Veni, Vidi, Vici (Pt.16-20)
Feb. 8th, 2016 10:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cywscrossFandom: Katekyo Hitman Reborn
Summary: Vongola thinks their biggest problem will be training one twin to become Decimo and making sure the other one won’t try to overthrow them. They soon realize it really isn’t.
(Dino meets them for all of two minutes before he wonders if the Nono has finally gone either senile or insane. Because you’d have to be one or the other to think that forcing these two Skies into a life they don’t want won’t blow up in all their faces one day.)
(Tsuna and Shion are going to tear Vongola apart for what it’s done to them.)
--
The Sawada twins in fifty snapshots.
16.
Fact: Iemitsu is gone again, after a week of playing house, disappearing in the middle of the night like some thief, only for Okaa-san to tell them in the morning that her husband’s gone off to become a star.
Opinion: If only.
Fact: Either Iemitsu is really dumb, or he thinks his kids are really dumb, in which case he’s still really dumb.
Fact: Vongola means ‘clam’ in Italian.
Fact: Vongola Corporations – a construction business in Italy – does exist, complete with a website and a list of phone numbers that neither Shion nor Tsuna tries to call in case the call is traced.
Fact: Its history page is vague but still informative if it’s true – Vongola was created around four hundred years ago, its current boss is the ninth one since its founding, and its successors is the youngest of three sons of that boss since the other two died in tragic accidents.
Fact: A list of projects is included on the website, properties that Vongola is supposedly responsible for building.
Fact: One of them is in Japan. One of them is in Namimori, at the very edge of town.
Fact: Tsuna and Shion go check it out. Obviously.
Fact: There is a building. There are five suits inside. And after several hours of staking it out right under an open window while hiding behind Shion’s flames, they discover that 1) the men call ‘Sawada’s brats’ ‘potential heirs’ that need to be killed, 2) they don’t know why nobody else has offed them yet; the security is terrible, what with the two Vongola-stationed men being so easily paid off all the time to look the other way, and 3) one of the suits inside is the same person who just tried to kill them not three days before Iemitsu’s arrival back in Namimori.
Fact: The latest asshole trying to kill them will try again.
Conclusion: Vongola is not a construction business, so find out what it is.
Conclusion: Iemitsu is a lying, good-for-nothing failure of a father, so find out who he really is and what he does for a living.
Conclusion: Kill everyone in that building.
Result: They kill everyone in that building.
Result: Two of them beg for their lives and call themselves Vongola, right before Tsuna runs one through with a flame-constructed Chinese halberd he’s been practicing on and off with over the past three weeks, and Shion grows flesh over the other’s mouth and nostrils until he chokes himself to death.
Result: They find out about the mafia.
17.
“I’m not gonna be their heir,” Tsuna is the first to say, with more steel in his voice than Shion’s ever heard him use. “I’m not gonna be their anything. We’re just… backups to them. Puppets. I mean we’re civilians! What do we know about the mafia? What do we care about Vongola? They can’t possibly want either of us as heirs unless they want to control us!”
Shion doesn’t answer. She doesn’t need to. Instead, she continues perusing the files in the base that they’ve just cleared out. They’re reports, on them, but clearly largely fabricated. They basically depict an average pair of twins living an average life in an average suburbia.
This… works in their favour actually, now that they know. And this base…
“Do you think they’d try to force us into the position if we say no?” Tsuna continues mulling out loud as he burns the last body down to nothing, “The website says they still have one son. If that’s true, what if he dies too? Tragic accidents my butt. The other two were probably both murdered. And if they end up with all three sons dead, they can’t have no successors, right?”
…is already fully furnished, not only with offices and conference rooms but also everything from labs to indoor greenhouses to an entire wing for people to live in, complete with kitchens and sitting rooms and bedrooms. Beneath is a hidden underground parking lot, and above, on the roof, is a landing pad. Sure, most of the rooms are still empty – the two greenhouses don’t actually have any plants in them yet – and they should probably do a sweep for bugs – Tsuna can find all of those – but overall, the place is like a safe house.
They could use this.
