Katekyo Hitman Reborn

My Fate is Certainly Uncertain

Chapter 9: The next few months

Overall Warnings: Violence, swearing, blood and Oc-ness.

[Written to:Stars - Your Ex-Lover is Dead]

~o0o~

Reborn and I talked a bit more after that. We talked about several things, mainly about me and a little from him. I didn't bother to speak about mother again to his face, neither did I want to think about her. And as much as I'd like to learn about what she was like before I was born, I felt that it would be sort of impolite. I could feel his apprehensiveness and vise versa, I knew he could tell how nervous I was about all of this. Meeting new people, making friends and 'playing nicely with others' have all been points that have always turned up in the improvement section of my report card. But getting social and fooling people with a sense of realness was all part of the process of who I was becoming and it scared me a little. Being devious was in my blood, but never had I had to use it in such scenes like this. Some of the things he said made sense. He talked to animals too as well as he did with humans. The reason why only we could communicate together, he guessed, was because of our skills. It seemed simple, when I thought about it. You get two frequencies continuously processing information which end up collecting the same frequencies as theirs, it would be easy to process information.

And then, he spoke of my mother in a way that really got under my skin. There's not a lot in this life that irks me that much, so it takes something to poke me in the right place to feel an emotion like that.

"Truth is Phillipa, I knew you existed. And it bothered me that your mother ran away from Italy to America without telling me upfront, or even calling me. 'So selfish' of her, I thought at the time. That was all she ever thought about. Herself and how she was going to get to the next step in life. She left with her father's car, a roll of money and stolen papers. You probably don't know how hard it was to track her down."

In truth, this was the most that I picked up from him with my mind in one go because he projected it so clear.

When actually, it came out of his mouth like:

"She was a strange woman."

And I replied with a nod. It was because not only did I agree with that statement but I, at the time, didn't think I could trust my own mouth to say the right thing.

There were things that bugged me about the statement.

One-) He knew that I existed. Sure, we may have been hard to find, but come on! The world's greatest hitman, apparently you are not!

Two-) The fact that my mother ran away. This statement hurt me a lot but I knew that it was very true. Even so, she ran away from all the pain and the violence because she didn't want me or my brother to get hurt in a world where she came to find comfortable. I guess she depended on me a lot to keep all three of us in line when she left my brother's father. With words, I couldn't put my heart into my mouth. And, yeah, she wasn't winning any awards for the mother of the year, but she was mine. We gave up a lot of things to keep the ones we love safe, even if it meant hurting others.

Right then I felt we connected a little more.

We both blamed her for a lot of things.

~o0o~

Like I said before, my social skills really did need some work. Nervous as I'd get, my hands would sweat and puff up like prunes. I'd breathe through my nose and avoid all possible eye contact, giving signs of my previous introvert life.

I found myself sitting in the head of the CEDEF's office, just before lunch was about to set in. The man, I found, was a sturdy one. Always was in a suit of orange suit and sharp eyes that focused on everything they see. A strange man but a strong leader. In the few times that I had met him face to face, he had come off as a little unprofessional and possibly even a happily joking person.

His train of thought really confused me.

"Is this what you always do?"

I turned to look at the open door behind me, which Iemitsu had stepped through and was now closing shut. He had a slight smile and today was actually wearing a suit. He closed the wooden door shut and walked calmly over to his desk. I was sitting in a comfortable seat adjacent to it.

He nodded, when I kept staring at him. "This, breaking into people's offices and waiting for them, tracking people down? Those actions could be considered borderline stalkerish."

I held up the lock picking tools that were in my pocket. "Trust me, I'm no stalker and it's not hard to break into locks. I've seen my mother do it and she's the quickest I've seen." I placed them back in their place. "But, that's not why I'm here, Mr Sawada."

"Using honorifics now?" He asked, raising an eyebrow. "Qual è il vostro giapponese?"

"Uh," I paused. "Alright. It's not major or anything like my English or Italian skills, but I'm alright. Enough to get by. I was always pressured into following, if not, at least dabbling into languages when I was in high school." I shrugged. "My mother liked cultures."

"Okay." He replied in English, leaning on his desk. "What's up?"

