"What do you mean it's been deactivated?"
There was only one man in the room, an imposing figure with an immaculate suit on his body and expensive accessories dangling on his wrists.
"I'm sorry sir, but the tracking chip has been deactivated for about a month now. The orders came straight from the owner of the bank account you have been using to pay for the chip- it is to be deactivated permanently without any notice to you."
The voice from the phone sounded bored almost as if it was completely normal for customers to make these sorts of complaints on the daily. The voice was clearly unamused at Iemitsu's incessant rambling about how this was wrong and that it should be activated at once.
"Sir, we physically cannot do that. The owner of the bank account registered for the tracking chip is legally obligated to stop the activation fee whenever he deems it necessary," the voice droned on.
"As you are not the owner of the bank account, you cannot make these decisions. Ieyasu Sawada is entitled to these rights as a consumer," the voice finished.
Iemitsu cursed and hung up the call in his rage. No tracking chip, no real way to make sure his youngest son stays in line. To think his own son would turn against him like this- no, no it's fine, he reasoned.
Ieyasu is relatively impressionable still, and he has taken orders from his father for years now, so why shouldn't he continue now? Thinking he won, he sauntered over to his son's office through the halls of the Vongola mansion.
The mansion is a big, beautiful piece of history with authentic curtains, tapestries and such from as far as 300 years ago. Normally, the man would stop and admire the uncanny resemblance his son has to the first Vongola boss, Giotto de Vongola, but there was no time for that now.
The faster the chip was activated again, the better. He couldn't have Tsunayoshi going back to what he once was; the confident, warm, sly, challenging kid who was always questioning him and opposing him. Tsunayoshi would have made the perfect boss, even more so than Ieyasu, but he just wasn't malleable enough.
He wasn't right for what Iemitsu was planning.
As per usual, the blonde didn't bother knocking when he barged into his son's office- it should have been mine it should have beenmineitshouldhavebeenmine -but he did not expect all of the Vongola boss' Nerilians to be out and settled in and around the office.
The Nerilians in the room are all the same ones who had followed the first Vongola boss.
Ieyasu sighed, looking up at his father with disdain and disgust swirling deep within his amber coloured eyes. Iemitsu's eyes widened at the sight. A bone-deep cold settled over him uncomfortably. Did his son finally realise what exactly he was doing?
"Ah, I assume that you've finally been informed that the tracking chip you implemented into Tsuna's phone has been deactivated permanently," the boss said nonchalantly, already reading through another document that has been laying around on his desk for a good part of the week.
Something unsettling stewed within the older Sawada. Something foreboding.
"You deactivated it?" he asked.
"Of course I did," another paper signed off on, replaced by another document, "the bills come straight to me from the bank. I've known about every purchase you have made since the Vongola has been under me."
"What?" the blonde quipped sharply. He merely glanced at the brown file that was thrown onto the desk by the spiky-haired creep, Daemon. Unnecessary. What an inconvenience they've run into.
"I trust that you won't be doing something like that again. I've already told that company and a few reliable ones that the Vongola's official bank account is not to be permitted to be used for any purchases," Ieyasu continued, haphazardly signing off on a couple more papers without reading them.
It wasn't a surprise, after all. His right and left-hand men started to read through the documents together, trashing the unimportant or tricky ones at once.
"You will remove that restriction at once, Ieyasu!" the Sawada yelled, slamming his hands onto the desk. The Decimo paused mid-signature and looked up slowly. His fiery eyes were cold and unforgiving, judging.
"I am the Vongola Decimo," Ieyasu spoke coldly, low and hushed but still leaking with authority, "you are the leader of a Vongola adjacent branch, CEDEF, and hold no authority, no power over the Vongola company or the dark mafia side of it."
Iemitsu glared at his son. Then, his glare turned into a sickly sweet smile.
"Come now, Ieyasu, I'm sure that's not true. I could certainly help to take the workload off-"
"I am afraid that won't be necessary. I was well aware of the sacrifices I would have to take and the responsibilities I would have when I first agreed to become the Vongola Decimo when I was sixteen. I am not going to let you take the workload off of me when I am more than capable of keeping up with it, father," the young blonde explained.