“We’ll need defenses to stand against them,” Tsuna mutters, frowning down at a patch of drying blood. “We’ll need to get stronger. Once they realize we won’t bow, they’ll try and kill us instead, so we’ll also need a lot more information on Vongola to prepare for the future.”
And these computers. They probably don’t have all of Vongola’s encryptions and whatnot – probably not even a quarter – but there’s bound to be at least a few communication codes and the like stored here, if only so that those two traitors could continue sending reports back to Vongola about her and Tsuna. Thing is, she’s not that good with electronics and technology. Neither is Tsuna. They’re more likely to set off an alarm or something than actually get into Vongola’s servers if they try to dig further than what’s already saved here. Which means…
She turns to Tsuna at the same time Tsuna turns to her, and they both chorus, “We need a hacker.”
They need a hacker.
18.
Neither of them knows the first thing about tracking down a professional hacker, but as it turns out, the computers at the base have the records of every single resident in Namimori. Every last one. So they start there.
Mostly, it’s just basic information – date of birth, gender, family, current age, school records – but it’s enough. They narrow their choices down to two people, both kids – Miura Haru, already working her way through high school math at the tender age of nine, and Irie Shouichi, with a genius-level IQ and three science fair championships under his belt at the young age of ten.
For a week, they call in sick, and Shion follows Miura around while Tsuna takes Irie. Then they pool their findings.
“She’s offensively cheerful,” is the first thing Shion grumbles as she throws herself onto one of the office chairs in the conference room they’ve commandeered at the base. “Super smart but no friends. Comes on too strongly. She could probably recite pi for three hours but not charm an extra stick of dango from the vendor. She’ll drive me around the bend within a month.”
Tsuna rolls his eyes at her even as he takes the chair next to hers for himself. “That long? I’m impressed. What else? And don’t be so negative.”
Shion taps her chin, spinning idly in place to face the floor-to-ceiling windows. They’re both bulletproof and flame-proof – they’ve tested it. “She’s good with numbers. Really good. Could probably decode a lot of whatever ciphers Vongola throws at her. Don’t know about the actual hacking though, and I don’t just mean whether or not she has the skill for it. Ethically, she’s… well. Not a good fit for us, I think. With some work, maybe, but we’re looking at an as-soon-as-possible schedule right now.”
Tsuna hums, tucking his knees up after kicking off his shoes. “Irie’s kind of the same. He’s smart, and I snuck a look into his bedroom when I followed him home one day – the place is filled with electronics and spare machine parts and stuff like that. But he’s… he’s bullied a lot, and badly. More than me. No friends either. Physically, he’s pretty weak. Morally… he seems like a decent person. I don’t think he’d be able to stomach a lot of violence anyway, and I actually mean that literally. He got stomach cramps doing some presentation for his class. I think it’s the stress.”
“Well it’s not like we’re asking him to kill people,” Shion muses. “And if anyone comes to kill him, I’ll just kill them first. Since he’d be… one of us.”
For a moment, they just stare at each other. Tsuna’s expression crumples with uncertainty, and Shion clasps her hands together until her knuckles turn white.
“It’s always just been us,” Tsuna mutters. “I don’t like depending on some… outsider. We’ll never know how reliable they’ll be in the long run. Or even in the short run.”
“I don’t like it either,” Shion agrees tersely. “But I don’t think we can do everything by ourselves. Quality’s better than quantity but quantity still counts for something, and they’ll have quality too. If we’re really going to tell Vongola where to shove it when they come knocking, we’ll lose if it’s just us two.” Her eyes narrow. “And we don’t lose, Tsu-nii. Not when it counts.”
Tsuna nods solemnly. “No we don’t. Alright, should we try Irie first then? His skillset seems more diverse than Miura’s. And you can wipe his memories if he tries to rat us out to an adult or something, right?”
Shion grins, a terrifying curve of her lips that flashes her teeth, and Tsuna huffs a laugh. His sister’s flames affect the brain, and very recently, she’s found yet another layer of what she can do with that.
He toes his shoes back on and stands. “Let’s go catch us a hacker then.”
“You said he’s bullied?” Shion asks as she follows him out the door. Tsuna nods, glancing questioningly back at her. His sister’s expression turns sly. “We can work with that.”
