![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Fandom: KHR
Summary: Xanxus and Iemitsu during Inheritance arc - the two people conspicuously absent for the ceremony.
The central part of headquarters was empty enough to be haunted, everybody with any rank and anybody on the Ninth's staff in Japan. It wasn't a planned visit, restlessness and a castle empty of anybody important finally getting to him; Xanxus had nothing to do. His contact - or at least, the body he'd gotten used to as "his contact" - wasn't in Italy; while the ghost hadn't outright said where he was going, he'd said he'd be out of touch for a while, and that 'everything was under control', too damn smug.
He'd gotten the invitation for the ceremony not long after. His was burned; like Hell was he going to go and give the old bastard another pawn on the board. Since he was the only one that'd been in contact, that meant his people couldn't be used; almost all of "what he could do" to not be some bitter old bastard's toy for a hundred year old revenge rampage was "stay the fuck out of the way" - 'orders' to Squalo of "I don't care, do whatever the fuck you want".
He knew too much about how possession techniques work to have not figured out who he was dealing with after the few weeks Tsuna and his people'd been sent to the future coincidentally matched his 'contact' acting like a different person; the only mist users sent forward were the girl and the hypothetical spirit in the ring, and the girl wasn't the puppetmaster.
All of the Ninth's personal staff being gone meant nobody questioning him lurking around, on the rare occasions he saw someone period; free run of the central headquarters. He hadn't been in part of it since he was little; considering their relationship anymore, he honestly hadn't expected to find the desk keys back in their old hiding place in an old cigar box on the bookshelf.
There was a picture he only hazily remembered, among the contents of a locked, fireproof safe full of old letters and odd notes; one he wanted to check.
Nobody watching the office; everything important would've been locked up somewhere else except the Ninth's personal safe in its hidden drawer built into the desk in the old study. The room dated back to the First, with bits of glasswork from the man's hobby stashed on shelves here and there; trinkets and bits of souvenirs from all the past bosses, weapons hanging from the walls in places. He set the open safe on the desk; nobody that would actually question him would be around for days.
His first target was a stack of faded black and white photos, a few snapshots of the Vongola in World War II; the Eighth and her Guardians. As a little kid it hadn't registered to him as more than records of his "grandmother's" heroics; now he was focusing on someone else in the pictures, the Mist Guardian that was almost always over her shoulder.
A facial expression here, a gesture caught in the middle there; things he was familiar with now, on the wrong body - and in a photo of a set of ruins, the exact same hunched perch, head tilted to keep watch while looking focused on his cards, the photographer catching him in the middle of trick-shuffling out of agitation and boredom.
The Mist Guardian that was supposed to be "Grandfather", the Ninth's father.
He slipped the photos back into their envelope, swearing under his breath; there was a letter in there - a handwritten report with the same kind of formal script he'd seen on some old document from the First's day, rambling on in bits of codes he didn't recognize, the end initialed only, "R.S.". It was from the Mist Guardian, yet the initials didn't belong to the man as he was listed in the records, or any of his known aliases... but they did match initials he'd seen on something a bit older.
The Ninth knew; he'd suspected for a while now, but here was the proof, the Flames tugging at his self-control - needing something to burn when there wasn't anything to burn, when striking out at the sources of it all was something he couldn't do.
Another, older letter caught his eye, slipped in among a handful of other letters on top of a bloodied journal. As soon as it was unfolded, something branded into the paper reacted, a faint, aged flicker of orange light at the bottom - the Flame familiar enough to make his scars crawl in memory, between it mingled with the Ninth's back when he'd been frozen and having it burning through his veins when he'd tried to use the Sky Ring. There was none of the force behind this seal - barely enough left after the years for it to be there at all, the intent behind it guttering as if there'd never been a solid foundation to it. It was older language, but not enough for him to have a problem following it, not after he'd been trying to go through what survived of the old records.
"To the future generations of the Vongola:
I, Giotto Cipriani, alias Ieyasu Sawada, the First Sky Guardian of the Vongola, leave you with my deepest apologies. While I would like to believe that, as you read this, the situation has been resolved and the specters of my day no longer haunt you, it may be a very long time before that is true, and the odds are better that our sins will be visited upon you whether you are aware of them or not.
