Chapter 2: Initiation
Applied Position: Reconnaissance
Mission: Allied Families' Recruitment Test: 2017
Primary Target: To provide other candidates with information on a group of escaped convicts to best allow for the other candidates to infiltrate the base, retrieve the hostages taken and take out the convicts in question for Vendicare custody. Where possible, assist other candidates in fulfilling their mission as well.
Basic Information: Seven convicts have escaped Vendiche Prison on March 15, 2017. (For their appearance, refer to labeled pictures) Estimated number of hostages: three, including a teenage girl, a boy younger than 15 and a man in his late twenties to early thirties. It is unknown if the hostages are still alive or if any new hostages have been taken. The freelance hitman, Hibari Kyouya, was also reported to have entered the base and has currently lost contact with his support team. If alive, he is to be retrieved as well. The base is located in the abandoned building of the old Kokuyo Funland in Florence. (Refer to navigation system) Duration of their residence there is unknown.
Rokudo Mukuro: Leader of the convicts and an illusionist. Noted to be exceedingly sly and crafty. Convicted for selling Mafia secrets to other Families and the law enforcement, murder of innocents and breaking the Omerta.
Joshima Ken: Has the ability to mimic certain animal-like qualities. Convicted for aiding Rokudo Mukuro in the selling Mafia secrets to other Families and the law enforcement, murder of innocents and breaking the Omerta.
Kakimoto Chisuka: User of poison darts. Convicted for aiding Rokudo Mukuro in the selling Mafia secrets to other Families and the law enforcement, murder of innocents and breaking the Omerta.
M.M.: User of hypnotic abilities. Convicted for aiding Rokudo Mukuro in the selling Mafia secrets to other Families and the law enforcement, murder of innocents and breaking the Omerta.
Birds: Uses birds as informants. Convicted for theft of Mafia secrets and planning the murder of innocents.
Jiji and Djidji: Twins, known lackeys of Birds. Convicted for aiding Birds in the theft of Mafia secrets and murder of innocents.
Chief Examiner: 'The Poison Scorpion' Bianchi
Equipment: 1 Handgun (Either the Browning Hi-Power, Beretta 92 or Tisas ZIGANA T) or 1 Rifle (Either the H&K G36 or M40), 5 sets of cartridges of your choice, a flip blade and an 8 inch dagger. Access to Vongola Support Crew. (See contacts; Support and Logistics― S.K., Informant― K.H., Disguise Specialist― M.H., Medic― T.S.) You may use your own equipment for the test. For additional equipment, apply to the examiner.
Note: Collect your equipment from the starting point. Assessment will be made by examiner's report, candidates own reports in the duration of and after the mission and other candidate's reports and comments. This test is undertaken at your own risk. The Allied Families are not responsible for any mutilation, death or trauma as a result of the test. Three things constitute to immediate failure and the possibility of being put on the Allied Families' hit list; 1. Revealing classified information; 2. Killing or maiming innocents, hostages or fellow candidates; 3. Death.
― Allied Families' Recruitment Test: 2017, Briefing for Candidate #027. Taken from the classified Vongola Archives.
He wasn't in the habit of attacking women ―those herbivores generally burst into tears and god-awful shrieking that hurt his ears, were always in groups, hence the noise from when they got attacked was multiplied by several times, and in general, not worth the effort. It helped that most of them kept a distance from him and were smart enough to avoid pissing him off. Still, he had no qualms about beat the girl with short, red hair down, breaking her arms in two places and delivering serious bruising to her shoulder. She blacked out from pain before he could continue and he stepped past her fallen form, black shoes silent against the dirty concrete floor.
Hibari Kyouya sniffed in disgust, ramming his tonfa into the man's gut, forcing him to double over as he proceeded. Calmly, methodically, he whacked the bald man over the head, dislocated his shoulder and broke his knee in three smooth, swift strikes. He screamed, convulsing in pain as he hunched over the oversized teacup that herbivores rode for fun and was said to make them dizzy (why they would want to do such a thing, he had no idea, but then again, that was none of Hibari's business). He wasn't nice enough to put the man out of his misery, so he settled for putting his twin in similar pain.