They work with that. They follow Irie home one day, and Shion holds Tsuna back from approaching until a group of bullies – fourteen, maybe fifteen – corner the redhead and shove him into a back alley. Shion waits and waits, listening to the dull thud of sneakered feet against flesh, to the jeering laughter and caustic mockery, waiting for the first why can’t you just leave me alone what did I ever do to you I hate you sob, choked and ashamed and utterly, furiously helpless, and that’s when she nods, and they dart forward to step in.
“Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” Shion quips rhetorically, already flipping into the air with the aid of a trampoline that dissipates in a haze of indigo once she’s launched herself off of it. Her right heel slams into the first bully’s nose, breaking it with a bloody crack that leaves the boy reeling and howling with agony, and then she’s lunging for the other two, dodging one that takes a swing at her with one meaty fist before retaliating with another flat-footed kick to his kneecap. The leg buckles with a sickening snap, and then there’s only one left, the smartest, perhaps, or the most spineless. Either way, he tries to run, but he doesn’t get three steps before Shion is on him, or rather, her flames are, and a water whip wraps itself around the boy’s throat, yanks him back right off his feet, and when he falls, his head smacks against the concrete, knocking him clean out.
They’re all still alive of course. They’re not worth actually killing. They’re just kids.
It’s unfortunate that – sometimes – kids can do the most damage.
“-stand?” Her brother is saying, crouching next to Irie, who has new bruises already blossoming on top of old ones, his clothes are a bit torn up, and his glasses are broken, in pieces on the ground next to him. He’s staring woozily between Tsuna and Shion though, and gaping at the groaning or unconscious bullies, caught somewhere between shock and guarded suspicion.
“Hey!” Tsuna says, more sharply this time, giving Irie a squeeze to the shoulder. “Can you stand? Here, I’ll help you.”
With Tsuna’s assistance, the redhead manages to stumble to his feet. Shion ambles over to retrieve his schoolbag, eyeing the glasses while she’s at it.
“I think those are a lost cause,” She announces, looking at Irie. He’s slightly taller than her, not by much, but he seems infinitely smaller in this moment.
“I- I have a spare at home,” He mumbles, cringing like he’s still anticipating a blow. “I- Who are you?”
“She’s Shion,” Tsuna replies promptly, draping Irie’s arm around his shoulders as they start limping their way out of the alley.
“And he’s Tsuna,” Shion strolls after them, slinging Irie’s bag over her shoulder. “We’re twins.”
“And you are?” Tsuna asks politely, awkward smile and all.
“I’m- I’m Irie Shouichi,” Somehow, he seems even more intimidated by them, despite the fact that they’re both trying to be… normal. People like normal.
“Right, so, tell me where your house is.” Tsuna commands expectantly, and there goes normal. Shion waves her arms behind Irie’s back, making frantic motions with her hands. Tsuna grimaces for a split second before making another attempt. “I mean, would you like us to take you home? We’re not in a hurry or anything. And those guys beat you up pretty good.”
That sounds better. At least Shion thinks so.
Clearly, Irie doesn’t, if the dubious blinking is anything to go by. But at least he doesn’t seem afraid of them. Or, more afraid of them than he already is.
“Uh, right,” Irie stammers out. “I- My house is that way. You- Are you certain you don’t mind? I’m sure I can get home fine on my own.”
“It’s fine,” Shion assures. Politely. “Tsu-nii and I had a half-day at school today-” Sort of. They excused themselves from school halfway anyway. “-so we were just walking around looking for something to do.” She hesitates and then adds, “It’s a good thing too. Those bullies are really mean. You should fight back, if there’s a next time.”
Irie flushes dully, eyes dropping to the ground again. “There’ll always be a next time. And- And I dunno how to fight-”
“There’ll only be a next time if you let there be a next time,” Tsuna interrupts, looking almost offended, although when the redhead shrinks away from him, he hastily rearranges his features into something more sympathetic.
Shion rolls her eyes but says nothing. This is why her brother does the comforting.
“And we could teach you how to fight!” Tsuna proposes earnestly. “Or- Or Shion and I can protect you! ’Cause we’re friends now, right?”
