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"VOOOOOIIIIII!" remarked Superbi Squalo of the Rain Tribe. "THERE'S SOMEONE TRAPPED IN THIS SHITTY ICE."
"TRASH, GET ME OUT OF HERE RIGHT FUCKING NOW," the man in the ice replied.
His name was Xanxus and he was mad as hell, apparently on account of having been trapped in a block of ice for a hundred years without so much as a hand free to jerk off or play tic-tac-toe with.
This was supposedly a punishment unjustly foisted upon him by the evil Flame Lord Timoteo, usurper-king of Vongola, whose position rightfully belonged to Xanxus himself.
Xanxus explained all this to Squalo—at very high volumes, with a great deal of unnecessary aggression—from the front seat of the truck he had stolen with a disturbing amount of malicious glee, and was now steering like he’d never heard of a single rule of traffic in his life and thought that occasionally screaming “Yip yip, motherfucker!” at oncoming vehicles made up for bullshit like blasting down curving one-way roads the wrong way at full speed.
“CAN YOU EVEN NAME ONE SINGLE TRAFFIC RULE. JUST ONE.” Squalo demanded, to which Xanxus replied with a series of gross anecdotes about his deprived and psychopathic childhood spent stealing people’s pets for food and attempting to set his own mother on fire.
Unfortunately, Xanxus' tragic backstory was mostly wasted on his new right-hand man tied up in the backseat, whose enraged shrieking was pretty much drowning out Xanxus' storytelling completely. The truck skidded over the ice in a flurry of swearing and threats of grievous injury, shedding vegetables in a green shower as Xanxus took out three moored boats, two baby seals, and someone's grandmother tottering across the street.
Thus they shot off towards the setting sun, followed only by a single fading shriek: "MY CAAABBAGEEEES!!"
“Well, all boys leave home someday, it said so on TV.” Squalo’s brother Tyr mumbled, watching the truck zigzag haphazardly away over the frozen plains. “Hope he’s back in time for dinner.” He turned to the rest of the crowd who’d helped to free Xanxus. “Tonight we’re having…fish! Again!”
The men cheered, as they always did. Fish!
Upon exhaustive further questioning about the gaping holes in that story, conducted by screaming into Xanxus’ ear until he got annoyed enough to answer, it was reluctantly revealed that:
- Okay, it had not been a hundred years, maybe eight at most;
- Flame Lord Timoteo was probably not actually evil or a usurper, and probably had not actually had sex with any of the things Xanxus accused him of except, presumably, Xanxus’ mom;
- Okay, fine, Timoteo had technically not ever slept with Xanxus’ mom, except she says that she conceived him after she had a sexy dream about Timoteo so fucking whatever, same difference;
- As such Xanxus' claim to the throne may or may not rest entirely on a sketchy hypothetical technicality heavily supplemented with the liberal application of violent bodily harm to anyone who objected;
- And Xanxus had maybe possibly provoked the whole thing to begin with by staging an attempt on his crazy wimpy useless psycho crybaby adorable (??) trash cousin, Nono's favorite and the current actual heir to the throne.
- "Not that I could even get near, pansy fucker's boyfriend brigade got Bambi's ass locked up tighter than a nunnery, I fucking swear—"
“BY ‘ATTEMPT’ YOU DO MEAN AN ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT, RIGHT—”
—Thunk.
“SHITTY POPSICLE, WHOSE GRANDMA DID YOU RUN OVER THIS TIME.” Squalo inquired politely.
“TRASH YOU SHUT RIGHT THE FUCK UP ABOUT MY DRIVING OR I WILL TOSS YOU INTO THE OCEAN,” Xanxus calmly replied.
His name was Leviathan, or Levi A. Than, or Revi-a-tan, who cares, he was ugly as hell.
He was also carrying a lot of umbrellas.
“FUCKING DUMBASS, IT ONLY SNOWS UP HERE.” Squalo kindly informed him.
“Oh yeah? Then why’s it called the Rain Tribe, huh?” Leviathan scowled back, rudely.
“…CLIMATE CHANGE,” Squalo admitted. “IT USED TO BE CALLED THE SNOW TRIBE BUT WE FIGURED WE MIGHT AS WELL GET USED TO THE SHITTY FUTURE NOW.”
There was a moment of awkward silence. In the distance a rapidly shrinking ice floe carried a polar bear cub away from its mother forever. Squalo waved goodbye as it disappeared into the horizon.
Leviathan pretended not to notice, so he wouldn’t have to do anything about it. As he averted his gaze, his eyes noticed Xanxus’ scars for the first time.
“My god! Those scars—the X-shaped scars!”
“WHAT ABOUT THEM, TRASH? YOU WANNA FIGHT?” Xanxus queried bashfully.
“They’re—so debonair! I will follow you forever.”
