First Step

Kyouko still thought Sicilians had strange ideas about their ceremonies, but at least she could understand this part of the christening perfectly well—the part where Vongola and their allies, and a few who weren’t either, gathered to chat and politic on the lawn, all come to see her firstborn. She smoothed the white folds of her daughter’s long gown and smiled up at Haru, who had brought her a cup of tea.

"Both of you holding up?" Haru murmured, bending down to check her new goddaughter.

"As well as can be, so far," Kyouko said. "I’m thankful she’s slept through most of this."

Haru laughed. "She’s probably saving up for later."

"Oh, don’t suggest things to her," Kyouko almost moaned. Mari had only just started sleeping through most nights.

"After today’s excitement, she’ll probably sleep well, even after a nap," Caterina Modigliani said, drifting over. "It seems your difficulties are all ironed out, with this; with the bearing, at least." Her eyes ran casually over the guests. "They’re all changing their plans now, sorting through their sons in hopes one will be the true Eleventh boss of the Vongola."

"And you aren’t? Donna Caterina?" Kyouko murmured, a steel edge under the softness of her voice.

Caterina laughed. "My son already has a Family waiting for him."

True enough. "Their plans will have to fit reality." Kyouko settled Mari in her arm. "My child is a Vongola."

"Indeed," Caterina murmured, approval glinting in her eyes. "How could she be otherwise?"

Kyouko nodded and looked out over the guests herself, cradling her daughter and heir.

Sugar and Spice

"Uncle Onii-san!"

Tsuna and Ryouhei both blinked and Kyouko laughed softly. "Well, that is what both of us call him," she murmured. "Uncle Ryouhei," she pronounced for Mari, who cocked her head.

"Uncle Ryouhei," she repeated carefully and looked up at her mother’s face with a small copy of Tsuna’s thoughtful expression that made Kyouko smile and stroke back her daughter’s hair. "Okay." She wriggled to be let down and, when Kyouko set her on her feet, made her way across the room to take a hold of her godfather’s sleeve, examining him. "Uncle Gokudera?" She looked back at her mother for confirmation, and missed the helpless softening of Gokudera’s face.

"Yes, I think that’s right," Kyouko agreed with an impish smile. "That’s your Uncle Gokudera."

"She’s going to have the entire Family wrapped around her little finger, isn’t she?" Yamamoto murmured, laughter running under his voice.

Mari looked at him and declared, more confidently, "Uncle Yamamoto."

"She has a good start on it," Gokudera observed, as Yamamoto’s smile turned sweet. Kyouko was careful to keep her smugness off her own face.

The brightness of the moment was interrupted a bit when the door opened on Xanxus. "Sawada," he said, peremptorily, "I need a decision about the Leone. Now."

Tsuna sighed, pulling himself back into into his job, and was just standing when Mari walked over to Xanxus, looked up at him, and nodded firmly. "Uncle Xanxus." She smiled, pleased.

There was a breath of absolute silence while Xanxus stared down at her with the most floored expression Kyouko had ever seen on a human face.

It was broken by Yamamoto collapsing into a chair, laughing too hard to stand.

Kyouko came and picked her daughter up and smiled serenely at Xanxus. "Yes," she said, thoughtfully. "I think you’re right again, Mari. This is your Uncle Xanxus." She met his eyes, unbending, and he was the one who looked away.

Her daughter would lead the Vongola one day, with both her father’s strength and her mother’s.

---

"So what I don’t get," Mari crossed her arms, stubbornly, "is why it’s isn’t obvious that our way is better! I mean, didn’t Uncle Dino make his Family rich again, and the second strongest in the alliance, by taking care of the civilians in his territory? Why is this so hard to get? You and Father say we can’t change people’s minds for them, but I don’t see why not."

Uncle Gokudera gave her a long look over his glasses and sat back from the stack of books and journals of mafia history they’d been going over. "Well, what if we did? What if we went to war with the Furetto and, when we won, told them ‘you have to stop the drugs and protection schemes in your own territory’?"

Mari felt a strong urge to pout. "I guess they wouldn’t want to. But they should!"

Uncle Gokudera shrugged. "And we could probably make them do it. But only by taking over their territory ourselves." He gave her a crooked smile. "And if we come in, having killed the Family in charge, how do you think the civilians would look at us?"

"Better than the old one?" But it was a grumble, because she knew it wouldn’t work that way. She slouched down in her chair. "Why do people have to be so dumb?"

"Because they don’t know any better, yet." Uncle Gokudera got up and came around the table to kneel down by her chair and rest his hands on her shoulders. "You’re going to be the Eleventh, Mari-san. I know it’s hard, but you have to have patience. We can’t make things better by force; that isn’t the way that lasts."