Really, that Vongola, trying to place a tracker on him after they hired him. Granted, Hibari hadn't noticed it until halfway through his mission, but he consoled himself with the fact that they were probably freaking out over the lost tracker by now.
Those herbivores, thinking that they could use him outside of what he was paid for.
They had known the general location, but were too herbivorous to pursue the criminals themselves. He scoffed, breaking a clarinet into pieces as it crunched under his foot, grey-blue eyes narrowed as he scanned the area. There was a fat yellow bird flitting overhead and Hibari briefly toyed with the idea of smacking it down, noisy little creature, before decided that it wasn't worth it.
He belonged, if Hibari remembered correctly, to the man who was, for some reason or another ―Hibari wasn't very interested ―bleeding through his nose even before he managed to snap the man's neck. The bird flew to the remains of a demolished wall, staring at him with beady black eyes. He glowered and it twittered.
"I'll bite you to death!" Hibari's brow creased, his phrase having been stolen from him by the tiny, bird-brained creature. It blinked at him innocently, completely unaware that it had just mauled Hibari's favorite phrase.
He had come to this god forsaken country to be made fun of by a damn bird.
Not that he had really had a choice. His violence got a bit too much for Namimori; cops had been authorized to use guns against him and there was a warrant for his arrest for 'destruction and vandalism of public and private property, assault of a police officer, civil servants and civilians, extortion and blackmail'. The Vongola Mafia Family had offered him respite. Work for them and they would get rid of his warrant. Naturally, he refused.
He was Hibari Kyouya. He would not bow down and become anybody's dog. Then Kusakabe caught up to him and had them come to a compromise. They would grant him passage to Italy and he would, in return, carry out a few jobs for them. Nothing he couldn't refuse, but he would at least complete for them a job a year. They accepted, knowing they had very little to lose; the flight was easy to arrange and if he became a liability, they could simply cut him off.
It still irritated him to no end. He pressed at the ear piece at his year, informing his second-on-command that he was proceeding. Kusakabe had been unusually tense since arriving in Italy. Hibari attributed it to the heightened level of danger they were under, dismissing it easily. But at the very least, he would sporadically, during the course of the mission, ensure Kusakabe Tetsuya would not pull out his pompadour in anxiety in the meantime. It was irritating to think that Tetsuya believed that he might lose, but Hibari took it in stride since it was Kusakabe.
Honestly, these jobs were boring to him. Sure, he got to bite people to death, but none of them were even near strong enough to be able to reach him. It was nice, being able to indulge in pointless violence and having someone to clean up the mess for him, but it wasn't nearly as interesting at biting to death those that threatened the peace and security of Namimori. That was far more satisfying.
"Herbivores! Herbivores!" He lowered his tonfa, squinting at the bird contemplatively. If he recalled right, those birds could sing… He motioned it over with his finger and it complied. It had been a few years since he had heard anyone sing the song and it would be nice to hear it again, not just from a cold electronic device, but a living breathing being, even if it was feathery and yellow and was beginning to annoy him.
"The green tail of Namimori…"
Kokuyo Fun Land was an old amusement park, wildly popular several years ago. Nowadays, that plot of land was mortgaged to the bank, technically still open, but so rundown and forgotten that, when Tsuna hailed a cab, the driver had to pull out a directory.
It really was in a horrible part of the town, he mused, climbing the concrete path that was now almost completely hidden from view by overgrown vegetation. While he had planned to get off the cab before they reached his destination, to scout the area, the driver had declared the roads impassible and had promptly ejected Tsuna from inside the cab.