I have no way of knowing what legends may have survived me, or whose stories got passed down; but if any of the stories of 'heroics' have lived, then I must disappoint you - I was human, overambitious, and entirely too fallible. I grew weary of the fighting that continued long after Italy herself had begun to return to some form of order; several of our enemy Famiglia offered a mutual peace treaty, to draw down our arms and dismantle the structures that were no longer needed. I accepted, disregarding the warnings of my Mist Guardian; our fortress we had rebuilt from ruins was nearly destroyed with great loss of life including a dear friend of mine - a death that left him paying the price for my mistakes, a price that he has neither recovered from nor forgiven me for.
While he will likely go down in history as a traitor, his heart has always been with the Vongola; the only ones he betrayed were myself and the other ringbearers, a hatred I earned and did little to dissuade. I had spent years trying to contain and control the damage of his machinations, the secret proofs of this passed down as the Inheritance of the Vongola, all the while attempting to avoid a confrontation with him in the hopes of a chance to help him heal his hurt and get my old friend back - the second sin of mine that you may find yourself paying for.
I will die not long after writing this - maybe a few weeks, maybe a few months; I have received word that he is, finally, on his way to exact his revenge against the true target of his hatred. He's killed all of the others that he could, Knuckle, Lampo, and fatally wounded my dearest G, all of whom had stayed behind in Italy; Alaude is pursuing him but is too far behind to prevent him finding me, while Ugetsu has taken my family and gone to ground. I regret having not moved to stop him sooner, even if it would have meant returning to Italy at the first warning signs Alaude had noticed to let him take his revenge before he thought to take aim at the others. As it stands now, there is little that I can do besides hope that my life is finally enough to repay his loss and make sure that Ugetsu has time to disappear.
I doubt that he'll live long after, but it doesn't matter. As long as the ring exists, he cannot die, and he is far too skilled with possession techniques to stay merely the "Will of the Ring"; even his own death is going to be another step in his plans, and even at the best, he won't sit idle.
If there has been signs of an unseen hand manipulating the Vongola, not to their destruction, but to corrupting them away from their origins into the biggest monster among monsters, then that hand has a name, and the spider hiding in the web that you may be tracing is likely Daemon Spade. I doubt even now that he is an 'evil' man; he is a deeply hurt man, wounded and bleeding, lashing out like a wounded beast, and lashing out harder when that violence does nothing to cure his wounds. His intentions are somewhat noble; a desire to see the Vongola survive, a fear of the Vongola his beloved helped build disappearing.
I say this because I do not believe he should be hated for his actions, but sympathy will do nothing unless he can be stopped, a difficult feat and one where I have little advice. Still, if you are reading this and have any desire to do something to push the world towards something better than a Hell forged of fear, abuse, and violence, then you are either my hope to one day bring him enough peace that he may no longer be a threat, or have already fulfilled that hope. It isn't a burden I should have left for another, but I am past making that choice, and can only pray for the future generations that may come into conflict with him. I have sent this letter to Alaude's people at CEDEF, to see to it that it reaches the hands of the next Boss to follow my will.
Protect the weak. Give hope to those who've lost theirs, and a home to those with no-where to go. Do those things and my will is with you, whatever the evils of the world may level against you."
He folded the letter numbly, putting it back where it had been, just peeking out of the inside cover of the journal. With everything back in the safe, he closed it, the lock clicking heavily shut; he settled back in the chair, eyes closed, hands trailing over the sides.
The Ninth had known all along, and the puppetmaster that'd been playing him since he was a kid was both the Ninth's father and the infamous Traitor of the First Generation.
A faint smell of something smouldering was the tipoff that the Flames of Wrath had reacted more clearly than anything conscious, impotent rage leaking out to leave a couple scorchmarks on the side of the chair.
A second later he snapped out of that confusion further, finally registering through everything else that he wasn't alone in the room -
The last person he expected to see staying behind in Italy standing in the doorway, arms crossed with a deep frown.
"So your son's got the center spotlight for entire underworld and you're back here in Italy." He met Iemitsu's veiled glare with one of his own, not caring who he was talking to; he knew how to cover a snarl with just enough composure to be 'polite'. "Trying to add 'most useless parent' to 'most useless spy'?"
…That didn't keep quite the illusion of "calm", "control", and "civil" in even tone.
"What are you doing here?" Iemitsu ignored the bait, a faint nod to the safe, eyes neverleaving Xanxus.
"I was bored, and the old man left the keys to the desk in the same box he always has; not my fault he didn't think to find a new hiding place." A prickly, cold smile crossed his face as he picked the safe up, settling it in the drawer without bothering to look at Iemitsu, making sure it was back in place right where he'd found it without anything out of order or any damage. The venom in his voice had gone to something amused, if no less poisonous; a fake familiarity, geniality that was more dismissive than friendly. "Why the fuck aren't you in Japan for the ceremony?"
