Chapter 153 Chapter 153 We'd better not let this...
Elio carefully put away the gift box.
The car was completely silent. Rokudo Mukuro had turned off the music when he got in, and now he remained silent, only occasionally glancing towards the passenger seat. Elio opened the window, and the wind flowed gently through, caressing his folded arms.
"What can I do for Vongola?" Elio said suddenly.
"Huh?" Rokudo Mukuro was surprised. "You..."
Before he could finish his words, Spedo's excited voice rang out in the car, "Great, Elio, I was just about to tell you! If I hadn't been there last night—"
Elio was startled. "What's that noise?"
He looked around and was horrified to find there wasn't a third seat in the car. There was no one on the roof or under the car. Finally, Rokudo Mukuro pointed to his dangling Vongola earrings with a nonchalant expression, indicating that Spado was giving an important speech there.
"Those old... ancestors from my previous life all resided within the Vongola Ring," Rokudo Mukuro said. "Later, Talpo upgraded the Ring and changed its form."
Elio did remember Talpo, the metal engraver, but it seemed to him that Rokudo Mukuro had skipped a word. Spedo snorted, "Did you mean to say 'antique'?"
"Or 'old immortal,'" Rokudo Mukuro smirked. "Whatever you prefer."
They couldn't even see each other's faces, yet they were so adept at bickering through the air, spouting terrifying phrases Elio couldn't understand, like "stealing my body" and "skull goblet." Finally, Rokudo Mukuro threatened to flush his earrings down the toilet, and Spedo finally stopped. He casually changed the subject and resumed what he had just said to Elio, "To make a long story short, the Vongola could use your skills..."
"Stop," Elio said. "Don't worry about the new era, you old fools."
Rokudo Mukuro cheered like a theater audience, "BRAVO!"
Spedo was furious. "Damn assassin! Giotto Vongola isn't here right now. Don't think I wouldn't dare to come out and fight you!"
Elio said nothing, merely tilting his head and raising his hand in a gesture Spedo remembered so well. Mukuro didn't hear the co-pilot's rebuttal, and he glanced over in confusion, only to see Elio's finger leave his lips. Spedo, on the other hand, seemed to be strangled. After a long, quizzical exchange, he reluctantly lowered his voice and fell silent, pretending nothing had happened.
"What did you do?" Rokudo Mukuki asked, "I've never seen him give in so quickly!"
In the background of Spedo's shouting "I'm not giving up", Elio just smiled and said, "Spedo just said that the Vongola could use my skills. Is that true?"
"He might have heard something." Rokudo Mukuro neither admitted nor denied. "The Continental Hotel is backed by the High Table, you should know that, right? That's right, after all, you still have several bounties on their list. Twelve minor criminal factions make up the High Table, and the D'Antonio family is one of them. The leader holds a seat on the High Table. He plans to pass the seat to his daughter, and the Vongola family is happy to see this happen, because his daughter, like him, is pro-Vongola. But his youngest son is a little dissatisfied."
"Really?" Elio twirled the ring slowly with his thumb.
"That guy's name was 'Santino de Antonio,'" Mukuro said. "Reborn suggested that Sawada Tsunayoshi take preemptive action to curb his inappropriate ambitions. But that idiot, believing that Gianna—Santino's sister—could handle their family's affairs, rejected his proposal. That's it."
"So, what do you think?"
"What do I think?" Rokudo Mukuro shrugged. "This has nothing to do with me. Only an idiot would take on the work himself, so I was already surprised when you asked just now. Did Sawada Tsunayoshi ask you to work for him?"
"I can't really think of that as pocket money," Elio said.
Rokudo Mukuro laughed out loud, "He said pocket money? Seriously? It's more like the pocket money that the first Vongola gave you!"
"Although I don't like you calling them old antiques," Elio said, "you are right about one thing: the best ancestors are the dead ancestors..."
Rokudo Mukuro urgently corrected himself, "Hey, how could I say that?"
"…I need to return the money," Elio ignored him. "There must be some internal disputes within the Vongola. Giotto wouldn't intend to maintain his authority in modern society, much less interfere with or control the current Vongola. The Vongola probably has no objection to respectfully inviting Giotto to the altar, but they'd be the first to object if Giotto were to interfere."
Rokudo Mukuro didn't interrupt again. When Elio looked at him, Rokudo Mukuro just held the steering wheel with one hand and smiled at him.
"I never asked for the money back," Elio said. "Giotto and I never made such a promise. But there must be a leader who is loyal and trustworthy enough to keep his word and go against all odds and return this money they've used for over a hundred years and could have used more."
"You didn't accept it?"
"I'm not stupid."
