Chapter Eleven
Let’s Not Go to Candy Mountain
It was a tolerably nice day as Hans woke up. The child happily dressed himself and gathered his things for school. Running down the stairs, he found that his hostess—Yamamoto Haru—was already in the kitchen, as usual, ready to hand him his lunchbox and breakfast for the day.
“Have you seen Haruhi at all?” Haru asked as the boy wolfed down some cereal.
“Nope. For all I know, she’s still in bed.”
“Hahi! I swear! That girl wouldn’t amount to a thing if I weren’t there to kick her into gear!”
“Maaa… relax Haru,” Takeshi yawned as he sleepily shuffled into the kitchen. He ruffled Hans’s hair and snatched an apple from the bowl on the table. “She always makes it in the end, right Hans-kun?”
“Well, she certainly could fool me,” the boy frowned. Takeshi had come home a few nights beforehand and had been staying up late with his daughter for swordsmanship training. It bothered Hans to no end, as the only result he seemed to be noticing was that Haruhi was less and less likely to be punctual and functional and more lackadaisically carefree when he felt she should not be. That and Takeshi seemed to take joy out of embarrassing the hell out of him.
“You really are Gokudera-kun’s son, aren’t ‘cha?” the man grinned. He went and gave Haru a quick kiss on the cheek before biting into his apple and opening the refrigerator. “So, you kids have school today?”
“Yeah, and I’m going to be late if that idiot girl doesn’t get a move on!” Hans said exasperatedly. “Actually, I think I’m going to head out without her.”
“I would advise against that…” Takeshi teased in a sing-song voice. “You know she’s just going to harass you about it for the rest of the day.”
“Like I care,” Hans grumbled as he finished his cereal. Not wanting to continue the conversation any longer, he grabbed his bag and stormed out of the house.
No wonder Mom and Dad kept me away from them, Hans thought as he walked down the alleyway. Idiots—the whole lot of them. Then again, idiots only breed more idiots.
Hans walked along merrily after that, keeping his thoughts fixated on the day ahead. The group was going to have a study session after school, meaning he could flex his intellect yet again to prove to the Eleventh that he was worthy of being his right-hand man. Sure, he was fairly disadvantaged by the age gap between him and the Idiot Squad, but that never stopped Hans before. He was sure that he could dismiss any sort of disadvantage he could have as long as he worked hard. The boy knew that hard work was what helped his mother become one of the richest women in Germany and made his father into one of the most important men in the Vongola Family, so it must be able to help him along as well.
Suddenly, Hans stopped walking. He could feel the presence of someone behind him. Attempting to stay calm, he kept on walking for a pace and then quickly spun around. There was a bit of a high-pitched squeaking noise, but not a soul was in sight. He turned back around and walked some more, only to hear footsteps coming up behind him. He spun around and readied his slingshot, but still—nothing was there. The boy leapt forward to start running but crashed into something, sending him toppling to the ground.
“What the…?!” he gasped, realizing there was something now underneath him. He couldn’t see anything, however, except for the cement centimeters below him.
“GET OFF!” screamed a voice. Hans jumped back in shock and a girl about his age appeared, coming into focus like a cheap, wavy flashback effect. She had brown pigtails high on her head and was dressed in pink and white, skirt, shirt, shoes and all, and was looking highly flustered.
“What did you do that for!?” she snapped, voice squeaking.
“There was nothing there!” Hans retorted.
“Annje was there!”
“Well, I certainly couldn’t see you!”
“Really? You mean you really couldn’t see Annje…?!” the girl asked with a little more enthusiasm than Hans was comfortable with.
“I could have sworn I was the only other human being in this alleyway…” Hans frowned. “Are you an idiot or what?”
“No…! …but this is really good! Annje can’t believe you didn’t see her!” With that, the girl called Annje sprung up to her feet and dashed off around the corner.