The fences that surrounded the abandoned amusement park were made of wire, rusted barbed wire haphazardly thrown over it; Tsuna grimaced, thinking that the Fun Land might have never had much business. He could see the rickety, unimpressive Ferris wheel of rusted steel and faded red paint, the gloom that seemed to permeate the air and the way it all seemed to be coated in a grey haze of must, a stark contrast with the lush, rich vegetation that was beginning to overtake it. Crows cawed every now and then, their cries adding to the creepy, chilly atmosphere. He gingerly picked his way through the wilderness that surrounded the presumed base of the criminals.
He wondered if anyone else in the examination had reached yet. There were some who looked as if they would just burst in from the front and Tsuna hoped to God that they would at least provide the kidnappers some sort of distraction to cover him. It felt a little unkind, but Tsuna couldn't help but think that this might be easier alone.
He pulled out at certain part of the fence as he circled the perimeter of the grounds, grinning triumphantly when it came loose to provide him a big enough hole to crawl through. Tsuna went through it with little difficulty, dusting dirt and leaves from his clothes when he made it through. He carefully scanned the area.
The grounds were wide and the only hiding places were the attractions themselves. Tsuna grimaced at the idea of trying to escape. It wouldn't be easy. He dashed across the dusty fairgrounds that were littered with moldy, half eaten popcorn and fliers, wheedling into the abandoned haunted house with no little anxiety.
He had never liked haunted houses and the eerie atmosphere of this one ―giant, deranged clown grinning madly from overhead, real cobwebs mixed with the fakes and the unyielding darkness from within the attraction itself― only served to amplify those feelings. He crept over the flimsy, metal steps, through the faded cloth tape that marked the vacant queue.
Guns always left Tsuna uncomfortable, but her let its uneasy weight transfer from his shoulder holster to his waiting palm anyway. He found the control room easily enough and he settled under the control panel. Tsuna plugged his phone ―the one unmonitored by Vongola ―into the system. Well, attempted to.
God, this place was ancient, Tsuna cursed. No internet and the jack was outdated for his wire. Frustration set in and he buried his face into his knees. He had to do this the old-fashioned way then, he sighed, plucking an abandoned pamphlet from way underneath the control panel, covered in dust.
He coughed lightly at the dust it raised as he smoothed it out. The Ferris Wheel would be a good place to stake out, he supposed. It provided an excellent vantage point, the advantage of high ground and a possible angle for a sneak attack and sniping. On the other hand, it was very possible to get stuck up there and it didn't have a view of the entire amusement park, which he had noted as he had picked his way through the amusement park earlier. Despite that, he was still fairly sure that they would put someone up there…
Which meant that their base was likely to be close to it with a completely unobstructed view, he mused as he let his finger trace over the faded, worn pictures. The teacups were completely exposed, an unlikely choice. The merry-go-rounds were out for the same reason. The underground cave, complete with artificial river, would probably be moldy from the humidity, though he wouldn't rule it out since it only had one entry point and was therefore easier to defend. Either of the three diners was probable, he supposed, since they still had running water and would even have a place for them to store food. The roller coaster platform was sheltered, as was the bumper cars, all within close distance of a cafeteria and-!
Tsuna was abruptly broken out of his musings by a beeping from the hand phone he had been issued earlier. He hastily rummaged through his pockets and yanked it out, hurriedly, frantically, setting it to vibrate before looking at the message he had been sent.
Send a report on your current status. Reports are expected every hour and failure to send them within ten minutes of the expected time will cause you to be listed as missing in action, possibly dead.
Tsuna fumbled with the buttons immediately. Failure to send in a report would also lead to a drop in evaluation, the message implicitly told him. He typed, re-typed, then stared at the message, wondering if it might be too little information.
Currently in Kokuyo Fun Land Horror House. Will attempt determine specific location of base and possible patrol.
One of the lessons he had taken under Uni was how to send a report, but he was supposed to be new to the mafia. There was no unnecessary information, but not nearly enough to be useful either. He paused over the keyboard and an idea abruptly struck him. He sent out the message with haste, then plucked out a number from the prepared contact list, punching at the green phone symbol with one hand his other tightly gripped on his handgun as he listened to the rings. Support and Logistics― S.K.. The person on the other end of the line picked up just as the window to the control room broke into pieces.
