Chapter Text
January, 2006
The mission is too easy. Most of them are. Squalo just expects something more from a Sky Flame user. This one is low purity and weak; too weak to even gather a paltry set of Guardians apparently. Squalo doesn’t understand why the customer felt the need for Varia Quality in this assassination; but outside contracting always picks up with odd jobs after Christmas, after everyone spends time with relatives and realizes there are people they would never want to see again. Literally.
Squalo waits and cleans his sword of the man’s blood, keeping his somatic and Flame senses active, just in case . Mammon’s analysis rates this at a 98% mission success rate. They are probably taking into account the weird factor that comes from being in Northern Italy, one of the biggest Flame and Mafia hotbeds, and that it’s entirely possible this pathetic Sky picked up an equally pathetic and potentially annoying Guardian like yesterday. Wouldn’t be the first time that has happened.
Letting a target’s Guardian go free after killing the Sky would be the opposite of good cleanup and result in more paperwork . (Sometimes, Squalo wonders if someone had just told him he would be doing so much fucking paperwork at sixteen, he might have had a moment’s hesitation of joining the Varia. A moment.)
And then, Squalo hears it. A whimpering sound. Maybe a dog.
Squalo follows the sound, an easy enough feat in this small cottage (which if this place is meant to be a safe house, it fails spectacularly), out of the kitchen, through the small hallway, and into a bedroom.
He doesn’t make a sound—Squalo is Varia Quality —but the sound stops when he enters the room.
He scans around the room. It’s a fucking mess, clothes everywhere, a gun sitting uselessly on the dresser, drawers open, broken wine bottle on the corner, and—ah. The closet is cracked open.
Squalo circles around the room, angling himself away from that vantage point. He stalks over to the other side of the door, sword ready, and flings the closet doors open.
The screaming starts and Squalo almost stabs on principle.
Inside the closet is a little kid, who cowers with his hands raised above his head as if to stop a blow.
“Hey!” Squalo shouts, in surprise but the kid does stop yelling.
The kid blinks teary eyes, face a molted lot of healing and newer bruises. There are bruises on his arms too and probably more under the kid’s pajamas.
The kid looks too small to be school age and his too-thin frame shakes in terror.
Squalo’s stomach turns.
Nothing in the Mammon’s report mentions kids. Squalo remembers a note where Mammon says how they aren’t sure if the customer’s motives are a Flame rivalry or an extreme hatred between cousins.
Now, Squalo thinks the customer fucking knew something about this.
The kid doesn’t look like his target. Fluffy, brunette hair and warm brown eyes, and an Asian cast to the kid’s face compared to dark-haired, green-eyed man in the other room whose features suggested Italian with more Western European.
“Hey, where are your parents?” He asks.
The kid breaks into full-on crying.
Squalo sheathes his sword and crouches down. “Come on kid, talk to me!”
And the kid does. Except, he’s not speaking Italian. The babel is quick and not Italian, but Squalo knows enough words to recognize the language as Japanese. It’s not one of the languages he knows fluently (yet); however, he can guess what the kid wants from the repeated use of the word for “mom”.
Squalo picks up the kid with his free arm and tries not to think of the tears and snot his shirt is being subjected to as the kid leans into his chest.
“ It’s okay. No one is going to hurt you.” He tells the kid with the little bit of Japanese he knows.
The kid makes a soft sound and hugs Squalo around his neck.
Squalo doesn’t panic. He’s doesn’t DO panic. He just happens to flares his Rain Flame and intentionally knocks the kid out. A complete and successful tactic to calm the kid down.
The kid is fast asleep and doesn’t even stir when Squalo goes back to the kitchen to stab his target again.
He should have stabbed the man in the gut earlier and let the man die slowly.
The Varia officers aren’t going to question him directly—Squalo has made clear from new officers to those who joined the Varia before Squalo that if he thinks there has been an infraction, Squalo gets a new training dummy—but Squalo does not want to deal with potential talk in the Varia.