“What in the heck was that all about…?” Hans whispered aloud to himself. It took only a moment for him to snap out of his confusion and take off in a sprint. “Oh no! The Eleventh is probably wondering where I am! I was supposed to be at his house one minute and fifty-seven seconds ago! I have to hurry so he isn’t stuck walking with that idiot cousin of his to school!”
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“So what you’re saying is that a girl you’ve never seen before was tailing you this morning?” Kiyohiko asked as he and Hans walked through the halls of Namimori High. Haruhi, Damiano and Masaru had already rushed ahead to make sure the roof was cleared for lunch, leaving the foreign boy alone with their Boss.
“Yeah. I didn’t want to tell you earlier, since I thought it was nothing, but after thinking about it, I thought I should let you know. I mean, what if she’s up to something?”
“You said she looked about your age?”
“That she did! That and she spoke Japanese kind of funny, like she wasn’t much used to foreign languages. I couldn’t make out exactly what kind of accent she had, but it was definitely European.”
“Great, so there’s another one of you wandering around?” Kiyohiko groaned as he opened the door to the stairway. “Why can’t you kids be kids for a while?”
“Duty comes before pleasure,” Hans said, his voice echoing a phrase Kiyohiko had heard Gokudera Hayato say many a time before. It was obvious to the teenager that neither the Storm Guardian nor Ms. Elsner ever talked to Hans like he was a child. Those were things a technical-grade school kid should not really say.
Hans jumped in front of Kiyohiko once they reached the top of the stairs. The child burst out from behind the door and glanced around suspiciously. Only the regular crowd was there; they paid no attention to Hans. Haruhi was attempting to educate Damiano on the finer points of the differences between the Japanese baseball leagues while the half-Japanese was doing his best to feign knowledge of the sport. Masaru and Saki were throwing a mock battle a few meters away, the latter showing a scarily quick pace of improvement due to the way Masaru was clearly half-improvising his battle strategy.
“Oh, there you are Don Yohi!” Damiano said cheerily, cutting the conversation with Haruhi short. “It was taking so long for you to come up I was beginning to worry!”
“No… I just had to put some books in my locker before coming up,” Kiyohiko said as he and Hans sat down. “Reborn’s got me reading a bunch of novels lately; I’m currently on Puzo’s works.”
“Speaking of Reborn-kun, I haven’t seen him lately,” Haruhi mentioned. “Did Hana-san ground him?”
“No…” Kiyohiko groaned. Hana-san couldn’t ground Reborn, even if she tried.
“I actually talked with the Giallo Arcobaleno last night,” Damiano noted. “He drops in on me every so often, which is annoying after a while. I guess he likes to keep tabs on the Vongola Guardians during the training periods. Mom told me a little while ago that he was always stopping by Kokuyo while Don Tsuna was still in school.”
“You tend to drop your voice when you talk about Reborn,” Hans said, blankly staring at Damiano. “Why is that?”
“I’ll tell you in a few years,” Damiano muttered, blushing slightly and shooting Haruhi a quick glance through the corners of his eyes. Haruhi did not notice, however, since she was engaged in inhaling the contents of her bento.
Kiyohiko quickly changed the subject to the morning lessons and attempted to bask in the normality of the lunch hour. He knew that once he got home after school, Reborn was going to be shooting at him and causing a commotion, so he had to enjoy the quiet while it lasted.
Masaru and Saki had just sat down from their spar (which had been decided at a draw) when Hans fell eerily silent. The boy crouched down and listened intently, which eventually caught the attention of his classmates. Everyone quieted as the little foreign boy darted over by Masaru’s side, acting as if he was hiding.
“What are you doing, brat?” Masaru grumbled, looking over his shoulder. There was no one there, so he let out a disapproving scoff. “You’re being extremely weird, even for yourself.”
“There’s someone there…” Hans whispered hoarsely. Haruhi leaned over towards Damiano and looked at the immediate area behind Masaru, only to break out into laughter.