"Because someone had to stay behind to keep an eye on you." Iemitsu's eyes hadn't left him once; still sore about the nearly-successful takeover.
He clicked the drawer back into a place, a faint shift of Iemitsu's weight betraying trying to catch what he'd just done - so the head of CEDEF hadn't known it was there; bits of schadenfreude were enough to "help" his mood, at least. "If you had any clue how to do your job, you'd already know who the real threat is right now; I'm just bored."
Iemitsu's eyes narrowed; Xanxus was standing, taking his time, equal parts enjoying Iemitsu's irritation at his presence behind the desk in the Boss's office and seeing how long it'd take the man to get out of the door - and out of his way. "So who is this 'real' threat?"
Xanxus shook his head with a short, bitter laugh, starting towards the door; no direct threat, but not paying any heed to "there is a person in the doorway". "Last I checked, I don't have any obligation to to tell you shit about anything, and besides..." He stopped just short of Iemitsu, barely a foot away, finally going back to eye contact with a toothy grin. "You're the big shot spymaster. I'm just the asshole that shoots things that need dead; you tell me."
There was a brief flicker in the staredown, Iemitsu glancing to check where Xanxus' hands were, and that yes, one of them was casually far too close to one of his guns.
"Well? Do you have a reason to try and keep me here?"
Iemitsu's lips went thin with a sour look, and he stepped aside, holding the door open in his own mockery of courtesy; Xanxus walked out without giving him a second look, smiling at the way he could feel Iemitsu glaring daggers at his back the whole way down the hallway without leaving the office - probably going to go try to see what he 'did', while he left to go put the key back. Let Iemitsu explain any signs of breaking and entering, he had left it just the way he'd found it, with only a couple more marks on a battered chair to prove he'd been there at all.
No wonder Iemitsu'd survived the massacre of CEDEF; too busy barking up the wrong trees to be a threat, and stupid enough that it had to be child's play for someone like Spade to pull his strings… so him staying in Italy was probably another pawn the dead son of a bitch wouldn't have in Italy.
Summary: Xanxus and Iemitsu during Inheritance arc - the two people conspicuously absent for the ceremony.
The central part of headquarters was empty enough to be haunted, everybody with any rank and anybody on the Ninth's staff in Japan. It wasn't a planned visit, restlessness and a castle empty of anybody important finally getting to him; Xanxus had nothing to do. His contact - or at least, the body he'd gotten used to as "his contact" - wasn't in Italy; while the ghost hadn't outright said where he was going, he'd said he'd be out of touch for a while, and that 'everything was under control', too damn smug.
He'd gotten the invitation for the ceremony not long after. His was burned; like Hell was he going to go and give the old bastard another pawn on the board. Since he was the only one that'd been in contact, that meant his people couldn't be used; almost all of "what he could do" to not be some bitter old bastard's toy for a hundred year old revenge rampage was "stay the fuck out of the way" - 'orders' to Squalo of "I don't care, do whatever the fuck you want".
He knew too much about how possession techniques work to have not figured out who he was dealing with after the few weeks Tsuna and his people'd been sent to the future coincidentally matched his 'contact' acting like a different person; the only mist users sent forward were the girl and the hypothetical spirit in the ring, and the girl wasn't the puppetmaster.
All of the Ninth's personal staff being gone meant nobody questioning him lurking around, on the rare occasions he saw someone period; free run of the central headquarters. He hadn't been in part of it since he was little; considering their relationship anymore, he honestly hadn't expected to find the desk keys back in their old hiding place in an old cigar box on the bookshelf.
There was a picture he only hazily remembered, among the contents of a locked, fireproof safe full of old letters and odd notes; one he wanted to check.
Nobody watching the office; everything important would've been locked up somewhere else except the Ninth's personal safe in its hidden drawer built into the desk in the old study. The room dated back to the First, with bits of glasswork from the man's hobby stashed on shelves here and there; trinkets and bits of souvenirs from all the past bosses, weapons hanging from the walls in places. He set the open safe on the desk; nobody that would actually question him would be around for days.
His first target was a stack of faded black and white photos, a few snapshots of the Vongola in World War II; the Eighth and her Guardians. As a little kid it hadn't registered to him as more than records of his "grandmother's" heroics; now he was focusing on someone else in the pictures, the Mist Guardian that was almost always over her shoulder.