With the pile of papers in my hands, I handed them out in the air, just holding them there as he stared at them.

He looked around them to look at me in the face. "You're gonna have to explain to me more. What are these?"

"I'm sorry." I said uncontrollably. "Sorry. These, these are all of my papers and information. Like a CV."

"So, in short, you're looking for a job."

My lungs heaved out a breath I didn't realize I had held in. "I've never had one. My family, we were always travelling."

'Why would you think that I'd give you one?" He asked, taking the papers.

I shrugged. "I know you probably won't. I'm not as fit or as smart as some of your men. But, I could be like a secretary! O-or, you know, just doing things around here..." I sighed, running out of really good reasons. "Look, I'm stumped. Now that I've met my father, I feel like I should actually do something with my life now. It's hard to put into words what I'd like to accomplish. I want a future that I know will lead me places. I think that staying in the Mafia business will be the best option for my future."

He rolled a hand, gesturing me to go on.

"If you don't mind, I'd like to propose you a deal."

"Honey, selling your soul won't work on a guy like me."

I smirked. "I wasn't thinking anything of the sort."

"Go on."

"Train me. I've seen what you guys can do. That kid, Basil, he's a machine!"

"You know, he could be considered a teenager."

"He's younger than me." Was my explanation. "And from what I've heard from Reborn, he trusts Lal. From a guy like him, that's a big deal."

"It is."

"Please lend me your knowledge." I asked. "I want to learn things. I want to be able to stand up for something and not just be a single soldier standing for a cause. For the past months, I've fought really hard for something that I didn't know if it was possible." I nodded at what I truly thought and stuck out a firm, laid-out palm. "I want to fight. There's nothing left for me back in America."

Suffice to say, I was then ushered out the door giving him time to 'think.'

Two days later, he accepted my offer, on a couple of conditions. One was to sort out the paperwork annually, since that was what I originally stole.

How blissfully ironic.

~o0o~

Out of everything my mother had said, yelled, forced me to think about, I will always remember the thing she always told me when I would go off to an exam.

She didn't care whether I passed or failed.

Well, that wasn't true. She just didn't show her disappointment or frustration, that's all.

Her advice was that if you were gonna do a job, a task, or anything really, do it properly the first time round.

It's that advice that had gotten me out of more trouble than I'd like to admit.

~o0o~

The second condition was that I should have a roommate. Iemitsu said that it was because I need socializing more with the company. Quickly, in my head, I called bullshit on that one, writing it off as another way of keeping an eye on the weird chick.

I didn't know much about what it would be like to have a roommate at college was like, or boarding school, or anything like that. My family always had a separate rooms for everyone. Mind you, there were random times when my brother got afraid of the dark and hugged me till the lights in his head went out. But that was okay.

And as it turned out, Basil was slightly afraid of the dark too.

Well, not exactly afraid of the dark. More like the things that bangs against your bedroom window, or the animals that scratches the walls, evilly stealing any sleep away.

That kind of afraid.

I personally didn't give a crap to whether a mouse ran into our room, because Al can take care of the sucker.

Basil...not so much. It wasn't that he screamed or anything but rather skirted around it.

And for a while, he was afraid of me. I guessed it was because of what I did to him, but after a few sparring sessions, things turned out okay. He hadn't looked me in the eyes when talking, so I told him to man up. Rudely, yes, but it worked.

So, after this happening and after Al had gotten an early lunch of mouse chowder, the little leech, I took Basil's hand. I'd decided that since the weather had been pretty merciful, not too hot and not too cold, that it would be okay to take a walk through the park, as a shortcut to the shops.

(I needed to do things anyway.)

(And yes, my shoes are still in the lake, probably covered in duck poo.)

Lovely.

"What is that in thy hand?" Basil asked, as we passed into the park. The gardeners had done quite a nice job here. In the places that I used to live in, there weren't a lot of good looking parks. Very few had pretty looking flowers and the majority had a lot of litter. And stray cats. Stray cats that liked tuna and the smell of my shoes.

I looked at the cello-taped package, bound for America. I thought for a moment and then smiled slightly.

"A bomb."

"A bomb?"

Al smirked and repeated in a childish tone. "A bomb! A bomb!"

