Author's Note: I wanted to reupload this to see how it goes. Since Katekyo Hitman Reborn ended a few months ago, it should be easier for me to analyze, and organize the plot line for this story. But, I tend to give up on stories a lot even though I have these great ideas that could go great with the plot.
For The Woodbender: War and Peace, I'll upload the chapter on Wednesday or Thursday. Right now, it's being peer reviewed by several of my friends; they're pretty lazy if you ask me.
So, tell me what you think of this.
Disclaimer: I do not own "Katekyo Hitman Reborn"
Chapter One: Normal Day, Weird Students
"Did you see the game yesterday?"
"Yeah, I did. That first year, Yamamoto Takeshi, must be a genius at baseball or something."
"I know right! His home-runs make me want to swoon like a girl." Both students snickered at the joke, their laughter echoed in the hallways.
"But seriously, that loser who lost all of those catches." A frown marred one of the student's faces, disgusted by the lack of masculinity he couldn't find in the brown-haired student he was thinking of.
"Ha-ha, I know who you're talking about. Isn't it-"
"SAWADA TSUNAYOSHI!"
The two students jumped in fright from the furious sounding voice. They turned back where the plain doors of the cafeteria was and gave each other mischievous smirks. Knowing who was behind the entrance, they walked backwards towards the lunchroom, never missing the chance to see "Dame Tsuna" humiliated.
Their hands reached out and swung the two doors open, their smirks transformed into wide grins. They looked around the cafeteria for their target. They noticed the student body looking in one direction and walked towards their destination. However, both bumped into a tall figure, and immediately apologized to their baseball star: Yamamoto Takeshi. They watched as the first-year laughed off the apology and rubbed the back of his head. One of them decided to start a conversation, as he asked, "Are you going to watch Tsuna again?"
His friend rubbed his hands together in a villanous distingushed way, "It's hilarious to watch him get punched by Mochida-sempai and the others."
Both of them cackled and never noticed how Yamamoto's eyes dimmed to a dull sort of shade of brown, his smile turned into a grim line. However, he hid his displeased expression with a happy façade, and said, "Maa maa, there's no need to make fun of Tsuna-san."
He looked at the two shorter students and asked, "Besides, what happened to him?"
The two teenagers looked at Yamamoto with slight disbelief and shook their heads in mock disappointment. One of them laid a hand on his arm and said, "C'mon, I'll show you Takeshi. God, I can't believe you never keep up with the school's grape-vine."
His friend shrugged his shoulders. "Well, you know Takeshi; he's always the nicest student in this school."
They walked to the other side of the cafeteria, where they noticed a large circle of students crowding around two people. The two students looked on with excitement and pushed Yamamoto inside of the crowd. However, what Takeshi saw was horrible. It was his senior Mochida standing over an injured student with a malicious smirk on his face. His hands clenched into fists and caked with dried blood and saliva. His shirt was spotted with dark red stains on his shirt. His sneakers were covered with remnants of the school lunch, scarlet pudding splattered on the floor.
He spat on the brown-haired teenager, allowing some of the other students to do the same.
"There Dame-Tsuna, that should teach you not to mess with me," said Mochida arrogantly and walked away with several of the random people from the crowd by his side.
The two students beside Takeshi started to laugh with their hands on their stomachs, their boisterous laughter bouncing off the walls. Most of the student population started to whisper within the background and some began to ignore the commotion, going back to their lunches or doing whatever they were doing in the first place. Yet, Takeshi looked at the wounded student and softly whispered, "Tsuna…"
He watched Tsuna stand up with feeble legs and wiped a trail of thin blood from the corner of his mouth. His usually spiked hair was messier than usual and his cheeks were bruising with purple blotches. Takeshi moved one step towards his friend and stopped when Tsuna looked up with a frightened expression. His amber eyes bright with tears and his whole body seemed to tremble in Takeshi's eyes. He stuttered with one of his arms covering his face, "Y-yes Yama-moto-san?"
Takeshi felt like consoling his best friend from the moment he heard his voice, but he couldn't destroy his disguise so early in the first stage of the plan. He shook his head and worriedly asked, "Are you okay Sawada-kun?"
