A wave crashed into my face, forcing me to close my eyes. The water crept up my nose and into my throat.

I coughed and spit out foam.

“Line up in front of me!”

I pulled my arms out of the other men's iron grip and leaned on the damp sand to pull myself up. I felt dizzy and a little sick. The bright sun was pitching like the bow of a ship in the middle of a tornado.

Lined up among the other men, my back straight and my eyes fixed on the Todoroki villa perched above the cliff, I caught my breath.

I licked my dry lips, my blood pounding like a heart in my ears.

Teka was watching us, her hands crossed behind her back, her blue eyes glowing even behind her thick black sunglasses.

“Again”

I grunted along with the others and walked back to the beach with a heavy step.

Sitting with my butt in the water, my arms tucked under those of mastodons that looked more like thighs than biceps, I mentally prepared myself for what was to come.

The instructor stood on the other side of our human fence, whistle in hand. I had a sudden urge to drown him as he raised it to his lips.

Immediately, our human fence fell onto its back and crashed into the boundary between sand and wave barrels.

“Whom do we serve?”

“Todoroki !”

A wave engulfed us, covering our ears and sinking us into the sand. The arms gripping mine tightened, the grip becoming as tight as an iron jaw.

If I hadn't learned to breathe underwater years ago, I would have drowned this morning.

“How do we serve them?”

“Ad vitam aeternam !”

New wave. New inspirations caught in the last second. Same questions, same answers.

When he let us go, the sun was high in the sky.

“You have thirty minutes”

Each of us went to our backpacks to get our canned rations.

I sat down next to the packs and opened a can of stinky tuna beans without a second thought.

The rest of the platoon sat down next to me and everyone ate voraciously.

There had been plenty of time yesterday to chat, tease, and even get a little excited.

And then the instructor showed up before we went to bed to tell us that we had a night training session.

No one had slept all night.

“Shoto, come here”

I looked up at the instructor, reluctant to give up my ration of cold pasta with sauce.

I pulled my mask, which was as dry as cardboard and itched like hell, over my face and trotted over to him.

He handed me a plastic bag containing a laminated map and two books.

“To be read by tomorrow morning”

Stifling a grunt, I took the bag and shuffled back to my seat. Some gave me amused looks, others openly mocked me.

“It's hard being the boss's grandson”

“I'd hate to be you”

“Ouch, finishing homework while we all get a good night's sleep...”

There was no malice in the jokes, but I replied, "Just wait until I'm your boss”

Smiles spread.

“You'd have to pass the Sicilian test first”

“Sicilian? What are you talking about?”

They exchanged glances.

Vannucci, sitting to my right, scratched his beard.

“This is the final test. The one we're all headed for”

“But I'm here too. I'm going with you”

They laughed.

Crespi, the youngest, barely twenty-four, finished his canteen in a few gulps, then burped loudly.

“What you've done is only a fraction of our training. We're group three, and we're the ones with the least training time”

“Three months," puffed Ataleo between mouthful of food.

Crespi snapped his fingers.

“Three months, yes. And you're here since, what, eight days?” Ataleo replied, the paste threatening to slip out of his mouth:

“Nine”

“Here you go, nine. So you can't go to Sicily”

I frowned, speechless.

Crespi began to crumble his bread and devour it.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Don't make that face. You'll come back one day and do the three months of group three. And then off to Sicily”

“Maybe I could have a look?”

He shook his head.

“No way. It's confidential. The boss won't let you”

Vannucci smiles dreamily.

“Do you realize that we're all almost done? Three years of training, and we're finally going to be Made Men”

There was a wave of approving murmurs.

“The first thing I'm going to do is buy an awesome car”

“I'll go with you. We'll go to a club and...”

Ataleo mimed two watermelons in front of his chest and raised his eyebrows suggestively.

“Even with all the money in the family accounts, no girl would be stupid enough to want you”

“You've got to be kidding me. In my village, they called me Casanova”

They teased each other, laughed.

I ate while listening to them, taking the opportunity to rest my aching muscles.

It was surprisingly easy to be one of them. I just had to do my share of the exercises and they'd integrated me as if I'd always been there.

Old Teka had thrown me in here because she'd had enough of me dragging my feet around her house, probably thinking they'd eat me alive, but they didn't.

The exercises were high intensity, but not insurmountable: and even without using my chakra, I had no problem keeping up.

Aside from the lack of sleep, I wasn't doing too badly.

My clones should be finished with the first set of anti-gravity seals soon.

I'll use them to increase the intensity of my exercises and hopefully I'll finally be able to reach the Jonin chakra level.

But my priority was to solve the tunnel vision problem caused by my shunshin and chidori.

My clones had successfully tested the project on a squirrel - I had no reason to wait any longer.

I may get my eyes blown out tonight, but if I manage...

I'll get the Fuin version of the Sharingan.

*

“Did you memorize the map like as told you?”

“Yes, grandma Teka”

She struck the board with her iron ruler, making it shake.

I wondered if it was the use of her hated nickname rather than my inability to reach the level she wanted me to reach.

“Then why are you still making mistakes ?”

I grunted but didn't answer, massaging my temples with two fingers.

It was twenty-three o' clock, the old hag hadn't let go of me since dinner, and I still hadn't slept a wink.

My brain is going to explode.

“At this rate, you won't become the next Patriarch”

“Who even said I would" I muttered.