“What are you doing out of school?” she asked the empty air. Everyone else looked in the direction Haruhi was giggling at, then back at Haruhi and back to the empty space again.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about Signorina Ha…” Damiano said before trailing off. He blinked a few times at the suspect space and then jumped. “Merda! What in the world…?!” He leapt to his feet and produced a sharpened boomerang from his jacket pocket, pointing it just behind where Masaru’s head was. His voice dropped into a firm tone and his eyes narrowed.
“Don’t move.”
“What are you doing?!” Masaru snapped. “The only one in this direction is me!”
“…and that is where you are wrong, Masaru,” Reborn’s voice rang from nowhere. The rest of the teenagers froze, having thought they were the only ones on the roof. The infant materialized in the middle of their circle, dressed in the black garb of a traditional ninja and holding a shiny metal device that looked vaguely like a baby-sized remote control.
“I thought being the Arcobaleno of the Yellow Pacifier meant you can’t use illusions!” Kiyohiko groaned. “How’d you manage this?!”
“Verde has recently created a device that can feign illusions,” Reborn said frankly. Saki opened her mouth to ask whom he was talking about, but was cut off. “I am not the only one who has rudimentary illusionist abilities on this roof.”
“Now that’s not true you stupidhead! I’m a good illusionist!” a squeaky voice shouted from the same direction Damiano’s boomerang was still trained on. The voice gasped in surprise and there was the distinct sound of little feet running. Damiano threw the boomerang and a high-pitched scream pierced the air as the blade lodged itself in the rooftop. In the same wavy-fade-in as before, the girl from the alleyway came into focus as she sat in horror on the rooftop. Damiano’s boomerang was in the space between her feet, making the girl a wide-eyed, trembling mess.
“Woah… how’d you do that, Gaijin-chan…?” Saki asked, flabbergasted. First Reborn materialized out of nowhere, and now a small foreign girl did the same… it certainly was becoming quite the lunch period.
“You!” Hans shouted, jumping up and pointing at the girl. “I knew you were trouble from the moment I saw you! Eleventh, this is the girl I saw this morning!”
“Ah, jeez…” Kiyohiko groaned, slapping his hands to his face. Masaru, however, walked right up to the girl and held her up by the collar so that she was eye-level with him.
“What kind of a brat’s going around using Mist Illusions?” he asked, staring sternly at the wriggling girl. “Now I know why Hana-san doesn’t like kids as much as she does.”
“You let go of Annje!” the girl shouted. “Annje’s the fourth-most promising assassin for her age! Annje’s gonna kick your fanny!”
“Kick my… fanny.” Masaru’s tone was unimpressively flat. “Kid, I can kick you from here to Shibuya without breaking a sweat. Shut up.”
“You may have foiled Annje’s plan, but there shall always be next time, Cotton Head!” the girl whined. She reached into her pocket and pulled out an indigo-colored box. Once she reached for a chain that was around her neck, Masaru dropped her and backed away.
“The kid’s got a Mist Box!” he yelled. Haruhi and Damiano immediately leapt to their feet and rushed to stand in front of Kiyohiko, Saki and Hans.
“Sawada-kun, what’s going on?” Saki asked. “What’s so bad about that box?”
“To make a long story short: that girl’s got Mafia training,” Kiyohiko explained, shifting so that he was in front of Saki and Hans. The last thing he wanted was for a Box Weapon User to get out of hand while in the presence of two individuals clearly inexperienced with the concept… particularly if the Box was of a Mist Attribute.
“Come! Gerardus!” the girl yelled. The ring looped onto her necklace lit up with an indigo flame and she inserted the Flame into the Box. It opened and a swirl of Mist Flames burst out and converged into a dastardly-looking lump between the girl and Masaru. The Flames twirled and twisted and began to finally take shape until the Box Animal was concrete… and forcing all on the roof but Reborn, Saki and the girl to stop themselves from bursting into laughter.