The leafy foliage swayed overhead, heat stifling the air and dripping down the side of his head. Camping in the damp, humid forest, on his hand and knees and up to his armpits in mud, Gokudera scowled over his cigarette, his long, white fingers playing over a stick of dynamite. At his side, Ryohei was mumbling about how incredibly boring it was, how he needed to get moving and boxing like Gokudera wasn't feeling the same way. One of their examiners, a self-important teenager of maybe fifteen, wearing a cow print dress shirt under a blazer, sat in the tree overhead, yawning every now and then, completely disregarding Gokudera's protests that hanging up there would only cause them to get spotted.
So maybe this wasn't what he had in mind when he told his father that he was going to enter the mafia under his own power. But it was a damn lot better than remaining by his father's side.
It was still irritating that his sister was in the Alliance and he would be judged based on her, compared to her, but it was better than having to be weighed against to his father. He knew he wasn't exactly being fair to Bianchi. Even if she wasn't a bastard child of a half-blood, as a woman, she got more than her fair share of problems. Men of the mafia tended to be prideful and very traditional, unwilling to submit to a woman, even if she was their superior and could break their necks before they could blink.
Her childhood wasn't easy either, her mother and their father had a loveless marriage, marred by frequent, one-sided fights, fits that provoked no reaction, spontaneous shopping trips to Paris, long, unforeseen and frankly worrying disappearances and affairs on both sides. Bianchi worked hard to get to where she was, even as her mother threw numerous suitors of varying degrees of chauvinism, arrogance and ugliness in her way. To be compared to her, strong, capable, reputable 'Poison Scorpion' Bianchi, could even be an honor.
More than anything, the way she was able to rise above each and every obstacle in her way, come out on top, made him jealous, envious because why couldn't I be like that and why can't I do that was always hovering in his mind whenever she accomplished something or whenever they were compared. He knew he fell short, knew he fell flat, even next to the immovable, charismatic Boss that was his father. It was petty, he knew, to avoid her for that when it wasn't her fault and she had always treated him well, apart from force feeding him poison cookies, the best out of the entire blood family.
But she periodically refused to listen to him, continued to baby him and always listened to their father without questioning anything. Her loyalty to the family was immovable, but she still fell short of perfect. Trident Shamal, his childhood hero, the man who refused to baby him and treated him as anyone else, fell short too. He needed to become perfect, follow the one who was perfect(the one he hadn't found yet) then he would finally be free of the chains of the Family and the shackles of family.
So here he was, camping in the damp, humid forest, on his hand and knees and up to his armpits in mud.
"This is extremely boring," Ryohei muttered for the fiftieth time from where he was laying on his belly.
He wasn't a bad guy, Sasagawa Ryohei. Even though he was blockheaded and loud, he had a good heart. When Gokudera first met him, it was outside of building for the Vongola Family, where the boxer was arguing with a pretty, wide-eyed girl and her sophisticated-looking friend. The two women entered the building in a huff and the odd, Japanese man stood outside, looking desolate as an abandoned puppy. Then he opened his mouth.
"I will find out what you are up to, to the extreme!" Gokudera was promptly taken by the shoulders and not-so-politely asked to hand over his entry card. It took several minutes of shouting, rude gesturing, being on the receiving end of disapproving, curious looks for Ryohei to understand that Gokudera, in fact, didn't have an employee's pass and that Ryohei could, in fact, just walk up to the receptionist to request a visitor's pass if he required one.
When he divulged his purpose in entering the Vongola Building in the first place, to register for the Allies' Recruitment Test, Ryohei had joined him. His logic went like this: "I can better find out what Kyoko is hiding from me if I joined the same company as her. The same company, which, upon joining, she began to keep secrets from me. Besides, I was looking for a job anyway. To the extreme." It didn't even seem to occur to the boxer that the very unusual and dangerous recruitment method might somehow be connected to what his sister was hiding. Not that Gokudera cared.