This gets him another look from Irie that undoubtedly says he thinks Tsuna’s crazy. Shion grimaces and shakes her head at her brother. Too soon. Backtrack.
“I mean, if you want,” Tsuna amends quickly. “You know what they say after all.”
“What- What do they say?” Irie asks, looking more than a little apprehensive.
Tsuna gives Shion a subtle help! look. Shion scowls right back at him. Does she look like she knows what to do? All the books she’s read don’t include a follow-up question after ‘you know what they say’. Why is this boy being so difficult?
“They say,” Shion declares, wracking her mind for an appropriate response. “Thaaat… That there are just some things you can’t share without ending up liking each other.”
There’s a long pause after that. Tsuna gives her a very incredulous I can’t believe you just did that look. Shion sends back a then next time don’t lead with ‘you know what they say’! look.
And then, miracle of miracles, Irie laughs. It’s a tiny scoff of a sound, hoarse and tentative, like he isn’t used to laughing at all, but when his head bobs up to glance over at Shion with squinty eyes, the amusement is plain on the faint curve of his mouth, even with the split lip. “Did you just quote Harry Potter to me?”
“Um, yes?” Shion attempts an answering smile, and something in the line of Irie’s shoulders relaxes.
Well. Okay then.
“You like books?” Shion asks, quickening her step until she’s walking on Irie’s other side.
“Yeah! They’re better than-” He cuts himself off, even though he started so brightly, but Shion peers at him and finishes quietly, “Better than real life sometimes, huh?”
“…Yeah,” The redhead grimaces, but he’s completely at ease now. “I read a lot. Although I like building things more.”
Hallelujah.
“Building things?” Shion parrots. “Like what?”
And it’s all downhill from there. Or uphill, she supposes. Irie launches into the most detailed, long-winded, enthusiastic oration about his passion for new inventions, for computers, even for robots, although that’s more his pen pal’s thing than his.
Shion follows as best she can, Tsuna too, and they get maybe a third of it. But it’s clear Irie knows what he’s talking about, and loves it too, and by the time they get him home, it’s like all the cuts and bruises he has don’t even bother him anymore despite Tsuna still supporting half his weight.
His face falls when he realizes they’re at his front door. “Well, this is it. Um, my sister should be home so she can patch me up. I- Thanks for helping me here. Oh, and- and saving me from those guys back there. Really, thank you. I…”
He trails off somewhat miserably, and Tsuna is the one to jump in this time, “Do you want to hang out again later?” Irie’s head shoots up again. “I know we go to different schools and everything but they’re not that far away – I mean we live in the same town – so we could… meet up over the weekend or something? If you want?”
The hope on Irie’s face is… Shion would like to call it pathetic, because it should be, but she can’t quite bring herself to.
“We’ll see you on Saturday then,” Tsuna smiles, and it’s much less awkward this time. “We could swing by here?”
“Yeah,” Irie nods, and when he smiles, it’s awkward because it’s real. “Yeah, I’d like that. See you Saturday.”
They part ways there. Tsuna and Shion wait until Irie’s safely inside before retracing their steps to the alleyway. The bullies are still there, two of them down but the one with the broken nose is trying to help the conscious one to his feet without jostling the broken leg. He drops him like a hot potato when they both catch sight of Shion and Tsuna.
“W- What do you want?!” The words come out both nasally and high-pitched with fear.
“Just to give you a warning,” Shion smiles coldly at him, and he takes a few stumbling steps back. The one on the ground just cowers.
“Stay away from Irie Shouichi,” Tsuna continues flatly. “This is the only warning you’ll get. And you can spread the word to his other bullies too.”
“Because we don’t care if you attack him again, or if someone else does,” Shion says with deceptive lightness. “If Irie Shouichi gets so much as a papercut from anyone ever again, we’ll come back for you.”
“Consider it a training exercise for taking on heavier responsibilities,” Tsuna offers. “It’ll only help you in the long run.”
“Do we make ourselves clear?” Shion finishes and promptly floods the two bullies’ minds with the oppressing weight of her flames.
The one on the ground starts crying. The one still standing falls onto his ass, nodding his head vigorously even though it must hurt.
“Good,” Tsuna beams a smile at them. “We’ll be going now. We were even nice enough to call you an ambulance so it should be here in about five minutes. Sit tight!”