There, standing on Namimori High’s rooftop, was a deeply-colored indigo Shetland Pony, no taller than the little Mist-attributed girl’s shoulders, with a singular horn growing from its forehead. Annje hopped upon it and did her very best to look menacing.
“Annje shall get you one day, Vongola!” she cried out before allowing the horse to slowly canter away. Those who were left dropped down on the rooftop and howled with laughter sans Saki and Reborn.
“I don’t get it,” the teenager informed the hitman. “What was that?”
“That, aside from being pathetic, was the fourth-most superior hitman of her age grouping,” Reborn explained. “She was using Mafia technology, albeit poorly, in an attempt to intimidate us.”
“So that’s what the purple pony was?”
“Yeah… in a way…” Damiano said, wiping some tears from his eyes. “Many people who are in the Mafia and can fight have things called Flames and each color of the rainbow corresponds with a component of the weather. The rarest would be Don Yohi’s orange Sky Attribute, which is mainly is found in the heads of certain Mafia families and is even rarer otherwise. My mom and sister are aligned with the indigo Mist Flames, like that girl was.”
“Flames…?”
“My dad explained it to me as fighting spirit!” Masaru said cheerily.
“Cool!” Saki said. The bell then stopped her short, signaling that lunch, although exciting, was now over. Kiyohiko rushed everyone to leave and moreover, never speak of what had transpired to anyone else.
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The next morning, Hans was walking cheerily along the road, coming to a stop in front of the Sasagawa-Kurokawa-Sawada Residence. He waited patiently until Masaru and Kiyohiko emerged. Both teens were sleepy-eyed and clearly not ready to start the day.
“What’s the matter with you two?” Hans asked as they walked towards the corner. “You look like you were up all night, Eleventh!”
“We were,” Masaru grumbled. “After we told Dad that there was this little Mist Brat ‘bout your age running around, he flipped out and didn’t let us get any sleep.”
“Yeah. We need to invest in some earplugs like Hana-san has,” Kiyohiko added. The three reached the corner and were met by Haruhi and Damiano.
“Morning!” Haruhi said happily. “Hans-kun, why didn’t you wait for me before leaving the house earlier?”
“I needed to be at my post and greet the Eleventh,” the child said, adding an air of superiority to his voice. “While you were sleeping, I was doing the duties of a Right Hand Man!”
“Don’t hurt yourself, kid,” Masaru said, grinding his fist into Hans’s skull.
“Well, guess what!” Haruhi smiled. “That girl from yesterday…”
“Annje? What about her?” Kiyohiko asked.
“She’s not so bad after all!” Haruhi said. She stepped aside and revealed that the little girl who had confronted them on the roof of the high school the day prior was standing there wearing a pink-and-white track suit, a backpack across her back and Reborn sitting atop her head. Kiyohiko and Hans both jumped back in shock.
“R-R-Reborn, you idiot! What’s she doing here?!”
“Annje here may be the fourth-most promising assassin for her age, but she still has much to learn, so I invited her to stay and train here,” Reborn said. “She lives with a most excellent tutor now.”
“Just because my crazy sister is a prodigy Mist Attribute doesn’t mean I’m willing to babysit the bambina,” Damiano grumbled. He clearly appeared to have lost copious amounts of sleep the night before, most likely preparing a room for the child.
“Well, Namimori High isn’t big enough for the two of us!” Hans protested.
“That’s why Annje is going to elementary, which is where you belong too…” the girl said, trying not to make eye contact with Hans. The boy tried to look her in the eyes, but she kept on dodging and finally ran away, Hans right behind her.
“Fuuta made that prediction waiting out a hurricane, you know,” Reborn said from his new perch atop Kiyohiko’s head.
“More like the assassin most likely to turn colors then?” Masaru grumbled, just as annoyed as Damiano that the girl was now staying.
“Do not be too critical,” Reborn scolded. “There are not many in her age grouping who are assassins, after all.”