Squalo threw his hand up in despair.
Squalo eventually decided that he was pretty okay with the new guy even if he had gotten beaten with the ugly stick, since having two people to yell at now instead of one meant he could go back to saying “VOOOOIIIIIII.” “TUUUUU” just didn’t have the same ring to it.
Also, a second pair of eyes to keep watch on him meant Squalo got to stay untied unless Leviathan was on a bathroom break or something, which was a big plus since the truck had run out of gas halfway to the Earth Nation and it was pretty annoying to have to walk with your hand tied behind your back.
“I CANNOT EVEN BELIEVE THAT WE ARE WALKING ALL THE WAY TO SIMON.” Squalo complained. His silver hair glinted like molten silver in a silver cup under the silver moon: silverly.
“Neither can I! I am so excited.” Ugly Levi said, unattractively.
Xanxus grunted and narrowed his eyes at the tiny hooded figure blocking the road ahead.
“Halt!” It said in an incredibly gender-ambiguous manner. It was holding out a tin can, a few grubby rolls of paper tucked under its other arm. “I am crowdfunding a rebellion against the dastardly Flame Kingdom. Immediately contribute all items of value on your person to this can.”
“Now that’s a fuckin’ good cause,” Xanxus grunted, and turned out Levi’s pockets.
The entirety of Levi’s worldly possessions made a small pile in the middle of the road. The It evaluated it critically, then snorted in disgust as It swept it into the mysteriously bottomless can. It unrolled one of the grubby paper rolls and horked a bunch of mucus all over it, then handed it to Squalo.
“VOOOOIIIIII, THIS IS SUPER GROSS WHAT THE HELL.”
“Tier 1 crowdfunding reward, map to Simon.” It grunted, then zoomed away into the horizon.
The mucus map was literally just a line of snot, but to be fair they were on the express road going straight to Simon.
By the power invested in him as second-in-command, Squalo declared Ugly Levi their new Navigator, meaning he had to hold the map.
Ugly Levi was suspiciously enthusiastic about his “promotion,” and kept checking the line of snot for reference as they walked the straight road to Simon with no turns or side paths whatsoever. It was incredibly irritating, especially since apparently “Navigator” somehow translated as “Head Cheerleader” to uggos. If Squalo had to endure one more round of shitty anti-Flame Kingdom chants he was going to fucking snap.
“Row, row, Flame the Kingdom!” Ugly Levi bleated. “One, two, three, four, Timoteo is a tyrant! Five, six, seven, eight, Xanxus would be a better tyrant!”
“FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, I WOULD LIKE TO DISEMBOWEL YOU.”
“Second-in-Command Squalo! How do you ever expect to overthrow the dastardly Flame Kingdom with an attitude like that?” Ugly Levi clucked, then immediately got skewered in the gut by a knife on a string.
Squalo side-eyed the runt with the bowl cut who’d thrown it. Tiara aside, that was sort of impressive, actually. Nice wrist snap.
“I am Prince Bel the Ripper of the Flame Kingdom! Traitors to the throne, prepare to burn in the flames of hell!” Bowl Cut Runt proclaimed.
“WHAT THE FUCK, I’M PRINCE XANXUS OF THE FLAME KINGDOM AND I’VE NEVER FUCKING HEARD OF YOU.”
Squalo thought that he heard the runt whisper oh no.
“...I am Prince…Pell the Dripper, of the…Earth Kingdom! Prepare to...roll, in the, dirt of hell!” Bowl Cut Runt said, like he thought they were all fucking morons.
“It is an honor, Prince Pell!” Ugly Levi gushed, and got down to slobber over Bowl Cut Runt’s boots.
“HOLD THE FUCK UP,” Xanxus narrowed his eyes at Bowl Cut. “YOU LOOK FUCKIN’ FAMILIAR, TRASH.”
“No I don’t, you wouldn’t know me, I don’t associate with peasants.” Bowl Cut Runt said shiftily, then turned around and ran straight into a tree.
“Shoulda cut your stupid hair, dumbass.” Squalo muttered, flicking his shining silver waterfall of hair with a contemptuous toss of his luscious locks.
“WAIT.” Xanxus squinted in disbelief. “SCHIZO SMELLPHEGOR?”
It turned out that Bowl Cut Runt had been Xanxus’ childhood pet victim or something, until he’d been kicked out of the kingdom for being just too annoying to put up with any longer.
“But if I capture you then Timoteo will welcome me back,” Bowl Cut Runt sulked. Everyone was ignoring him, along with the stream of blood dripping down his face from where Xanxus had stuck a fucking knife into his forehead. Xanxus had then laughed and said it was “just like old times,” which in retrospect explained a lot about Bowl Cut Runt.