I rolled my eyes. At who, I was still unsure of, but both of them probably deserved it. "To whom, I wonder?"

We passed some female joggers in skin tight shorts, hair crackling back down once it had bounced up off their backs, repeating in an inadvertently seducing manner. Of course, that got the attention of my never-skittish critic, who cracked a one-liner about hair and sports tape. "I wonder that too and if it will get to it's intended recipient. And I hope that anybody who sees me packaging this keeps in their good minds to remain silent."

He sniffed, his eyes passing over a gelato stand quickly.

"I started when I was five." He said abruptly.

"Started what?"

"What do thou think? This!" Basil outspread his arms and brought them behind his blond mop of head, gazing almost happily at the sky, in a way when a person reminisces on memories. "My earliest memory is of Iemitsu making me take a bath."

I giggled at the thought of the staunch, blond haired boar washing a small child, thinking that if I'd met him when he was that young and that if it was me that had to bathe him, I'd bet a good ten bucks that he was a splasher.

"At least it's not like mine where I liked to go on the really cool big kid's slide."

"Liked? What happened to thou?" He pouted for a minute and then gasped. "Nothing bad, I hope!"

"One day I ended up sitting there too long and this kid, he was a bit chubby in the cheeks from baby fat, no doubt, pushed me off."

"Harsh." Al muttered, his little kitty paws plodded on the concrete. "Hope he died a dessert related death."

"Sorry, go on with what you were going to say Basil."

"I didn't know my parents. Iemitsu found me on a mission and I've been with him ever since."

"Must be hard then."

He shrugged. "No. It's not. I'm actually jealous of thee."

"Why is that? Doesn't family in the Mafia world mean just a bigger burden, more to lose, that sort of thing?"

"Thou knows who you are. Thou hast Reborn-sama as a father. Thou hast had the privilege of knowing your family." He smiled lightly, looking up at me. "Thou art very lucky, Phillipa-chan."

I bit my lip. "I guess I am, in a way. I'm thankful I knew my family. Before all of this, I did all I could for them."

"And now?" He asked.

"I'm not too sure." I replied, glancing at Al. "But I'm sure things will be fine as long as I keep a level head. As long as I do that, my powers won't go as crazy."

He winced, covering it up with a smile. "I hope so!"

Too bad for me, that wasn't what he was really thinking.

Basil was thinking that I should keep my secrets to myself, like everybody else.

~o0o~

I trained with Basil and Lal for months on end, practicing on keeping my endurance up and focus sharp. Every time I would doze off, bang! Every time I would groan, even in my head, bang!

Lal was seriously one tough bitch.

I honestly didn't know what I was getting myself into when I had asked Iemitsu. I trained for days on end, without taking day-off breaks, training both inside and outside. It was in the rain that I liked to train the most. The ground underneath me would be drenched and unstable. So when I hit the ground, sopping wet, I was just as determined as my opponent to get up. Everything I did, all I ever did was to help my concentration. And while I got tougher my barrier didn't get any better. It kept snapping at everything and everyone and even began to sound like it was moaning at some points.

And, not always, did I listen to my mother's advice. I should've, when I look back now.

Two more months passed rather slowly, when I received a phone message from Reborn. Since meeting him for the first time, I'd only talked to him two other times. Most of his days were spent somewhere else in Italy, hunting down people. Family business, he said.

The message ordered me to drive to an address, not too far out of Florence, about an hour north. I borrowed one of the company cars and travelled there only when Lal had given me the okay. But that was only after calling Reborn to confirm it.

Al came with me. He found his usual spot in the Italian sun and after a while, I got this reminiscent feeling in my gut. The smell of chicken nuggets was still in my mind.

"There, what's that?" He asked, as the dashboard clock flickered past four thirty-two.

"That looks like the place." I said, remembering the description on the message Reborn had left in my voicemail. Not at all what I was expecting, but that happens a lot these days, you know?

I'm still expecting a surprise attack from those geese.

"Human."

"What, feline?"

"You know you just drove right past it?" He asked, looking back at it. "You know, the thing you refer to as a house? Or have your brain cells dwindled down to the point where evolution can begin walking backwards?"

