Hotaru was somewhat nervous, and who could blame her. This was the first time she would be meeting the older Shrouds to assess whether to go forward with the adoption. Since Crowley was still acting "in loco parentis" according to Riddle, them adopting her would alleviate that headache.

To be fair, Riddle was having to go through the same headache, since his father had signed away his parental rights years ago, and his mother had recently been arrested for long term abuse after he returned from winter break with bruising.

He was effectively a ward of the school.

Whatever she expected, it wasn't Mrs. Shroud. She was like a bubbly, female version of Ortho which was hilarious.

Mrs. Shroud was positively giddy having a little girl to spoil, and Hotaru reveled in the motherly attention she had been sorely lacking for years.

The paperwork would require a few weeks to go through, with how slow bureaucracy was on a good day, however it was mostly a formality.

Later that night...

"So what's it like, having Shroud as your legal older brother?" asked Riddle.

"Not much, other than I get a proper allowance now...and they were openly talking about renovating the dorm since I'll be staying here for the next three years at least."

Left unspoken was that she would be staying in Idia's dorm until the majority of the renovations were done. At least she wouldn't have to move her stuff until after the SDC was over with.

~*~*~~*

Reborn was frowning. Nothing had gone right since he agreed to take on the education of a previously civilian student descended from the Vongola Primo's bloodline.

That was where the trouble started. With that damn contract.

He had arrived as planned, and began to observe his new student to see how much work he had ahead of him.

Reborn was slightly confused as to why the mother had left the flier on the table without actually reading it. Further inspection of his future student was interesting. There were copious amounts of comics, DVD sets of cartoons and older movies, and what looked like computer programs.

Under the desk was a small mini fridge with cartoon stickers on it. There was a cutesy cat-shaped alarm clock that had seen frequent use on the table next to the bed, which looked like it hadn't been made in ages.

The wardrobe was fairly barren, with a school uniform that had seen better days. There were several hoodies that looked well worn and loved and shoes that were in dire need of replacement.

Reborn frowned, as this all painted a rather sad picture of her mental state. He knew for a fact that all the Vongola heirs had a trust fund, so why did her room look so depressing?

The odd thing was that he couldn't find a single phone or a laptop. He knew there had to be one, because the dust on the desk indicated as much.

He was about to leave when he noticed a slip of paper sticking out of a book. Curiosity overtook him, and he took it out. He fully intended to put it back exactly where he found it.

The paper fell from his hands from the shock it had given him.

Reborn vacated the premises for a more secure location. He grasped the paper in his hands, anger filling him.

"Ciaossu. Timoteo...when were you going to tell me you were sending me to teach a terminal student?!" said Reborn with utter rage.

If Reborn was angry over this particular slip-up, his rage became downright incandescent over the coming week.

First was the fact his student was either dead, or had been missing for three months now. Considering the terminal diagnosis he found, he wouldn't be surprised if she had been cremated by this point.

By all accounts, Hotaru Sawada had dropped off the face of the planet around three months ago. It didn't help that she had already dropped out of her school in favor of online classes shortly after receiving her diagnosis. The only regular contact she had in the town was a sushi chef and the owner of a small internet cafe she occasionally rented a room from regularly.

In fact, the last day she was seen in Namimori, she had booked one of her regular terminals at the cafe with the intent to stay for several hours...but she had never shown up.

It was a sad statement of fact that it was the cafe owner and the sushi chef who called the authorities to do a welfare check after three days. There had been a brief search, but by all accounts the girl had simply vanished with her laptop and cell phone.

Reborn was beyond angry and was greatly frustrated. He had come to Namimori with the intent of turning Iemitsu's daughter either into the next coming of the Eighth donna, or failing that, a proper mafia wife.

He had not anticipated to find a god damn mess he normally wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. And he was stuck in the middle of it, because the Vongola had been ignorant for three months.

Iemitsu had no excuses, as he hadn't been back in almost a decade. Reborn was extra angry to notice the fact the neighborhood lacked even a single proper watch over it, since this was Vongola territory and the girl reportedly had Sky Flames according to Timoteo.

Reborn dearly wanted a stiff drink...and to shoot Iemitsu. He wasn't picky on what came first, but either way they had to find out where the girl had gone. Since there was a possibility she had taken her laptop, he started with that. And who better to drag into this mess than the second coming of Da Vinci?

Verde would either help, or Reborn would shoot him first. He was that angry over this whole mess.

In Verde's lab...

"I have good news and bad news," said Verde, after examining the few traces left behind by the girl.

"What's the good news?" said Reborn.

"Your 'student' is still alive," said Verde.

"How can you possibly know that?"

Verde pushed his glasses up.

"She might have been relocated, but she still has access to her laptop and phone. The IP address might have changed, but she's still logging in regularly to the games you found in her room. From what I can tell she's joined up in real life with two of her frequent gaming partners, judging by the chat logs."

"What's the bad news?"

"I have no way to track her down. She's using an unusually advanced program to block her location data and her IP address seems to scramble to random numbers every time she logs into anything," said Verde. He was moderately impressed by that, not that he would say as much.

Reborn huffed with frustration.

"So it's hopeless then."

"Not exactly. If I can track one of the others, then it might be possible to ascertain her location data from them."

Finally, a bit of hope.

"Get to it then."
Verde gave him an incredulous look.

"My fees..."

"The Vongola will pay for everything, considering this is their mess I'm cleaning up," said Reborn. He'd put a gun to any accountant who dared to complain...and make sure they took every bent coin out of Iemitsu's accounts. It was his daughter they lost after all.

Verde went to work. He rejected "MuscleRed" as he was less active, and focused his efforts on "Gloomurai". Gloomurai was considerably more active than the first, enough that it should be child's play to track him down.