Squalo was peering at a poster someone had put up in the marketplace. Simon was a weird-ass place, who just goes around putting up posters saying SECRET UNDERGROUND DEATH MATCH CAGE FIGHT, MAFIA ONLY in a public space?
“VOOOIIIII, IF THIS BULLSHIT IS MAFIA ONLY THEN YOUR SHITTY FAKE DAD MIGHT BE THERE.”
“WHAT. THAT FUCKER, GROUNDS ME FOR EIGHT YEARS AND GOES OFF TO WATCH DEATH MATCHES WITHOUT ME, THAT’S NOT FUCKING FAIR.”
They were late to the mafia-only death match cage fight, because some idiot had left a fuckton of cabbages just lying around for unsuspecting aspirants of regicide to trip over and fall down the infinitely long staircases in fucking death trap Simon, seriously, who was the complete assclown who designed this city-ass shitty Squalo would like to know.
The devastated cry of “MYYYYY CAAAAABBAGES!” was lost on Team Xanxus as they shouldered their way into the underground bunker, only to find some flamboyant asshole wearing sunglasses underground straddling a pile of unmoving bodies with an unnervingly blissed-out expression.
“That’s some good work,” Bowl Cut Runt observed. “Especially for a blind guy.”
“Aw, Lussuria?” Some dude in the crowd butted his ugly face in. Squalo hated him on principle. “Hell, he ain’t blind, just a necrophile.”
“WHAT—”
“Rude!” Corpsedicker interrupted. “I am too blind!”
Even Xanxus looked faintly disturbed.
Lussuria was a total freak, so obviously he ended up joining them somehow.
“VOOOOIIII, HOW DID THIS EVEN HAPPEN,” Squalo demanded. He swiveled his head to give Bowl Cut Belphegor the stink-eye. “YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE TURNING US ALL IN, YOU FUCKING SPINELESS PIECE OF SHIT, THIS IS JUST MAKING YOUR JOB HARDER. DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS.”
“Timoteo is gonna be so happy that Baby Xanxus made so many friends,” Belphegor snickered unpleasantly. That little shit was no help whatsoever.
“UGH, WHATEVER. WHAT IS THERE TO DO AROUND HERE, ANYWAY?”
“The Earth Kingdom is known for its extensive library!” Ugly Levi volunteered brightly, like a total fucking loser.
“FUCKING LAME,” Squalo interjected with the utmost grace and delicacy. Levi went on unperturbed, because Levi didn’t give a shit about Squalo’s opinions or his stupid goddamn majestic frozen waterfall of hair.
“The librarian used to be this creepy talking owl, but it racked up too many sexual harassment charges to keep working there, so a few years ago it left to go follow some squirrelly little jailbait prince around—”
Xanxus started foaming at the mouth a bit.
Eventually they made it to the Flame Kingdom to return Fucking Lunatic Xanxus to his equally unhinged relatives so he could kill them all and take over, or something. Whatever, it wasn’t any of Squalo’s business. If they didn’t want Xanxus to kill them they should’ve killed him first.
The Vongola Castle loomed before them, pretentious as all hell, the iron gates securely locked and well-guarded until they weren’t anymore.
Xanxus dragged up one of the guards’ bodies by the shirt to wipe the blood off his knuckles, then tossed him aside.
“Now listen up trash,” he said, nearly restrained now that his goal was in sight. “Don’t listen to anything the runt says, because he’s fucking nuts. Thinks he hears his fucking dead mom talking to him and shit.”
Just then the big-ass doors of the castle flew open, and a tiny squirrel of a kid tumbled out and hurled itself at Xanxus. Must’ve been a flying squirrel or some shit.
“Xanxus! I missed you! Where did you go?” Squirrel Runt asked with fucking sparkles and shit in his eyes, Squalo can’t even believe this bullshit. He cocked his head to the side and it was tottemo kawaii desu.
Xanxus looked like he was about to combust. “Where did I—where did I fucking GO—YOU FUCKING TRASH, I WAS TRAPPED IN A FUCKING ICEBERG FOR EIGHT GODDAMN FUCKING—“
“JYUUUUUUUDAAAAAAIIIIIIMEEEEEEE,” screamed another runt, ashy-headed this time, as it threw itself out of the fucking third-story window and took a header into the dirt.
“What the fuck kind of suicide call is that, what’s wrong with a good ol’ banzai like the old days?” Squalo complained, lovingly caressing his beautiful hair. New Runt’s ashtray-ass locks and dumb octopus styling had nothing on this wonder.
“No style, the youth of today.” Ugly Levi agreed, but he was still ugly.
Like Ashtray Runt’s suicide had been some kind of secret runt code, a whole fucking stampede of grunts rushed out to restrain Xanxus from where he was trying his best to rip Squirrel Runt’s spleen out through his nose if only he could get his hands on him properly, the slippery little asshole.