"I know." I said, parking the car in a nearby alleyway. He followed me out and down the path I went. Through one bushy part, much to Al's delight, and we had reached the security wall, twenty minutes of jogging later.

"Good job, idiot. Now how are we gonna get there?"

"Reborn said not to take the front exit. So, in light of the situation, I'd say I'm being rather creative."

I waited to check the movements of the patrolling guards. Silently, I took two down by knocking them out, while Al nibbled at their shoelaces. I made sure to place them somewhere that wasn't too noticeable.

As Al finished with his sudden foot fetish, I took of the sweater that I was wearing and chucked it onto the barbed wired-fence that surrounded the actual wall. Then, after pleading to Al to behave, I shoved him on my shoulder and managed to scale the fence, with only a tiny scrape on my palm.

"Ready Dorothy?"

I snorted and gripped onto the brick wall. "Let's do this Toto."

~o0o~

When I landed on the other side, I found myself in a bush. Not a large bush, mind you, but one that just covered my butt to act like a landing pad.

Rather nice, but not what I was going after.

"Get up you dwindling idiot! Hide quickly!"

"Oh, shoot!" I picked myself up and scrambled up the closest tree, just as there were voices nearing. Thank god I had Al here, otherwise Reborn might kick my ass for being a big idiot who can't stealth properly.

Al mewed quietly as I spotted a blond fellow, possibly a year or two older than me running out into the garden area, followed by none other than Reborn, who was holding the mallet version of Leon. Who, by the way, still creeps me out.

"Come back here, Pipsqueak-Dino!" Reborn squeaked, chasing the poor man, who stumbled, trying to get away from him.

Out of pity, I said. "I'm here."

Reborn looked up at the tree and Leon transformed back into his normal self, his curly tail bouncing. "You're late."

"But only by twenty minutes." I countered, landing on the ground. The boy gasped when I appeared, not only surprised, but flabbergasted too, as his mouth was open but no apparent words were coming out.

"H-How d-did you get past the guards!?" He managed to blurt out, standing up now. He was quite tall. I think I reached up to his neck, if I wanted to measure.

"Guards?" I asked. "Dunno. I didn't see any."

"B-"

"Dino." Reborn said, jumping on to his head and whacking his ears." Stop stuttering. I want you to meet Phillipa. Starting from today, She'll be your new sparring partner."

~o0o~

Hey guys, long time no read!

Sorry for the uber-long-ass wait. School stuff. Regardless, I'm happy to say that I did rather well, for a chick that sucks at studying. :D That and I kicked myself to get back 'on the horse' for the story, so yeah. I'm super sorry.

Replies:

Ausumist: I agree with your statement. It's a reasonable opinion and by no means is it nasty. (I've had a lot worse.) When I'm done, I'll try and revamp it without changing it too much.

GreenDrkness: I love him too. ;D Mostly everyone does. Thanks for reading!

shanagi95: Maybe. Maybe not but my lips are shut like a cold case honey, so I'm not gonna tell. ;D

purpleicecrystals(1): Really? *Laughs akwardly* Well, actually, it's also a dance and a name for some kind of sauce I was hungry at the time, with no food in the house. So, I resorted to the internet to feed my eyes.

purpleicecrystals (2): Nyahahaha. He is the best. Can wait to write more about him in the future.

Viper's Girl: Same here. I tried it once and had a horrible taste in my mouth for the rest of the day. Mainly, I prefer hot chocolates. :D

Captian Dr Pepper: Thank you for saying that. I really hope she does well and I'm trying super hard to concentrate on the characterization in my story. I think the reason I tripped was just because of a lack of paying attention. I have a tendency to skip one or two episodes so I can finish something quickly. *Bad habit, I know.* And I hope you enjoy the ending because it woke me up in the middle of the night. I have something planned that I know no-one will expect.

Leolnuyuka: NONONO PLEASE DON'T CRY I STILL LOVE YOU. I've never seen a Khol's advertisement, so I wouldn't know how those pants ended up. But I'll say thanks anyway, and send you a hug.

Thanks for all of your reviews and follows and faves.

Thanks to My new BETA reader, RikaRenaH42, who's awesome as fudge!

Thanks if you're still reading.

And a special thank you Hibakeru for adding this to the 'Feels Like It' community!

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