Which is why he uses the Varia Elite’s access tunnels from the garage instead of storming through the halls in his normal post-mission routine. (Squalo loves the mixture of stress relief and efficiency his stalking through the hallways with sword brandished and voice at full volume gets him, catching anyone who needed more training and collecting any quick reports the Varia deem important enough to risk getting their heads taken off rather than leaving the report on Squalo’s desk.)
He pulls the car in; the car is not one of the usual vehicles to grace the Varia Elite parking space but his motorcycle hasn’t been available for the last week anyways since a supposed genius brat decided to take it apart and then decided putting the motorcycle back together again would be far too boring.
(Squalo would have skinned the brat prince with his own knives if Mammon hadn’t immediately taken the kid on their mission. And while with the rare chance of snow looming in the forecast, Squalo would still have chosen a car over his bike for the sake of heating, the so-called genius brat still needs to be taught a lesson.)
For a moment, Squalo stares at the little kid, curled up in the back seat with Squalo’s winter jacket and sheathed sword, and wonders what the fuck he is doing.
He has never liked kids.
After Belphegor Squalo pretty much hates kids.
This one, though, hasn’t puked on him or tried to stab him yet, making this encounter far from the worst but still.
The kid sleeps soundly as Squalo buckles his sword again and hoists the kid over his shoulder. Squalo spares only a moment to the thought that he may have overdosed the kid on Rain Flames. It’s not like the calming nature of Rain is an exact science and the kid is still breathing, so Squalo avoids the thought as he heads to the elevators.
The hallway between the elevator and his suite on the top floor is empty and Squalo bolts down the hall and slams his door behind him.
Normally, after a mission with such a subpar target, this is when Squalo would hit the training rooms and force a fight with whichever Varia trainee that fails to make themselves scarce fast enough before settling down to finish mission reports and the ridiculous pile of paperwork that the Vongola requires for compensation.
Instead, Squalo sets his sheathed sword down on the dresser and shifts his hold so both arms are around the kid. He’s pretty sure the kid is past the age of when parents stop carrying their brats all the time. The kid is light and small but bulky enough to be awkward all the same.
He rests his chin on the kid’s head and tries to figure out what the fuck he is doing.
Squalo is not passing the kid off to a Varia grunt. They aren’t stupid enough to ask Squalo questions but there will be questions even if they don’t ask him directly. He gets enough commentary, both Varia, Vongola, and the rest of the mafia for his age, he doesn’t need anyone thinking he’s soft.
But considering his sixteen years of life has centered on beating every swordsman he can find, with a side of mafia, Squalo is willing to admit he doesn’t know what to do with this kid.
His first thought goes to Dino but Dino is off training who knows where with the fucking best hitman of all times. Not that Dino is a great choice; he is barely a month older than Squalo and the mafia-don-to-be doesn’t know what to do with a laundry machine let alone a kid. Still, foisting a brat off on Dino would be easy.
Xanxus…
Well, Xanxus would be a worse choice, even if Xanxus isn’t currently a block of ice.
Squalo knows better than to go to Xanxus for problems that cannot be easily fixed by shooting something or needs something done immediately without waiting for one of Xanxus’s epic plots to unfold.
Which leaves Squalo with whom he has been mentally avoiding.
He can’t exactly ignore Lussuria’s presence down the hall, not when his Flames are as bright and irritating as their namesake on a blistering summer day.
But being forced to tutor beginners sword fighting at mafia school again just sounds more appealing than asking Lussuria for help.
And his school hasn’t asked Squalo to do that again since he took out an entire wing and stabbed the deputy headmaster in the thigh. (Later, when Squalo wonders how he didn’t get a detention, Dino tells him how the headmistress cackled at the news and made a toast to the deputy’s early retirement.)
This time, Squalo acknowledges, he’s the brat who has no clue what he is doing.
He allows himself ten seconds of wallowing before taking a deep breath and marching off to the kitchen, where he senses Lussuria.
The look of surprise on Lussuria’s face is almost worth asking for help.
Almost.
Up until the point Lussuria starts laughing.