Ryohei was a civilian, even if his sister was in the Vongola and he was more predisposed to violence than not, meaning that to disclose information about the mafia to him would be breaking the Omerta. He had only realized he was applying for the mafia this morning, when the murmurs from the rest of the candidates had finally sunk in. After an hour. God, Gokudera hoped stupidity wasn't contagious.
Somehow, without his meaning to or realizing it, the pair of them formed a friendship of sorts. One that was filled with insults and impatience, eye-rolling and shouting matches, but there was some sort of bond there. A bond that resisted Gokuera's short temper and violent habits. And it felt nice, even if Gokudera would rather bite his tongue off than admit it. He had never had a friend, even a sort-of friend before. And Ryohei was blissfully oblivious of the mafia and his history, so there was no hidden message, no implied meaning to his words when he spoke. Not that there would be, even if he did know all of that; Sasagawa Ryohei wouldn't know subtleness even if it hit him on his head with a brick and danced naked in front of him.
"This is extremely boring," Ryohei muttered for the fifty-first time in the hour they had been sitting there. A vein throbbed at Gokudera's temple.
"We all know that turf-head! We don't need you to remind us every other minute!" Lambo raised a brow from his perch on the tree and promptly moved from his position to disappear into the forest. Gokudera groaned, hauling Ryohei to his feet as he began to move as well. An amateur mistake, giving away his position due to the inability to stay put, wasn't something he could afford. Cursing and hissing under his breath, he didn't look back when a loud, animalistic snarl sounded from the direction he was fleeing from. He paused, then turned to Ryohei.
Ryohei was barely out of sight when a flurry of limbs came at him and Gokudera leapt back, his arm grazed in his clumsy attempt to block it. Blonde hair and bared teeth, a bloodthirsty, carnal roar was all Gokudera managed to catch as he yanked out a handful of dynamite with the other hand, haste and panic marring his aim.
It wasn't an animal like he had originally thought it was. It was a person; messy gold hair, claw marks over his cheek, claws like a big cat, teeth that resembled fangs and an animalistic glint in his eyes. Gokudera narrowed his eyes, backing away slowly, even as more bombs materialized into his hands. He grit his teeth, praying that his would work, bouncing dynamite off the trees with astounding accuracy and forcing the other to leap back. Leap back and straight into Ryohei's line of fire.
The Maximum Canon, as Ryohei called it, was something that seemed out of this world. It had its faults, of course; it took a long time to get it ready and made him useless for a while after, whether the shot connected or not. It still defied common sense, though Ryohei claimed that it was all result of the training under a proficient master. But whether Gokudera could wrap his head around the phenomenon was a different thing altogether. The truth was that a stream of yellow light burst forth from the boxer's fist like a laser canon, throwing their opponent through a line a trees and rendered him unconscious.
This still presented a problem, since that blonde, tanned guy probably had his allies nearby and they had effectively given away their exact location with that stream of yellow light and the path of fallen trees. Gokudera pulled out his phone and quickly identified their attacker as Joshima Ken. He fingered the button, musing over a text message before hitting send to all of the other candidates and the examiners.
With Sasagawa Ryohei. Gave away our position. Captured Joshima Ken.
He contemplated the order of the sentences, wondering if it would help their result. Well, he figured it wouldn't matter anyway; that curly haired guy with the cow-print shirt would report the exact sequence of events to the other examiners anyway. Meanwhile, Ryohei was busying himself with tying their assailant to a tree, working at the steel reinforced rope Gokudera had given him with surprising ease.
Properly tied down, sporting a black eye and what seemed to be several first degree burns, their prisoner began to groggily regain consciousness, groaning in pain as he did so. Now, Gokudera pondered, what to do with him? He must have spoken out loud because a moment later, Ryohei replied. His tone was factual, no-nonsense and innocent and both Gokudera and Joshima Ken paled a bit.