They head home, hand in hand.
“You think they’ll tattle on us?” Tsuna wonders.
Shion snorts and motions at the two of them. “We’re half their size, Tsu-nii. Even if they do tattle, who’s gonna believe that three fifteen-year-old punks with a reputation for bullying younger kids got beaten up by two nine-year-olds?”
“Point,” Tsuna agrees. “Wanna go get ice-cream?”
“Sounds good,” Shion grins.
19.
Irie Shouichi is not an idiot. Quite literally, he’s a genius. He’s not the best with people – obviously – but he’s not terrible with them. He can glean what people want from him most of the time.
Sawada Tsuna and Sawada Shion – the surname he finds out after their third get-together – want something from him. That much is abundantly clear. Even more abundantly clear is that they’re probably the most socially stunted people he’s ever met. They can carry a conversation, but there’s always an edge of I have no idea what I’m doing when they talk to anyone who isn’t each other.
After a few weeks of contemplation, Shouichi decides that he doesn’t really care about any of that. The twins are nice – if very blunt at times – and they’ve been kinder to him than anyone else – sometimes including his own family – has ever been. Sure, they want something from him, but he doesn’t get the feeling that they’re hanging out with him week after week just because they want that something.
Also, every person that’s ever so much as looked at Shouichi wrong has backed off, both at Shouichi’s elementary school and the middle school next door. When he goes to class, the flocks of bullies that usually corner him and steal his belongings and rough him up, well, most won’t even look at him, and if they do, it’s with a mix of belligerence, curiosity, and unease. They don’t risk approaching him though. And – when they finally return to school – the three middle-schoolers that Shion practically slaughtered in about eight seconds run the other way whenever they even catch a glimpse of him at the gates.
And that? That’s something Shouichi will always be grateful to the twins for. Nobody’s ever told him that they’d protect him from his bullies, and then do it. His father just tells him to man up, his mother is rarely home, and his sister is too busy with her own life, just recently having found the joys of boys.
Whatever Tsuna and Shion did – and Shouichi knows there were probably threats involved at the very least and more violence at most – kept the bullies away. Far away.
And he… likes them, which is a surprise. Occasionally, he gets stomach cramps just thinking about the way they sometimes let a bit of their crazy slip out around him, when Shion’s humour becomes darker than any nine-year-old should probably possess, or that one time some thug tried to mug them, and Tsuna smiled like death. Shouichi does not think it was only his imagination when he heard a scream from the alley behind them as Shion led him away.
There’s something… older about them, harder and more terrible than mere schoolyard bullies. But schoolyard bullies made his life an absolute horror to live, and Tsuna and Shion don’t. Tsuna frowns in concentration whenever Shiouichi goes off on a tangent about one of his inventions, like he honestly wants to try and understand, and Shion goads him into word games that span the eight languages Shion knows (to Tsuna’s five, and Shouichi’s seven-and-a-quarter, which means he really should polish up his Russian soon). And they do homework together. Tsuna is horrible at math, Shouchi is horrible at history, and Shion is not horrible at anything but her science mark could use some work. Also, her cooking could probably kill someone, and even after the hour he has to spend on the porcelain throne, he still ends up laughing with Tsuna at Shion’s dismal attempt at lunch.
And they absolutely do not care about his sporadic and mostly harmless but definitely illegal hacking crusades when he just wants to see if he can.
For the first time in his life, Shouichi has friends, actual friends who don’t tease him about his inventions and actively seek him out for fun. So how could Shouichi do anything in return except notice those little slips of crazy and make sure his new friends know that he has no problem with them?
Because he doesn’t. He gets stressed out when his mind wanders and starts thinking about the trouble the twins must get into, considering how… viciously they fight, and how completely not sorry they are about it. But it’s stress over what might happen to them if they get in over their heads one day instead of stress over what they’re actually doing. Shouchi doesn’t know their reasons for fighting, but so far, from what he’s seen, they’ve stopped a mugger, a suspicious-looking man in a suit who tried to follow them home to Shouichi’s house one day, and those three bullies that very first time, and in Shouchi’s opinion, they all deserved it. Especially those bullies. It’s an ugly, black thought that curls in his gut like a feral beast waiting for something to tear into, but he thinks back to the punishment Shion dealt out in that dirty back alley that day, to three assholes who’ve hurt him since he was six-years-old, for no other reason that because they could, and all he feels is a relieved, vindictive satisfaction that they finally got what they deserved. The one who received the broken leg won’t ever walk without a limp again, and Shouichi doesn’t give a damn.
