Chapter 81

Omake E

Tongue Tied Troubles.

"Luce, is there something troubling you?" Fon asks, seeing the woman sitting forlornly at the kitchen table.

Luce sighs and turns her head, which had been resting in her hand, towards Fon. "No, not really." She replies. Fon raises an eyebrow, clearly not believing her. "Well, it's just…"

She looks over at the bundle of cloth laid down on the table before her, asleep. Fon looks over too, smiling at both the baby and at the expression of pure bliss Luce had on her face. He was glad the baby had come along, Luce seemed a lot happier with him. She always seemed like the nurturing type, she had even nurtured the other members of the Arcobaleno. But the Arcobaleno had been together long enough now that they no longer needed her support or guidance as much as they used to. They had all acclimatised to each other, settled into routines and knew where certain lines were drawn. Aria had been the new Giglio Nero Boss for long enough now that Luce wasn't even needed there. To Fon, it had seemed that she had been rather bored, or maybe even lost, without something to do. But having this baby had brought purpose and fulfilment back into her life. Fon hadn't seen her happier before.

"It's just…" He prompts when she continues to look down yet say nothing.

"Well, my dear Aria had learnt to talk by this stage. Most babies have generally. So I'm a little worried. Of course I know just as well as anyone that learning to walk and talk happen at their own pace, but still…" Fon nods, children were not his expertise, so he was sure that Luce had a legitimate reason for this worry- "He still hasn't called me Mama yet!" She whines dramatically, –Or maybe not.

Hearing the click of a freshly boiled kettle, he walks over and starts to prepare some calming herbal tea. A few moments later, he places a mug down before Luce. "Well, have you actually tried to teach him to talk?" Fon asks, sitting down with his own mug.

"Mmmrn, errn, mnhh," The pair loom down at the sounds, watching as the baby wakes up from his 3:25PM nap. The baby blinks at them and giggles, smiling brightly before reaching his arms up for both of them.

Luce reaches down and picks the baby- or toddler really, Tsunayoshi was a little too old to really be called a baby- up before holding him infront of her. "Tsunayoshi, can you say 'mama'?" She asks, smiling.

"Abbadada!" Tsunayoshi sings before patting Luce's cheek with a chubby hand. Luce smiles and laughs, bouncing him gently. Tsunayoshi had been making baby noises like this for the past few months now, especially whenever he was happy. It was really his only form of communication except from pointing at things. Although now that Luce thought about it, Tsunayoshi had always been quite a gestural baby, always waving or pointing or acting things out. He did it far more than Aria had done.

"Try again Tsunayoshi. Mama. Ma-ma." She says, still smiling with laughter in her eyes.

"Babaa!" Tsunayoshi says proudly, patting her cheek again.

Fon hides his smile behind his sleeve as Luce puts on a fake pout. "Now now, I won't be called that. I'm far too young and pretty to be called a hag. And I'd like to stick to Italian please. I don't want to be insulted in other languages." Luce wonders whether Tsunayoshi had learnt that when growing up in Japan with his real mother or not. She shakes her head- nah, it was just baby talk, he wouldn't know what it actually meant.

Tsunayoshi blinks up at her in confusion, not sure about the mixed signals he was getting. Her voice and face hadn't matched. "Mm-mm?"

Smiling once more, Luce gasps loudly and bounces him again. "That was really close Tsunayoshi!" She turns him around to face Fon. "How about Fon. Can you say Fon?"

All Fon gets is a raspberry blown at him, Tsunayoshi's attempt at an 'F'. Fon reaches forwards and pats Tsunayoshi on the head. "Maybe you should keep practicing before saying my name."

"Maybe some of the others would have better luck?" Luce wonders.

She walks into the living room and spots her next victim. She takes a breath in, ready to use the sweetest voice possible on the other woman.

"No."

She deflates, pouting. "But I haven't even said anything yet."

The victim, Viper, doesn't even look at Luce, still counting out last night's Varia pay check onto the table. The Euros went onto that pile, the American Dollars over on that pile, and all the British Sterling went onto a pile on her lap, ready for her trip tomorrow.

"Still no."

Luce puffs herself up again, determined to get the psychic to at least hear her out. "Look, all I want-"

"No."

"-Is for you-"

"No."

"-To attempt to-"

"No."

"-Teach Tsunayoshi to talk."

Finally Viper turns her head to the side to look at Luce.

"No."

"But why nooot?" Luce whines. She crosses the room, putting the child in Viper's direct view. "Look at him. How can you say no to that face?"

Viper looks at Tsunayoshi, with his large angelic eyes, chubby cheeks and fluffy hair, the personification of cute. "No." She then goes back to her counting.

"Fine, I'll go ask someone else then." Luce sighs, lifting the baby to her shoulder. She walks out of the room, in search of her next target. Tsunayoshi waves at Viper as he is carried out of the room.