“Well, are you going to help or not?” Squalo says.
Lussuria plucks the kid from his arms and looks at the kid’s face, making a clucking sound. “Some people, hmph .”
Squalo considers defending himself against any possible accusation of hurting a nameless kid—the Varia are ruthless but kids aren’t the normal kind of jobs they pick up; no sport and rarely any pay worthwhile—but Lussuria moves away from him, drifting towards the oversized kitchen table.
“Time to wake up, cutie pie.”
There’s a rush of Sun Flames and the kid opens his eyes. He blinks slowly, brown eyes wide and confused.
“Aw, aren’t you cute?” Lussuria says and starts babbling in some terrible Italian baby talk about being so cute that Lussuria would eat him right up. Squalo would have thought Lussuria is putting on his usual creeper image—though considerably toned-down from what Lussuria enjoys freaking out his opponents with—but he has heard non-Mafia, supposedly normal people talk to children this way.
“He’s Japanese,” Squalo says.
Lussuria switches languages without a pause in his cooing and gently sets the kid on the kitchen table.
Lussuria tells the kid to hold out his hands and the kid glances at Squalo before doing so. Lussuria waves his right hand, glowing with Sun Flames, over the kid’s arms and bruises disappear.
The kid gasps and shoves this hands forward, trying to get closer to Lussuria, and nearly falls off the table.
“Easy now!” Lussuria says in Italian, with a laugh and settles the kid back on the table. In Japanese, Lussuria tells the kid to relax and, “ Oh Squalo-chan won’t be happy with me if I mess up my own healing, ne?”
Squalo knows Lussuria’s games, knows reacting to even small overtures of familiarity can lead to blatant flirting and disturbing imagery Lussuria inflicts equally on allies and opponents. He works hard on not falling for such easy traps.
He still twitches at being called Squalo-chan.
Lussuria, thankfully, seems engrossed in healing and Squalo doesn’t get the usual onslaught of macabre flirtation.
The kid sits quietly on the table, staying still and watching Lussuria’s hands as he works to erase bruises. Squalo expects fidgeting; Squalo is fidgeting and he’s not getting the brunt of the Sun Flame. Sun Healing itches when the Flames repair torn flesh and bruises.
“You’re good with kids,” Squalo says and once it’s out of his mouth, it sounds like an accusation.
Lussuria looks over his shoulder and rolls his eyes. “I do have baby cousins.”
Squalo doesn’t say anything to that. Technically, Squalo is in charge of the Varia files has sections on members’ families and shit but Squalo hasn’t really ever thought of Lussuria’s existence outside the context of Varia Officer and Really Fucking Annoying.
The kid giggles under Lussuria’s glowing hands. Squalo wonders if that is a good sign or a sign of derangement.
“All better!” Lussuria says in Italian and pats the kid’s cheek, before looking over to Squalo. “So cute! Squalo, where did you find this little Sky?”
“This what ?!”
“You didn’t notice? I suppose the seal makes him less noticeable...”
Squalo looks at the kid, really looks but doesn’t see whatever Lussuria found.
Lussuria rolls his eyes and taps the kid’s forehead with a spark of Sun Flame and a cartoonish ‘bang bang’ sound.
The kid giggles, grasping Lussuria’s hand and a flicker of orange Flame puffs into existence.
The Flames are a subtle warmth, different from the full presence of Xanxus. There is no thrill, not like the Flames of Wrath, not egging him on and demanding attention, but those are definitely Sky Flames. Squalo takes a step forward. Those Flames are calm and welcoming, like the Vongola Boss’s are said to be, even though the Ninth’s Flames grate on Squalo’s nerves unlike the energy high Squalo gets from Xanxus and—
Lussuria smacks his shoulder. “Stop looking at him as if he’s a bomb. You are terrible with kids.”
Squalo regrets putting his sword in his room. He considers how easy stabbing Lussuria in the ribs with one of his boot knives would be but then the kid starts babbling again and Squalo does not want to deal with the kid on his own.