With that in mind, Verde soon began his attempts to hack into the gamer's profile to gain access to his location data.

He had no idea the nightmare and untold sleepless nights he was about to have thanks to his efforts. Or how badly he'd be cursing Reborn for dragging him into this mess.

In the Ignihyde dorm...

Idia was frowning. Someone had been attempting to hack into his network for the past week, and it was starting to become very annoying. He wasn't able to concentrate on any of his games or dailies because he had to keep rebuffing whoever was attempting the intrusion.

Whoever was doing it wasn't an amateur, that much was for sure. But...they weren't on his level either.

"Nii-san, you look like you're having fun," said Ortho smiling.

"First Crow becomes our official sister, and now I have someone who might be worth playing with. How can I not have fun with this?" said Idia.

Ortho considered this. The paperwork had gone through in less than a week, mostly due to the liberal use of cash. Hotaru was overjoyed, and had been signing her name as "Hotaru Shroud" with glee for days now.

It was all legal and above board, and had only solidified her relationship with them as a sister. Good thing for her that she was already dating Malleus... Idia's overprotective nature had gone through the roof since the adoption, and he would have likely chased off anyone else trying to date her.

Idia's grin was almost manic. This was going to be so much fun.

After about three hours though, his manic grin had turned to annoyance.

"Seriously? Another brute force attack? Have some class loser!" said Idia, rebuffing it again. He almost had a to growl when not even five minutes later it started again.

"Nii-san, are you sure you don't want me to try?"

Idia was beyond tired and annoyed beyond belief. And for all their ability to get past his initial firewalls, he didn't think the skill level was high enough to deal with someone like Ortho.

"You know what? To hell with it...have fun Ortho. I'm going to get something to eat."

"Okay! I'll send Azul-san a message then!" chirped Ortho. Idia almost tripped, his face a massive blush.

Hotaru had made good on her threat and had locked him and Azul in a closet one night. On the plus side, he had finally confessed to the guy he had been crushing on for ages now. However he could do without the stupid 'coming out of the closet' jokes he kept hearing.

Ortho's eyes glinted with malice.

Someone dared to hack into their network so brazenly? He'd make them suffer for it. He made sure to settle into his charging port, but didn't shut down like usual. He just didn't want to run the risk of losing power at a critical moment.

Time...to play.

~*~*~*~*~

Verde had mostly set a pre-programmed algorithm to run a brute force attack on the firewalls. He didn't know who this Gloomurai was in real life, but he was surprisingly efficient in keeping him out.

You could imagine how fast he spat out his coffee when he heard his alarms go off about an intrusion. Until now, Gloomurai only rebuffed him...it seemed like the other party was returning the favor.

Racing to his computer, with Kaimen in tow, Verde went to deal with the intrusion.

Only for his mouth to gape in horrified disbelief.

Someone had gotten past his firewalls in unheard of speed...and was stealing all his research.

Racing to the computer, he went straight to damage control mode. If any of his work got out, he'd be ruined. Forget the mafia turning into a blood bath...there was enough flame research that even the Vindice would get involved in short order should it leak. He'd be lucky to live past the next month at this rate.

Verde's hands flew so fast that he wouldn't be surprised if they became bloody by the end of this. Whoever had gotten through his defenses was undoubtedly a genius.

They were tearing through all his protections like they were tissue paper, and downloading a ridiculous amount of data in the process. It wouldn't be until after he finally realized that there was no stopping things that he admitted defeat.

He slammed his fist on a button he wished he never had to use again, and a full system purge was initiated. Anything saved on his servers would be erased to the point that recovery would be impossible.

Reborn came in around halfway, and was completely silent. He didn't even know the full ramifications of what was going on, as he was barely computer literate in the first place.

Verde only began to properly breathe when the server was completely wiped.

"What in god's name was that about?" said Reborn.

"Reborn...what the actual fuck did you get me into?!" said Verde. His hands were somewhat bloody from how fast he had to type, and he clutched Reborn's precious designer clothing with absolute rage in his eyes. "Do you have any idea what sort of computing power it would take to get past my firewalls that fast? Much less download so much research data at the same time?"

Reborn looked at the screen, then at Verde who was past manic and was downright apoplectic.

"I suspect we're going to need more back-up on this."

"You're damn right we need back-up! I need information about who managed to do all that, and find out who they work for!" snarled Verde.

Reborn would have mourned his wallet, but he fully intended to take any of Viper's usual demands for money out of the Vongola's accounts. They got them into this mess, they could pay to fix it.

Meanwhile, in Ignihyde...

"Did you have fun Ortho?" asked Idia.

Ortho was grinning with a dark smirk on his face, and giggling like the imp he was.

"Idia-nii, you won't believe what I stole from that pest's servers!" said Ortho with absolute glee. "Whoever was trying to hack into your network had terabytes of research data on soul fire! They even had tech that could be repurposed to work with magic!"

Idia nearly dropped his coffee.

"Wait...seriously?" he said with glee.

"Unfortunately they did a full system wipe, but I still managed to get most of the data. I downloaded some other stuff to cover what I was really after once I realized what was on the files."

"Good job. Mom and Dad are going to be thrilled beyond belief. And it means we can re-calibrate the Grim Sphere to work more efficiently!"

Ortho nodded enthusiastically. The research he stole was going to keep their parents busy for years, at the bare minimum. He knew that the STYX researchers were going to be delighted beyond words once they had a chance to properly sort everything Ortho downloaded.

"Oh yeah, did you at least get a name for the guy trying to hack me?"

"His name is Verde, apparently," said Ortho.