She wanted the better to last. That was what she was here for. She straightened up and looked her godfather in the eye. "Show me how we do it, then."

He smiled and tapped the stack of books. "We’re getting there."

Mari sighed. Yes, she’d thought that might be the answer.

High Energy States

Yamamoto slipped in the side door and closed it quietly behind him. Ryouhei laughed to see the small form draped over Yamamoto’s shoulder.

"What did he get into this time?"

Yamamoto’s mouth quirked up. "He wanted to help cook. I’m pretty sure he was hoping for a share of the pastries, but he was a little late in the day for that so he wound up helping Ettore with dinner instead."

"Helping, huh?" Ryouhei grinned; they’d all learned, as soon as Daisuke started walking, that the boy’s helpful streak was only matched by his no-brakes enthusiasm. Ryouhei approved; it was clearly Kyouko’s side of the family coming through. "He wear himself out, then?"

Yamamoto looked a bit rueful. "Well, he wound up snitching enough of the grilled tuna and then enough of the marzipan left over from Kyouko-san’s tea that he got a little sick. So Ettore gave him a little wine to settle his stomach, and, well…" He shrugged the shoulder that didn’t have a small boy slung over it.

"Kyouko’s going to kill you, you know," Ryouhei pointed out, laughing.

Now Yamamoto chuckled. "A few times, probably. But it’s just how Daisuke is; it’s no use trying to stop him from being himself." He carried his godson off to bed and Ryouhei smiled after them. It was a good thing his nephew had Yamamoto to look out for him.

Otherwise, none of them might survive the kid growing up.

---

Daisuke eyed the study door. He was pretty sure this was where his sister was hiding. Haruka was better at actually picking well hidden spots, even though he was the youngest, but Nee-san usually won hide-and-seek games anyway because she picked spots no one else dared to go.

Daisuke took a deep breath and eased the door open, peeking around it. "Um."

The man inside looked up, eyes dark and kind of scary.

"Um." Daisuke edged a little further in. "We’re playing hide-and-seek."

"I noticed," the study’s owner said flatly.

She was here, then. Daisuke nodded and stepped all the way inside, and Mari stood up from behind the desk, looking indignant. "Uncle Xanxus! You gave it away!"

He just looked at her and she sighed and turned to Daisuke. "Did you find Haruka?"

"Yep!" He was pretty proud of that, too, since Haruka had hidden in the bottom of a library bookcase. He and Mari were both already too big to hide there and it was hard to remember to check the spots he couldn’t use.

Mari shrugged. "Okay, then. Next round is outside!"

She trotted out the door and, as he turned to follow, Uncle Xanxus called his name. Daisuke paused, looking back. "Yes?" They were all polite, even when Uncle Xanxus was scary, because Father said so. Though Uncle Gokudera didn’t seem to mind that very well.

Uncle Xanxus’ eyes were still dark, resting on him. "Do you ever wish you’d been born first?"

Daisuke blinked. "No." Nee-san had to study even harder than he and Haruka did, after all.

"Never wanted to be the heir?"

"Oh, that." Daisuke thought, because Uncle Xanxus really did seem curious. "I don’t think so. Father says we’ll all be doing Vongola stuff together, so no one gets left out. And Mari likes to be bossy, so she’ll probably be good at being Boss."

He wasn’t sure why that made Uncle Xanxus snort, but it made him look a little less scary. "Go on," he said, and Daisuke did.

Mari always had lots of fun ideas. He’d like helping, he thought.

Between the Lines

Haruka sat curled up in a corner chair of the study, watching his father work, watching him go through stacks of paper, watching Uncle Gokudera come in and mention other Families and talk for a while and go out again. Finally he stirred. "Father?"

His father looked up and smiled; he almost always had time for questions. "Yes?"

"I can understand why not Daisuke; he’d be really bored doing this. But why is Mari heir and not me? Other Families don’t have girl heirs."

"The Giglio Nero do," Father pointed out. "And Caterina is the head of the Modigliani."

"Even Donna Caterina has a son coming after her," Haruka objected.

"True enough." Father sat back in his chair with a sigh. "It’s been tradition, in the mafia, to choose the eldest boy to be heir, unless there aren’t any boys. But I think there are a lot of mafia traditions that should change." He smiled, only it was a very different smile this time, and Haruka didn’t think it was a happy one. "It’s also a tradition that all the possible heirs of a Family complete to see who survives. I don’t like the idea of all of you feeling like you have to fight each other. I’d like you to feel like a real family, like you can help each other, instead."