Rokudo Mukuro smiled knowingly. He escorted Elio to the Vongola Castle and then left, claiming he had other work to do. Elio had intended to investigate this "Santino," but Hibari, who had come to visit, eagerly grabbed hold of him and rushed him into the training grounds. They had agreed to a fight earlier, and Hibari didn't care where Elio had gone or whether he was still a Vongola member; he only cared that this challenge not be let go.
After the fight, Yun Que retracted his previous assessment with great satisfaction, believing that Elio had perfectly made up for his shortcomings in frontal combat. The only drawback was that Elio's fighting spirit was too low, which did not allow him to fully enjoy the fight.
Elio, who had been fighting him all day, didn't comment. At dinner, he sat down with Mukurokudo, who had for some reason started muttering "Damn the Mafia" again. He complained to Mukurokudo, "Is Hibari really a human?" and received the surprising reply, "He's not a human, he's Hibari Kyoya." It was both predictable and unexpected.
"There were a few times when I thought he'd fallen," Elio complained, "but he quickly got up... I'm the one with the clear-attribute flame, right?"
"I told you," Rokudo Mukuro said, "He's Hibari Kyoya, not a human."
Elio almost fell headfirst into his plate. He was so exhausted. The day's battle with Hibari had almost exhausted his flames - the last time he exhausted his flames was during the Battle of Dijon! - At this moment, let alone fighting, he probably couldn't even read a book. When Sawada Tsunayoshi came over, Elio even mistook him for Giotto, but it was probably not Elio's fault, because Sawada Tsunayoshi looked at his fingers and asked him, "Did you receive the gift?"
Elio had just received the hidden blade from Alvin. He held his forehead and asked listlessly, "Which gift?"
Sawada Tsunayoshi hesitated to speak. Rokudo Mukuro, sitting next to him, answered for him, "I'll pass it on. What else are you worried about?"
Elio finally reacted and took out the gift box from his pocket, "Got it."
Sawada Tsunayoshi breathed a sigh of relief. But when Elio asked directly about Santino, the De Antonio family, Vongola X paused. Unsure of his silence, Elio pressed him further, and Vongola X finally smiled and said, "I understand you want to repay my kindness, but if you do it so quickly, it could easily seem like you're drawing a line in the sand."
Elio was stunned for a moment.
"This isn't a deal between us," Vongola Ten asked him, "right?"
Elio clutched his fork, momentarily unable to answer. But Sawada Tsunayoshi didn't ask any more questions and instead explained Santino's situation in detail. "What a coincidence! I originally thought Gianna was perfectly capable of protecting herself..."
"If a family heir can't even protect her own life," Rokudo Mukuro interrupted, "what else can you expect her to protect?"
"But the latest news Kyoya brought is," Vongola Tenth glanced at Rokudo Mukuro, "Santino has John Wick's blood oath in his hand."
Rokudo Mukuro fell silent. Elio looked over and saw that his movements had subtly stopped. He was looking at Sawada Tsunayoshi, as if trying to confirm the truth of the news. Sawada Tsunayoshi nodded in confirmation, but Elio interrupted their silent exchange with a puzzled, "Who is John Wick?"
It was Mukuro's turn to wonder, "You don't know John Wick?"
Elio also wondered, "Should I know?"
"Let him go, Mukuro," Sawada Tsunayoshi laughed, "He hasn't even heard of your famous name, how can you expect him to know John Wick?"
Mukuro thought about it, realizing it made sense. He hummed in satisfaction and fell silent. Sawada Tsunayoshi dipped his bread in his ice cream and said to Elio, "Have you heard of the 'Night Demon'? The Slavs would use this fairy tale monster to scare children. It's a symbol of death and nightmares. And this 'Night Demon' is Mr. Vic's nickname."
Elio asked, "Does this mean he's as scary as the Night Stalker?"
"No," Sawada Tsunayoshi smiled, "This means that when the Night Demon appears, he is the one who can kill it."
"I heard that he has retired." Rokudo Mukuro continued.
"But he made a comeback a while ago," said Sawada Tsunayoshi, "and killed all the Tarasov gang. So, we can imagine that if Santino finds him with a blood oath, Mr. Vic can no longer refuse him with the reason that 'he has retired.' If we use our imagination a little more and let Mr. Vic go to Rome in this future to murder Santino's sister Gianna..."
"Then she is definitely dead." Rokudo Mukuro concluded.
"Then, unfortunately," Sawada Tsunayoshi took a sip of orange juice, "given Santino's personality, he would send people to hunt down Mr. Vic and erase his own crime of patricide. Mr. Vic would certainly not surrender, so they chased each other and fled, and in the end..."
Rokudo Mukuro commented, "It was like a whole international action movie."
"Well then," Elio put down his fork, "we'd better not let this bloody movie go to theaters."
"Then I'll leave it to you, Elio." The Tenth Vongola nodded.
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The author has something to say: Collaboration with "John Wick 2"!
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