If that makes him a bad person, then, well, at least he’s now in company that don't care.
So when – three months down the road – Shion and Tsuna swing by his house to pick him up, all secret smiles and wary eyes, and they ask him if he’d like to see their hideout, Shouichi immediately agrees and inwardly heaves a sigh of relief, because he knows that today, finally, he’s about to be let in on some bigger secret, on a huge part of the twins’ life that they’ve been keeping from him, on – perhaps – the reason for the teeth behind their smiles.
He’s finally earned enough of their trust for them to take a leap of faith on him.
They bring him to an office building that’s more a lavish safe house than the clubhouse he was imagining when they called it ‘hideout’.
And then they tell him about the mafia. About the assassins. About Vongola. About their father. They show him powers that shouldn’t be possible. They warn him about the very real possibility that – should he continue associating with them – he might die tomorrow.
And then they ask him for his help.
“You’re one of us now,” Shion says in that matter-of-fact way of hers, arms crossed, eagle-eyed stare honed on his face. “So if you stay, me and Tsuna will protect you. If someone tries to kill you, they’ll do it over our dead bodies. But that is a possibility. It might happen. This life is dangerous. We should know, considering we’ve been living it since we were five. So it’s your decision.”
“But if you’re in, you’re in,” Tsuna picks up, and sitting at the head of the table, his flame-filled gaze makes Shouichi’s spine straighten. “You betray us to someone else, you’ll be lucky if I get to you before Shion does.” Shouichi doesn’t quite flinch but Shion smirks at him anyway, and it reminds him of a shark. “If you’re in, you’re with us all the way, no matter how tough it gets.”
“It’s a big commitment, especially since you weren’t born into this,” Shion shrugs. “It’s probably pretty sudden. And we might not fill you with a whole lot of confidence in our capabilities because Tsu-nii and I are kids. But we’re also not. And you won’t really be either if you stick around long enough.”
“And it’s not your fight,” Tsuna looks a little resigned but still determined. “We know it’s not. Asking you to… fight with us – it’s pretty selfish. But we also need you so we’re asking anyway ’cause you have a skillset that could help us-”
“-and you haven’t run screaming for the hills yet,” Shion tacks on.
“And because you’re brave,” Tsuna finishes.
Shouichi turns red at the last bit. “Oh, I’m not-”
“You put up with your bullies for years,” Shion tilts her head. She’s changed her hairstyle again, and now it’s a braid that falls over one shoulder, laced with indigo streaks. “And you’re still here. Facing your worst nightmares – that takes courage.”
“They were just bullies,” Shouichi mumbles, feeling hot to the tips of his ears.
“The world is made of bullies,” Tsuna scoffs. “The strong lording it over the weak.” He stands up, and his eyes gleam like fresh steel out of the forge. “Shion and I – we’re gonna turn the tables on our bullies. We’re not gonna let them walk all over us, force us to be anything we don’t want to be, and if that means stomping them into the ground and replacing them at the top, then that’s exactly what we’ll do.”
Shion rises to her feet as well, a cunning moonbeam at her brother’s shoulder with eyes that may be blue but glow with the same resolve as Tsuna’s. “You in, Shouichi?” She grins, mad, utterly mad, but brilliantly so. “Wanna take over the world with us?”
And in the face of these two people who shine so radiantly in this world, who stand in front of him and want him to be one of them, there’s really only one answer he can give.
20.
Shouchi does not tear apart Vongola’s servers for their secrets. Instead, he creeps in, bit by bit, tendril by unseen tendril, until he’s so entrenched in their networks that all their secrets are at his fingertips, all their movements are a moment’s notice away, and – when Tsuna or Shion gives the word – he’ll be in prime position to bring it all crashing to the ground, an entire empire’s worth of rotted skeletons.