The kid’s Flames disappear suddenly and both of the Varia flinch, the sudden disappearance registering like death even as the kid merely frowns at them.
“And that’s the Seal I’m talking about,” Lussuria says and focuses on the kid again, keeping up with the Japanese in a way that has Squalo feeling like he should brush up on to understand the kid.
His stomach sinks when he realizes he’s planning for the kid. A baby Sky hoodwinking him, when the Vongola Boss doesn’t affect him despite Xanxus and his Sky Flames being stuck in ice for over a year.
Dino's Sky Flames—weaker and calmer than Xanxus—don’t tempt him despite everyone expecting that of them, ever since both Dino’s and Squalo’s own Flames ignited during mafia school, first in their class and always together.
But the kid’s Flames don’t have the same allure of Xanxus’s, not like when Xanxus first entered the Varia Compound demanding a position and set Squalo on edge, or when Squalo listened to his plans for the Vongola and everything just clicked in the certainty of Harmonization.
This is softer, not demanding his attention, unnoticeable until Lussuria mentioned it, but there, under this supposed Seal, Squalo feels a gentle tug.
“Hey Squalo, you still with us?”
Squalo scowls. “What did you get from the brat?”
Lussuria sighs at Squalo. “His name is Tsuna, five years old, lives in Japan with his mom, and his mom was preparing for a special guest coming after New Year’s before he got grabbed.”
Squalo waits for Lussuria to continue.
Lussuria shrugs. “The special guest part sounded weird to the kid but he says his mom was excited.”
“That’s it?”
He’s not expecting a kid to flat out name a mafia family out for his blood or such, but surely something.
“The only things that are useful. He’s a kid, Squalo.” Lussuria crosses his arms. “I would have guessed a civilian kid before I felt his Flames and he’s been traumatized and scared.”
“He looks fine.”
The kid— Tsuna —seems fascinated by Lussuria’s blue mohawk at the moment. Squalo’s glad he doesn’t have to put up with crying or anything but he still expects something from a battered kid in a room with strangers.
“You doused him with Rain. Enough that my Flame didn’t clear out all yours by the time I was done healing.” Lussuria pouts at him for a moment and then waves it off with his next thought. “Speaking of which, the kid’s...lucky. He got hit a lot but burned people if they didn’t move away fast enough. I’m guessing he can overflow that seal?”
“Does he know he has Flames?”
“Does he know what they are? Nope. He describes it as seeing Flames and then people screaming.”
Squalo thinks of Xanxus but the thought of the Boss’s Flames of Wrath doesn’t fit with the fluffy kid.
The ‘people screaming’ part does, however.
“Isn’t he too young to even have active Flames?”
Lussuria stares at the kid, considering. “It’s unusual. Even Bel...well, that was just two years ago, when all of that unpleasant political shit happened, so he was eight when his Flames appeared. Maybe that’s why the kid’s been Sealed.”
“How long has he been Sealed? How long has this kid had Flames?”
Lussuria asks Tsuna a couple of questions and Squalo doesn’t have to know Japanese well when the kid’s face scrunches up in confusion to know whatever he answers in response isn’t going to be useful. Lussuria hums and then tries again, differently worded but to no result.
Sealing isn’t something that comes up often. The Mafia’s modus operandi for Flame users is omerta and quick assimilation to a mafia family, or death. Sealing, however, is something a more public figure with connections gets or someone being punished in-house or a la Vidicare.
A Sealed kid? Just as weird as the fact the kid even has noticeable Flames to seal at this age.
“He doesn’t seem to remember anything about the Sealing.” Lussuria says, and picks up Tsuna.
“What are we doing about the kid?”
Lussuria smirks and hands the kid over. Squalo grabs Tsuna on reflex.
“Wait, what…”
“You give him a bath. I’ll make dinner.” Lussuria shoves him out of the kitchen. “Just like playing house!”
Squalo starts walking towards his room again, arms full of a giggling kid, and then the words hit him.
“WE ARE NOT PLAYING HOUSE!”