“I. Your father”

She glared at me, her eyes blazing behind the frames of her glasses.

"And it's not like we're overflowing with applications”

"So I have no choice?”

"Exactly. Now give me the list of our annual revenues by region and in descending order”

I did as instructed, mixing only Basilicata and Calibria.

“Start again”

I had to recite it twice more without mistakes before she was satisfied.

“But how is it possible to earn so much? It's almost as much as Italy's GDP”

“Of course, but remember that these figures correspond to the underground economy. What's more, this GDP corresponds to our production GDP. Take away the costs of production, the salaries of our employees, the costs of training, housing and feeding our Familia recruits, and maintaining our infrastructure...”

I frowned.

“But how do you make so much?”

We were talking about almost a billion a year. Teka circled Italy and Sicily with the tip of her rule.

“Roughly speaking, it's all ours”

I blinked.

Slowly.

“When you say it's all ours...?”

“We own it. We own the entire city of Florence and most of Tuscany. The same goes for the rest of the country, including Sicily and Sardinia. Our ownership by region ranges from 70 to 75%”

I was stunned.

“Our family owns Italy ?

“Unofficially, yes. Of course, the authorities make sure it doesn't get out. There would be widespread panic if it became known that a single family owned the democracy of an entire country, especially if it was a Western country”

“How can this be? There must be rules to prevent this sort of thing, don't you think?”

I couldn't see how such a mass takeover could have taken place under the nose of a government, especially one as powerful as Italy's.

And the price of such an acquisition seemed too outrageous even for the wealthiest families on the planet.

Teka pulled a chair from the oval table and sat down across from me.

“You've heard of the Dark Ages, didn’t you ?”

I shook my head.

“Vaguely. We'd barely touched on the Alter Revolution the last time I was in class”

Teka clicked her tongue in displeasure.

"What kind of cheap institution is your father sending you to ?” She mumbled for a second. "The Dark Ages were the period after the Alter Revolution. It didn't happen systematically in every country, depending on how each government handled the situation, and the intensity also varied greatly from one geographical area to another"

She called to one of her two henchmen stationed at the front door.

“Bring us a map of Europe”

Why does she has a map of Europe ?

A minute later, the man returned with a laminated planisphere. Teka unfolded it on the board and placed the map of Italy on the side.

“In France, Spain and Portugal, the effect was less dramatic. The French have always had a taste for bloodshed and revolution, but this time they at least had the good sense to realize that a revolution after the arrival of Quirks would wipe their country off the face of the earth”

I felt a pang of pride at the mention of my former countrymen and their legendary taste for rebellion.

“Many others had not been so fortunate”

She drew a cross over Switzerland in marker.

“Swallowed up by Belgium in three weeks”

She redefined the contours of the United Kingdom and Hungary.

“Ireland finally became independent and Austria swallowed half of Hungary, whose other half became a dominion of Russia to avoid being swallowed by another neighboring country”

She pointed to Italy.

“The socio-economic context at that time was difficult after our emergence from the Third World War. The arrival of Quirks led to chaos and a civil war broke out”

Teka was solemn.

"It was a new kind of war. Less organized because it was fought by civilians, but more deadly than anything we'd ever seen. More than half the population of Europe lost their lives"

She paused for a second, obviously searching for the best way to continue her impromptu lesson.

"Your grandfather, five generations before you, was a wealthy and intelligent man. Our family was blessed with an excellent Quirk who provided us with defense and protection. When our government collapsed, he had the intelligence to understand that this war, too violent, would not last. So he bought up whole regions at ridiculous prices, and the government regained funds to continue its war. It was a win-win situation"

I interrupted.

“But he couldn't have been the only one with this idea, could he?”

Italy was an art-rich country.

I imagined that at least one misanthropic billionaire must have seized the opportunity to buy the Sistine Chapel.

"Exactly. He wasn't the only one, and a lot of investors rushed to buy. On the other hand, your grandfather had two advantages: One, he was a native Italian. Second, he didn't just buy land, he took advantage of the chaos to set up his own militia"

And then this.

"A nation at war is still a nation in need of food. Your grandfather hired men and women with useful and powerful Quirks and enlisted them in our service in exchange for pay and food."

"And we're still going at it, aren't we ? Our recruits, our Familia... you mean we have our own army ?"

She shook her head.

"Army? Of course not, boy. That's such a barbaric term. Let's say they are brave, valiant, courageous men and women who will lay down their lives for us if the opportunity arises. Think of them as our Praetorian Guard and us as their royal family"

She smiled that huge smile that split her face in two.

"The government eventually won the war, although a new constitution had to be written. They forced foreign buyers to return their property, which they called "stolen" There was a lot of nationalization of industries and mass reconstruction. They tried to force your grandfather to sell, but couldn't because of his small 'army'. A new conflict when the country was so unstable would have wiped Italy off the face of the earth"

There was a twinkle in Teka's eye that told me she was enjoying the whole thing.

"So we own Italy?"

She nodded, pride clearly visible on her face.

"So we own Italy"

So apparently I'm the unofficial prince of a country because my mafioso grandfather put the government in checkmate.

No matter how much I told myself that the arguments presented were plausible and logical, I still couldn't believe it.

Teka looked at her watch.

"It's getting late. We'll continue tomorrow. And I don't want any mistake this time"