Life as Cloud

by Evenly-Baked-Avatar

You know, I had a pretty normal life. That is until I skipped dying, was reborn, and am now a clumsy bucking bronco's sister. At least I know the plot of the story, but somehow I might screw that up too. Did I mention a crazy baby hitman tutor? Cover Art done by Titania.queen.of.fairys

13. Chapter 13: The Danger of Expectations

Chapter 13: The Danger of Expectations

---

"'Don't you know? That's the secret. If you always make sure you're exactly the person you hoped to be, if you always make sure you know only the very best people, then you won't care if you die tomorrow."

'That doesn't make any sense. If you were so happy, then you'd want to stay alive, wouldn't you? You'd want to be alive forever, so you could keep being happy.'

'No, no. It's the most unhappy people who want to stay alive, because they think they haven't done everything they want to do. They think they haven't had enough time. They feel they've been short-changed.'"

-Carol Rifka Brunt (Tell the Wolves I'm Home)

---

"What do you mean you're not getting involved?"

"Just what you think it means," I shrugged, then laid back lazily on the grass, "I'm not getting involved in the future arc."

"There's really no way for you to, anyway," Hannah inputted, looking over at Mukuro. "Only the guardians and a few others are sent to the future. It's a selective thing that I doubt you'll get in on."

"And that's fine with me."

"How are you going to help your precious heroes then, little Cavallone?" Mukuro asked nonchalantly from my side.

"I'm not going to help them at all," I recited, causing him to raise an eyebrow. "At least, this me isn't going to help them. I'll leave it to my future self, who's actually in that timeline."

"You don't do anything in this arc either," Hannah reminded Mukuro. "Your future self does all the work, remember?"

"I suppose so… it feels strange though," he admitted, "Just the thought of receiving memories of my future self and letting him handle everything."

"You," I sat up to stare at him, "of all people, are not allowed to call anything strange." He shrugged, agreeing with me.

"Kufufufu, I suppose you're right, little Cavallone. Have you contacted Chrome yet?"

I barely restrained a blush, recalling my first encounter with the girl. I recovered, but no doubt, Mukuro noticed:

"No, sorry, I've been a little busy recovering from getting shocked by lightning flames."

"And whose fault it that?"

"Not helping," I shot at Hannah, who rolled her eyes in return. I then turned back to Mukuro, who had a curious smirk on his face. "But, I was planning on visiting her either later today or tomorrow."

"And you're sure you're not going to get involved with this 'future arc'?" Mukuro asked again, moving on but surely not forgetting about this topic, "I seem to recall you saying something similar about the recent arc we just got through."

"Stop worrying," I waved him off, laughing, "I can't think of a single reason they would want to drag me to the future. Just leave it to my future self," I said confidently, throwing a playful wink at Mukuro getting into a playful and light mood.

"I'm sure future me has everything handled."

---

"Nikita Cavallone…." The name almost came out as a purr. His eyes looked over the woman as she entered the room, the door immediately shutting behind her. The tattoo under his eye crinkled slightly as he smiled. Green eyes met his, annoying him even more by not being able to read them, to guess what she was thinking. She smiled at him, and his eyes narrowed at the expression.

"A pleasure, Byakuran," she greeted.

"What a beautiful smile," he commented. "It's shame that it's fake."

"I could say the same of yours."

"You're not supposed to be here." The woman raised a single, elegant eyebrow as she sat down in the seat across from him, abandoning her smile completely.

"If I'm not mistaken, it was you who bargained a cease-fire with the Cavallone to set this meeting up," she said smoothly, without a drop of emotion in her voice.

"That's not what I meant, and you're aware of that, Cloud," he said, ever so endearingly. He managed to catch the smallest glimpse of an eye twitch, pleasing him.

"And if we had refused, you would have continued killing our people," she continued, ignoring his accusation. "I had no other choice."

"I'm sure your dear brother was against it," Byakuran commented idly.

"Naturally."

"But you're a smart woman, Cloud," he complimented. "You only asked for a neutral meeting point and to not be searched when you came. I was happy to comply with those simple demands, just for a chance to meet you." She stiffened ever so slightly when he reached under the table they were sitting at. However, she didn't relax when he brought up a bag of marshmallows, instead of a syringe, like she had been anticipating him to.

"You want any, Cloud? You seem a bit nervous," he asked after opening the bag. He shrugged when she didn't respond. "I've been wanting to meet you for a very long time. Ever since I learned that the boss of the Cavallone had a younger sister, in fact," he added thoughtfully, as if they were acquaintances having a normal conversation, "I was already interested in you, and then, you begin helping people escape, as if you knew who we were going after. You seemed to be one step ahead of us."

He said these words with a smile, but she picked out the angry undertone immediately.

"I suppose I was just lucky," she said lamely.

"We both know luck has nothing to do with it, Cloud," he corrected her, happily popping more marshmallows in his mouth. "You have knowledge that I'm very interested in."

"Is that so?"

"You don't belong here, Cloud," He continued happily. "You aren't supposed to exist, at least not in this world. We both know this. And yet, here you are! You're unique, Cloud," he stated, as if congratulating her, continuously using her childhood nickname. "That was originally why I wanted to meet you," he admitted. "But it's clear with your actions to stop us, that you have information that will benefit me."

"Will?" She repeated. He nodded happily.

"Of course," he said casually, with a wave of his hand. "At first, I thought it was merely a coincidence, or perhaps simply a formidable opponent who was doing everything in her power to save people. But then, you gave yourself away. You messed up, Cloud." She met his eyes, narrowed and confused.

"You let Sawada Tsunayoshi die."

She tried to hold back her reaction, the moment where she put together her mistake, and how he found out, but he still managed to catch it. He laid the bag of marshmallows on the table, taking his hand out of it so his fingers could playfully drum on the table.

"You know things you shouldn't, Cloud," he hummed playfully. "You're special, unique. Perhaps, you were placed for this purpose. You were meant to help me, to give me this information, to share this knowledge with me."

"What makes you think I'll just hand you that knowledge?" She countered calmly, as if he hadn't revealed one of her biggest secrets and flaws, one of the things that caused her to lose so much sleep and cause her so much pain and stress.

"You'll change your mind soon enough. With a little motivation, of course." Her eyes became livid with calculations and varying information, but her face remained stoic, cold even.

"I am aware," she said formally, "of what you did to her." His eyes narrowed, becoming dangerous. "And I am aware that you are threatening to do the same thing to me. The sole purpose of this meeting was to trap me, and drug me, just so I can become another valuable piece in your game."

He smiled; a terrifying, genuine expression.

"I was right," he cooed, "Your knowledge is valuable. You're special. You even admit it yourself. But, even with your knowledge, you still come. Why?"

"Because I know what kind of man you are," she answered simply, crossing her arms and leaning back in her seat. "And that you'd stop at nothing to get something you want. No matter how hard I try, or how much knowledge I possess, we still would end up sitting here in this situation."

She paused, growing somber suddenly. A sigh, and she continued:

"This only happened earlier because I'm tired," she said sadly, showing the first clear sign of emotion since entering the room. "I'm tired, and I want this to end."

"I see you're a very logically woman, Cloud," Byakuran said happily, the earlier tension he was emitting completely gone, "And I'm happy that you've decided to give yourself up so easily."

She shook her head, causing the smile to slip off his face.

"I never said that," she stated, "I'm ending this. Tying loose ends, if you will," she said with a cold, hollow smile. "I'm making sure you can never get the knowledge that I have, no matter what, because I know what kind of man you are."

He remained quiet, observing, almost predatory. He was a careful man after all, and with this person, this unique piece within his grasps, he had to be more careful than ever.

"And how do you suppose to do that, Cloud?" He laughed. "You've already lost. We both know that there's no way you can escape from me at this point."

"I've done my part," she said. He stiffened at her tone; almost apologetic, as if she was saying goodbye. "And now I'll put an end to this; a stalemate, so you can never get the knowledge that I have. I can't risk it," she added, more quietly, as if talking to herself, "Everything has to go exactly as it was."

In one move, one heartbeat, she had a gun pressed to her temple, with her finger daintily resting on the trigger. Byakuran stiffened, the conversation now making complete sense to him. There was a tense moment. Then he laughed.

"Oh, come on, Cloud!" Her resolve remained unwavering. "You can't be serious. Think of your brother! He's already lost his love," he threw the fact out casually, as if he weren't talking about someone close to Nikita. "Think about the devastation he would feel if he learned that you died as well. It would be even more awful if he learned that you stupidly took your own life…."

Although he attempted to hide it, she could tell he was growing angry, and desperate, even afraid.

"You can't do it," he pushed further, his body remaining rigid and not wanting to test her too much. "You won't do it."

She scoffed, looking away from him momentarily.

"And why not?" She asked quietly. "I've done all I can. I can't change anything else. I might as well seal it with a kiss."

She looked back at him, with fierce determination in her eyes and a genuine, beautiful smile on her face.

"You underestimated my selfishness, Byakuran."

And the trigger was pulled.

---

"I'm dead."

"You're over exaggerating."

"He's going to kill me," I whined, putting my arm over my eyes, "The gloves are a mess now."

"You should really take better care of your stuff." I pushed myself up, ignoring the painful protest from my chest and torso.

"You were the one who ruined them in the first place," I hissed at Zhanna. "You fried and shredded them. Literally." I held up the remainders of the gloves for proof. Zhanna blinked lazily at the evidence.

"You shouldn't have been so stupid," she replied, shrugging. I groaned and fell back onto the bed. Zhanna raised an eyebrow at my actions, eyeing my bandages. "Doesn't that hurt?"

"Hm? Oh, my injuries?" I looked up at the ceiling, thinking. "Yeah, kind of."

"Kind of?"

"Well, it's there, I've just... gotten used to it?" Her expression dead-panned.

"I restarted your heart with lightning flames, almost shredding the skin around it, basically rendering it raw, and you say you've gotten used to it?"

"…yes?"

"What the hell, Cavallone?" She crossed her arms, giving me a strange look. "That's not normal."

"And that's coming from you?"

"Even more not normal than my standards," she elaborated.

"I'm not saying it doesn't hurt at all," I argued, "It's just that, the pain at this moment is better than the pain from healing a dislocated shoulder."

"So, it's the pain tolerance from healing yourself?"

"I guess so," I shrugged. "Verde did mention something like that." Zhanna hummed, taking a moment to think.

"If I break my arm, will you heal it?" I blinked.

"Why?"

"To see how much healing it would hurt," she answered simply.

"I would," I started, "but my gloves are shredded. And that idea is stupid."

"Whatever," she brushed the insult off. "We'll just have to stop by to get Green to give you new gloves when we leave."

"What? So, you can deliver me to my death on the way to my other death?"

"You still scared of my family?"

"Your family? No. It's the training that I'm terrified of," I corrected her. She gave me another strange look. I sighed. "What is it now?"

"You don't really get scared of people, do you, little horse?" I scoffed.

"Not really. I grew up around the Varia, so I'm used to those kind of people. Even when I first met them, I wasn't that afraid to go up to them, I guess," I recalled, thinking back to my childhood. "I don't really get scared when it comes to people. It comes later as a dooming sense of 'maybe-I-shouldn't-have-approached-this-person' more than anything."

"… you're not normal, little horse."

"….yeah."

---

"So, you're going with her."

I froze in the midst of packing, not having to turn around to face him.

"I'm sorry."

"Are you really, Nikita?" I turned around to face my brother, barely wincing at his use of my actual name.

"I would like to be," I admitted. He sighed and sat on the now made hospital bed. I moved to sit next to him. "I'm not sorry for healing them," I told him truthfully. "But I am sorry for hurting you. And I'm sorry for leaving, but only for your sake."

"I'm sorry." I blinked, not expecting him to be apologizing as well.

"For what?"

"For not trying," he said, giving me a sad smile.

"Dino," I started softly. "You did try. God, did you try. You just… no one can understand. I don't even understand myself. Is that a thing? Do people really understand themselves?" I asked, hugging his arm and leaning into him.

"I hope so," He said, leaning into me a bit as well. "It sure would make things a lot easier." I sighed, looking around the stark hospital room.

"I have to do this."

"I know."

"Do you?" I rephrased the question he asked me earlier.

"I would like to," he said, mirroring me as well. "I would like you to tell me things, Cloud."

"I can't tell you everything, Dino," I said guiltily, leaning my head on his shoulder.

"Why?" It was a hollow, tired question.

"Because I love you." He sighed, looking down at me.

"I love you too."

---

I passed the gates of Kokuyo Land feeling both happy and sad; a strange, yet naturally feeling mixture of emotions. The conversation with Dino weighed on me. It wasn't exactly a closure on the subject, but it was farther than we've gotten before. Every other 'talk' we've had set us both at a stand-still; we would discuss the problem, but we weren't really listening or acting on it.

I was aware that I was to blame for a majority of this, but I didn't want to face the consequences. I was enjoying doing what I liked, ignoring the fact that I was hurting Dino in the process. That wasn't something I liked to think about, so naturally I didn't. It was a problem I needed to fix, and yet I didn't.

I was selfish. But I already knew that.

At the same time, I was extremely relieved about the 'break' I was about to go on. With my future self handling things in the future, I could relax. And by relax, I mean train and prepare for the other arcs. I was aware of the hell I was about to go through, training with one of the most fearsome families, and I was willing to go through with it without regrets. I've been selfish enough as it is, I might as well become stronger for my family; for Dino. I just wish I could tell him that in a way he could completely understand. But we both were only human, and so we fell to this fault.

Misunderstanding fucking sucked, but it was a part of being human.

"What the hell are you doing here?" I looked up blankly to see Ken Joshima leaning out an open doorway of the building next to me.

"What are you doing here?" I asked instead. He opened his mouth to answer, then scrunched his noise, obviously confused by my question.

"What the hell?! Wha-"

"Ken," A placid voice called from behind him. "Don't start something."

"I didn't start anything, Kappa!" Ken stepped out, to look back into the room. "She's the one who- Hey, where are you going?"

"Inside," I said bluntly as I stepped past him. I nodded at Chikusa, whose eyes barely widened in surprise at the sight of me. I then glanced over at the other side of the couch, not surprised to see Chrome sitting in quaint shyness. I could feel Ken's glare on my back, but I ignored it as I walked over to her

"Hey," I greeted her softly, "You want to do something today?"

"Hm?" The sound was barely audible.

"It's my last day in Namimori," I informed her. "I figured we could hang out if you wanted. I know a good cake shop we can go to. Or, I mean," I quickly lost my quickly fading suaveness as I met her confused eye, feeling a blush overtaking my face, "don't feel like you have, I just figured, you know…. Want to hang?"

She blushed, now understanding what I was asking. I let her take her time in answering.

"S-sorry, Nikita… I don't think I'm up for it." I smiled at her, waving her apology off and pushing the pang of disappoint and embarrassment into the pit of my stomach.

"That's fine," I recovered, giving her another soft smile and then a small shrug, "I tried, yeah?" I held out the large paper bag I had brought with me. "I brought some cakes just in case you didn't want to go. There's some for them too," I gestured towards the boys in the room.

"Y-you didn't have to, Nikita."