"Oh." Haruka considered this. "So Vongola is going to be different." That was satisfying.

"I hope so," his father said, quietly.

Haruka nodded. "All right. How am I supposed to help Mari and Daisuke and Mamoru, then?"

"Mari will need people she can trust, that she can talk to. People she knows will listen and tell her honestly what they think." Father’s smile was happier again. "I think you’ll be good at that."

Haruka thought so too. "And Daisuke? And Mamoru?"

Father laughed. "I think Daisuke just needs to be reminded to slow down sometimes. And Mamoru needs his big brother’s protection for now."

"I can do that." Haruka smiled back at Father.

"Yes. I think all of you will do a very fine job."

Haruka tucked those words away to hold on to the next time he had to deal with boys from other Families, and came over to the desk to see what Father was writing.

---

Tsuna thought that Ryouhei was more bright-eyed about visiting the Etnaland park than any of the kids. Certainly more enthused than his godson.

"That was an extreme waterslide!"

"Sure, Uncle Ryouhei."

"Let’s go see the lions!"

"Okay, Uncle Ryouhei."

"Are you hungry? I’m starving. Let’s get some food, and then the dinosaur park!"

Haruka rolled his eyes a little but trailed along willingly enough when Ryouhei slung an arm around his shoulder. "Whatever you say, Uncle Ryouhei."

Fortunately, Mari intervened before Ryouhei cajoled Haruka into a sundae. "Oh, hey, look Haruka, they have your favorite soda," she said, sounding perfectly innocent and casual as she leaned on Ryouhei’s arm. Their uncle instantly changed the order to include soda instead.

"She’s definitely her mother’s daughter," he murmured to Kyouko, who was stifling giggles, or possibly horror, in his shoulder. "Let’s sit down for a little and let everyone catch up before we go on," he added, louder.

Gokudera herded everyone over to a table and Haruka and Mari settled down to comparing the merits of the water slide versus the crocodile rapids while Ryouhei beamed over them both.

"Onii-san should have children of his own," Kyouko murmured, as they collected their own bottles of water.

"Well, I believe Hana-san thinks a little the way I used to. Perhaps I should talk to her." The approving smile Kyouko gave him still made him want to blush after all this time.

"…and maybe we’ll have time for the waterslide again!" Ryouhei was saying to the kids when Chrome and Yamamoto came into view with Mamoru and Shin. Haruka leaned his chin on his hand and grinned with a lot of wry affection, for a ten-year-old.

"Sure, Uncle Ryouhei. That’d be fun."

Tsuna thought Haruka was definitely Kyouko’s child, too. At least he couldn’t imagine where else the boy had gotten his patience from.

Leavening

You might think, Haru reflected, that Daisuke would be the explorer of Kyouko’s children, but somehow it was Mamoru who managed to show up in every nook and corner of the mansion sooner or later. This morning it was her breakfast table, which had meant Hayato’s kiss goodbye had been more restrained than usual, but she supposed she couldn’t hold that against the boy. He was a very sweet kid.

"Aunt Haru? Why aren’t you and Uncle Gokudera married?"

Haru tried not to choke on her coffee. "That’s… that’s kind of a long story," she managed. Mamoru, she reminded herself, was also very good at asking the hard questions.

Mamoru just nodded and kept looking at her, waiting, clearly quite willing to listen to a long story. Haru looked back, helplessly. "I’m not sure you’re old enough to hear it."

Mamoru looked up at her, eyes wide and direct. "I bet I am. If that means it’s something we have to not talk about outside the Family, I’m good at that."

Haru had to admit that was true. And besides…

She sighed and set down her cup. "Actually, I’m hoping we can be married sometime kind of soon. We haven’t been able to because of my work," she said, carefully, "and I’m hoping I’ll be able to hand down that part of my job soon." Possibly to Mari’s friend, Fiorela, who seemed to have inherited Dino’s charm and Sofia’s grace, thank goodness.

Mamoru frowned. "That’s awful," he said, firmly. "You must have been really sad." He got up and came around the table to hug her and Haru had to blink away sudden tears. Mamoru really was a sweet kid.

"Nee-san says she won’t marry anyone just because of her job, and she gets really upset about it. Kind of the other way around, I guess. But I bet she’ll change that, too, so people don’t have to get married or not if they don’t want to. Or do." He took a moment to double check his own logic and nodded, satisfied, and smiled up at Haru. "We’ll change it."

She smiled back and ruffled his hair. "If anyone can, I’d bet on Mari and you guys."

---

Mamoru peeked into Uncle Hibari’s practice room and shook his head. Mari was training again.

