"So let me get this straight," said G. "You have no idea how to get to Iemitsu's son."
Across him, Giotto grinned sheepishly. "Well you know… we have no clue where to find him…." G snorted at this, "So we really need you to help. Pleaaaaase." Giotto turned to look at him with puppy eyes. G twitched, making the mistake of looking into those eyes too long.
"Ugh, fine." He acquiesced, but still kept the irritated scowl on his face. Without waiting for a reply, he stormed out of the boss's office all the way to his room to set up for his mission. Honestly, what the heck was going on in his best friend's mind, asking him to check every single orphanage or anything like that to see if they'd find him there?
'Curse that damn Daemon and Alaude!' he thought angrily, if they were here, they could do the job easily. They just had to both be away on missions when they hit a wall with the search. 'I'll kill Giotto when this is done.' He thought with finality. With this thought, he headed to the nearest orphanage in town.
20 minutes later…
"Hey, Luce." G said to a woman sitting on a comfy-looking chair. She was dressed in a white, black, and orange dress that fitted her frame perfectly. Her hair was combed neatly and she wore a large hat on her head.
"G," she said, looking up from the paper she was reading. At this time, the children were all either sleeping or playing with each other. "What brings you here? Take a seat, I'll go make some coffee." She stood up from where she sat to head to the kitchen.
G held up a hand. "No need. I'm just going to ask a question." Although this was what he said, he sat down anyway. "So the thing is, it's about Iemitsu. Well his son, actually." At this, the woman looked concerned.
"What about him? Did something happen to him?" hearing her say this made it clear that she had not been informed of the young Tsunayoshi's disappearance and the couple's death.
G ran a hand through his hair. "Well," Ugh. He hated being the bad guy when it came to his friends. "A few days ago, their house got smoked. Iemitsu and his wife died, but we suspect his son escaped since Alaude didn't find his body. And now Giotto's trying to look for him so he can take the kid under his wing."
"Oh." Luce said, obviously at a loss of what to say. "Well I'll call you if anything turns up." She finally said, "Good luck looking for him." G nodded thanks, standing up and getting ready to leave, but Luce was talking again.
"So… do you know who did it?"
"No," G replied matter-of-factly, "We have a guess, rather, we know someone who has a grudge against Iemitsu but we don't have any evidence of who actually did it, so until we find out, it's not going to be named as murder but rather an accident." An accident. Plain and simple, just like that.
Luce seemed to be in thought for a while, but shook her head then said, "Alright, good luck. If you need anything, you know how to get to me." And this time, G did smile.
"Thanks."
-iOioioioioioiO-
Byakuran did not like repeating himself.
'They took away his memories,' he reminded himself as he watched the brunet try to process what he'd just explained to him days ago.
Tsuna was so absorbed in his thoughts that he didn't see his new friend banging his head on a wall.
The silence was broken when they heard thumps from outside that sounded like boots hitting cement.
"…. We're gonna be so screwed." Tsuna said, and Byakuran couldn't agree more.
The door flew open and two men came in, grabbing their wrists in an iron grip and hoisting them up from their positions on the floor. "March!" they barked even as they dragged the two boys with them to who-knows-where. The men threw the two into a room, where other children were also gathered. Most of the children were huddled together in a huge group but in a corner, there was another group looking particularly wary of everything.
The two boys were deposited at the back of the larger group where most－if not all－the children were trying to comfort each other. They faced a large door that was shut tightly and everyone was eyeing it fearfully.
"That's the last of them," said one of the two men. Tsuna blinked as the other produced some sort of scanner from his pocket and wondered how it even fit. The man flicked a switch on it and a red light came out and roved over each of the children as he pointed the device at them. Finally, he switched it off and tapped at a screen attached to the scanner.
The door swung open and all heads turned to it as a small man with glasses stepped out. "I trust you have completed your task?"
"Only four of them have flames," the man reported, "And out of those four, half have sky flames and the other half have mist flames." The glasses guy seemed to be calculating this before he nodded and told the taller man to grab the four who had flames. "Bring them to the testing room. As for these," his lips quirked, forming a (creepy) toothy grin. "I have other plans for you lot."
A man was bent over a series of wires when Glasses came in. "Get out of here, Emilio. If that kid sees you, it will be over for all of us."
The man rolled his eyes, shoving his gloved hands into his pocket before muttering "Fine," and walking casually out the door. Mr. Giant carried the four kids over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, heading straight to the testing room.
As soon as they got there, he strapped each of the kids to a separate operating table with a huge thing none of them knew what the heck was facing them. Mr. Glasses flicked a switch and a bright light blinded them.
"So what are we doing with these?" said the Giant. The shorter man pushed up the glasses on the bridge of his nose and explained, "First of all, we're going to test the extents of their flames. If it can't do any damage then it will be worthless. They'll be transferred back to be experimented on if that happens. Next, we'll get the information about their compatibilities with certain things, like weapons or other sorts. Once we're over and done with that, we extract flames and let them go back to their quarters."
"All in one day?" Mr. Glasses shrugged.
"Who knows, it could take just hours or it could take weeks."
"But two of them have already been experimented on, wouldn't that affect them?" asked Mr. Giant.
Glasses grinned. "That's why we'll be testing the limits of their flames."
-iOioioioioioiO-
In a separate room, Emilio, along with some others, were assembling metal scraps. Papers were littered in every corner. Some contraptions took up a good portion of the room and diagrams were taped onto them.
"Emil," said one of them. "where do you get all these ideas?"
"What ideas?"
"You know, for all these new inventions?"
Emilio rolled his eyes. "I'm an inventor duh."
"Yeah," said the man. "Of course you are but seriously, these things are… well, different. How do you do it?"
"I wanted to destroy someone." He said bluntly.
"What?" the man gaped like a fish. Emilio snorted.
"Remember when the new boss gave us a job? I was to kidnap the Vongola advisor's wife and hold her hostage."
"Yeah, so what happened?"
"I got his kid too. But those two were smart, the dropped plates and called a lot of attention. The advisor came and freaked out. Then I don't know how, but he got his hands on my wife and kid."
"And what happened after that?" prodded the man.
"It was a battle, not sure what of, wits or speed, it's all the same. In the end, he shot my wife in the shoulder and threatened to do more if I didn't let go of his family."
"And you didn't?"
"You could say that. I grabbed ahold of his woman's neck and threatened to snap it. He was obviously disturbed. But it was too late; he'd already called for reinforcements who-knows-when. He shot them while someone knocked me over. His son and wife escaped. I wasn't too happy about that but it happened anyway. In the end I had to use the new teleportation device. It sucked; brought me to the mountain, and I had to walk all the way back." He cringed at the thought of walking from the mountain where he'd been chased by bears, bats, snakes, you name it. It was unpleasant at best when he remembered how he'd slipped down a steep side and ended up in a throng of sharp pointy things that had ripped up his pants and most of his face.
"Damned mountain," he found himself muttering.
The man chuckled. "Well it seems you're awfully good natured about it."
"Oh please, haven't you figured out that I invented all these to destroy the entirety of Vongola? It coincides with the boss's plans anyway." He laughed.
"Once we put flames into these babies, they'll become monsters."
AN: So now you know the story…. And if you haven't figured out yet, Emilio is the guy from chapter 1 XD and due to a storm that looks like it isn't here anymore, school's suspended for the day so I got to write OwO