"It's fine," I assured her, as I began to make my way out. "If you guys ever need anything else when I'm around, let me know. Ciao."

I leisurely made my way out, winking at Ken as I passed him. Chrome stared after me, madly blushing, and expression that directly mirrored my face, turning madly red as soon as I was out of sight.

"She's weird…" Ken muttered, somewhat angrily, yet already eyeing the paper bag in Chrome's lap. Chikusa sighed, but then nodded in agreement.

"Yeah."

---

"W-what….. what did you do?" I managed to hold back my wince as the small scientist glared up at me.

"Technically, I didn't do anything," I pointed out. Zhanna scoffed behind me.

"Like hell you didn't do anything. You overused your flames like crazy." Verde took a deep breath, setting the ruined gloves down as he did.

"I thought that this would happen," He said in an annoyed tone.

"Wait, what do you mean you thought this would happen?" Verde looked up at me blankly after my accusation.

"They were prototypes; unrefined. They're nowhere near the precision my new gloves are at. It's only natural that the flames would come out sloppy and heavy. You only gave me so much time to make them before you had to leave." I stared at him as he hopped off the table, onto a stool, and then onto the floor, making his way across the lab we were standing in.

"You knew that too many flames would come out," I repeated, "and you still let me take them?"

"I told you that you left too early," Verde said, as if it were my fault.

"You knew?" I repeated numbly. Zhanna chuckled behind me.

"That's a pretty shitty thing to do, Green," she admitted. He shrugged, now entering a combination lock in a wall.

"I was curious to see how she responded to flame exhaustion," he admitted. By this point, I was almost too bewildered to speak.

"So that conversation on the phone, when you were asking me about my symptoms is detail?"

"For research," he finished, putting in other code in another pad lock that appeared after the first door was unlocked. "Why else would I ask how you felt?"

"Maybe because you're a good person and you care?" Zhanna burst out laughing at my hopeful statement.

"Don't be naive," Verde sneered as he put his finger on a device, finally unlocking the last door. "After all I'm doing for you, you should be grateful, brat," he continued as he walked back out the door, it quickly shutting behind him, locking once more.

"And what exactly are you doing for me?" I questioned dejectedly, having given up at this point.

"Supplying you with state of the art weaponry," he replied, handing me the black box he was holding to put on the table as he hopped up himself.

"Last time I checked, you just gave me shitty gloves that used too much flames," I muttered, watching as he entered yet another combination and scanned his hand on the box.

"I already told you, you ungrateful brat," he explained, getting annoyed by this point, "I was rushed on time and those were prototypes, and these," his eyes lit up as he opened the box, smirking, "are the real deal. They might even be on the ever growing list of my greatest creations."

He presented me with the new pair of gloves. I sniffed, trying to act unimpressed, but already, by just glancing at them once, I could tell they were much better quality than the first.

"You gonna put them on?" I almost jumped, having forgotten Zhanna was behind me.

"Yeah, yeah," I muttered, trying not to let my excitement show. "They feel good," I admitted, stretching my fingers. "Almost like a second skin."

"These are fitted perfectly for your hands," Verde explained. "The material is improved, allowing you be more precise with exactly how much flames you want to exert, and for delicate procedures. I would like for you to test this while you are here," Verde added, "before you leave. I want to witness the miracle of my experiment for my own eyes."

"The miracle of my flames and your invention," I corrected him, throwing him a sly look as I flexed my hand again. "You wouldn't have this without my unique flames." He sighed, and rolled his eyes.

"One of you just hurt yourselves before I hurt you," He muttered.

"On it."

"Zhanna, n-" I winced as she broke her finger without batting an eye. "At least it wasn't your arm…" I motioned for her to hold her hand up to me. I held the broken finger gently, stroking over the break with my fingers. Taking my time to test the new gloves out, I slowly willed my flames out, only to gasp and immediately drop her hand.

"What the actual fuck!"

"What happened?" Verde asked, clip board ready.

"I… I felt it."

"You what?"

"I felt the finger!" They stared at me. I replayed the words in my word, then decided to elaborate for their sake, and my own. "I felt it; ever bone, every crack, every nerve… I felt almost every part of the finger." Verde blinked, then smiled widely, beginning to scribble wildly on his clip board.

"Fascinating…" he muttered. "You were able to feel exactly where the break was?" I nodded, still a little freaked out. "Fascinating, simply fascinating!" His eyes lit up in a dangerous way. "It seems that I've made the material too sensitive."

"Too sensitive?"

"With this new material, you're able to feel individual parts of the area you're prepared to use your flames on. Without actually healing it, you're able to tell what is wrong with the wound; what exactly is torn or broken. Just think about it; you weren't even trying then, think of what you could do if you were actually looking. You have the possibility to heal on a cellular level with enough practice with controlling your flames and creating perfect precision. I've outdone myself this time. This has become a medical breakthrough." Zhanna and I shared a look, watching Verde go off on a tangent of his own.

"Breakthrough or not," I drew him back to reality. "That was fucking weird. And I was not ready for that." I sighed and turned back to Zhanna. "But, I'm ready now. Hand," I commanded, motioning for her hand again. She complied, and I set to work again, slowly getting more and more used to the sensitiveness of my new gloves. Zhanna frowned as I worked.

"That hurts like hell." I looked up at her with an eyebrow raised once I was done.

"You said that hurts like hell," I stated, crossing my arms, "and yet you just frown?" She shrugged.

"Yeah. I've been through a lot of shit. So, what?" I decided to drop the subject, turning back to Verde, who was on the third page of his clipboard, scribbling notes down vigorously.

"Thanks for the new gloves," I said, genuinely, "But, we've got to get going." He looked up at us suddenly.

"What?" It came out as a hiss. "You can't leave now. Not when I've just discovered this." I frowned and narrowed my eyes.

"Yes," I restated. "We can. This is a mutual relationship, Verde. I let you experiment with my valuable and unique flames, and I get weapons out of it. We're leaving."

"And what if I don't want you to leave?"

The question stopped me. I turned back, seeing a dark look on the scientist's face.

"You really think you can trap both of us here?" If I hadn't known Zhanna for so long, I would have went rigid because of the killer aura she was emitting at the moment. Verde scowled, weighing his options.

"Fine," He spit out, turning away from us. I turned around, not looking back. Zhanna huffed, following me after throwing one more glare back at Verde.

"You need me for this to work Verde," I reminded him before exiting completely. "Remember that."

---

"What exactly are we waiting here for?"

"For Inna," Zhanna answered back as if that explained everything. I made a small 'ah' sound, as I leaned my motorized mountain bike that brought us to this point. I looked over at Zhanna, holding back a small smile when I took in her state. It was strange; she was calmer here, almost as if she were more at peace. I smiled wider and turned away so she couldn't see, thinking that her wild animal demeanor went along perfectly with this.

"These forests bring back good memories," Zhanna said softly. I looked over at her, watching as she blissfully surveyed her surroundings. "You're lucky, little horse. Usually, only inner family train with the Alik."

"Thank you for doing this again," I repeated.

"Don't mention it," she waved me off. "I like you, little horse. You've got guts. You might be one of the few outsiders that's able to make it through Alik's training."

"Thanks?" I answered, not sure whether to take that as a compliment.

"If I'm not mistaken, the twins should still be training as well."

"The twins?"

"My cousins. Little shits," She complained, "but talented. Natural born assassins. Then again, most of our family is. We're like monsters…." She trailed off, and her expression changed, as if thinking of something she would rather avoid. I knew better than to ask her about, having felt the same way before. Luckily for Zhanna, she was interrupted before she was able to think about it anymore.

"Ah," Zhanna said, walking towards me as we heard a rumble in the distance. "That should be Inna." I looked forward, waiting, until an armored car made its way towards us, following the rough, rigid road I had made note of when we first arrived. The vehicle came to a smooth stop in front of us. I stared at my own reflection in the windshield, and then was pulled into motion when Zhanna stepped towards it.

"Yo, Inna!" She called, knocking on the windshield as she walked to the passenger's door. She threw it open and yelled in, speaking in Russian. "Long time no see, right?" I walked around, following Zhanna, trying not to look too obvious as I peered in the open door. Zhanna clapped me on the shoulders before I could fully see in. "You take shot-gun. Get to know Inna."

"You sure?" I asked, still slightly uncomfortable with the new language, despite how much we had been practicing. "I'm getting better, I don't know that much Russian yet."

She smiled, as if there was some kind of joke I was missing, and grabbed my bag, throwing it in the back seat. She then got in herself and turned back to me.

"Trust me, little horse. Your Russian is just fine. And besides, that won't be a problem with, Inna." I raised an eyebrow, but didn't question her. I soon figured out why not that wasn't a problem with Inna.

Inna couldn't speak. She was completely mute.

Damaged vocal cords, Zhanna had explained to me. A lot of her family had similar injuries.

"You'll see when you meet Alik," She said, putting her arms on the back's of our seats. "I'm pretty sure the twins have something wrong with them too." Inna looked away from the road momentarily to give Zhanna a coy look. Zhanna simply grinned back at her, scars glaring. I remained silent as we continued going up, observing Inna.

Naturally, coming from a family of top-notch assassins, she had an athletic, but lanky shape, nothing compared to Zhanna's build. I pinned her as a long-range type, seeing that she didn't seem fit for the up-front, brutal style Zhanna was attuned to. Short, almost pixie cut hair framed her face nicely, with brown eyes, the color of Zhanna's lighter shade. There were small wrinkles around her eyes and lips, and as I moved down to her chin and on to her throat, I noticed scars on her neck, along with a tattoo behind her ear. I stopped observing her as we came to a stone face in the road. I assumed we would keep going around the corner, but I was surprised when the wall in front of us opened, and Inna drove straight in.

"A secret base?" I wondered out loud.

"Of sorts," Zhanna shrugged. "It was an old hide-away for our family, then was refurbished by Inna and Alik for them to live in with the twins and for a training ground. It's a resort, if anything. There are a bunch of other entrances and tons of passages running through the mountain. Even though you won't have time to, try not to wander around too much. A lot of them are old and collapsing," She concluded, looking at me as we drove through a passage dimly lit by what looked to be flood lights.

"Just four people live here?" I repeated, looking at Inna. The woman nodded as she slowed the vehicle to a stop as we entered a large, almost hanger type space. "What if there's an attack?" I asked logically. Inna smiled, opening her mouth, as if she were laughing, yet no sound came out. Zhanna snorted, opening the door and stepping out.

"With these four living here?" she asked, throwing me my bag as soon as I was out as well. "They'd be stupid to." I blinked, then turned around, stopping in my tracks so as not to run face-first into the PDA Inna was holding up to me.

'We're an independent unit of sorts.' I slowly translated.

"Somewhat like your Varia," Zhanna added after she had looked over my shoulder to read what Inna had typed. "Specialists." I nodded, somewhat understanding and glancing around at the variety of military-looking vehicles in the hanger. I turned to Inna again as we began to climb stairs leading up to a doorway.

"What do you guys specialize in?" I asked after she had put the combination in. I scanned over the word she had typed out for me, recognizing it easily.

'Elimination.'

---

"Byakuran."

"Yo. You have an update from Shou?" the man asked, grabbing another sweet and delicately popping it into his mouth.

"No, that's not it."

"Ah, well," Byakuran purred with a smile. "This is all very boring, isn't it, Leo?" The younger man didn't know how to react. "Shall we go eat something?"

"Eh?" Leonardo sputtered, even more astonished by the leader's casualness.

"The suspense it killing me," Byakuran admitted, glancing out the window with an unreadable expression. "I so want to meet you… Namimori Junior high, class 2-A, Sawada Tsuna Tsunayoshi-kun…" He trailed off, his eyes lighting up with anticipation (and perhaps anger) as another thought entered his head.

"Leo-kun," He called to the man behind him.

"Y-yes?"

"Send me a report on the surveillance of that person… that interesting person," he added with a curl of his lip, causing his expression to change to that of a snarl instead of a smile.

"Byakuran, your orders were for you to be notified the moment anything changed," Leonardo reminded the man, albeit a bit nervously as he flipped through his clipboard. Byakuran sighed in an almost childlike manner.

"I guess I'll just have to wait," he complained lightly, his eyes glinting. "For my present~"

---

Inna lifted her hand, and rapped her knuckles on the metallic wall as we entered what looked to be a large, openly spaced kitchen and living room area. Most of the furniture had the appearance of stainless steel with the expectance of a long, L-shaped couch sitting in front of a coffee table and a large screen on the wall. I blinked, looking out a large window that covered the wall in front of us, having not realized until this point how high we were on the mountain. There was a grunt from the couch, and an arm made its way to the back of the couch, pushing a body up. The man, who I could see half of, his lower half behind the couch, yawned and blinked at us tiredly.

"You back Inna?" He asked lazily, swinging around so that he could stand up. His eyes wandered over to me, and he smiled. "You must be Nikita Cavallone. I'm Alik," he introduced himself as he walked over to us. "Inna's husband."

I noticed there was something odd about the way he walked with his left leg, but said nothing about it for now, suspecting it to be an injury.

As he neared, I studied his face more. His features were of what looked to be possibly Korean descent, with dark eyes and almost black hair. His body was stout and strong, but I noticed he was shorter than Inna, who was almost Zhanna's height. Inna walked to meet him, slinking an arm around his waist, and leaning down slightly to place a kiss on his cheek. He smiled and put his arm out, gesturing around him.

"Welcome to our home," He saluted me casually. I was delayed with my polite smile, surprised by the casualness the two emitted, having expected a completely different aura. Inna smiled and lifted for PDA to type.

'Don't be so surprised,' I read after she held it up to me. She then retracted it to type again, 'You are not a threat to us. There's no reason for us to act intimidating.'

"Expectations are a dangerous thing too," Alik commented, with a smirk. Inna allowed him to slip out of her embrace and he moved toward an entrance where the window met one of the adjacent walls. Like Inna had done before, he knocked on the walls several times, copying the earlier sound almost exactly. "They sometimes don't come when I call," he explained when he had caught my confused glance. Zhanna scoffed.

"That's because they're not afraid of you," Zhanna muttered dryly. I turned to look at her, but stiffened when I suddenly felt two presences come out of nowhere behind me. I stepped forward and swung myself around, placing my hand on my hip where one of my guns rested.

"These are our children," Alik said, coming to stand by my side, as if they hadn't just startled me. I glanced at him, then looked at the two small figures in front of me, both standing perfectly side by side.

They were identical, right down to a point. Their young faces were a beautiful blend of their father's Korean features, and their mother's Russian, but taking after their father more. I guessed them to be around eight years old, if their height was anything to go by. They both also wore identical, wide smiles on their faces, and shared a look before introducing themselves.

"Shura," the left twin announced.

"Sasha," the other chirped.

"But sometimes," the first held up a finger, pointing to themself. "I'm Sasha-"

"And that's Shura," the other one finished. I blinked, trying to make sense of their words.

"Don't try to learn which one is which," Zhanna warned me, throwing an arm around my shoulders. "You'll probably get it wrong, and if by chance you get it right, they'll just fuck with you and confuse you even more." I glanced at the twins in front of me, who were both still wearing identical, mischievous smiles.