"Once again, you are a Vongola adjacent branch, not part of the Vongola but only sheltered by it. Connected, accommodated, but not included. However, I trust that you knew about that already," he finished, internally grinning at the infuriated and confused look on his father's face.
The older Sawada just looked around for a bit, seeing unamused expressions being thrown back at him. He glared at his son again.
"You will do as I say, boy," Iemitsu hissed. The Decimo raised an unimpressed brow.
"Or what?" the boy asked.
"As you said, CEDEF isn't under the Vongola. They don't answer to you, they answer to me," Iemitsu replied smugly, a giddy looking grin on his face. "If I send them out to... 'threaten' Tsunayoshi, I know that they'll follow my orders to a T."
Ieyasu's expression hardened.
"Will I have to send the Varia to babysit you, then?"
Iemitsu's grin dropped. He straightened, giving the occupants of the room a once over. They were all on their guard, except for Daemon and Alaude who were oddly relaxed, but the promise of unimaginable pain swam around in the depths of their eyes.
A teasing, playful, almost mercilessly sadistic glint flickered through Daemon's gaze every so often, while Alaude's cut through with a serious, demonic edge.
The Sawada turned to his son.
"This isn't over."
He turned around and left the room.
--={&}=--
Working through the night with only the comfort of his no-sugar-no-milk coffee to keep him company wasn't exactly how Tsuna expected to spend his week off school.
The two weeks he had spent with the Arcobaleno were great ones, as he had learnt much more about them- maybe even more than he needed or wanted to know -but that time off came with a price.
He missed a total of eight days of education (the extended weekends are a Godsend) and now, unfortunately, had to catch up on it as much as he could. The half-term break is also great because he has time to actually catch up on the work without assignments and due dates looming over his head as well.
Reborn had reluctantly let him go back to school after two weeks of keeping a watchful eye on Tsuna and nothing really happening to him; two weeks of looking for Talbot and Kawahira and still not coming up with anything productive.
Granted, they covered a lot of ground and dismissed many locations, but they still had no leads. As none of them had reported anything strange while looking over the brunette, they allowed him to go back to his dorm and go to school.
The Arcobaleno were, of course, continuing their search.
Tsuna felt guilty and overly-anxious about not telling them about the strange white-haired visitor he had had on the penultimate day of his stay. Of course, they hadn't really asked him if anyone suspicious or strange had talked to him, but he felt guilty for not bringing it up.
He also felt guilty that he was considering meeting up with 'Ken' in Namimori this upcoming weekend. Still, this did not mean he wasn't going to do it.
Reborn and the others have kept a lot from him. They kept the fact that they were all Arcobaleno to themselves instead of telling Tsuna, even after he and the sun had formed a contract together. They all kept the reasons as to why they were looking for Talbot and Kawahira from him.
They all mention an unnamed 'she' over and over again but never told him who it was until Lal had opened up slightly about it on that night. She said not a word more about Luce after revealing her name and standing with the seven of them.
All Tsuna knew was what the textbooks say about the Arcobaleno, what his pact with Reborn makes him feel, and the name of their most treasured and most mistrusted sky to date.
He knows what their personalities and general roles are in the group, and he knows a lot about Skull and Fon and Reborn's interests and, to an extent, Mammon and Lal Mirch's as well. Verde remains a bit of a mystery despite his begrudging permission for the Sawada to enter his personal space and check up on him.
He knows that, somehow, Verde has the skills and resources necessary to make a melbourn analysis machine that is strong and durable enough for him to be able to find the affinity, strength and purity of Tsuna's melbourn.
That's really the extent of his knowledge.
They've kept a lot from Tsuna, and even though he knows that they think they're protecting him, he's sick of people not telling him the whole story. At this point, he thinks he has some right to know about what he's getting into.
He doesn't regret making a pact with Reborn, feeling the thrum of the bond on his neck and right above his heart where all contracts should be, but he knows that he needs to get more information to be able to feel completely secure with his choices from this point onward.
Tsuna sighed and picked up his new sketchbook. He needed to de-stress and unwind, and drawing is the only way he knows how. He's almost finished his assignments, so to hell with them.