A facial expression here, a gesture caught in the middle there; things he was familiar with now, on the wrong body - and in a photo of a set of ruins, the exact same hunched perch, head tilted to keep watch while looking focused on his cards, the photographer catching him in the middle of trick-shuffling out of agitation and boredom.
The Mist Guardian that was supposed to be "Grandfather", the Ninth's father.
He slipped the photos back into their envelope, swearing under his breath; there was a letter in there - a handwritten report with the same kind of formal script he'd seen on some old document from the First's day, rambling on in bits of codes he didn't recognize, the end initialed only, "R.S.". It was from the Mist Guardian, yet the initials didn't belong to the man as he was listed in the records, or any of his known aliases... but they did match initials he'd seen on something a bit older.
The Ninth knew; he'd suspected for a while now, but here was the proof, the Flames tugging at his self-control - needing something to burn when there wasn't anything to burn, when striking out at the sources of it all was something he couldn't do.
Another, older letter caught his eye, slipped in among a handful of other letters on top of a bloodied journal. As soon as it was unfolded, something branded into the paper reacted, a faint, aged flicker of orange light at the bottom - the Flame familiar enough to make his scars crawl in memory, between it mingled with the Ninth's back when he'd been frozen and having it burning through his veins when he'd tried to use the Sky Ring. There was none of the force behind this seal - barely enough left after the years for it to be there at all, the intent behind it guttering as if there'd never been a solid foundation to it. It was older language, but not enough for him to have a problem following it, not after he'd been trying to go through what survived of the old records.
"To the future generations of the Vongola:
I, Giotto Cipriani, alias Ieyasu Sawada, the First Sky Guardian of the Vongola, leave you with my deepest apologies. While I would like to believe that, as you read this, the situation has been resolved and the specters of my day no longer haunt you, it may be a very long time before that is true, and the odds are better that our sins will be visited upon you whether you are aware of them or not.
I have no way of knowing what legends may have survived me, or whose stories got passed down; but if any of the stories of 'heroics' have lived, then I must disappoint you - I was human, overambitious, and entirely too fallible. I grew weary of the fighting that continued long after Italy herself had begun to return to some form of order; several of our enemy Famiglia offered a mutual peace treaty, to draw down our arms and dismantle the structures that were no longer needed. I accepted, disregarding the warnings of my Mist Guardian; our fortress we had rebuilt from ruins was nearly destroyed with great loss of life including a dear friend of mine - a death that left him paying the price for my mistakes, a price that he has neither recovered from nor forgiven me for.
While he will likely go down in history as a traitor, his heart has always been with the Vongola; the only ones he betrayed were myself and the other ringbearers, a hatred I earned and did little to dissuade. I had spent years trying to contain and control the damage of his machinations, the secret proofs of this passed down as the Inheritance of the Vongola, all the while attempting to avoid a confrontation with him in the hopes of a chance to help him heal his hurt and get my old friend back - the second sin of mine that you may find yourself paying for.
I will die not long after writing this - maybe a few weeks, maybe a few months; I have received word that he is, finally, on his way to exact his revenge against the true target of his hatred. He's killed all of the others that he could, Knuckle, Lampo, and fatally wounded my dearest G, all of whom had stayed behind in Italy; Alaude is pursuing him but is too far behind to prevent him finding me, while Ugetsu has taken my family and gone to ground. I regret having not moved to stop him sooner, even if it would have meant returning to Italy at the first warning signs Alaude had noticed to let him take his revenge before he thought to take aim at the others. As it stands now, there is little that I can do besides hope that my life is finally enough to repay his loss and make sure that Ugetsu has time to disappear.
I doubt that he'll live long after, but it doesn't matter. As long as the ring exists, he cannot die, and he is far too skilled with possession techniques to stay merely the "Will of the Ring"; even his own death is going to be another step in his plans, and even at the best, he won't sit idle.
If there has been signs of an unseen hand manipulating the Vongola, not to their destruction, but to corrupting them away from their origins into the biggest monster among monsters, then that hand has a name, and the spider hiding in the web that you may be tracing is likely Daemon Spade. I doubt even now that he is an 'evil' man; he is a deeply hurt man, wounded and bleeding, lashing out like a wounded beast, and lashing out harder when that violence does nothing to cure his wounds. His intentions are somewhat noble; a desire to see the Vongola survive, a fear of the Vongola his beloved helped build disappearing.