"She's right," Alik informed me from my side. "It's not worth it." I stared at him.

"You mean even you can't tell them apart?" I asked their father. He shrugged.

"What can I say?" He shrugged casually. "I have devious, smart, little shits for children."

"Can you tell them apart?" I turned to Inna. She nodded with a small smile.

"Of course Mother can," the twin on the left informed me, moving to my side, throwing an arm around me, while throwing Zhanna's arm off.

"We wouldn't dare lie to her." The other one slid in between Zhanna and I, pushing their older cousin away, and slinging their arm around my shoulders as well.

"She would kill us," the one on my left chirped, leaning their head closer.

"Kill us dead!" the other agreed, moving closer as well.

"Uh-huh," I hummed, looking between their smiling faces. Zhanna growled, and took a step forward, but was stopped when Inna put a hand on her shoulder. Giving Zhanna a look, she stepped forward, holding her PDA up to me.

'They're quite touchy. Don't be expected to have personal space around them.'

"Personal space?" One of them repeated, laughing.

"What's that?"

"We don't know the word!"

"Shura, Sasha," Alik called, attempting to be scolding, but still showing hints of a smile on his face. "Don't freak the girl out too much."

"It's fine," I shrugged. "I'm used to… touchy people," I explained, thinking of both Bel and Lussaria, "And I can be quite affenctinate myself, with the right people."

"See, father," my left said, putting their head on my shoulder. "She's fine."

"She loves us already," the right inputted, mirroring their twin's action. I looked over at Zhanna and Inna, giving them an 'I-don't-know-what-to-do' look. Zhanna snorted, and began walking off, abandoning me. Inna made laughing motions, and then moved her hand, effectively telling her children to move away from me. They obeyed instantly, stepping back together, and putting their arms around each other's shoulders instead of mine.

"They're training as well," Alike explained. "We make sure to start young so we can bring out the full potential in our family members. You seemed to have some training starting young as well, Cavallone."

"She's trained with four arcobaleno," Zhanna threw out before I could talk.

"Technically, just two really," I corrected. Zhanna simply rolled her eyes, then casually motioned for me to throw my bag to her. I complied, and watched as she walked off.

"In the usual place, right?" Inna nodded in response, and Zhanna exited out the entrance I assume the twins came out of.

"I knew by the way you reacted to the twins," Alik continued. I nodded.

"I figured that."

"You're a martial artists," he continued, "but were introduced to guns before hand-to-hand. You were trained by Fon and Colonello, in that order, but, Reborn introduced you to guns before that, right? And let me guess, Lal mirch was somewhere in the mix?" I nodded again, a little surprised he picked up all of that by watching me react one time.

'Alik has trained many people,' Inna typed. 'You're lucky. My husbands a great teacher.'

"I'm honored to have him teach me," I said, bowing slightly. "When will we start?" The twins giggled.

"Oh? What's this?"

"She's quite eager, isn't she?" Inna shushed them with a look. Alik grinned broadly, clasping his hands together.

"I'm pleased that you're ready," he said happily, "even though you're already aware of how difficult it will be."

"I'm willing to do anything to get stronger," I said, looking him straight in the eyes with a serious expression. He smirked.

"That's what I like to hear."

---

"I'm a hand-held weapons specialist," Alik announced, his voice slightly echoing as we entered the large 'playground', as the twins called it. "Hand me a weapon, any kind of weapon, no matter what type it is and I can effectively and easily kill you with it." I didn't take his words as boasting, and only acknowledged them as a hard truth. He walked over to a panel on the wall, as I watched him do so, I noticed that he had a tattoo identical to Inna's behind his ear as well. Twins lounged lazily behind us, leaning on the wall and watching with knowing smiles.

"Fon created a martial artist, and Colenello made a soldier," Alik recited as he pressed his hand against the panel, a light quickly scanning it. A sound emitted from the wall next to the panel, and a large portion of it slid upwards. My eyes widened as it revealed a large array of weapons of all kinds, mostly hand-held, and some I had never seen or heard of before in both my lives. Alik casually strode over, picking a bladed object, and spinning it lightly in his hand.

"I plan to make an assassin out of you, Nikita Cavallone."

"I thought I was here to work on how to use my flames?" I questioned, feeling a bit intimidated by the wall of weapons.

"All part of the assassin training," Alik assured me.

"Don't worry," one of the twins approached me, lightly jabbing my side with their elbow.

"We'll round you out," the other one finished, reaching up to pat me on the shoulder. I smiled at them nervously.

"But, first," Alik said, spinning the blade one last time before putting it back in its place on the wall, "I need to see where you are at." He walked to the center of the room, and I was reminded again of his left leg. He raised his arms, challenging. "Come at me, Cavallone."

I hesitated before I stepped forward to face him, put then locked that hesitation far in the back of my head. I wasn't doing this for my sake, I reminded myself as I slipped into a fighting stance.

"Ah, a reactor, I see," Alik commented after he realized I was waiting for him to attack me first. His demeanor then changed completely. "I thought so."

I bridged back suddenly, underestimating his speed, but still being able to cope with that severe estimation. I dodged as he threw a kick at me, leaning back on my arm and twisting my body. I was suddenly painfully reminded of my injury on my torso, but bared the pain, knowing not to let my opponent know of it. In the same moment, I attempted to deliver a kick to his side, and although it hit, he embraced the impact, remaining unmoving. Using the advantage, he grabbed my leg and threw me around. I gasped lightly, not expecting to be literally thrown across the room.

I pushed the floor under me as I was thrown, managing to land in a roll (again, the constant stretching and movement of my body weighing heavily on my injury; I'm expecting to see some open wounds when I look at it later). A planned formed in my mind, as he moved forward to meet me again. I side stepped him, leaning away from the blow he attempted to deliver with his elbow. I rolled, avoiding another kick, then taking my hand putting all my force behind it, I jabbed my hand behind his left leg knee.

The last thing I had expected was his left leg to be made of metal.

My fingers crunched on impact, and I made a loud, pained sound, retreating immediately. I didn't even have to look at my hand to know that at least three of my fingers would be bent back, bones shattered, sticking up at unnatural angles. Alik let out a loud, robust laugh as he turned around. I relaxed when I realized that the spar was over; Alik had returned to his earlier, laid-back mood.

"Wow!"

"Amazing!" I looked over at the twins, who were leaning over each other gaping at us.

"That was so fast!" One stated.

"Father, why don't you fight like that with us?"

"Shura's right," the other complained, mirroring the pouty look of the first. "You never fight like that with us."

"That's because you guys weren't trained by the best martial artists in the world," Alik reminded them. He then turned to me. "I'll admit, that was pretty good. Besides the whole breaking your hand thing. If that were my real leg, then you would have crippled me."

"I thought you were injured," I sighed, almost whining.

"Nope," he said, smiling. He lifted up the left leg of his pants. "Metal prosthetic. But, I could see how you thought it was an injury. You have a good eye, but you should probably learn how to tell the difference between an injury and a prosthetic. You don't want that," he gestured to my hand, "to happen again."

"No," I said, bringing my hand up to examine it. "I really don't."

"And here I was trying not to hurt you for your first time sparring with me. Turns out you hurt yourself," he joked, laughing.

"That's some heavy metal, though. Hard to believe you walk around with it." He shrugged.

"Green designed it, actually," he admitted, walking over to me. "Light-weight, but strong. It can also hide weapons. Good for being prepared places where they search you for weapons," he admitted shamelessly. "No one searches the leg. You should get Inna to look at that," He added, now closer to me, inspecting my hand.

"No need," I dismissed the offer, taking my good hand and reaching into my back pocket. "I've got it." Alik raised an eyebrow, but didn't insist out of curiosity. Taking out one glove, I put it in my mouth and managed to get it on my good hand. The twins, meanwhile, were circling around, confused by what I was doing. Once the glove was secure, I took a deep breath before quickly setting my fingers back into place, not wincing once. I frowned as I willed flames on the surface of my gloves, once again feeling every part of the finger I was on.

Although I would never admit it to him, I was as fascinated by this new ability as Verde. It's just that it felt extremely weird. Seeing without actually seeing was a strange concept to wrap around my head even when I was the one doing it. I took a shaky breath as I healed the first finger, the pain already borderline unbearable. I made a small sound as I healed the biggest break in the middle finger, it being the worst and therefore most painful. I was pleasantly surprised that I finished healing all my broken fingers faster than I anticipated, and that it took way less flames to do it. Improved gloves indeed.

I looked up to see the three pairs of eyes staring at me; one pair in disbelief, and the other two in pure excitement.

"If I break Shura's arm, will you heal it?" Sasha asked, bouncing up in front of my face, close enough to make me step back.

"If I break Sasha's leg will you heal it?" Shura asked next, pushing their sibling out of the way.

"….. no." I decided that for now, that would be the best answer, and the answer that would lead to the least broken body parts. I made a note to ask Zhanna later what was up with her family and wanting to break body parts.

"Impressive," Alik allowed, completely ignoring his children's outburst and the fact that they were now bickering over who got to break what. "Can I see your hand?" I nodded and held it out to him. He examined the fingers, lightly touching them and having me bend them once or twice.

"What were you doing before you touched the skin?" He asked, "When you were hovering over it."

"I was… seeing what was broken… what had to be fixed," I attempted to explain. He hummed thoughtfully.

"Zhanna mentioned something about you being able to heal, but I didn't think it would be this accurate, or fast. This ability will be very useful in the field."

"In the field?" I repeated.

"Yes," He looked away from my fingers, focusing back on me. "You have natural talent, Cavallone. You're a natural born assassin."

"I am?" I repeated. He nodded.

"We should go show Inna this," He commented, dropping the subject that I was obviously still stuck on.

"What do you mean natural born assassin?" He looked back at me, surprised.

"What? No one's ever told you?" I shook my head. He scoffed, shaking his head as well. "Why else would two Arcobalenos spend their time training you if you didn't have potential to be something great? Why would Green spend his time inventing those gloves for you if you didn't have any potential? It isn't luck that's for sure." I blinked, not having thought of this at all.

"I just never saw myself as… talented." He snorted.

"Zhanna wouldn't have brought you here of all places if you weren't," Alike stated, walking passed his bickering children. "She knows you have it in you; it's just matter of pulling it out." I sighed, moving to follow him.

"I sure hope Zhanna's right."

---

The woman made her way through the woods to her destination at a leisurely pace, easily picking up the strong trace of lightning flames, and the lesser, weaker traces of storm and rain. Although she was close enough to hear yelling, she still kept her sensing sharp, keeping track of the other one that was on the way. She smirked as she felt an angry spike in storm flames, then a pained yell. Erasing her presence completely, she decided it was time to ruin the interrogation going on just up ahead.

"I only need one person to torture," Gamma drawled, looking down at the Japanese teenager that stupidly got in his way. "I have no use fo- gah!" Gamma drew back immediately, stepping away from Yamamoto immediately. Gokudera glanced at Yamamoto, as confused as the other two, staring at the knife embedded in their interrogators fingers. Gamma angrily ripped the knife away from his injured hand and threw it on the ground.

"This is a pretty shitty interrogation you have going on here," a voice drawled as a figure stepped out of the shadows of the trees, revealing her enormous killing intent. "I almost expected more." Gamma's expression wavered momentarily before he gathered himself once more.

"Of all people… I didn't expect for someone like you to come," He muttered, a bead of sweat rolling down his face. "…. boss of the Giegue Family."

Zhanna smiled widely, but as always, especially to her enemies, it looked more like a snarl, the scars of her face highlighting the terror she was emitting even more.

"Enough with these bullshit formalities," the woman sneered, picking the knife up off the ground as she stepped in between Gamma and the guardians.

"We gonna dance, or what motherfucker?"

---

'That is impressive.'

"Thanks," I said, pulling my gloves off and stowing them away in my back pockets once again. Unlike her niece and children, Inna had used the more practical approach of simply making a small cut on herself to test my healing abilities. I looked over to see the twins still sitting on the couch, playing their new favorite game; what broken body part would hurt the most if Nikita healed it?

"A broken leg would totally hurt more than a broken arm, Shura!"

"No way, a broken arm would be worse," Sasha shot back. I glanced over to see Zhanna's eye twitching.

"If you two don't fucking shut up, I'm going to rip your mouths off," She snarled, glaring down at the two. "Then we'll see how much that hurts to heal." They blinked up their cousin, unfazed by her threats. They turned towards each other, with smiles in their faces.

"I bet reattaching things hurts even more!" The left one chirped, going right back into their game.

"Yeah, but reattaching a leg would be the worst." The left shook their head diligently.

"The arm, Sasha, the arm! I would hate to get my arm reattached by Cloud!" Zhanna clenched her fist, her aura growing so bad that I took a step away from her.

"I thought they were bad when they were younger," she growled, "but they've just gotten worse over the years." Alik laughed, the mood Zhanna was putting off completely going over his head.

"They're still little shits, right Zhanna?" Inna rolled her eyes, and jabbed him harshly in the stomach, causing him to double over. She gave him a meaningful look as he recovered. "Inna's right," he said, after coughing into his fist to compose himself. "We should get back to training, Nikita." I nodded, perhaps a little too quickly, not knowing how to react to the family.

"As far as hand-to-hand goes," Alik began, crossing his arms, "all you need is to gain is experience. I can't help much you there, but I can teach you how to use every weapon you come across." I raised an eyebrow.

"You can?" I repeated. "Every single weapon?" He shrugged.

"That, or we can come close enough. There are too many types of hand held weapons for one person to master all of them, of course, but although no weapon is the same, they all fall under similar categories. I'm going to familiarize you with every category I know. You'll master a weapon a day."

My eyebrows shot up, causing Zhanna and Alik to laugh.

"Were you expecting less? I told you, expectations are dangerous," Alik reminded me. "And I know you're able to do it, unlike some…" he side-eyed Zhanna, who let out an angry huff and turned away.

"My specialty is strength," she muttered irritably. "The only weapon I need is my knife."

"So, Zhanna went through the same training?"

'Most everyone in the family did,' Inna typed.

"But they did not fully master them, unless it was their specialty," Alik explained further. "Every assassin should know how to use or at least be familiar with every weapon they come across. Even if they don't know how to use a weapon the right way, they should still be able to use the weapon in some way. This what you're going to achieve, Nikita," Alik finished. "At least, that's my part of your training."

"Then," I turned to Inna, "are you training me as well?" She nodded, then held up her PDA.

'I'll be working you out when Alik is not training you with weapons,' it read. She retracted it and typed again. 'Also, during our daily runs in the forest, we'll work on your sniping. This will be done every day.'

"Sniping in Inna's true specialty," Alik commented, wrapping an arm around his wife's waist and pulling her closer to him. I smiled, marveling at level of cuteness they portrayed thanks to their height levels.

"And I've also graciously volunteered to help with working you out," Zhanna inputted.

"Is it because you suck at weapons?" I teased, elated with the fact that I now have something to hold over her. She frowned, glaring at me.