“Ahaha, Tsuna, that looks like a fun game!” said some generic idiot holding a baseball bat that didn’t even have any fucking nails in it, what a bunch of fucking loser amateurs.
Ashtray Runt, who somehow wasn’t dead, jumped up and grabbed Dumbass Batboy by the shirtfront. “This isn’t a game, you idiot, this is an assassination attempt! That’s Psycho Prince Xanxus! THIS IS WHY YOU’LL NEVER BE JYUUDAIME’S RIGHT HAND MAN.”
Some ungodly demon shorty swooped out of the motherfucking sky to floor Smartass Smellphegor while he was snickering over Xanxus’ lack of success, then continued to beat him long after the twitching and squealing had stopped. Squalo gave him an approving nod. It was nice to see the youth of today really apply themselves to murder.
“I’M GONNA KICK YOUR GODDAMN ASS,” Xanxus howled at Squirrel Runt, who was fucking hovering in the sky now because it turned out he came with fucking rocket launcher attachments or something, what the fuck.
“THEN MY RIGHT HAND MAN IS GOING TO KICK YOUR RIGHT HAND MAN’S ASS, AND THEN MY THIRD-IN-COMMAND IS GONNA KICK YOURS’, AND THEN I’M GONNA KISS YOUR ASS ALL OVER AGAIN.”
“Kick, boss.” Ugly Levi said in what apparently passed for a whisper to fucking idiots.
“YEAH, THAT. HEY SWORD TRASH, WHAT ARE YOU STANDING AROUND LIKE AN ASSHOLE FOR? YOU HEARD UGLY TRASH, GO KICK HIS ASS.” Xanxus shouted, punting another guard onto the rapidly growing pile of bodies.
Fucking weirdo freak Lussuria paused his game of Rock ’Em Sock ‘Em with some moron with paper on his nose to give it a longing stare, because of course he would.
“Ahahaha, I get it, he’s the ‘right hand man’ because he doesn’t have a—”
“JYUUDAIME AS YOUR RIGHT HAND MAN PLEASE ALLOW ME TO AVENGE THIS UNFORGIVABLE SLIGHT UPON YOUR HONOR,” Ashtray Runt screamed, flinging handfuls of exploding bullshit at Squalo, what the hell.
Nobody at all was paying attention to Ugly Levi.
“So I heard from the boss that you hallucinate and shit?” He called up at Squirrel Runt, like he was trying to make fucking small talk with the kid his “boss” was trying his damnedest to kill.
“Eh?” Squirrel Runt replied, also like a fucking idiot.
“Like, you hear your dead mom talking to you and stuff?”
“What? Um, yeah, but, I wouldn’t call it ‘hallucinating’ so much as ‘hearing,’ since my mom, um…isn’t dead?”
“LOOK, HE’S FUCKING CRAZY,” Xanxus yelled. Why was any of them following this asshole again?
“DON’T TALK TO JYUUDAIME THAT WAY,” Ashtray Runt screeched out of the corner of his stupid mouth, lighting about three dozen more sticks of fucking bullshit fourth-dimension-sourced dynamite on a cigarette and chucking them in Xanxus’ direction, “AND STOP ATTACKING HIM.”
“Gokudera-kun, I thought you quit.” Squirrel Runt said sadly, pretty much proving Xanxus’ point.
“THAT’S FUCKIN’ RICH COMING FROM YOU, SQUIRT,” Xanxus replied, batting dynamite aside left and right. “EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU LITTLE SHITS HAS TRIED TO KILL HIM AND HE STILL TRUSTS YOUR BULLSHIT ASSES.”
“Well, what choice do I have?” Squirrel Runt said pragmatically. “Trust is the only reliable way. Even you trust me, don’t you?”
“Timoteo’s balls, you are nuts.” Squalo said in disbelief, dodging sticks of stray dynamite.
A hearty chuckle rang out across the courtyard as said balls strolled into the fray, attached to the rest of fucking Flame Lord Timoteo . “Xanxus, my boy! It’s been too long.”
“Nono!” Ashtray Runt yelled, and stopped trying to kill everyone within ten feet of Squirrel Runt. He was the only one who stopped.
“My, how energetic you all are! What a blessing youth is.”
“YOU, FUCKING SHITTY GEEZER.” Xanxus roared. “I CAME ALL THE WAY FROM SHITTY-ASS RAIN TRIBE COUNTRY TO KILL YOU—”
“Now, now,” Fucking Flame Lord Timoteo In The Flesh placated. “You’ll wake Reborn up from his nap if you keep being so rowdy.”
A bead of cold sweat traveled down Squalo’s back. That name. Reborn.
Then he heard it.
“Too late.”
The voice of death.
“Chaos.”