I say this because I do not believe he should be hated for his actions, but sympathy will do nothing unless he can be stopped, a difficult feat and one where I have little advice. Still, if you are reading this and have any desire to do something to push the world towards something better than a Hell forged of fear, abuse, and violence, then you are either my hope to one day bring him enough peace that he may no longer be a threat, or have already fulfilled that hope. It isn't a burden I should have left for another, but I am past making that choice, and can only pray for the future generations that may come into conflict with him. I have sent this letter to Alaude's people at CEDEF, to see to it that it reaches the hands of the next Boss to follow my will.
Protect the weak. Give hope to those who've lost theirs, and a home to those with no-where to go. Do those things and my will is with you, whatever the evils of the world may level against you."
He folded the letter numbly, putting it back where it had been, just peeking out of the inside cover of the journal. With everything back in the safe, he closed it, the lock clicking heavily shut; he settled back in the chair, eyes closed, hands trailing over the sides.
The Ninth had known all along, and the puppetmaster that'd been playing him since he was a kid was both the Ninth's father and the infamous Traitor of the First Generation.
A faint smell of something smouldering was the tipoff that the Flames of Wrath had reacted more clearly than anything conscious, impotent rage leaking out to leave a couple scorchmarks on the side of the chair.
A second later he snapped out of that confusion further, finally registering through everything else that he wasn't alone in the room -
The last person he expected to see staying behind in Italy standing in the doorway, arms crossed with a deep frown.
"So your son's got the center spotlight for entire underworld and you're back here in Italy." He met Iemitsu's veiled glare with one of his own, not caring who he was talking to; he knew how to cover a snarl with just enough composure to be 'polite'. "Trying to add 'most useless parent' to 'most useless spy'?"
…That didn't keep quite the illusion of "calm", "control", and "civil" in even tone.
"What are you doing here?" Iemitsu ignored the bait, a faint nod to the safe, eyes neverleaving Xanxus.
"I was bored, and the old man left the keys to the desk in the same box he always has; not my fault he didn't think to find a new hiding place." A prickly, cold smile crossed his face as he picked the safe up, settling it in the drawer without bothering to look at Iemitsu, making sure it was back in place right where he'd found it without anything out of order or any damage. The venom in his voice had gone to something amused, if no less poisonous; a fake familiarity, geniality that was more dismissive than friendly. "Why the fuck aren't you in Japan for the ceremony?"
"Because someone had to stay behind to keep an eye on you." Iemitsu's eyes hadn't left him once; still sore about the nearly-successful takeover.
He clicked the drawer back into a place, a faint shift of Iemitsu's weight betraying trying to catch what he'd just done - so the head of CEDEF hadn't known it was there; bits of schadenfreude were enough to "help" his mood, at least. "If you had any clue how to do your job, you'd already know who the real threat is right now; I'm just bored."
Iemitsu's eyes narrowed; Xanxus was standing, taking his time, equal parts enjoying Iemitsu's irritation at his presence behind the desk in the Boss's office and seeing how long it'd take the man to get out of the door - and out of his way. "So who is this 'real' threat?"
Xanxus shook his head with a short, bitter laugh, starting towards the door; no direct threat, but not paying any heed to "there is a person in the doorway". "Last I checked, I don't have any obligation to to tell you shit about anything, and besides..." He stopped just short of Iemitsu, barely a foot away, finally going back to eye contact with a toothy grin. "You're the big shot spymaster. I'm just the asshole that shoots things that need dead; you tell me."
There was a brief flicker in the staredown, Iemitsu glancing to check where Xanxus' hands were, and that yes, one of them was casually far too close to one of his guns.
"Well? Do you have a reason to try and keep me here?"
Iemitsu's lips went thin with a sour look, and he stepped aside, holding the door open in his own mockery of courtesy; Xanxus walked out without giving him a second look, smiling at the way he could feel Iemitsu glaring daggers at his back the whole way down the hallway without leaving the office - probably going to go try to see what he 'did', while he left to go put the key back. Let Iemitsu explain any signs of breaking and entering, he had left it just the way he'd found it, with only a couple more marks on a battered chair to prove he'd been there at all.
No wonder Iemitsu'd survived the massacre of CEDEF; too busy barking up the wrong trees to be a threat, and stupid enough that it had to be child's play for someone like Spade to pull his strings… so him staying in Italy was probably another pawn the dead son of a bitch wouldn't have in Italy.