"It's actually funny how completely opposite the two of you are," Alik noted. "In everything, really. When we trained Zhanna as a child, her problem was not holding back and learning how to pull her punches. Meanwhile, Cloud needs to discover her inner ruthlessness, a trait where Zhanna is nowhere near lacking."

"Hell yeah," Zhanna agreed, taking it as a compliment.

"What do you mean?" I questioned Alik.

"You know exactly where to hit to take someone down," Alik explained with a flick of his hand. "You know how to cripple them, how to kill them easily, and yet you hesitate to do so. That hesitation will cost you your life," He concluded in a serious tone.

"Noted," I said shakily. Inna noticed my mood easily and was quick to reassure me.

'That doesn't mean you have to kill them, Cloud.' She then quickly typed something else and presented to me. 'You need ruthlessness to let your enemies be aware that you can easily kill them, but still possess the mercy to let them live. That is what power is. That is what strikes fear in your enemies.'

I made a face, and opened my mouth to say that hesitation wasn't on my part, not really, but was interrupted.

"Did you tell her about our part yet?" I almost jumped as one of the twins leaned on my shoulder, popping out from behind me.

"Yeah, you can't forgot about us," the other chirped from my opposite side, leaning on me as well, mirroring their sibling.

"You're right, it's impossible to," Zhanna muttered darkly, "because they're so fucking annoying."

"Shura and Sasha will be teaching you how to conceal your presence," Alike informed me. I looked between the two widely smiling twins.

"We're going to have fun, Cloud!" The left one chipped.

"Yeah, lots of fun!" The right chirped.

"I'm going to have fun wringing your necks if you two little shits don't shut the fuck up." The twins giggled, but didn't say another word, not wanting to test their cousin further.

"I can't believe they listened," I commented. Zhanna scoffed, crossing their arms.

"They may be annoying shits, but they're smart," Zhanna admitted gruffly.

"They know it's dangerous to seriously piss me off."

---

"You Millefiore have really pissed me off," Zhanna stated, standing between Gamma and the battered guardians. "And that's a fucking feat."

"Is it?" Gamma asked, flexing his injured hand slowly, and regaining his composure from being startled by the boss's arrival. "I've heard differently. The temperamental youngest child of the Gieuge, who was forced to become the head after the death of all her older siblings. That's you, right?"

"The Giegue…" Gokudera muttered, managing to prop himself up. His eyes widened as he recognized the woman's scarred face. "Wait, you're that woman from the ring battles!"

"Zhanna…" Yamamoto managed weakly, remembering the name. "You're the older Zhanna…" The woman turned her head, barely looking back at the two.

"Smoking bomb," she addressed Gokudera in a cold tone. "Take the other brat and move away from here. No arguments." He shuddered, feeling the small amount of killing intent she aimed toward him so he would follow the order. He shakily pushed himself up, and began to make his way over to Yamamoto. Gamma sneered, readying his cue to stop them.

"Do you really think I'll just let them slip past me?"

"Do you really think I care about what you have to say? You should just shut the fuck up," Zhanna spat back. "I hate your kind the most," she admitted darkly.

"And what kind is that?" Gamma asked smoothly, moving his hand to retrieve a box.

"The talkers," she replied. "You types are annoying little pricks."

"Aren't you the one responding? It takes two to keep a conversation going, after all," Gamma countered. Her eyes darted to the ground at the slightest movement, and she watched as a small snake slivered through, right next to the assassin, who let loose a wicked grin as it followed after Gokudera and Yamamoto, who Gamma saw had not gotten far with their injuries.

"Ah, I was just waiting," she said, starting to spin the knife in her hands. Gamma's eyes narrowed.

"Waiting?"

"To spill your fucking guts," she sneered, moving to take a step forward. Gamma moved back instantly, using his boots to go air-born and lighting his ring, then inserting it in the box.

"I'll end this quickly," Gamma allowed, glancing over to see that the storm guardian had fallen under the weight of the other, too weak to continue much to Gamma's pleasure. Billiards came out of the box, teeming with lightning flames and began floating around him. "A merciful death for the Boss of the Giegue, unlike the death of your siblings," The billiards soared high above her, "An instant death by electrocution," Gamma called out, activating his electric cutter with a smirk. However, that smirked dropped instantly when he heard laughing coming from the person he was currently electrocuting to death.

"Are you really that much of a dumbass?" Zhanna called. His eyes narrowed as the electricity stopped. He took in the details around her, the small spikes of green jutting out from her clothes every now and then.

"Impossible," he muttered, having only come to one conclusion. "What type of technology do you have…"

"Technology has nothing to do with it," Zhanna said, stepping forward casually, as if he hadn't just used one of his most powerful attacks on her. He quickly activated shot plasma before she could get closer, sending the billiards flying at her, covered in lightning flames.

"Don't even try to dodge these. It's im-"

"Who said I wanted to dodge them?" His eyes widened as she reached up with one hand and caught one of the billiards, then squeezing so that it merely shattered in her hand.

"The hell?" His eyes narrowed as he ceased the movement of the rest of his billiards in order to not have more destroyed. Looking closely at her hand, he realized that the spikes of green flames weren't coming from the remains of his billiard, but from the scarred hand that was holding it. "You're coating your hand… with pure lightning flames?" She looked up at him in a bored manner after he made this revelation.

"You finally figure it out, dumbass?"

"That's how you survived the electrocution…" he muttered, a sense of dread washing over him as he realized what kind of opponent he was facing. "You covered yourself in your own flames… it wasn't your clothes you had covered," he extracted his early assumption. "It was your skin. That's basically suicide. I haven't heard of anyone reckless enough to do that, especially with the nature of lightning flames."

"You should try it sometime," Zhanna suggested with a smirk. "Hurts like hell the first few times," she admitted, "and I got a hella lot more scars from it, but when I see the terrified faces of fuckers like you…" she trailed off, slipping into a snarl-like smile, "it makes it all worth it."

"You're a monster," he concluded.

"And I'll take the title gladly. Now," She flexed her fingers, lightning flames chattering to life on her bare hand. "Those brats should be a safe distance away."

Gamma moved to open his animal box, taking the fight a lot more seriously now that he understood his opponent more. Seeing this, she kicked off from the ground behind her, almost shattering it completely. She was behind him in a second, and delivered a crippling kick to his back, sending him crashing into the ground below. She landed harshly, but was completely unfazed.

"I don't use my flames in the conventional sense," she explained as she stalked over to Gamma, who was attempting to weakly push himself up out of the crater she had kicked him into. Without admitting it out loud, she deemed it impressive that he survived the attack, noticing how he used his billiards to lessen the impact he made with the ground.

"I don't enjoy using weapons, frankly, because I'm not very good with them. So, instead of using silly little boxes and toys like everyone else, I rely on my own strength when it comes to flames." She stood over him, and he looked up at her with hatred in his eyes.

"If my body can't handle my flames, then I don't deserve to use them," she recited, igniting a large amount of lightning flames in her bare hand as a prime example. "When I punch you with this, it'll channel through you and every living thing around us."

"That means you might hurt those brats as well," he challenged.

"The brats? They're long out of my range by now."

"The hell are you talking about?" He spit out. "They're right over th-"

"Illusion," she answered simply, "You only saw what you wanted to see." He looked at her, astonished.

"But, your file… you just have lightning flames! You're lying!" She sneered and placed a foot on the side of his head, pressing down.

"Dumbass," she muttered. "In a crisis like this, even people like me have to get help." He scowled as she pressed harder on the side of his head.

"You're lucky," she growled, bending down closer to him. "You get to feel my flames first hand." Her eyes widened in excitement and she brought her now-fisted hand violently on his back, sending a wave of her lightning flames through his body and into the area around it. The ground split around then, and the bark on nearby trees cracked.

It was silent all too fast. Zhanna scoffed, roughly rolling Gamma's body over with her foot.

"You're lucky you have lightning flames," she muttered to him. "Over wise that would have killed you dead. But," she turned, beginning to walk away, "I'm feeling merciful today. I'll let you live with that humiliation, for now. Being beaten by your own pure element," she spat. "How weak. You don't deserve to be killed by these flames." She glanced around at the now, ruined landscape, frowning.

"Now, to find out where that bitch hid those brats… hm?" She cocked her head, then grinned widely, turning to the approaching figures, one of which was emitting a dangerous aura.

"You're late, brat," she greeted the Cloud guardian, who met her smile with a blood thirsty smirk, anger teeming behind his eyes.

"Of course it was you who got in the way of my prey," he said coldly. Kusakabe sighed behind him, knowing that the two of them meeting never ended well.

"Get in way?" Zhanna barked. "Fuck that! I just beat you to it! You're losing your edge, Hibari." He scoffed, then took in the ruined surroundings.

"Where are Yamamoto Takeshi and Gokudera Hayato?"

"Somewhere around here," she replied, casually waving a hand in the air.

"You mean you don't know where they are?" Kusakabe restated.

"I'm not their fucking babysitter. I gave that job to someone else," she explained, her mood immediately turning sour. "I just have to find where the bitch is lurking now." Hibari narrowed his eyes, making an accurate assumption of who she was talking about just by the change of her mood. He took on an annoyed expression as well, sharing the same opinion.

"Eh? Is that… older Hibari?!"

Zhanna and Hibari barely spared Tsuna and Lal Mirch a glance as they stepped out from a bush nearby. Lal's eyes quickly scanned the area, widening as they landed on the unconscious Gamma. Zhanna smiled widely again after noticing where Lal was looking.

"Made nice work of the bastard, didn't I?" She boasted proudly.

"Wait, you're…" Tsuna trailed off, recognizing the scarred woman.

"The boss of the Giegue, Ursa," Lal completed for him.

"Skip the formalities," Zhanna said, beginning to walk. "I can sense trouble coming our way. We need to find the sword brat and smoking bomb quickly and get them to a safe place."

"Wait, do you mean Gokudera and Yamamoto?" Tsuna asked, suddenly worried. "What happened to them?"

"What do you mean find them?" Lal question, her eyes narrowing.

"Just let me fu-"

"Zhan-Zhan! Kyo!" Tsuna stepped back, suddenly startled by the enormous amount of irritation radiating off them. "Long time no see!"

Tsuna looked towards the sound of the voice, feeling relieved immediately when he spotted both his friends, supporting each other as they made their way towards him. His eyebrows burrowed in confusion, however, when he focused on the person with them, not recognizing her at all. He blushed heavily howver, taking in her appearance as she neared, quickly reliving that she was possibly one of the most beautiful women he's ever seen.

"It was almost too easy to trick that guy, right Zhan-Zhan?" The dark-skinned woman cooed as she approached them, sending a wink at Zhanna who almost growled in response. "They got out of the way no problem, and it was even easier hiding them. I already handled throwing the radar off to cover our tracks and sealed the rings as well, Kyo," she addressed Hibari, who was intensely glaring at her.

"Fine," Hibari said curtly, turning on his heel. "We'll head through our own entrance," he informed the group, walking in the direction of the shrine.

"He's pissed…" Gokudera noted quietly, the three friends talking among themselves.

"So is she…" Tsuna muttered, slightly terrified and nodding to Zhanna.

"I wonder why?" Yamamoto mused as Tsuna stood in between them, helping both of his friends.

"Ah, I'm afraid that's my fault." Tsuna almost jumped out of his skin, having completely forgot about the mysterious women, and then wondering how that was even possible. "I'm quite hated around their type," she admitted, laughing lightly. The three gaped at her as she merrily skipped ahead, seeing that they were now approaching the shrine.

"Who the heck is that?" Tsuna whispered to them urgently.

"She said her name is Dayita," Gokudera said, still suspiciously staring after her, "and she's an illusionist. Forgive me, Tenth, but that's all the information I could gather about her."

"She's strange," Yamamoto added his two-cents. Meanwhile Dayita had made her way up near Hibari, who gave her a hard look as he pulled out a mist ring.

"Your mere presence annoys me enough as it," he stated, still glaring at her. "If you make a single comment about this, I will not hesitate to bite you to death."

"Now, now, Kyo!" his eye barely twitched as she continued to use the name he had told her repeatedly not to use in the past, "For once, I'm not here to annoy you. Me and Zhan-Zhan are here to talk about an important matter!"

"You know for a fucking fact that I wouldn't be dealing with her unless it was important," Zhanna stated as they walked into the illusion of the wall, ignoring the outbursts of shock behind them as they did so. Hibari's eyes narrowed, having already come to this conclusion the moment Zhanna said that the two women were actually working together.

"Get to the point quickly," he commanded, not even bothering to look at Dayita. "I would like to spend the least amount of time as possible crowding with the likes of you two."

He expected an irritating comeback like usual, but realized how serious they were about talking to him the moment Dayita's smile dropped and she slipped in a professional demeanor, all traces of her earlier personality gone.

"I'm here to get her rings back from you."

---

"How familiar are you with swords?"

"Somewhat familiar," I guessed, remembering the numerous sword practices Squalo had subjected me to after the one time I had decided that learning how to fight with a sword looked 'fun'.

"We'll brush through blades today and tomorrow then," Alik decided, picking up one of the swords from the wall, and then quickly throwing it towards me. I caught it with ease. "You know, Cloud," he started as he picked another sword out for himself, "It's a good thing you can heal yourself so quickly. It will really speed up this training."

"How so?" I asked, testing the weight of the sword in my hand.
"My method of training is considered quite… lethal," he admitted with a smile. I raised an eyebrow, giving him a puzzled look.

"… how so?" I repeated, quieter and more cautious.

"It often takes weeks, even months for a usual trainee to pass a weapon," Alik explained casually as he strove forward, spinning the sword in his hand with skill and ease. "And that's because in this training, I force you to master the weapon, simply because your life depends on it. Typically, the trainee is on the brink of death by the end of the first session. Then, when they've healed enough to fight me again, I almost kill them again and the process is repeated until they're proficient with the weapon and can move on to the next."

The smiled he ended the sentence with almost sent chills down my spine. I thought over how many others he used that smile on, right before he sent them to the brink of death all for the sake of training; training that was worth the end results. That is, if I even survived it.

"But you're lucky, Nikita," he continued. "We can move faster in your training, because you can heal yourself so quickly. This is where the flame conservation training will be coming from. Either learn how to properly use and conserve your flames in a real fight, or die." I nodded and raised my sword, actually glad for Squalo's training for once. Alik's smile dropped and his demeanor changed once again, like it had on our first spar. I held back a grimace, remembering how well that ended. And now, with sharp weapons in our hands, instead of breaking a few fingers there's the danger of losing some.

Or worse, I could found out whether it was Shura or Sasha that was right and pick the winner of their game.

I went after Alik first, sword in hand and my heart on my sleeve. I was going to survive this training, I convinced myself as we parried. Squalo's lessons and words ran through my head, and I grew extremely grateful for him as those lessons and words paid off beautifully. Alik's demeanor remained the same, but I saw a spark in his eyes as we fought. I pushed forward, performing one the first things Squalo had taught me. I blinked as Alik's sword went flying out of his hand, surprised that my disarming move had worked. Relaxing was my mistake.

The next thing I knew, a metal leg was lodged into my side, sending me the same direction has the sword.