He was then touched by the two students who were wiping their tears of mirth. The tall teenager was pushed towards the exit by them as he reached out for his friend.
"Why're you trying to help Dame-Tsuna?"
"Yeah, he doesn't need any at all."
Takeshi continued to watch Tsuna limp over to the exit of the lunch room with a depressed frown. He gritted his teeth in anger and turned around with a fist planted on one student. He flew back several feet and crashed against the cemented wall with a crack. Every girl started to scream as several jumped from their seats and boys began to shout in astonishment.
The other student backed up with his hands in the air. "Yo, calm down Yamomoto! What's your problem?"
The baseball player ignored the remaining student's pleas as he turned to face him; his leg kicked the student's stomach. The student flew just like his friend and landed on top of him.
Both of them groaned in pain and several teachers gathered to investigate the new incident.
'And coincidently ignoring Tsuna's injuries with Mochida,' Takeshi angrily thought to himself, never noticing until now how ignorant he was about Tsuna in his teenage years.
Oblivious to his angered thoughts, everyone stared at their baseball star in shock; they've never seen this side of him during the whole year before.
Takeshi exhaled each breath deeply. His eyes took on a shine of promising torture for the two imbeciles, chuckling with a smile on his face. He rubbed the back of his head with an "ashamed" expression.
"I'm sorry guys," Takeshi said, walking away to where Tsuna exited. "I guess I hit you guys a bit too hard."
He left the lunch room with a long silence behind and the teachers silently picked up the injured students to the infirmary.
'I wonder why Yamamoto-san would help me,' Tsuna thought, limping for a moment before he leaned against the wall with a slight moan. He lifted his arm with slight difficulty and winced at the amount of bruises that strayed on it. He looked at the other arm and saw the blood that trailed down to the floor and collected itself into tiny puddles.
'Stupid Tsuna...' He thought as he collected himself and continued the rest of his trip towards the infirmary. However, he highly doubted that he would receive any treatment, since the nurse didn't care much for him at all.
Tsuna continued to wince at each step he tried to take, but then the pain became too much for the fragile teen. He slid against another wall and grabbed his right ankle weakly. He could feel it throbbing with each second passing.
He knew there was something wrong going on as Mochida-sempai kept kicking his legs with his lackeys present.
"Sawada-kun!" The injured boy heard a familiar shout from his left and turned to find Yamamoto running to him. Tsuna swallowed a bit of saliva and tried to curl up, trying to protect himself from another bully attempt. Yet, he felt a large hand gently touching his shoulder and Tsuna let one brown eye peek. He let out a small gasp when the baseball player took out wrappings and started to treat his arms with gentle care.
He observed Yamamoto's expression with slight curiosity as it turned more serious with each bruise he saw. Tsuna hissed in pain after the older teen gently pressed against one of the wounds and backed off slowly. He heard himself ask, "Wh-why are you doing this?"
Yamamoto looked up from his treatment and gave a small comforting smile. His own brown eyes soften at the cautious stare and said, "I can't help it if I ignore a friend of mine, right?"
Tsuna dropped his arm from Yamamoto's touch and stuttered, "W-what do you mean by friend?"
Letting out an unusual sigh, Yamamoto looked down and attempted to look for any more injures on the teen's body. Finding none, he allowed Tsuna to bring his legs closer to his chest.
"Well you are my friend…"
All of a sudden, Yamamoto swiftly covered his ears and clenched his eyes shut, as if he heard a horrible sound. Tsuna blinked for a second and screamed, "HIIEE! I-is there something w-wrong?!"
Falling back, Yamamoto shook his head and jokingly replied, "I'm alright; there's just something in my ear." He stood up from his fall and lent a hand outwards.
He watched Tsuna looked at it as if was a dangerous weapon and said, "Maa maa, my hand's not going to hurt you."
Slowly, Tsuna took his hand and got up with little or no strength. Takeshi wrapped his arm around Tsuna's midsection and his other held onto his arm. He took the first step towards the infirmary and waited the smaller teen to follow his footsteps. Tsuna complied with the support and they walked to the room with an air of silence.
Tsuna concentrated on his feet and making sure he didn't step onto his support. He didn't need to mess up what Yamamoto was doing for him. Yet, what he couldn't understand was his reason for doing this. Though they were near the infirmary's entrance, Tsuna stopped and looked sideways. He brought his hair to cover his eyes and asked, "Is this a prank?"