Personally, he thought his sister was just a little crazy. Uncle Gokudera said all sisters were crazy, and when Mari was training with Uncle Hibari she looked it. She got all narrow-eyed and super determined, and when she had her Flame burning… well, he wouldn’t have wanted to take her on.

He supposed that was a good thing, overall.

"How’s she doing?" Father whispered over his shoulder.

Mamoru grinned. "Like Mari."

"So are the two of you going to join us?" Uncle Hibari called without even looking around.

"If you think we should," Father called back easily.

"Mm." Uncle Hibari sounded cool and thoughtful even when he was slamming his students into the walls. "Yes, it’s about time she had more practice facing another Sky Flame." He beckoned and Mari hauled herself up again, eyes glinting. "Your cub has teeth, Sawada. I suppose she’ll do."

Mamoru stifled a laugh at the way that made Mari light up.

Uncle Hibari strolled over to stand next to Mamoru as Mari and their father squared off. Mamoru eyed his godfather with just a shade of caution. "Did you, um, really want to work out with me?"

Uncle Hibari was silent for a while, but Mamoru was used to that; sometimes you had to wait for Uncle Hibari to decide whether he was using his words today or not.

"There is more than one kind of strength," he said at last, eyes on Mari as her longer knife met Father’s glove. "I get more entertainment from hers, but you have teeth of your own."

Something in Mamoru settled a little at that. It was good to know the strongest of Father’s Guardians thought he was strong too.

Even if he did sometimes think that Uncle Hibari was kind of strange.

Trip the Light

"Shin! Shin, you little creep, when I find you I’m going to wring your neck!"

Mari stormed on down the hall, and a door creaked slowly open. Two heads peeked out.

"Is the coast clear?" Shin whispered, looking up at his godfather.

"I think so," Uncle Lambo whispered back.

Shin leaned against the wall, wide-eyed. "Wow she’s mad!"

Uncle Lambo smiled down at him and ruffled his hair. "Girls are like that sometimes, especially about boys they’re dating."

"But she doesn’t really want him," Shin said plaintively. "I mean, she always complains about how many boys from the other Families she has to see at parties."

"Mm, well that’s kind of another girl thing. Even if she complains about them, she probably wants to decide for herself when they get to know about that."

"Oh. So I guess I shouldn’t have told him she thinks he has bad breath, huh?"

Uncle Lambo grinned. "Probably not."

"Dating seems really complicated," Shin complained. "I don’t know if I want to do it."

"You have plenty of time to make up your mind." Uncle Lambo held out a hand. "For now how about we go into town and visit the docks until Mari calms down?"

Shin perked up. "Sure!"

He liked having the youngest godfather.

---

Haruka was the one who saw it first, the strangers’ hands reaching for guns, and shouted. Their bodyguards turned to tackle the kids down, but Daisuke got to Mari first, pushing her back into the cafe. That was good. It meant Shin had a clear path to the men who were interrupting their family lunch.

Who were threatening his family.

In the tangled whirl of rushing toward them he could feel the air on his bared teeth. He didn’t reach for his box. The weapons he needed were in the hands of the three men facing them and he aimed for the one in front, hand striking aside the muzzle and holding, knee coming up to crack a wrist across it, foot slamming into the softness of a stomach. He turned the gun and pressed it under the man’s chin.

And then it was over.

"Shin," Uncle Yamamoto called, gently, from where he stood over the other two. "It’s okay. You can let go now, the men have them covered."

Shin’s eyes narrowed and his hands didn’t move. "He tried to shoot my sister." The man under him tried and failed to swallow against the pressure of the gun.

And then slim, strong hands settled on his shoulders. "I’m all right, Shin," Mari said, cool and sure. "And we need to know who sent them. Let the men take them."

Shin sighed, but Mari was probably already pissed off that she hadn’t gotten to fight, and she didn’t like backtalk even when she was in a good mood. "All right, then." Pinned under both their glares, the man didn’t even twitch when Shin stepped back and their bodyguards moved in. Shin didn’t look away until both the survivors had been hustled off, though.

"Hate it when people do that," he grumbled.

Mari wrapped an arm around his shoulders, hugging him for a breath. "I know you do." She smiled at him sidelong. "Don’t worry. People will always try to mess with Vongola, but they’ll always fail."

Because of us was the unspoken trailer and Shin grinned back at her and relaxed under Daisuke’s cheerful clap on his shoulder. "Yeah."

The Queen’s Bishop

"…and I hate scrambled eggs!" Mari stomped away from the table in a teary huff, followed by their mother, and all the boys stopped trying to hide in their chairs. Kazuya reminded himself to mark the calendar; forewarning next time would be good.

"Girl stuff," Daisuke declared, shaking his head.