"I really hate that leg of yours," I coughed out, holding my side while looking at the damage with my flames. I grimaced, feeling multiple broken ribs.

"I find it comes in handy," Alik disclosed humorlessly. "Switch weapons. Get up and grab my sword. We're not stopping." Straightening myself, I quickly and painfully healed my ribs, the pain right up there with healing my fingers, and possibly worse. It was hard to tell though, I thought as I retrieved the other blade, and tossed my old one to Alik. I tended not to dwell on it too much after all, seeing how unpleasant it was. But, I considered the benefits of fast healing to outweigh the detriments.

"You've had training," Alik noted, as we started on the sixth or so type of blade (I didn't really bother counting, and only focused on completing this training). I hefted the dual swords and swung them a few times, testing them. "I didn't pin you as a sword fighter."

"I'm not, really," I corrected him. "I've just had a few lessons. Well, forced lessons," I added, letting out a small sigh.

"Ah? Who taught you?"

"Superbi Squalo." He whistled, impressed.

"That loud guy from the Varia?" I almost laughed at the description, finding it extremely accurate. "He's a hell of a swordsman. Did you work with dual blades?" I shook my head.

"No, only with one or two handed swords and rapiers; things like that."

"Then, this should be interesting. These are my favorite; they're the weapons I usually use professionally," Alik admitted, only causing me more anticipation for his attack. After the first mistake of letting my guard down, I had done well not to let it happen again. "Let's see how you do."

I did not do well, if the two gashes on my side and my neck were any hint. I managed to fend Alik off with my remaining sword, the other long gone from my hand minutes into the spar. My unoccupied hand went to my neck first, where I was losing the most blood.

I panted heavily, the injuries I had been healing throughout the lesson adding up and draining me. My vision blurred, and in a second Alik cut me down, leaving another gash in my leg. I tumbled, barely bothering to catch myself.

"You have ten minutes to heal yourself," Alik informed me, kneeling down to look me in the eyes. "Then we start again, still using dual swords. We don't stop today until either you disarm me, or you die."

I barely nodded in comprehension, already healing the injury on my side.

I was pleased that I was already learning from this experience. To conserve flames, I had taken to never healing a wound completely, sealing it just enough that it stopped bleeding and no longer hindered me from fighting. With this training, I was constantly aware of how many flames I was using. I was covered in small wounds, but neglected healing them. The dual swords had proven to be my worst blade so far. I needed all the energy I could gather if I was going to disarm my trainer with them. Alik raised an eyebrow as I rose, ready to confront him again.

"Done already? You seem eager," he smirked. "You really want to keep going? You'll die if you continue like this." I nodded, not confident, but determined.

"Definitely," I replied. "I'm not dying anytime soon."

---

He didn't trust the woman sitting across from him and he highly doubted he ever fully will. She was an illusionist, which already gives him even more reason to hate her. Although, her personality in general completely pissed him off. She was a snake; manipulative, always changing, never constant.

Hibari Kyoya hated Koenig Dayita.

And although he found her chipper, immature personality that she usually took when around him extremely irritating, it was the current personality she portrayed in this moment to be the one he hated the most. She showed her true face in times like these, revealing her to be the snake she is.

Another reason for his complete hatred toward the Indian was the unique way in which she used her illusions. As opposed to common illusionist, whose skills are usually based on the ridiculousness and extravagance of the mirage, Dayita shows her abilities in a sly way, slowing enveloping her opponent in an illusion completely made up of what they wanted to see. It often reminded him of how a snake will poison its prey, paralyzing it, then slowly choking the carcass down its throat, eventually crushing their prey with the snake's strong muscles.

However, because Dayita's gift of reading and understanding people so easily, and the uniqueness of her technique, she is also one of the most successful illusionist Hibari had come across. Of course, with this said, it's dangerous to assume that the woman was not capable of illusions of extravagant proportions. Hibari was a smart man, after all, and he knew very well not to underestimate this snake.

He would hate to admit that she had fooled him with her illusions on multiple occasions, and so he has never admitted it to anyone (never mind that more than half of those occasions were because he had attacked her first; it was obviously her fault for provoking him). Luckily, for his pride, only three people knew of these instances, two of those people being himself and the Indian, the third being the person that he could easily put the blame on for introducing him to the illusionist (if Zhanna knew of these instances, he would never be able to hear the end of it, making it crucial that she never find out).

However, with the valuable connections Dayita had and the information he received from her, he deemed that meeting the illusionist was a necessary evil of sorts. It was also extremely helpful that he had the person that introduced them to act as a middle-man during many of the exchanges between himself and Dayita, managing to keep both parties under control and semi-reasonable.

However, he reminded himself, frowning slightly, the person who introduced them to each other was now dead. Which brought him back to the matter at hand.

"She's dead," he reaffirmed out loud, glancing coldly between the two women in front of him.

"You don't have to fucking remind us," the Russian snapped at him, irritably. It was good that Kusakabe was with the others explaining the Foundation in Hibari's stead, for if he were in this room with the three of them, the intensity would surely suffocate the man.

"There is no reason for me to give you the rings," Hibari continued, ignoring Zhanna's lashing. Dayita's face remained coy and professional, despite his blatant refusal.

"The importance of the situation evades you, Hibari," the illusionist stated. "Zhanna has already agreed to give me her box weapons."

"I haven't fucking agreed yet," Zhanna barked. Hibari raised a slender eyebrow at the assassin who met his look with a hard glare. "The only reason I agreed to fucking come is to see if you were lying about your info," Zhanna addressed Dayita. Looking back at her. "Now that I've seen the brats for myself, there's only one fucking reason why you would need her rings and boxes." Hibari's eyes narrowed, immediately seeing where she was going.

"Do you know where the body is?"

"I cannot give you any information at the moment. My deepest apologies, of course."

"Liar," Hibari stated.

"If you won't give us anything, then we'll just beat it out of you," Zhanna growled, lightning flames sprouting from her closed fist.

"You both are well aware of how easily I can escape," Dayita reminded the two coolly. "It will only end with both of you angry, and resort to me having to take what I need by my own means." She looked between the two, making sure to meet their eyes. "I'm being polite, asking you to give me the items. Would you rather to use my usual tactics that both of you despise?"

Zhanna growled, looking away from the woman angrily. Hibari's face darkened, irritated as well.

"This is a delicate situation. Very few have all the information, and even then, the situation is evolving and changing; we don't even know if we'll be able to achieve our goal when the time comes. But for now, I need you to comply. She would have wanted you t-"

"Don't you fucking dare try to use that," Zhanna muttered darkly, interrupting the illusionist. Dayita blinked, then looked away, genuine bits of shame showing in her eyes.

"That was out of line," she admitted.

"Fuck yeah it was." Hibari remained silent during their exchange, knowing that if he spoke, it would only lead to more irritation. He sighed, putting his hand into his pocket, and bringing out a small bag.

"Here. If I give you these, then you'll leave me alone." Dayita recovered quickly, taking the bag from him and opening it.

"They're all here..." she muttered, her eyes scanning over the three rings. "I'm surprised you haven't used them, with the way you battle."

"They would have broken," he answered simply.

"Of course." His eye twitched at her tone. She turned to Zhanna. The assassin huffed, then put two box weapons in between them.

"Fine. You better fucking tell me what the deal is as soon as possible, bitch."

"If all goes well," Dayita said, putting the boxes with the rings after inspecting them, "then you'll get these back. If it doesn't go well, and the worst doesn't come," she said, rising, "then you'll understand soon enough. Thank you for your cooperation. I truly appreciate it."

The Indian then disappeared with a wave of her hand, sparking annoyed auras from the remaining occupants of the room. Zhanna snarled, glaring at the spot the illusionist was last.

"Fucking liar."

---

"And here I thought you couldn't get any more stupid," Zhanna scoffed. I sent her a glare, not being able to talk back to her at the moment. "You really are a dumbass," she continued, crossing her arms and leaning on the back of the couch. "I can hardly believe you did it actually. I thought I was the reckless one…"

"Budft if woped," I said through the rag I was biting down on, finishing up healing my arm. Zhanna raised an eyebrow at my pronunciation. "But," I repeated, smiling weakly. "It worked."

"Still stupid," Zhanna dismissed. "Who the fuck sacrifices their own arm to disarm somebody? He almost took it off, and he would have if you hadn't knocked the sword out of his hand."

"Almost," I repeated. "He almost took my arm off"

"Don't be too hard on her, Zhanna," Alik chided from the other side of the couch next to Inna who had one of her long arms draped over his shoulders. "I thought it was pretty interesting." Inna gave him a look. He laughed. "What are you talking about, Inna? I'm not encouraging her." Inna sighed and shook her head.

"You've passed blades with good marks," Alik moved on, "but you still have to work on your hesitation. As you've noticed, I'm taking every chance you give me to take you down, unless you do it first."

"That reminds me," I glanced down at Alik's now swollen wrist. "I need to heal that too." Alik blinked, then glanced down at his wrist, as if he forgot about it. He chuckled lightly.

"You really do have the perfect personality for a healer," He commented, then developed a more serious tone. "You have a lot of potential. Don't let your personality leak into your fighting. You can be two different people on and off the battlefield," he gestured to himself. "Just look at me! Did you see this cheery face and dazzling personality while fighting? You and me are one of the few," he admitted. "Most everyone else in this business is apathetic enough to not have to hold back their personality when fighting; in fact, most people actually show more of their personality when killing."

"I know the type," I said, frowning as I thought of Bel. I sighed and caved in. "I'll try to not hesitate with my attacks anymore. I guess I could always apologize later," I muttered as an afterthought.

"Apologize? What for?" Zhanna looked over at me, confused.

"For hurting them."

"Why the fuck would you apologize for hurting somebody?"

"…. Because that's what normal people do?" I replied, now confused myself.

"Hm? Really…?" she trailed off with a thoughtful look on her face, as if never having thought of the concept before.

"Tomorrow, we'll move onto pole weapons, then blunt weapons, fist weapons, flexibles, chain weapons and so on and so forth until we're done. We'll skim over long range weapons that require skill like needles and bows, and unique weapons, like fans, near the end. With how quickly you pick up in life or death situations and your healing, we should be able to get through in a little less than a month, actually."

"Really?" I asked, excited, despite how worn out I felt after just the first day.

"Unless you die in the process of course," he reminded me casually, bursting my bubble.

"It's like hell," Zhanna commented on the training me. "I got some of these scars from this training."

"Is that just because you suck at weapons?" I asked, dead-pan. Her eye twitched and she glared down at me.

"Just wait until morning," Zhanna seethed, smirking. "You won't be so snarky then."

"Morning?" I blinked, then looked at Inna. "She's talking about your work outs, right?"

"We'll whip you into shape in no time," Zhanna assured me. "But it might kill you getting there."

"I thought I was already in pretty good shape," I muttered miserably. Zhanna shrugged.

"Eh," she dismissed. My eye twitched.

"What exactly are you getting at?"

"You're a twig," she said bluntly.

"Well yeah, compared to you," I pointed you, "Almost everyone is a twig compared to you." She smiled genuinely.

"Thanks."

"….. that wasn't meant to be taken as a compliment."

---

"She's too worn out to appear today," Hannah informed Mukuro as he appeared in the garden that night. "She probably could have shown up, but she insisted on healing her trainer."

"Naturally," Mukuro sighed lightly, not surprised one bit. "She has that annoying quality of always wanting to help others…." He trailed off, giving Hannah a look, and seeing an opportunity arise for him to ask her something he had always wondered. Now that Nikita was absent, he had the perfect opportunity. "That reminds me," he purred, leaning on his trident. "I've been meaning to ask you lately..."

"Why are you helping her?"

Her eyes widened in surprise at the question and her head shot up at him. She glared.

"What do you mean?"

"You clearly don't want to," Mukuro pointed out. "And I sense a strong amount of hatred in you as well. What do you gain for helping Nikita? You and I both know very well that you could easily refuse and would receive no punishment from her. She's weak like that, after all." Hannah looked down at the ground angrily, bringing her knees up to hug them.

"Why do you care?"

"Nikita has become a vital source of information," Mukuro answered casually, "And I don't want to lose that. If you intend to betray her for some reason, I would rather know now so I can deal with it without her knowledge. I doubt she would agree with me doing so," he added menacingly, yet with a casual shrug, "But she's not here right now, is she?" She scowled and looked away once more. A minute passed before she spoke again.

"… I don't hate her," she admitted. "Not in the way you think I do. The only thing I hate about her…. is that she's everything I'm not." Mukuro raised an eyebrow, surprised she was opening up to him. She continued, hesitantly, "The reason I'm helping her… it's for me. I'm helping her for myself. What else can I do in here? Rot away until I'm completely forgotten? Live in the back of someone else's head, until I fade away?!"

She became emotional as she spoke, almost distraught. The area was affected by this as well, Mukuro noted as he felt the first drops of water, and then the garden was encased in a downpour, forcing him to create an umbrella for himself from his illusions. He could no longer distinguish between the water on the girl's face and the tears.

"I have nothing left," she said miserably. "I just threw them away. It was my fault, I was the one who chose this! It's my fault. I thought for so long that I could pin it on her, this girl that I was watching, separate from me and become this completely new person that I knew I could never be. I thought I could put the blame on her, but I couldn't! It was my fault I lost them, and then she comes along and takes that blame away from me! She treats me like a friend and I don't even deserve it! I hate her… why should I watch her become this great person while I sit here rotting away in guilt? I hate myself! I fucking hate me!"

She turned towards him, angrily. Her eyes widened she saw nothing but pity in his eyes. The rain came to a sudden stop, freezing in the air, coming to a complete stand still. She looked away from the illusionist's eyes, guilty, embarrassed.

"I just thought," she whispered quietly, "that if I help her, then I could stop this guilt. It's all my fault, and I'm not even sorry." She clutched her head, tears streaming down her eyes. Mukuro looked down upon this girl, without empathy.

"I'm not even sorry," she repeated quietly, having broken down, finally, after so long. He watched hollowly as she continued her quieted collapse.

"So easily broken by the tiniest things," he murmured, the slightest bit of amusement in his voice. "What fragile, sad creatures humans are."

---

"Wake up, Nikita!" I sprang into action, startled by the voice and the shape in front of me, grabbing the shape and pulling them into a hold. I blinked as the lights were switched on and I recognized the person I was holding.

"Shura? ...or Sasha?" I tried, looking at the twin under me.

"You're moves are cool as always, Nikita!" They said, smiling up at me. I heard a giggle at the door, and looked over to see the other twin standing in it with their hand over their mouth.

"You got caught by Nikita!"

"It's not my fault! I was concealing my presence, she just moved too fast!" The one I had complained as I released them.

"What do you guys want?" I asked before they could argue further. I sat on the bed and yawned, but they grabbed a hold of my arms, pulling me up.

"No time for sitting down!"

"Mother and Zhanna are waiting for you!"

"We were just sent to wake you up for training."

"I should have known it would be early in the morning," I complained lightly, as they let go of me, seeing that I was now standing. I moved to the corner to retrieve my shoes. "What time is it anyway? Actually," I interrupted them quickly before either could answer, "don't tell me. There's a chance I can convince myself that it's not as early if I don't know the time."