He looked up, seeing Yamamoto look shocked and thought, 'I knew there was a hidden intention.'
Tsuna shrugged himself away from the taller teen and harshly replied, "W-well Yamamoto-san, I need to get to class now."
"Wait Tsuna!" Yamamoto got over his sudden shock and rushed towards the limping boy with one outstretched hand.
However, Tsuna was able to enter his next class as soon as the bell rang, and students leaving the cafeteria by blocking his path as well. Yamamoto felt himself being pushed away from the hallway and looked down with a frown.
Then all of a sudden, several girls started to come towards him, pushing themselves against his arms and body. Some of them looked worried from what occurred at the cafeteria, while the rest had sly smiles plastered on their faces.
"Nee Takeshi-kun, why'd you stand up for Dame-Tsuna?" asked a bleach haired girl with her dress shirt unbuttoned that showed her cleavage. Other girls nodded along with the question and started to repeat it to satisfy their curiosity.
However, Takeshi only created another fake smile and said, "Well, he was alone when Mochida-sempai started to beat him up."
The bleached girl continued to push herself up and grabbed his arm with a deadlock. "Oh I see now…"
She turned her head to face her entourage with a conceited smirk. She raised her head up and said, "I told you girls that Takeshi-kun doesn't associate with junk like that." All of the girls let out high pitched giggles and the surrounding boys jealously sighed at the amount of attention that Takeshi was receiving.
On the inside of his mind, Takeshi was getting tired of the annoying girls and was about to excuse himself until he heard a squeaky voice singing the anthem.
"Midori tanabiku namimori no,
Dai naku shou naku nami ga ii,
Itsumo kawarnu,
Sukoyaka kenage,
Aah, tomo ni utaou,
Namimori chuu!"
"Who's the loser singing that terrible song?" The girl screeched, looking around for the nerd who dared to sing in a terrible pitch at that as well. But, there was no one left in the hallways, as she was left with Takeshi and her girls.
The hallways were cleared of the rest of the students. She continued to survey the area until she felt several chills down her spine. Then, she felt the immense killing intent that flooded the halls, collapsing on her knees.
The rest of the girls fled once they heard the solemn clicks of the shoes eerily becoming louder and coming closer to where they were.
She shivered in fear and hugged Takeshi's leg tighter with her eyes darting back and forth. Footsteps were heard as each heel made a small clicking sound. She looked up to her crush and asked frightened, "T-Takeshi-kun… Do you know what that is?"
She waited for him to reply, but was too late when she felt someone giving a chilling glare on the nape of her neck. She turned around to see a tall handsome individual with a pair of tonfa clutched in his hands. Narrowed grey eyes matched with her blue ones and the girl thought she could swoon at the attention she was getting, but the thought disappeared once she noticed the dark red stains on the weapons.
She looked up to the baseball player, scared of what was going to happen to her. "Aren't you going to do anything?"
Yamamoto looked down with a weird expression on his face. He smiled with a semi-worried glint in his eyes. "Well, I wish I could do something about it…"
He removed himself from the girl's grasp and shook his head. "But, since you insulted Namimori and Tsuna…"
His brown eyes started to shine and his smile turned a bit crooked and psychotic. "I'm sorry; I can't help you with anything now."
Yamamoto walked away from the girl and hid behind one of the corners of the hallways. With ease, he waited for the annoying pleas to end, and the beating to begin. His adrenaline levels went higher and his blood started to pump once he heard the deep voice that belonged to the one and only: Hibari Kyoya.
"You dare disturb the peace and ritual of Namimori?" Yamamoto heard Hibari asked his newest prey. He could imagine the girl crying crocodile tears and pitifully acting out a distressing scene.
"I-i-it wa-wasn't me, Hibari-san!" The girl's voice cracked at the end and Yamamoto thought of her going on her knees. Yet, he knew the (only) conclusion of this sob story.
"I'll bite you to death."