The Sawada opened it up and started sketching the basic lines of the shapes and where things are, where the light sprinkling of people would become shadows or silhouettes or just vague figures in the scene.
The fountains, with the moving water and pretty reflections, were the hardest to start drawing in detail, but he managed to draw them. Eventually. After going on to draw everything except the fountains of water.
The temperature was warming up, but Tsuna dreaded and anticipated rain season. On one hand, the rain would be good and it would mean that he could cosy up in his dorm room easily, but on the other hand, he would still have to go to classes if it was raining very badly.
He didn't fancy getting a cold or the flu ready for the summer.
The scene was shaping up, slowly but surely, with rough little sketches of clothes on the people and crosshatching for shadows where they were the darkest.
Out of all of the things he drew, Tsuna found the most comfort and the most fun in drawing scenes and landscapes. He loved drawing people, of course- portrait work was always a fun little thing to dabble in -but it always took too long.
Eventually, he would find himself getting frustrated if he couldn't perfectly draw someone as they are in real life or in the photo reference. That's not what art is about.
Art is about expression, emotion and empowerment to those whose art has been called 'weird' or 'strange'- art is whatever you make it out to be. Creativity, passion, hard work; that is what art means to Tsunayoshi.
Getting frustrated at his art was not good for that.
As always, however, his mind trailed away from the scene he was drawing and back to his earlier thoughts. So much has changed in the past couple of months...
He really hoped he wouldn't regret meeting up with Ken because his intuition said it was a good idea, but his gut twisted in anxiety all the same.
.
"You've decided to meet up with me, after all, Tsunayoshi-kun," Ken said, but there was no surprise in his voice as if he knew that this would be the case.
"Yeah. I'm not- I mean, there's no... no information on the Arcobaleno in the, uh, textbooks or anything, and they're only mentioned most of the time," Tsuna explained, wringing his hands.
Ken just nodded in reply, swirling his ramen with his chopsticks. "Have some tea, Tsunayoshi-kun."
"You don't have to use honorifics," the Sawada told him quietly, taking the cup in his hands.
"Okay, just Tsunayoshi, then," the man corrected before continuing. "I assume you came to me so that I could... shed some light on the situation."
The man chose his words carefully as if looking for a good way to form the sentence before saying it. Peculiar.
"I won't tell you about Luce. That is a personal issue that they should be able to tell you when they're ready."
Tsuna agreed with the sentiment.
"I also cannot tell you any solid answers about the Arcobaleno themselves. I can tell you about the Arcobaleno, as in the position and title and all that good stuff, but not the people."
Tsuna came here for that information in particular, but he bit his tongue and nodded instead.
"I will tell you more about the position of the sky Arcobaleno, how they're found, who they usually are, and what the position entails. I will answer questions to the best of my ability, but obviously not about the things we've just discussed."
Ken turned to him after that final rule. "Now then, what do you know?"
Tsuna took a sip of his tea and gulped it down, tapping his finger against the cup.
"I know that their previous Masuta was a woman named Luce... and that whatever she did, it hurt them all a lot. I think she betrayed them in some way, but, that's just my intuition talking. It's never usually wrong, but... well, I'd rather not assume," the brunette began.
"I know their affinities or, er, their melbourn types. I know that, as the Arcobaleno, they have many enemies. I know that a sky Arcobaleno exists but they're never really mentioned in books or online or anything."
"I know that they have pacifiers or something? Renato just said they were important and that that's why they were looking for Kawahira and Talbot. They said that Kawahira is the 'Trinisette administrator', and that 'he'd find out sooner or later'."
Ken just sipped leisurely on his ramen noodles, but the slight twitch of his eyebrow didn't go unnoticed by Tsunayoshi.
"That's all you know?" the white-haired man asked.
"Yep. The extent of everything I know is what I just told you," the brunette agreed.
"Well, where to begin?" the man pondered.
"Maybe at the part where you reintroduce yourself, Kawahira-san."
--={&}=--
WE'RE BACK!!!!
So.
This story has been submitted into the 2019 Wattys?
Surprise?
It's great to be back, but please be patient with me and the updates! :))
-Bell