"We'll lead you to them," the twin on my left said, grabbing my arm, carting me out of my temporary bedroom.

"Yeah, and don't bother eating any breakfast," the right added, grabbing my other arm.

"And why is that?" I asked confident I already knew the answer. They smiled widely, then answered me together, giving me a very clear picture of the nature of the workout.

"Because you would just throw it up!"

"Great."

---

"When you said we were going to run, I thought you actually, you know, meant run."

'Of course not. That would be no fun.'

I read her message with a sad, tired expression. She met it with a coy smile. "Of all things," I continued, "I did not expect a trapeze relay course to be our morning runs."

I glanced back up at the various platforms, ropes, and hanging handles, one of which Zhanna was swinging on, making her way towards us. She landed heavily on a platform above me.

"Everything checks out fine, Inna," she called down. "It all supported my weight, so there's no way anything will collapse under that twig."

"You still going on about that?" I muttered, irritated. She smirked down at me.

"Just be glad I was nice enough to inspect before your first run through, brat," she chided. "These tree paths have been here ever since I could remember, for training and so Alik and Inna could keep in touch with their circus days."

"Circus days?" I asked, turning to look an Inna.

'I'll explain later,' she typed quickly. 'For now, let's get started. As an assassin, you should be able to move quickly through any terrain. If you get left behind, you fail. Don't let us out of your sight.' The moment she placed the device back into her pocket, she started, with me right behind her. I scaled the first tree, finding her easy to follow at first, but as my muscles strained from repeatedly throwing myself towards platforms and jumping up to catch the swinging handles Inna and Zhanna left in their wake, I began to slowly drag behind.

I attempted to distract myself form the burning of my muscles by noticing the gaping difference in the way Zhanna and Inna moved through the course. Naturally, like everything else she does, Zhanna's movement's embodied her personality; strong, heavy jumps that strained on the ropes suspending the handles, and harsh landings that almost shook the trees the platforms were attached too, all while wearing a wild grin on her scarred face.

Inna was the complete opposite and it was nothing less than beautiful and breathtaking to watch. She moved with profession and grace, a vivid and ecstatic attitude around her, with a genuine, soft smile on her face. The movements were natural to her, and I was surprised the first time she flipped in midair, and hooked her legs around the second handle, landing gracefully again with another flip. It was all too clear what Zhanna was talking about earlier.

I made a pained sound, as I barely missed the edge of the platform with my foot, and harshly landed on my knee. I pushed myself up quickly, the two women almost out of sight. As I ignored the futile complaints of my body, I reminded myself once more that I was not doing this for my sake.

I was doing to for my family, and that might be the only thing that was keeping me going.

---

"Fuck," I said as I collapsed on the ground. "Fuck," I said louder, dragging out the word, breathing heavily (I said this in Russian, Zhanna's constant cursing rubbing off on me). Inna made giggling motions, and Zhanna laughed loudly.

"Damn. You actually kept up," she congratulated, "If barely. If you had trouble today, it's going to be even more of a bitch tomorrow with even more sore muscles." I groaned loudly in response.

'Luckily, you have time to rest before we begin our sniping lessons.' I read the message Inna held above me, relieved. Inna nodded to Zhanna, who sighed loudly.

"This is the part I hate," she muttered irritably. "See ya," she saluted me, then began making her way down the cliff face we had climbed to reach this point. I laid on the ground for quite some more time after she left, Inna letting me rest. I slowly pushed myself up and looked over at her, signaling her that I was ready. Following her lead, I took my bag off my shoulder and received my sniper rifle. Once we were set up, she held her PDA up to me.

'Your target today is Zhanna. Every day, we will end up out here and shoot at her. She'll hide in different places and we will take different paths here every day. Since you have rain flames, you'll just be paralyzing her if you manage to hit her. Once we've practiced enough with Zhanna, you'll begin hunting Alik, then me, then the twins until you've successfully taken all of us down.'

"You don't mind being shot at?" She shook her head.

'You'll just paralyze body parts. If I was shooting, then I would not be using my family as targets.' I didn't ask why, a little terrified to find out why she wouldn't want to risk it, and instead looked through my scope, beginning to scout.

As loud and brash as Zhanna was, I didn't think it would be that difficult to hit her.

---

Turns out, I was right.

The hardest part was carrying her back to the base. A limp Zhanna was not very fun to cart back. It didn't help that Inna saw this as another training opportunity as we jogged back to the base (luckily on the actually ground. There was no way in hell I was going to make it back if we took that route, let alone carry the buff Russian on my back). I almost wished I had shot her mouth as well because of how much she was complaining about this being her least favorite part of my training.

"I swear, Zhanna," I hissed as I lugged her body up the steps, now inside the base and making our way to the living area, "I will drop you right here on these steps if you do not shut up."

"Like fuck you will," she shot back. "You're too soft to leave someone behind." I opened my mouth to argue, then angrily closed it, spending the rest of the walk wallowing in the agony of my poor muscles and dutifully ignoring Zhanna.

I dumped her on the couch as soon as I reached it, then immediately plopped down next to her, feeling as if I was about to die from exhaustion. I almost let out an agonized groan when I realized that it was still morning and I had two other training sessions to go through, although I had no idea what the twins had planned for me. Inna gave me an empathetic smile and patted my shoulder.

"Ah, you guys are back," Alik greeted as he walked in through one of the entrances, followed by skipping twins. "I see you had fun," he noted, smiling when he saw me ragged on the couch with an immobilized, pissed looking Zhanna sprawled beside me. Inna moved to meet him, as the twins giggled, spying Zhanna and immediately moving to poke her in her paralyzed state. After leaning down to peck her husband on the lips, Inna held out her PDA to him. He glanced at me after reading it, then smiled lovingly at Inna.

"Kids," he addressed his children, who were busy being growled at by their cousin, "quiet down. It's story time." The twin's eyes lit up.

"Are you telling that story, Father?" one asked, pushing Zhanna's body away from me so they could sit beside me.

"The one about how you and Mother met?" The other completed, taking my other side.

"It's the best love story ever," the first assured me. The other nodded in agreement.

"The best," they affirmed.

"I'm going to ring your fucking necks when these rain flames ware off," Zhanna muttered from the awkward position the twins had pushed her into. I gave Zhanna a look, but made no move to help her. I believed it to be a proper revenge for her 'twig' comments.

I turned towards Inna and Alik, who were leaning against the counter, Alik's arm around her waist and Inna's arm around his shoulder, almost holding him to her.

"When Inna was a teenager," Alik began, taking on a proud voice, eyes shining, "She went through a rebellious phase. She was the oldest, with only one other sibling; Zhanna's father. Her being the oldest meant that she was to take the title of boss. However, she did not want this title. And so, Inna ran away. She managed to hide from her own family for a couple of years, and while in hiding, she took on a new identity and joined a circus as a trapeze artist. This particular circus she joined had an extremely handsome knife-thrower. In fact, this particular knife-thrower was so handsome, that Inna fell in love with him im-"

Inna pinched his face harshly, giving him a stern look. He laughed nervously, then corrected himself.

"I joke, of course," he revised his story. "It was the knife thrower that fell in love with Inna at first site," he said, giving his wife a loving smile. "But, Inna's heart was cold and distrusting then, and had not opened up to the knife-thrower yet. And so, the knife-thrower, after many useless attempts to woo her, asked what he could do to get her to give him a chance. She then asked him what he was afraid of most. The knife-thrower truthful replied that he was deathly afraid of heights. She then said to him, that if he really loved her, he could overcome that fear. Only then would the lovely Inna give him a chance. Little did Inna know, however, that the same night, the knife-thrower would attempt to walk a tight rope to prove his love, only to fall, almost killing himself."

The twins gasped dramatically. Zhanna rolled her eyes at them, taking her eyes off of her slowly twitching fingers.

"Oh please, as if you haven't heard this story a th-" The twins shushed her immediately, then turned back to their father with wide eyes. Zhanna looked annoyed, but remained quiet, probably still waiting to clobber them.

"I lost a lot of things in that fall," Alik continued. "The most important thing probably being my leg. I might have landed in the worst place actually, considering how mangled it was. Thinking back, I could have easily avoided losing my leg with a safety net, but one wasn't up…." He trailed off, then Inna bumped him with her hip, getting him back on subject. "Ah, right. Inna saw what the knife-thrower did for her, and she expected him to hate her and blame her for the loss of his leg. But she was surprised that when she saw him again he smiled and said, 'do you love me now?' And she replied…." He paused, for dramatic effect. "…maybe."

"How cold," I muttered. Inna sniffed, and pointedly looked away.

"From that point, their relationship bloomed. Inna opened her heart to the knife thrower, and he gladly appreciated it, having already guessed the beauty of it the moment he laid eyes on her. However, their happiness was short-lived. Inna's family had eventually located her, and they tried to convince her to come back. She refused again, and if it weren't for her brother's convincing, they would have taken her by force. Luckily, her brother saw how happy his sister was with her circus family and with her love, and so her family left her to live happily. However, her family finding her revealed her location to a rival," Alik said, his voice becoming more serious and his eyes becoming dark.

"They planned to use Inna to get to the Giegue and so they attacked the circus, almost killing everyone. The knife-thrower fought with all his might, but could not save Inna. When the knife-thrower found his love, she was almost dead. He took her back to her family, begging them to save her. He later found out that to keep information about her family secure and safe, she damaged her own vocal cords, silencing herself forever. With their home and family they had grown close to for years massacred, Inna and the knife-thrower stayed with the Giegue. She convinced them that the knife-thrower was useful, and to prove himself, the knife-thrower trained his hardest to make himself valuable, learning all he could about weapons. Once he had proven himself to them, Inna's father gave the happy couple his blessing and Inna and the knife-thrower got married," he said turning to face Inna completely, holding her waist and looking up into her eyes, "and eventually they had two beautiful children, and they lived happily ever after. The end."

"That," I said, placing a hand over the chest, "was beautiful."

"It's my favorite," the twin to my left said, mirroring my movement.

"The best love story ever," the other sighed, putting a hand over their heart as well.

"We're lucky to have such a happy ending with the type of world we live in," Alik admitted, his eyes still on Inna. She nodded in agreement.

"I only hope I can have a happy ending like that," I wished, now in a romantic mood. The twins sighed in agreement, leaning their heads on my shoulders. "And a love like yours," I added, glancing back at Inna and Alik with a small smile.

"The symbol behind our ears," Alik explained, gently moving a bit of Inna's hair aside to see more of the tattoo, "was the symbol our circus used." Inna closed her eyes and kissed his forward, clearly remembering fond memories of their past. Unfortunately, Zhanna ruined the serene moment by ungracefully and loudly falling the floor.

"I see you've got your arms back," I mutter humorlessly, as the twins and I watched Zhanna unsuccessfully try to use her legs to stand, only to fail miserably.

"Just you three wait until I get my legs back," she growled. "Then you'll regret it."

"You know," I informed her, "right now, that's not a very convincing threat, seeing that you're on the floor, unable to get up." She glared at me coldly as the twins giggled behind me.

"Shut it, twig."

---

"It's our turn to train you Cloud!" I turned my head weakly, watching as the twins ran into the playground, holding out their arms and running in circles around me. I groaned loudly, stretching my body out even more. I had barely finished Alik's training about an hour earlier, and Alik left me alone to rest and heal myself in peace. Today was blunt weapons and poles, and therefore a majority of my injuries were broken ribs and awful bruises, that although were severely less painful to heal than broken bones, they showed up slowly, giving myself more to heal as I noticed more bruises as the hour went by. There were also a few instances with internal bleeding that were incredibly painful to deal with.

"Internal organs are the most painful to heal, just so you know," I informed the twins in a tired voice. They blinked, and ceased running around me, sharing a look. Then, their faces brightened and they hit their palm with their fist. I could practically see the lightbulb go off in both of them.

"That makes sense!"

"Right, Shura! Since the organs aren't merely as exposed to as much damage."

"Then that means it would hurt more to heal them," the other finished.

"Your healing's so cool, Nikita!" one said, leaning over me. The other nodded happily, copying their twin's movement.

"Uh-huh!"

"I'm glad you to are excited about it," I said dryly. "Now, what's this about training?"

"Ah! We almost forgot!"

"We start training you today!"

"You guys are teaching me how to conceal my presence, right?" I established, already finding their chatter to be irritating. "So how exactly does that work?" I asked, slowly pushing myself up. They smiled, then plopped down on either side of me.

"Concealing your presence is all about hiding your intent," the left began, holding up a finger. "A person's intent controls what vibe they put off."

"That intent doesn't always have to be malicious either," the other explained. "For example, you're giving off an intent right now, just listening to us."

"People tend to pick up on these intents. It's sort of like a sixth sense. Even if they are not trained, an average person is able to do this. With training, a person can extend that range to sense their enemies."

"Some are even talented enough to pick out enemies from allies, and even track people with their intents, but that goes into some special talents, so we won't go into that," they explained, with a flick of their hand.

"The art of erasing your presence all depends on your ability to completely suppress your intents," the other said, bringing us back on topic. "Close your eyes, and try to pick up our intents." I did what I was told. I took a deep breath, and listened more than anything. My eyebrow furrowed, as I could only feel one other person in the room.

"I couldn't tell if you were there or not," I told the right twin.

"That's because I was suppressing my intent," they explained. "Sasha was not, which is why you were able to pick up on them."

"This is one of the most important skills an assassin has," the other added seriously. "If you can't hide your presence, then you're dead already."

"Nice to know. So, how are you going to beat this into me?" I asked, looking between them. "You can't seriously say that there's a nonviolent way you guys are going to teach me this," I pointed out, already knowing the family and their training tendencies all too well.

"Well, we could say that," the right twin admitted, looking across at their sibling, who smiled and completed the sentence.

"But then we would be lying."

---

"So, basically," I summed their explanation up. "It's hide-and-go-seek?" They nodded enthusiastically.

"That's what makes it fun!" one replied. My eyes wandered back to the chains looped and wrapped around both twins' waist, wondering what the use of them was. I decided to tread carefully, not knowing the twins' specialty. They had been careful to keep it under wraps, and I was receiving no help from their parents or cousin, who were standing nearby to watch the 'game'. I was glad, however, that they waited until nightfall to begin the actual training. That gave me more time to rest my sore muscles that were in fact, still, extremely sore.

"We'll give you ten minutes to find a hiding place," one twin explained happily. "But if we find you…" they trailed off, a dark, but still smiling expression on their face. "We will attack without mercy." I nodded, almost hesitantly. The other threw their hand up dramatically.

"Start!"

I wasted no time to run as far as I could, keeping a sharp mental clock. As soon as it was nine minutes, I hid myself on low ground, and focused on erasing my intent entirely. I was lucky that I've had Fon as a teacher, finding it relatively easy to clear my mind. Unfortunately, I was still easily found. I scowled, and pushed myself up from my hiding spot, dodging one of the twins that tried to land on me.

I was confused, suspicious even, as the twins chose a head-on confrontation. They were well aware I could best them in hand-to-hand. Like their mother, they were natural acrobats, and swiftly swung in and out between branches. Unfortunately, since there were two of them, I could only focus on the two of them, and could not investigate the metallic clanking sounds I had been hearing. I realized what it was, too late, as I remembered the chains.