That day, Gokudera learnt what Ryohei did to his sister's unwanted suitors behind her back.
Fuuta de la Stella was a widely known informant, exceedingly talented and highly regarded in the dangerous field of providing information to the mafia. He was also twelve years old.
His family was heavily involved in the business of information regarding the underworld. His mother came from a long line of CIA agents; she had defected to the American Mafia half a decade into her career in law enforcement. His father was a renowned tracker, generally aiding hit men, assassins and bosses in locating targets and scouting locations.
Held in a dingy, tiny toilet cubicle with a tray of food pushed under his door and the constant pacing to remind him that he was being watched, Fuuta silently prayed for them, for someone, anyone to save him. He crouched into the corner of the toilet, far from the door, the captor, into the corner that wasn't wet and didn't smell of pee, he clutched the white, slender, ice-cold hand of his fellow prisoner from under walls of the toilet cubicle.
The hands of the girl who wasn't allowed to speak, whose face he had ever seen. His hand was sweaty and his arm was aching, but instead of simply letting go, he swapped hands. Fuuta didn't want to let go completely, he was afraid she might disappear if he did.
He had briefly wondered if it might be a corpse's hand he might have been holding, she was so cold,but the hand had squeezed his tighter when the loud, brash guard had argued with the quiet, cool one. He had also felt her arm move as he body reached for the food whenever the trays were slid into their cell.
He wondered how long they had been stuck there; it had to have been at least a week? There was no sunlight, only a flickering light bulb on a wire as it cast shadows this way and that. The grimy, damp floors, the constant dripping sound of water from a leaky faucet, the occasional pacing; all of it accumulated to form an endless stream of looming fear and trepidation that seemed to stretch on to eternity.
The disembodied voice in his head, was reassuring, almost as reassuring as the ice-cold hand in his grasp. This was the voice that took him through the Ranking Planet, the memory palace he had constructed. All of the things that happened in the present and the past were meticulously catalogued and placed on this imaginary planet inside his head, churning out statistics and likelihoods as he let the little characters dance and play on this playground. His imagination fueled and animated them and his intelligence judged their closeness to reality and spewed numbers across the land of lava and ice, lakes of mercury and air and sky of concrete clouds. It was fantastical, imaginary and always hit the mark.
This was the Little Prince's true talent, the ability to draw connections and calculate probabilities. For him, the Ranking Planet was more real than reality.
The chances of his getting out of this place would normally be very low. But taking into account what he knew about ongoing affairs…The Vongola Alliance was having their recruitment test right about now and it was very likely that this would be their mission… As the resident Special Informant of the Vongola, he had gone through the list of candidates and a few in particular were very promising.
But there was one name that resounded with the Ranking Planet, the one little stick figure that morphed the earth, parted the seas, softened the skies and tamed this reality. Hundreds upon hundreds of scenarios and alternative realities took place upon the planet that could reset at Fuuta's whim, but the possibilities that he generated on his own were more than the rest combined. Unlike the others, with more research Fuuta did on him, the more the possible futures appeared. Knowledge of him did not eliminate possibilities, it bred them.
That was why no one else knew that he was the son of CEDEF leader. That was why no one knew he was part of Europol's Millefiore. That was why no one questioned. Because a little boy decided it would be better for them not to know. It was a security leak, to be sure, but Fuuta trusted the Ranking Planet so long as unexpected weather did not occur because no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't make it rain on the Ranking Planet. Maybe that was because the clouds were concrete in order to be etched with numbers.
But no matter. Fuuta would wait because he knew he was a lot smarter than anyone gave him credit for and he trusted the Ranking Planet so long as it wasn't raining and he couldn't hear any rain or thunder from outside wherever he was being held. Even if he was a scared and a bit cowardly, even if his captors hurled abuse, even if the Ranking Planet was slowly breaking apart under the physical and mental pressure of the situation as trauma set in, Fuuta would wait for Sawada Tsunayoshi.
He only hoped that he came in time.