“Idiots,” Shouchi often mutters, typing away with a slightly evil smile that Shion is fairly certain he learned from her. She’s so proud. “Your firewalls suck.”
Of course, it doesn’t happen instantaneously. But month after month, over the next two years, he makes it happen. He uncovers where Vongola is based out of, uncovers the CEDEF group that Sawada Iemitsu heads, uncovers the elite assassination squad Varia and where they’re based, uncovers the fact that the Nono once had four sons except the youngest was adopted, and now nobody seems to know where he is and hasn’t for years.
Shouichi likes the challenge, Shion is… glad to see. And the first time an assassin comes for them and Tsuna decapitates him with a scimitar, well, Shouichi looked two seconds away from losing his lunch, and he moaned about stomach cramps for a good half hour once they were back at base, but after that, he never treated them any differently.
It would’ve been fine if the redhead joined them and tolerated everything they’re doing, but it’s infinitely better when he actually wants to be a part of it. He’s not the frontline fighter type but that’s okay – neither Shion nor Tsuna needs that right now, and everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. Shouichi does what they can’t do, and that’s more than enough.
They do get him a weapon though – a handgun courtesy of Shion that they teach him how to shoot with, just in case – and Shion starts him on some self-defence moves from the martial arts classes that she and her brother have inevitably dropped because they simply don’t have time for the carefully structured biweekly lessons anymore.
They can train on their own, now that they have the basics down.
It’s strange though, being three instead of two. Oh, they’re still two, she and Tsuna, and they’ll always be two, but they’re also three now, because Shouchi is theirs now, and that’s… strange. It’s strange to feel her feet move before her brain even catches up because it’s instinct to rip the spine out of the first assassin that’s finally been sent to attack Shouichi for the simple reason of being their friend.
The thing is, Shion didn’t expect to like Irie Shouichi, at all much less as much as she does, and she knows Tsuna feels the same. For as long as she can remember, other kids laughed at Tsuna for his poor math skills and the way he ‘clung’ to his sister, practically a mommy’s boy, hiding behind a girl. And they didn’t much like Shion either for the longest time, because she wouldn’t scorn Tsuna the way everyone else did. The other girls said she was a snob, stuck-up and thinking herself too good for them. And the truth is, Shion does sort of think that, not the first two but the latter. She does think she’s too good for them. Why should she stoop down to the level of people who gossip about boys and sneer at her brother and cluster together chatting about the most inane topics Shion’s ever heard? She’d much rather spend her time learning a new language or figuring out a new way to kill someone three times her size or cheering up her mom when she gets that depressed look on her face that means she’s thinking about Iemitsu.
But Shouichi isn’t like that. He looks at her and he looks at her brother like they’re- like they’re worth looking up to, like he likes them, and even though he gets squeamish over a lot of blood, he also clubbed a hitwoman over the head with his laptop when she was sneaking up on Shion while Shion was busy with two other assassins.
(Then promptly tripped over his own feet – gibbering with fear – when the woman rounded on him with a bleeding head, but it gave Shion enough time to come to his rescue and finish her off, and really, that’s all that matters.)
She doesn’t trust him completely, doesn’t trust him like she trusts Tsuna, but she trusts him enough. She thinks she could even trust him not to betray them.
It gets to the point where they don’t just meet up every weekend. Instead, they would meet up at the base after school every day. They give Shouichi full access, and the boy basically takes over the labs. Within a month, he has various inventions – everything from droids to communication devices to weapons – spread out across all five workrooms.
They also take a bedroom each. Well, Shouichi gets his own. Shion and Tsuna share one.
They take turns sending in false monthly reports to Vongola. They make up the most boring shit possible. Tsuna has great fun going on and on about how much of an idiot he is. And you’d think Shion was a clueless ditz if you only read what she wrote.
Obviously, most of this requires money. Lots of it.
Fortunately for them, there are quite a few yakuza groups in Namimori. And neither Shion nor Tsuna have any qualms flushing them out, giving them a good beat down, and calling the police to pick them up while Shouichi steals all their money.
That’s how they get rich quick.
But that’s also how they put themselves in the path of one HIbari Kyouya.