The twin in front of me suddenly jumped back, joining their sibling in the branch. I looked around, squinting in the dark, realizing that as the twins had been ducking in and out between the branches and trunks, they had been running the chains through them, making a cage-like structure around me. I narrowed my eyes, waiting for them to attack me again to better understand what they were up to. They smiled eerily at me, each holding the ends of the chains in one of their hands. They then clasped their empty hands together, a green light igniting their gloved hands.

The chains lit up around me and I let out a scream as my body was jarred by the electricity. Their smiles only grew wider as I fell to my knees

"Welcome to our Electric Cage, Nikita."

---

"Oh please, like their weak-ass flame could kill her." I scrunched my nose, waking up to Zhanna's ruff voice. "If she survived my flames, then the twins' flames would just be a little shock to her."

"Wait, she survived your flames?" Alik voiced his concern, "You used your flames on her, and she survived?" I groaned loudly, finding my body even more sore than before (I didn't even think that was possible).

"Barely," I corrected Zhanna, causing the three occupants of the room to look at me. "I barely survived your flames." I looked up at them from where they had propped me up on the couch. Inna looked over at Zhanna, holding her PDA up.

"I defibrillated her," Zhanna answered her Aunt's typed question.

"And that worked?"

"Barely," I answered Alik before Zhanna could. "She almost killed me."

"But I didn't."

"How long ago was this?" Zhanna shrugged again.

"Not too long ago, right?" I shrugged, not knowing either. "She still has the injury on her torso."

"So, you're telling me," Alik began, turning towards me and raising an eyebrow, "that you came into this hellish training with an injury from the person who has one of the most violent flames in the family?" I nodded slowly, even finding that simple action to be painful. He whistled. "You are insane."

"I told you," Zhanna snubbed. I glared at her, but she didn't seem to notice, or she was just ignoring me.

"I mean, I was already surprised that you didn't take your weights off when we first sparred, and even now, you're still wearing them," he gestured at my wrists and ankles. "But this is a whole other level of insanity. Exactly how important is this training to you?"

"Extremely," I answered quietly. "It's extremely important to me. I have to get strong."

'For your family?' Inna typed.

"Definitely not for myself," I said with a weak smile. "Like hell, I'd go through all this shit for myself," I scoffed, looking at the people I had come to know more than I would ever thought I would. "And with all this shit I'm going to go through, if this is going to be a normal day for me," I huffed, looking out the window at the mountainous landscape with a pout.

"This training better be worth it."

---

"Done? What do you mean done?" I panted, looking down at Alik as I released his now-broken arm.

"I mean," he said, not even phased by the injury as I shoved myself away from him so he could push himself up. "That we've covered all the major categories. I told you we were about done a few days ago," he reminded me as he reached for his fallen weapon, letting his useless arm hang limp from his side.

"Well, yeah, I remember that," I admitted, sitting on the ground, my breathing a bit heavy. "I just didn't expect-"

"I told you, expectations-"

"-are dangerous," I finished for him, laughing lightly, and holding my side. I frowned when I looked down to see blood seeping through my shirt. "You always said that," I complained, beginning to heal the gash on my side. He shrugged, walking over to the wall of weapons to put his fans back onto the wall.

"It's good advice," he said. Then he glanced back over at me, noticing I was done healing my side. I met his gaze, then my eyes lingered to his broken arm. I smiled apologetically. "Don't even start," he warned me with a stern gaze, and yet, even then I could see the amusement in his eyes. "This is training; it's totally fine that you injure us during it, especially since you can heal us later."

"But I always feel guilty," I sighed, eventually pushing myself up and walking over to put my fans up as well. "Especially when I hurt the twins."

"Nikita, they've electrocuted you on numerous occasions."

"Yeah, but they're still just kids," I argued weakly. He sighed in disbelief as we made our way out of the playground and into the living room area.

"You're really are too soft," he noted, patting me on the shoulder. "Which is why it's good that you learned to hold that side of you back in a fight so quickly."

"It's not really holding it back, as much as it is building it up so I can unleash it later," I admitted, still looking at his arm with a guilty expression. He laughed in response. Inna looked up from her book as we entered and greeted us with a soft smile. As soon as Alik took his place beside his wife, I motioned for him to give me his arm. He complied and I made quick work of healing it.

"This pain tolerance thing really does come in handy," Alik admitted once I was done, inspecting his arm and moving it around. "Still hurts like hell, but more bearable than the first time."

"I'm still impressed you only frown in response," I said. "I swear this family is on a whole other level."

"We're tough!"

"Tough as nails!" I didn't even flinch as the twin's leaned over the couch on both sides of me, looking at me with wide smiles. I nodded as a greeting and they frowned in response.

"No fair!"

"You don't get scared anymore!"

"If I'm not mistaken, Nikita hasn't been scared by you for a while now," Alik hummed, leaning his head on Inna's shoulder.

"Sorry, but I've gotten used to you two popping up, especially after your training," I informed them. They huffed, annoyed that I was no longer amusing to them.

"It's no more fun now that you've passed," the right twin whined.

"No fun as all," the other concluded.

"Passed?" I parroted.

"They haven't told you yet?" Zhanna asked as she entered, fresh from her daily workout with a towel around her shoulders. I looked at the happy couple beside me with a raised eyebrow. Inna looked at Alik pointedly.

"I told her she was done with mine," he excused himself. Inna's expression remained unamused. She sighed, and typed into her PDA.

'You've completed our training. All of it.'

"Congrats, brat!" I winced as Zhanna roughly clapped a hand on my shoulder.

"Still sore," I reminded her. "Still really, really sore."

"Naturally," Alik stated. "Which is why we'll give you a few days to rest." I immediately perked up at this news.

"Holy fuck, I am done," breathed out, knowing that they would never give me a break during the training (and knowing that it would have been stupid to even consider asking).

"We can still refine your skills a bit," Alik continued, wearing his usual amused expression, "but we've beaten into you all we can teach you."

'You've improved a lot,' Inna typed. 'Be proud.'

"As much as you've had to heal yourself, you've better fucking improved on your flame control," Zhanna inputted, jumping over the back of the couch to sit next to me.

"She definitely improved concealing her presence!" A twin enthusiastically informed us, hugging my neck.

"Definitely!" the other sang, flinging arms around my neck as well. I sighed, and allowed my body to slacken, too familiar with their behavior.

"I'm just glad we don't have to get paralyzed anymore," Alik complained, lightly. "I hated being shot by her."

"Same," Zhanna agreed, frowning slightly. She perked up, a thought entering her head. "But, hey, you've got some cool scars from training, I bet." She roughly punched me in the shoulders, causing the twins to release me and lean back. I sighed, slightly rubbing the abused spot.

"We'll see when my wounds fully heal."

"You're not going to heal them now?" I shook my head.

"No way," I leaned back, tired and sore, yet extremely relieved to be done with the intense training the family had pushed me through. "I'm taking full advantage of you guys letting me rest." I allowed a smile, almost proud that I had endured this for my family and friends, and was able to get through this hellish training in a little less than a month thanks to them.

"I'm happy," I admitted, letting myself feel completely tired and worn out for the first time in what seemed like forever. I thought of my progress and my family, and how I truly felt strong enough to at least try to protect them now. I thought about my break in this arc, and how because of that break I can spend time refining my skills to become stronger for them, at a less breakneck pace. I smiled and let out a relieved laugh.

"I'm really happy."

---

"I visited the Varia as a messenger of the Tenth in regards to a certain condition. In the middle of that, the Vongola hunt started," a grown-up Ryohei explained, once Chrome was situated and the young girls that had arrived from the past had left the room. "Some source told the Varia about you guys who came from ten years ago, and I heard about it over there, too."

"Dayita and Zhanna briefly mentioned a source telling them about this information as well," Kusakabe mentioned. "It's very likely that it's the same source." Ryohei nodded in agreement, then continued.

"Only surviving members of Vongola and its affiliates know about it, so I'm not surprised those two knew. Though, there are many that don't believe it."

"Affiliate family…" Tsuna said thoughtfully, then perked up. "You mean Dino's Cavallone Family too?!"

"Yup," the sun guardian answered. "They're alive too."

"Thank goodness!" Tsuna breathed out with a wide smile, as if those mere words comforted him completely. "So that mean's Dino and Cloud are okay?" Ryohei's expression fell. Bianchi frowned and looked away, and Kusakabe fist barely clenched.

"Cavallone Nikita is dead," the former-prefect explained, having investigated this incident too many times, and knowing it all too well. "She died during a negotiation with Byakuran himself."

"N-no way…." Tsuna muttered his face blank, the smile form before completely nonexistent.

"Cloud…" Yamamoto paled, not once having considered this. Her dying was never something he considered. Gokudera blinked, slowly taking in this information, and not yet processing his words. Then, all at once, it seemed to hit him. He clenched his fists and glared at Kusakabe angrily.

"Who the fuck did it?" He growled, seething. "Who the fuck killed her, huh?!"

"It seemed as if she killed herself," he replied blankly, without emotion, having already dealt with more than one angry person who received the same news. It was sad to say that he almost knew how to handle giving the news of her death. Kusakabe didn't like to think of that as a talent.

"We think that she had a piece of information that Byakuran wanted," Bianchi said gently, knowing the boys were still shocked. "And that she did what she had to do to keep that from him. She helped so much during the Vongola hunt," she reminisced, a ghost of a smile on her face. "She was tactful. It was like she was one step ahead. She was the reason the Geigue is still helping us, even with the tremendous losses they have suffered. She pulled many connections she made over the years and helped everyone she could. She even saved your father, Yamamoto," Bianchi informed him kindly. He barely looked up, a soft look in his eyes.

"Is Dino okay?" The occupants of the room looked over at Tsuna. He repeated his question, in a firmer tone. "Is Dino okay?"

"He's…" Kusakabe struggled for the words. "doing the best he can. It's difficult for him, though."

"First losing his love, then his sister," Bianchi muttered sadly. Ryohei frowned and barely shuffled his feet, the aura of the room becoming almost suffocating for him.

"Nikita's death won't be in vain," the sun guardian declared sharply, almost startling them, "along with the other losses we've suffered. The family brains plotted a large-scale operation," he explained, drawing them back on subject. "The order for us, the Tenth's family, is to raid Millefiore's Japanese branch in five days."

---

I hummed a familiar tune happily as I made my way back to my room at a leisurely pace.

"I love my life," I almost sang I was swung myself into the room and plopped down on the bed. My body protested, naturally, but I welcomed the soreness gladly, now knowing that I wouldn't have to suppress it during training, and knowing that the pain only meant I was stronger now.

"I wonder if they'll even recognize me," I almost giggled, thinking of surprising Bel and Squalo with my newly acquired handle on weapons. "I might even be able to get Dino's whip from him…." I trailed off, frowning as I thought back to the most recent conversation with my brother. I sighed and closed my eyes, putting it past me.

"It was worth it, Dino," I quietly whispered, clenching my fist. "You'll see."

My eyes snapped over to the bedside table, when I noticed my phone lighting up and buzzing. I sighed and rolled over, reached for my phone and flipping it open, raising it above my face to look at it. I frowned as my eyes scanned over the kanji.

"I need you to come to Namimori," I read out loud quietly, my eyebrows burrowed, "It's an emergency….?" I flipped over and my fingers flew over the keys, quickly texting a question back. I looked away, tapping my finger impatiently, now worried. I scanned through my mind of who this could be.

I had Takeshi, Gokudera and Tsuna's number saved in my phone, as well as Haru and Kyoko's, so they were out of the question. There was also the fact that they should be in the future now, being helped by my older self. The question was, who was in Namimori that would ask me for help? How did they know how to contact me? My attention snapped back to my phone as the person replied, almost too quickly. My frown deepened as I read.

'This is Hibari Kyoya. It's an emergency, come quickly.'

---

Hibari Kyoya was angry. Of course, that could very well be an understatement. His second in command was very much aware of this information, and his second in command was also very much aware that he needed to stay as far away from his president as possible until this passed. Or, at least until his president found missing cellphone.

Yes, Kusakabe was a smart man, and yet he was still trailing behind Hibari as the leader tore through the town, beating nearly every thug that dared to even look at him strangely. Kusakabe could try to convince himself that he was simply looking out for his boss, to make sure he didn't go too far. That would be a lie, of course, since Kusakabe was very aware of the fact that he had no ability whatsoever to stop Hibari (there were perhaps only two people who he could think of, that could achieve such a feat).

Although he would never admit it openly, Kusakabe was simply curious about who had the guts (or rather, who was stupid enough) to steal Hibari Kyoya's cellphone. Certainly, no one with intelligence, Kusakabe assured himself. He sighed and backed away slightly, as Hibari continued to beat yet another hoodlum senseless. What would prompt someone to take the prefect's phone, he did not know. Kusakabe certainly couldn't think of a reason they would need to steal it.

Growing bored and reminding himself he still had work to do, Kusakabe turned to return to Nami Middle with a sigh, only to run straight into a small figure as he rounded the corner. He looked down blankly, at the meek looking red-haired boy that stared up at him fearfully. The boy quickly stepped back, giving the older boy more than enough space and clutched the duffel bag in his arms tightly.

"I wouldn't go that way," Kusakabe advised the glasses-wearing boy, seeing no threat in him and feeling rather generous at the moment after seeing his boss beat numerous other weaklings already. "There's a guy up ahead that's looking for every possible fight," Kusakabe said, and walked past the boy muttering. "I still can't believe someone took his phone…"

Irie Shoichi slumped against the wall with his shoulder, still clutching the duffel bag tightly.

"He's going to kill me…" he muttered pathetically, shaking and close to tears. "Hibari Kyoya's going to kill me if he finds out I have it…" His eyes darted to the bag, and he didn't even dare to open it, already too familiar with its contents. "But I had to! I didn't have a choice!" he muttered, miserable, "This was the only way to get her here! I followed the note's instructions!"

The ten-year bazooka weighed heavily in the duffel bag, serving as a grim reminder of his duty. Irie Shoichi's knees buckled, his stomach churning as he pathetically fell to his knees.

"This was the only way to get Cavallone Nikita here!"

---

"In my opinion, I think it was Rokudo Mukuro who brought the news about Chrome to the Varia," Kusakabe suggested as the two men sat in a room of Hibari's side of the base.

"Of course," Hibari muttered quietly, closing his eyes. "The illusionists are up to something."

"You think they're working together?" Kusakabe questioned, a bit surprised. "I thought they hated each other?"

"They do," Hibari stated with an almost amused smirk. "That's the only thing she's good for, anyways, beside her connections," he admitted callously. "It's an amusing thought, isn't it?"

"What so important that they are putting aside their hatred to work together for?" the man asked his boss. Hibari's cold gaze snapped to meet Kusakabe's eyes.

"Not what," the cloud guardian corrected coldly, "but who?"

---

"I told you, Zhanna," I repeated. "I'm just really worried."