There was no way Viper would be the one to teach Tsunayoshi to talk. She wasn't about to cut off one of her own revenues. The longer the child couldn't talk the better in her opinion. It meant that if they wanted to know what the child was asking for, they'd have to ask, and therefore pay, for her to translate. With the Arcobaleno getting more and more used to the baby's habits, requests for translations had been going down, but they hadn't stopped. Sure, they could easily tell who the baby wanted to sleep with by pointing him at them all and seeing who he reached out for, but there were other times when the baby needed to be directly consulted. And all the more money for her.

A high pitched major chord of chimes, the chord giving off a scientifically proven 'happy' sound, rings out in the cluttered confines of the underground laboratory. Verde looks up and over towards the screens showing the camera footage of the stairwell, proving that it was indeed Luce coming down the stairs. He had different noises for each of the Arcobaleno so he knew who to expect to enter his lab next, and therefore know whether it was earplugs, pen or paper, or his latest version of poison he needed to grab. The ear plugs were for Luce or Skull; for the first since she never stopped talking about the most superfluous of topics, and for the later since he too didn't stop talking or sometimes crying. The pen and paper was generally for the others who had something they needed him to design for them. And the poison? Well that was for his next attempt at killing Reborn of course. It was rare that the hitman entered his lab, and the times he did it was usually to make some snarky or sarcastic comment that annoyed Verde to no end. If he wasn't going to be constructive, or at least useful in any format, then Verde didn't want to see him.

Surprisingly, Luce looks all business as she sets foot into the lab. Even so, Verde goes back to looking (pretending to be) busy. Luce quietly takes a chair and moves it to the end of the desk, sitting down and putting the child on her lap. And then she is silent. Even the baby is, and Verde knows it's awake. Continuing to work, Verde keeps half an eye on the strangely acting woman. It wasn't like her to sit and wait for him to finish.

She must want something. Something important.

He puts down the spanner and screwdriver in his hands, before turning towards her. Pushing his glasses up, he asks, "Yes?"

She lifts up the baby and stretches her arms out, presenting it to him.

And…?

"Teach him to talk." She says, voice neutral. "You and I both know that he should be talking by now. I'm sure your journals agree." Well, she made a valid point, Verde thought as his eyes flicked to the pile of journals and magazines in the corner. So rolling his eyes, he takes the child out of her hands. He looks down as he places the child on the table, but after a second he takes a side glance at the woman. She hadn't squealed or clapped now that she had gotten her way… she must be really worried.

He turns his attention back to the child, who is calmly looking at him with equally observant eyes. If Verde had one good thing to say about this child, it was that it was a quiet one, and he highly appreciated that fact. If it had been a child that cried every few moments, he would have locked himself in the lab for the next year or so until the child had some more self-control. But since this child was an unusually well behaved one, Verde could tolerate him. Plus, this child was a rather interesting observational subject.

Reaching his hands out, he gently runs his fingers along the child's neck and the underside of his jaw with a care he only ever showed to the most volatile of chemicals. Fingers marred by years of scalpel cuts, acid burns and power tool usage tap and press gently, feeling for anything that may be causing a problem with the subject's vocal chords. It seemed like the subject was in good health, no lumps or unexplained symptoms. The baby giggles, Verde can feel the thyroid cartilage and trachea move under his fingertips, and the movement doesn't bring any new warning signs with it. He dips a hand into a drawer by his leg, bringing out a stick and a penlight.

"Say 'ahh'." He tells the boy. The subject looks up at him copying the movement he had just seen, creating the desired sound. Verde nods and moves the stick towards the child's mouth. But tiny jaws clamp shut. He raises an eyebrow before repeating his order. Again the child opens his mouth, creating sounds along with it. But once more, as soon as the stick moved towards his mouth, the boy shut his lips. The child grins and laughs at him, obviously enjoying the game much more than Verde was.

With an annoyed half-sigh half-growl, Verde decides to change tactics. He was used to his test subjects following his orders to the letter, or at least not resisting because they were dead… or unconscious. So it annoyed Verde to no end to be played with by a toddler. Luce makes no move to interfere either, actually enjoying the sight. Verde holds the penlight between his teeth before taking the child's jaw in a soft yet firm grip. Finally he can put the stick in the boy's mouth, depressing the tongue to get a better look at the tonsils and back of the throat. Again everything seems clear.

He lets go of Tsunayoshi's jaw, takes the penlight out of his mouth and puts it and the stick in a tray to be sterilised later on.

"There is nothing physically wrong with the child that seems to be impeding his speech. At this age there is still no need for more invasive tests to check on the vocal chords specifically." He informs Luce so she wouldn't worry any more. He can detect the relief in the features of her face.

He turns back to the boy, making eye contact. "What you need to learn is the full extent of movement that your jaws and lips can make, adding that in with specific tongue movements and vocal vibrations to eventually form increased coherent speech." He takes another glance at the worried mother, before rolling his eyes. "We'll start with the word Mama since you already have associated that word with Luce." In fact the child could already separate all eight of them by name.