"You know, I’ve been meaning to ask about that," Haruka put in, thoughtfully, looking over at Kazuya.

Kazuya raised both brows. "…why ask me?"

"Well, you’ve got Aunt Chrome," Mamoru pointed out. "Has she mentioned anything?"

"Once or twice." Kazuya ate another bite of toast. "She’d tell you too, if you asked."

Mamoru turned red. "Um. Well."

"Stop being annoying because you can," Haruka told Kazuya, though the corner of his mouth twitched. "Did Aunt Chrome say anything about what helps?"

"Chocolate, apparently." Kazuya nibbled his fork, thinking. "And she said it isn’t just temper. She said sometimes it hurts. It sounded kind of like having a sprain for a week, only in your stomach."

Eyes widened all around the table.

"Chocolate," Daisuke said, firmly.

"Ice pack?" Haruka hazarded.

Kazuya shook his head "Hot water bottle," he corrected. "I asked. And someone to be nice to her."

The two oldest looked at Mamoru and Shin. Mamoru sighed. "Yeah, yeah, okay."

Kazuya decided not to add that Uncle Mukuro had said it happened because the girl’s body was pissed off that it hadn’t gotten a baby that month. For one thing he was almost positive Daisuke or Shin would say just the wrong thing at the wrong time, trying to be helpful, if they heard that. For another, Uncle Mukuro had kind of flickered, right after he said it, so he thought maybe Aunt Chrome disagreed, and she was the woman after all.

Kazuya believed in paying attention to your experts.

---

It was a game, that’s the way Kazuya looked at it. Mari punched him in the shoulder when he said that, and insisted she wasn’t anyone’s game piece, not even his, but that wasn’t it at all. He watched for the spaces, when people moved, so that he could stand in them. That way he could get all the way across the board before anyone even realized he was moving. It was exactly the way his sister talked about her hand-to-hand training with Uncle Hibari, after all, he’d have thought she’d understand better.

His godfather understood perfectly well, but maybe that was why Uncle Mukuro seemed to make a lot of people nervous.

"Ah, and here’s the youngest, eh?" A heavy hand fell on his shoulder, as he leaned against the buffet table and he looked up to see the head of the Orsini Family giving him a rather hungry smile. "All alone? Not very nice of your family, to leave you out of things."

Kazuya wondered for a moment whether he’d actually heard correctly, but then he remembered Uncle Mukuro’s casual words about looking through another’s eyes. He supposed it might look that way from the outside.

The Orsini were not allies.

"It’s all right," he said, looking away toward where Daisuke was loading up plates for their mother and Aunt Haru. Mamoru was trying to convince him to pass one over before he dropped both. Haruka and Shin were following their sister as she followed their father through the gathering. "It’s all right," he repeated softly. "I’m interested in different things than most of them are."

It was perfectly true, and he smiled just a little as the Orsini’s eyes brightened and narrowed, hearing the lie it implied. The smile too would be mistaken.

Standing in the spaces.

It was all a game, and the thing most people didn’t understand about games was that, win or lose, they had a price. For the sake of his family, of his brothers, of his sister who would lead their Family, he would pay the price of winning this one.

Next Step

Tsuna leaned back in his lawn chair and watched the brilliant streaks of color as his children played tag over the lawn with their Dying Will Flames. Even Mari had abandoned her fresh adult dignity to shriek with laughter as she dove to evade Kazuya. Sometimes Tsuna wondered just what—or perhaps how—Mukuro had taught his youngest, because despite being only fourteen Kazuya had control as fine as Mari or Haruka.

"Looks like you did it, boss," Gokudera commented, leaning on the back of his chair.

"Did what?"

Gokudera smiled down at him. "None of those six will try to fight each other for your position."

Tsuna chuckled as Shin skidded across the grass, trying to avoid Daisuke, and splashed into the ornamental pond with a squawk. Daisuke paused to laugh and was tagged by Mamoru. "And I’m grateful for it." Quietly he added, "Especially Haruka."

"He matches her strength, yes, but he doesn’t have Mari-san’s passion, and he knows it," Gokudera answered, just as quiet. "Don’t worry, boss."

"Too late," Tsuna murmured, wry. He had to admit, Mari had inherited his own passion, the thing that could drive both of them past their limits over and over. He wasn’t sure that was anything he’d have wished on his child, but it was a fact.

"They have each other," Gokudera told him gently. "And she hasn’t even chosen her Guardians yet. At this rate, she’ll kind of have two sets."

Tsuna’s mouth twitched at that. "Mafia beware."

When the children returned to the table, out of breath, they wanted to know what was so funny.

End