"Why the fuck are you worried about that bastard?" she gruffly responded on the other end of the phone. "The brat can take care of himself. Besides, it's weird that he even contacted you in the first place. Doesn't fit him."

"That's I why I came here," I explained. "It's fucking weird; he would never ask for help unless it's really important."

"Why the fuck does he even have your number anyway?" Zhanna brought up as I walked the streets of Namimori, making my way to Nami Middle at a fast pace.

"Dino," I answered with a sigh. "I have no doubt about it," I said, easily imaging Dino bugging Hibari about staying in touch in case he ever needs us. I doubt my brother knew that he would need us so soon, though.

"God, your family's too nice," Zhanna complained. "Whatever. Just get your ass back as soon as you're done. If you need to heal something, don't overdo it," she warned me with a stern tone. "You better be fucking resting. Take advantage of this time. You've earned."

"Relax, Zhanna," I assured her, letting out a light chuckled. "You and I both know that I've improved on my flame control. With the training and the new gloves that are way better that the prototypes, I'm positive we won't have something like that happen again."

"With your track record?" She scoffed. "I doubt it, little horse." I huffed as she simply hung up, then shrugged, placing my phone back into my pocket.

"Ah, well," I muttered, not at all surprised by her behavior. I frowned, my eyebrows knitting together as I thought about the valid points she had brought up, and the valid points I had been mulling over throughout the entire hastily put together trip back to Japan.

Kyoya would never ask for help; I was well aware of this. Being well aware of this, the messages he sent me made me even more worried. I just really hope that this had nothing to do with the future arc. My goal was to stay out of it as much as possible, but Zhanna was spot on about my tract record. I sighed and began jogging, worrying myself even more. I haven't even contacted Mukuro and told him the good news that I was done with the majority of training.

It was when I was trying to distract myself, thinking of visiting Chrome after I got this problem sorted out that I met Kyoya, literally stalking the streets of Namimori.

"He's pissed," I whispered quietly, immediately picking up on his mood. I paled, thinking it was because I didn't come in time. He stopped in his tracks the moment he saw me, and raised an eyebrow. I approached him almost cautiously.

"Kumo," he greeted. He took in the visible bandages on my neck and cheek. "You're injured?"

"Training with Zhanna," I answered, then regretted mentioning the assassin, as his eyes nearly lit up with fury. "But she's not here," I assured him, wondering if that was the right thing to say.

"Anyway, what did you need me for? You said it was an emergency…..?" I trailed off, only getting a blank look from him.

"I didn't need you," he stated, clearly offended I would even consider the notion. It was my turn to raise an eyebrow.

"You texted me, right?" His expression remained blank. I pulled out my phone to show him the message myself. "That is your number, isn't it?" I asked again, a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach growing as the situation become more and more unclear.

"Someone stole my cellphone," he informed me, his eyes narrowed.

My body tensed, the situation screaming trap. Hearing a strange noise behind me, I immediately moved, stepping in front of Kyoya, putting one arm in front of him, and the other reaching to retrieve my gun from my hip.

I was expecting a fight; I was prepared for a battle. I was not prepared to be engulfed by pink smoke. Confusion hit me first, then reality slowly sunk in.

I had been hit by the ten-year-bazooka.

---

"You still can't get in touch with Byakuran?"

"Yes," the Cervello answered by Irie's side as they swept down the hallways of the base. "He seems to not be answering our attempts to communicate with him."

"Not answering?" Irie repeated, almost in disbelief. "Why is he not answering?"

"The last message we received was something about him meeting up with an 'old friend'," the other woman reported. "He has asked not to be disturbed."

"Meeting with friends at a time like this…" Irie muttered, concealing his actual concern not knowing what Byakuran was doing. "Why is that guy like that…" he shook his head, dismissing the feeling.

"Relay orders for a round-the-clock-surveillance on Glo. I'm going to take a short break." Irie sighed and entered the room, the two women right behind him.

Something gave him a bad feeling about this. He could only hope this 'friend' Bykauran was meeting wasn't too troublesome.

---

I steadied my breathing and closed my eyes, coming alarmingly close to having a panic attack. Although, closing my eyes didn't make much of a difference anyway, since there was nothing but blackness in front of me in the first place.

I opened my eyes to darkness, and the first thing I felt was coldness. The only thing I knew for sure that I was in the future, but even that fact was slowing withering away as time passed and I began growing colder and more confused, even if I noticed the temperature around me slightly rising and no longer emitting cold.

My logic had not gotten me far. I had yet to find a reason why I would be sent to the future. If I was to be used for motivation, they wouldn't have sent me this late. I would have been sent along with the others, near the beginning of the arc. I didn't have a Vongola ring, and I had nothing to offer in the ultimate endgame. It would be useless to send me here, and my future self would be much more helpful in the helping my family from my timeline.

Thinking of my future-self brought me to the valid point where I once again questioned my location. I assumed it wasn't a coffin, since coffins are not cold, mechanical, and they don't make a beeping sound that monitor my heart beat. There was also the flow of oxygen, which seemed to come out of two vents on opposite sides of the rectangle I was in. So, unless this was some weird futuristic coffin, I assumed I wasn't dead.

Well, I hope I wasn't dead. I really, really fucking hope I wasn't dead.

My attempts to meditate brought me nowhere. It was like I was too freaked out to enter my mind, so I couldn't talk to Hannah. There was also the fact that I couldn't feel Mukuro, let alone contact him. It was strange; I had never noticed the imprint his presence left on my mind, until it was completely gone. It was as if something was missing in my mind. I missed him, although I would never admit that to the illusionist. But, it sure would be reassuring to have that presence with me at the moment.

I stiffened, hearing noises outside of my containment for the first time since I had arrived. Taking a deep breath as I heard strange beeping noises, as if someone where entering a combination, I braced myself and moved in a position where I could easily leap out. With the sound of releasing air, the top slid off the rectangle I had been trapped in, and I barely gave myself time to adjust to the light, going after the first shape I saw.

Pushing myself up, I brought my leg to meet to man's chest, forcing him down and grabbing his arm, while my other arm held one of my guns up. I easily put the man in a lock, and looked over at the other person who I had pointed my gun at. I managed to keep my face from falling into a hopeless expression as I slowly lowered my gun and released the man, backing off and standing up. I dropped my weapon, and glared at the people around me, pointing weapons of their own at me.

I was completely surrounded.

As soon as my gun hit the floor, my arms were pulled together from behind me. With nothing but a few nods, the group ushered me out of the room, their weapons aimed at me the whole time. I drank in my surroundings, noticing the emptied hallways, and their white uniforms. My eyes narrowed, watching as the leader of the group would always check around the corner before motioning for the rest to go. I was almost startled as I was pulled into an empty room, only three others entering with me.

"Make it quick," one of my guards popped his head into the room, "Byakuran's getting impatient enough as it is with the set-backs we've had. We don't want him to get angry."

I paled, and my knees threatened to buckle at the mention of the name. I managed to stay quiet, although I was internally breaking down. The three woman in the room with me nodded in understanding, and quickly closed the door; two standing in front of it, turning their weapons on me again. The remaining woman who was holding my arms backs moved her arms to my shirt and tugged at it. I jerked away, and the guards tensed, raising their weapons.

"I can undress myself," I muttered, calming myself down. This situation was stressful enough with me not knowing anything. My captors being this extensive and articulate about searching me wasn't helping. The woman narrowed her eyes suspiciously, but then seemed to take the slightest bit of pity on me.

"Don't try anything," she warned, taking a few steps back, giving me space. I turned around, and then began removing my clothes, my back turned. I immediately began analyzing the situation once more, as I handed each article of clothing to the woman, who thoroughly searched them.

Byakuran was waiting for me, I repeated in my head. Byakuran, of all people was waiting for me. But why, why? I repeated the question over and over, as I crossed my arms over my bare chest, turning to look away from the woman again as I patiently waited for her to finish searching my clothes. Why would he want to talk to me? Is this why I was sent to the future? Why would he need to talk to me?

I let out a shaky breath, noticing that she simply patted down my boots and looked inside them. I held back another relieved sigh as she handed me all my clothes back, naturally deprived of the weapons I had hidden in them. They had confiscated my two guns and four knives I had hidden on my body, I mentally counted in my head. However, I held back the smallest trace of smile, holding desperately onto the only good thing to come out this situation;

she failed to find one of Bel's knife hidden under the fold of my left boot. I reminded myself to kiss Bel next time I saw him, extremely glad for his insistence that I always carry around at least one of his knives

("For your safety, princess").

I turned to face the women once I was fully dressed, but was unpleasantly surprised to see one holding out a straitjacket. I sighed sadly, and at the prompting of the weapons being aimed at me, I held out my arms and watched sourly as they fit the jacket securely around me, rendering my arms useless. One of my guards knocked on the door before it was opened, and we were once again ushered into the hallway.

I found it strange that the same scouting method was used, where one of the guards would look ahead and around corners ahead of us. It seemed like they didn't want others to know I was here.

A lump formed in my throat and my stomach dropped as we stopped in front of the door. I looked pointedly away, desperately looking for anything in my surroundings that could help me as the person addressed the man I knew was waiting for me inside. I didn't move as they motioned for me to enter, and then I was roughly pushed inside, the door shutting and undoubtedly locking behind me.

Taking another shaky breath, I reminded myself that Bel's knife was in my boot, while simultaneously ignoring the fact that I couldn't easily get to it, thanks to my restraints. I hesitantly looked up only to meet dangerously coy purple eyes.

The white-haired man smiled, the tattoo under his eye crinkling. He pushed himself up from his earlier position, lazily lounging on one of the futons in the spacious room and walked towards me.

"I'm so glad you're finally here, Cloud!" He greeted me, smiling widely and putting his hands on my shoulders. I stiffened at the contact, still extremely uncomfortable and unsure of the situation. He either didn't notice my discomfort, or chose to ignore it as he slipped his arm around my shoulder and led me to the couch, sitting me down, and taking his place next to me.

"You don't know how long I've been waiting, Cloud!" He said, leaning back and casually putting one of his legs on the coffee table in front of us. I glanced out the window, taking in the view, trying to distract myself in anyway. However, before I could fully turned my head, he grabbed my chin, and forced me to look at him. His eyes narrowed and his thumb traced lightly over the bandage on my cheek.

"You're hurt," he stated without emotion. "They didn't do that, did they?" His tone was dark and his expression dangerous. I opened my mouth to answer, but didn't manage a full one out.

"Can you not?" I asked instead, not enjoying how tight his grip on my chin was. He blinked then a smile slipped onto his face. He released my chin, laughing.

"I like this Cloud a lot more than the other one," He admitted. "You're a lot more fun. Of course, bringing you to the future was a risky move," he admitted, leaning to grab the bag of marshmallows sitting on the coffee table, "since there was no way to know for certain if you have the same information as your future self." He continued, looking off thoughtfully, but I could still tell he was gauging my reaction with every word he said.

"What happened to my future self?" I asked, deciding there was no point holding my questions back, since he seemed eager to talk.

"Oh? She died," he said simply, shrugging, "Shot herself in the head!" He explained, making a gun with his hand and completing the sentence with the sickening motion. I blinked, not fully processing the information.

"I killed myself?" I repeated numbly.

"It was quite irritating, actually," Byakuran moved on quickly, a glint in his eye. "It was a smart move. Noble, even," he allowed. "Valiantly taking her own life to keep the information she held away from me forever… or, at least, that's what she died thinking." He eyes lingered over to me, and I felt like I wanted to throw up.

I killed myself. I killed myself. I was dead. What about Dino? What about her Dino, and her Bel, and Squalo and Tsuna… did she even think about them? Did she even think about how this would affect her family?

"It's almost sad that her death was in vain," Byakuran muttered, pulling me back into reality. "But it's okay! Because now we have you Cloud, and I knew from the moment you came in that you knew you weren't supposed to be in this world!" I gave him a confused expression and he chuckled.

"Past or present, future or not, you, Nikita Cavallone, were never meant to be in this world," he elaborated. "That's what makes you special. You only exist in one physical universe, and that's this one. So technically, especially now, since your future self is dead, there is only one Nikita Cavallone in existence, throughout all the universes. You're lucky, Cloud! You're unique," he concluded. I blinked, slowly, barely, taking in his words.

"You've got to be kidding…" I muttered quietly. I truly didn't know the extent of what I did when I chose to be reborn in my last lifetime.

"The fact that you're taking this so calmly just proves it," Byakuran pointed out, still smiling widely. "You know you're not supposed to be here, that's special enough. But you just have to go and be even more impressive, don't you? Not only are you truly one of the most unique beings in the universe, but it seems as if you have knowledge that I don't possess," he cooed smoothly.

"Information that the older you took her own life to keep from me. Now, I'm wondering if her younger self has that information yet." I connected the pieces too quickly, not finding it hard to know what information he was talking about.

"Bingo!" He chirped, noticing, watching for the change in my eyes. "I love this Cloud so much more than the old one," he stated again. "You're so much easier to read, after all. If you have that knowledge, then I assume you know what's going to happen next, right?"

"You're going to drug me," I said quietly, a dooming sense of desperation washing over me, looking for every opportunity to escape, but seeing none whatsoever, "and then use me to get what you want."

"So smart, Cloud!" He congratulated, but I barely acknowledged it as my instinct went into overdrive. "And this time I took every precaution to make sure we wouldn't have a repeat of last time."

"Where I killed myself," I repeated numbly. "There are more ways to kill myself than with a gun, you know."

His eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Ah, but you're not like the other Cloud," he stated, almost daring, leaning close to me. I resisted the urge to lean away. "You still have a reason to live."

His head snapped towards the door opening as I was registering his cold words. I took in his deadly facial expression, as our meeting was interrupted by a man walking in.

"I told you that no one is allowed t-" He stopped short, obviously recognizing the man, who stopped and was staring at Byakuran with a terrified expression.

"I'm sorry, Byakuran, but I ne-"

"I should have expected that you would find a way to interrupt us," Byakuran sneered, a cold, chilling smile on his face. "I thought I had orders to keep you busy?"

I narrowed my eyes, taking in the man's heterochromatic colored eyes, hope surging through me. His nervous expression dropped, and his act was completely abandoned.

"That might have worked if they presented a challenge for me," the man chuckled, red flashing in one of his eyes.

"What a shame. I was hoping to get rid of you before Cloud dropped by," Byakuran commented as he rose, moving to step in between the man and me. "I didn't expect you to give yourself away so soon, Mukuro Rokudo."

I breathed out, letting a relieved, shaky smile onto my face.

"Kufufufu, desperate times call for desperate measures," Mukuro Rokudo said, the voice coming out the man almost too familiar, but I was all too happy to hear it. His eyes flickered over to me, and he smiled, but there was almost a sympathetic look behind his eyes. "And these are, indeed, desperate times. Wouldn't you agree, little Cavallone?"

---

"We are men of action. Lies do not become us."

-William Goldman (Westley: The Princess Bride)

---

AN:

Whoo, another chapter done! And this one is pretty long too. I think Inna, Alik, and the twins are some of my favorite OCs, so I'm glad I'm able to share them in this story.

Hope you enjoyed it, and let me know what you think!

-Evenly