Oppression and opposition
There was a certain look that people gave, Xanxus found, when they thought they were better than him. And not better because they were skilled, or worked for it, or even achieved anything, no, it was a look given by people who believed they were born better, and that nothing he did or achieved would ever change that. A kind of condescending, sneer, half pity, half triumph, and Xanxus hated it more than just about anything else in the world.
It was a look only the privileged and entitled knew how to give, and only the stupid indulged in. It was a look Xanxus had more than enough of in his first life, and was less than inclined to indulge now that he was on round number two. If they didn’t learn quickly, well, Xanxus was not a patient teacher.
Not all the highborn trash were that stupid of course. A lot of them were, but not all, and the smarter ones, the trash that could look beyond their own advantages, their own pride in their status, knew better than to assume someone wasn’t a threat just because they were low born. Old, old men, and women, with cunning in their eyes and cages at their fingertips and there was another thing Xanxus had more than enough of in his last life.
They had come at him with lying smiles, and calculating eyes and a seal to place on his forehead, to bind him, and rule him, and ensure he would never be a threat to the main line, the legitimate line’s power. He had felt the chakra of the seal settling around his mind, and it was like a cage, like being trapped, like ice, like a half memory of something that his mind couldn’t, quite reach, unitl it could, and he did remember, and the fire in his soul screamed never again.
They came with clever well practiced words about duty, and tradition, and loyalty, and Hyuuga Xanxus, who had once been Xanxus di Vongola, said, “Fuck that shit. Never again.” And the seal they had so carefully drawn onto him burned away in a blaze of red and orange fire and rage.
They feared him after that, and they were wise to. The smarter ones feared all of their branch house cousins, as only the oppressor can fear the oppressed. Deep down every oppressor knows one terrible truth, that their victims are stronger than they are, and they live in fear of the day their victims realise it.
Xanxus had realised it first when he was ten years old, when he first made one of his supposed father’s underbosses flinch. When he’d sparked red and orange fire off his fingertips, and the man that had sneered at him for being a prostitute’s son, and dismissed him as irrelevant for his rough manners, had taken a step back in fear and Xanxus had seen his weakness. They might have looked at him like trash, but he knew, now he knew, they were the real trash.
The second time around the knowledge had come earlier, had come with his awakening, although he’d had inklings even before than, it had come with iron solid conviction that if the main house trash feared him enough to cage him then he must be stronger than them. After all the powerful have no need to cage the weak.
Before, the clever ones had feared him, as they feared all their caged cousins. After, well after, even the stupid ones feared him, and it was not the same as the fear they felt for any of the others. It was open, raw, salt in the wound every time he swaggered through the gates like he didn’t recognise their superiority. It was a fear mixed with outrage, with disbelief, with a kind of fascinated horror and Xanxus revelled in it.
It wasn’t just a fear of him, personally, although it was that too, Xanxus had made sure of that, with unpredictable violence, and a vengeful streak that had some of them flinching at the sight of him. More importantly it was a fear of what he represented, a slave that would not serve, a victim that had learned to bite back, living proof that defiance was possible, that their masters could bleed. He was a threat to the very foundations of their world.
In a previous life Xanxus had made it his mission, and private amusement to terrify the mafia establishment. Primarily by being everything they had assured themselves a prostitute’s bastard could not be. He had been dangerous, had been the best, had been Varia quality and even then people had known what that meant. He had been powerful, had been the son of the Vongola Don, not the heir, but the strongest in his own right of all his father’s sons. And worst of all he had been cultured, had made a point of it, cultivating a taste for the fine wines, and gourmet cooking, and classical music, that the elites had fawned over, trampling all over their private domain of high culture with his bloodied, bastard born shoes. He had made a lifestyle out of not knowing his place, and he saw no reason to let being reborn change the habit of a lifetime.
Squalo had found it utterly hilarious. So much so that he’d laid his sword at Xanxus’ feet, and sworn to him. The others had followed, all outsiders in their own way, all in their own way a personal affront to the traditionalist elites. They saw the game he played, saw it and were only too happy to join in, and he felt their absence so strongly when he faced down his clan elders for that first time without them. If he hadn’t known already that half of them were his classmates and the others couldn’t be too far off he would have raged, enough to burn the Hyuuga compound down around him. But they were here so he didn’t have to. Which was probably good, because he suspected the baby boss would probably turn up at some point and if Xanxus was on the run for arson and mass murder he’d do the “I am very disappointed look”. Which would be annoying.
It hadn’t taken much to re-gather his guardians, a flare of his flames here, strategic employment of violence there, he’d even managed to wake up the idiot horse in the process. Xanxus would never admit it, but he had missed Dino, the horse trash wasn’t nearly as ditzy as he pretended to be and Xanxus could appreciate someone who played their own games with the old guard.
Dino had actually offered him refuge, if he’d wanted to leave the Hyuuga compound. As some kind of peripheral relative to the Sandaime he apparently could offer that without the Hyuuga elders being able to block him. Idiot. Like Xanxus needed rescuing. He had the trash right where he wanted them, moving out would undo so much of his hard work in turning them into quivering shadows of themselves. Right now he was in their home, eating at their table, watching over them while they slept, a constant reminder of their weaknesses, and their sins. If he left, well, sooner or later they’d start to forget and that would be annoying.
Besides, it would be much harder to train the brat up to Varia quality if he wasn’t living in the compound.