Luce watched with interested eyes, whilst also stifling a giggle, as Verde attempted to teach the child how to say 'Mama'. He did this by slowing and over exaggerating the movements made by the lips to create the desired syllable. It looked hilarious, especially as Verde moved onto other words, such as his own name, which required two different movements, compared to the one repeated movement for the word 'Mama'. For his own name, Verde exaggerated biting his lip to create the 'Ver' sound, before over expressing the movement made between tongue and teeth for the 'day' sound. Verde had made a rather funny expression for that one, snarling his lips in such a way that his teeth were visible. That was one thing she could say for Verde, he wasn't self-conscious and was willing to do things others saw as embarrassing (especially infront of an audience) all in the name of science.

But after half an hour, there had been no progress, except for the muscles in Verde's face hurting from his overstressed actions. Instead, the baby in her arms was giggling madly, pulling all sorts of funny faces and creating some strange noises as he copied what he had seen Verde do. She carried the baby out of Verde's domain and back into the kitchen. She notices what the time is and starts to create something for Tsunayoshi to drink. That done, she takes him outside, so that they can lay in the summer evening together.

She puts Tsunayoshi down on a blanket before opening the parasol and placing him in the shade. She lies beside him, staring up at the clouds in the sky as she thinks of ways to get the others to help teach Tsunayoshi to talk. Most of them wouldn't be back until later on today, in fact, it was only the five of them in the house at the moment. She was sure that Skull would want to have a go, and would be rather prideful if he managed the task first. But she could deal with the gloating that would come afterwards. Lal though… Hmm, she'd have to think more about how she would 'persuade' Lal to get involved in this. She wasn't even going to ask Reborn since she knew of a way he could cheat and she wasn't going to let the Dying Will bullet anywhere near her precious baby boy. She was determined not to let 'Reborn!' be the first word Tsunayoshi uttered.

She thinks and she thinks, but eventually she falls asleep in the warm afternoon air.

When she wakes up, it's unsurprisingly to the sound of an argument. If she had a pound for every time there was an argument, she'd be even richer than Nono. She stretches before looking at the child, noticing that he's wide awake, sitting up and following the argument. Sniping sharp words at each other were Colonnello and Reborn, arguing over who could take a certain hit better and which weapon was the most suited to this particular assassination. It was a time old argument that was never going to be won, only lost due to circumstances. She was just glad that she had barred counting Leon as a weapon, otherwise it would be rather unfair.

"At least I don't have to take any unnecessary risks by getting close up to the target to shoot him in the head, kora!" Colonnello argues, stepping into Reborn's personal space to make his point clear.

Reborn smirks. "That's only because you know you couldn't escape afterwards if you got that close, unlike me."

On and on the argument goes, until it's getting rather boring to listen to. Eventually Skull arrives home and decides he had better get in-between the argument.

"Now now, Reborn-sempai, Colonnello-sempai, can't you two stop arguing?" He made the silly mistake of actually trying to step physically in the middle of the arguing pair. Practically simultaneously a kick and a punch are delivered to Skull, sending him flying backwards.

And the arguing continues.

Until someone else stops it.

"Vroiii, Trash! Heeheehee" Tsunayoshi looks up at all the stunned adults, head titled angelically to the side, giggling and beaming brightly.

Where had he learnt that from?

"VRRROOOIII! You good for nothing Boss. Get up off your sorry ass and-"

"Shut up Trash."

Ohh, that's where.

"How long has Tsunayoshi been taking naps out here for?" Asks Fon, slightly nervously. It had been summer for a while now, and the Varia were always being noisy…

Luce stands up, brushing non-existent dirt off her dress. "Long enough." She replies. "Now if you'll excuse me." The Arcobaleno watch the woman leave, pitying the poor fools with no volume control.

The Boss and Right Hand Man of Vongola Ninth's Independent Assassination Squad were met and thoroughly disciplined by an angry mother who had been denied the right of having her name as the first word her baby boy spoke. By the end of the week, the whole of Mafia Row had learnt the reasoning behind the miracle that was a silent Varia, and mentally promised themselves to remain as quiet as possible, in case they were to be blamed for any other words the child may learn.

However, Luce was highly ecstatic to learn that the next words her darling spoke were infact "Mamma 'ucie." She could forgive him for missing the L off and mispronouncing the end of her name, Verde assured her that the 'che' sound was currently too hard for him to master. But for her, it was close enough.

And that, was Tsunayoshi's first word. I hope you liked it. Next chapter is another omake, to make up for me missing an omake between this arc and the last one since I had wanted this arc to start on Mukuro's fandom number.

See you next time! And keep those school suggestions coming in~

Phantom Hitman 1412

First Published: 21 February 2013