Yamamoto held a stoic face, hearing the deafening cries of the girl and the sounds of metal hitting flesh. Each scream was accompanied with a sickening crunch and sobs were wracking from the victim. For a few minutes, the beating continued and no one came out to support her. Finally, Yamamoto felt a sticky substance on his skin and he looked straight at the steel grey eyes. He laughed as he waved at Hibari and asked, "Was that good enough for you?"
Hibari let out a grunt and walked away with his bloodied tonfas held by his side. Though, the perfect was about to leave the corridor, he stopped and said, "The baby wants you in the Committee room after school. Do not go to baseball practice herbivore."
Yamamoto began to calm down, his laughing spree coming to an end, "Sure, thanks Hibari for the notice."
With no reply, the perfect walked away elegantly, his jacket flapping with the non-existent breeze. Yamamoto leaned forward and erased the smile he had plastered on his face.
He walked to a nearby window and stared at the ominous grey clouds littering the sky. The sun was blocked and the whole school seemed to be trapped in a black dimension. There was nothing bright to light up the sky and the whole mood screamed 'depressing'.
Yamamoto rested his chin on his palm and wistfully said, "We'll do anything for you Tsuna. Please try to remember us."
"As we will learn later on, there are some theorems that you would need to memorize." A pair of black eyes looked at each student in his class, before landing on his usual target.
Nezu-sensei looked on with a ferocious smile and cleared his throat. After getting the class' attention, he lectured everybody with a pompous tone. "Well everyone, since there is someone here who doesn't appreciate my lesson..."
The forty year old teacher moved his eyes towards the dazed Tsuna and threw his chalk at his forehead. There was an immediate impact and Tsuna fell out of his seat. Many of the students started to laugh, including Nezu-sensei. He let out a small groan at the pain and he listened as Nezu-sensei continued to speak.
"This here is an exhibit of a student who will never succeed in his academic life." He pointed at Tsuna and walked to the front of the classroom. He waved his hands around as his glasses reflected the fluorescent lights on the ceiling.
"Dame-Tsuna will probably be sent to summer school and will always be a loser when he reaches adult-hood." Nezu-sensei concluded his statements; the bell rang for the end of the class. He waited for the students to bow for gratitude and left the classroom, never noticing the two pairs of glares that were pointed at him.
Just as the idiotic teacher left, the two pairs of eyes, amber and indigo, turned in the direction of Tsuna. They watched the majority of the baseball team crowding around their friend and was about to fight for him, but stopped themselves after two seconds. They knew that they couldn't go against Reborn's orders or else chaos will erupt.
"Why're you bothering Takeshi-san so much?" One of the rookie baseball players asked, placing his hands on the desk.
Tsuna cowered in his seat, intimidated by all of their taller heights and bodies. "W-wh-what do you mean Ishao-san?"
His brown mousse eyes looked up and met each menacing glare from the crowd. However, the rookie grasped a bunch of Tsuna's shirt and lifted him up carelessly. He leaned closer and whispered, "What you did to bother Takeshi-san so much that he got so stressed and hit two of his buddies."
The rookie dropped him off and Tsuna collided with his desk, letting out a shocked yelp. His elbow made contact with the edge of the desk and his back strewed on the middle of the desk.
"C'mon boys, let's rough him up a little!" The rookie shouted to his friends and they agreed whole-heartedly with a yell of "Alright".
They gradually got closer and was about to land the first punch when they heard a yell.
"TO THE EXTREME!"
A fifteen year old boy entered the classroom, punching the air with increasing speed. His black eyes focused on the group of baseball players and noticed fluffy brown hair. Hearing a pained moan, Ryohei ran towards to the group and screamed, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO THE EXTREME?"
The group separated in fear of the ferocious boxer, except for the rookie who continued to punch Tsuna's stomach without a care. Ryohei's mouth curled to a snarl and rapidly punched the rookie against his face. The bully collapsed against the wall with his eyes rolled up, before going into unconsciousness.
He turned around to face Tsuna with worried eyes as he shouted, "ARE YOU ALRIGHT SAWADA?"
Tsuna coughed up a bit of blood and two gasps were heard from the background. However, he ignored them in favor of responding back the loud question.
"Y-yeah, I'm fine…" Tsuna croaked out and steadily stood on the floor.
Ryohei was about to make a move when a hand slapped away his efforts and he stopped to watch.
