her guardians. Vel took her to the sitting room and a group of Mafioso was there, waiting for her. So, she sat down and Vel stood next to her.

"So, you want us to kill that family?" the boss asked.

"You're a family of assassins. I've heard your achievement and I say you're in the job. So?"

"You've paid us with high price and of course we won't ask, but I'm curious, why do you want us to kill them?"

"Let's just say what's stay secret will always be kept as secret" she said with a business smile.

"How elegantly dark for a young woman. Very well, we shall do it. Then, have a good night" they stood up and being escorted to the front gate until they left. Then, Vel walked her to her room.

"I don't like them. Like Corto, they're plotting something behind our back, but this one feels wrong for some reason" Vel furrowed.

"Doesn't matter. I only care about their assigned task. Dati Family is the bank of all information ever since the first Vongola's reign, including having the data about that forbidden truth. With this, the erased history will be concealed once again"

"Neve, you… killed, didn't you? I knew it, you should've leave this to me! You're being controlled by 'her'!"

"Good night, Vel" she straightly opened the door as they arrived.

"Hey, wait—" she instantly closed the door and locked it. Vel felt really disturbed as it was seen all over his face. Whether to act or not, he was aware of the consequences of each choice. But as her right-hand-man, he still tried to respect her wish, no matter he knew what the end would be.

Next chapter will be about the whole truth about Mare's hidden history (the one that Vongola primo told Tsuna), it's a full chapter of it.

Thank you for reading!

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