"I-it's alright senpai…" Ryohei heard Tsuna say as he retrieved his bag from the floor. "Y-yo-you don't need to help a person like me."
"But SAWADA," Ryohei was about to continue his efforts when he stopped with a rigid stance, seeing blood trailing down from Tsuna's mouth. His mind started to repeat that distant memory that made him strike in fear.
"Don't worry… I know… You guys can fix this…"
"Onii-chan!" Ryohei turned around from his stupor and saw his younger sister, Kyoko, running towards him with their friend, Chrome.
"Tsuna-kun left already; are you sure you told him you could help him?" Kyoko asked and Ryohei shook his head dumbly with his inwardly punching himself in the face. He forgot to stop Sawada!
He was led by his comrade, Dokuro Chrome, to the hallways as he heard her say, "Let's go to the reception room... Reborn-san said he wanted us there."
And for the rest of the time there, the group walked off in silence.
'What do you mean by that Sawada?' Ryohei thought as they reached the doors of the Reception Room. 'He couldn't be thinking of himself like this before we met each other?'
"Geez, what's everyone's problem these days?" Tsuna muttered, opening the door to his house. He was greeted with a warm welcome from his mom, and he smiled at the comforting aura. Tsuna walked to the stairs and greeted back his mom, while tripping mid-way through.
Eventually, he reached to his room and opened the door to find a typical, disorganized, teenager-styled room. He kicked several bundles of clothes away and landed on top of his bed gently. He gently touched the recent bruises he received and winced at the painful throbs.
He closed his eyes slowly and slept off the pain of his wounds, never knowing what fate has laid out for him.
"Stupid cow, stop hogging the damn camera!" A rough voice was heard as forest green eyes glared at a bushy-haired boy. He turned around to face the computer screen and he said, "I'm sorry Reborn-san!"
Hibari clenched his tonfa handles with obvious restraint of frustration and turned to face the other side of the reception room. Ryohei was confused with the situation and screamed, "WHAT'S GOING ON TO THE EXTREME?"
A gun shot was heard as everything became silent and everyone looked at the miniature hit man, Reborn. His curled side burns bounced slightly as the assassin lifted his head to look at all of the guardians. His obsidian eyes glinted with a light of forewarned danger as he threatened, "Everyone needs to shut up and we can get this meeting started."
The rest of the occupants, excluding Hibari, swallowed deeply and Gokudera said via online, "A-alright, well, did any of you try to talk to Juudaime?"
The room continued to be silent as Yamamoto spoke out, "We tried Gokudera... But, it seems that Tsuna is very different from ours."
A soft voice spoke the next turn, "It looked like boss didn't want to live at all..." Chrome twiddled with her fingers as she continued to speak, "And we couldn't do anything..."
Kyoko rubbed her back with tears in her eyes and Gokudera let out an annoyed grunt. "You are such idiots; how can you leave Juudaime like that?"
"I said enough," Reborn shot another bullet to the ceiling and debris fell from the impact. Gokudera became silent and the curly haired boy, Lambo, held onto the older guardian tighter.
"Now, are you getting ready to come here Gokudera?" Reborn asked at the computer screen and Gokudera nodded rapidly as he stood up; the only thing that the rest of the guardians could see was the storm guardian's pants.
"Yes Reborn-san! We're coming to Namimori tomorrow morning by the latest." Gokudera threw Lambo at the back once he heard several whines for "Maman". He searched for Yamamoto and said, "Baseball freak! You better make sure that Juudaime is safe once I come there."
Yamamoto nodded with an unusual silence. "Alright Gokudera, I'm not going to be stupid as I was from before."
The mood started to darken with everyone thinking about the word "stupid" and how their actions defined the word.
Then, Gokudera disconnected the connection and Hibari faced the rest of the crowd. "Get out of here before I bite you to death."
Chrome and Kyoko became frightened by the Cloud guardian and followed his orders. They went outside together, holding onto each other's hands comforting the other person. At the same time, Ryohei gave a worried look at the remaining guardians, and left the premise for the two girls. However, Yamamoto stood ground and asked with furrowed eyebrows, "Hibari… Did you know that this was going to happen?"
Hibari faced the clear beautiful view of Namimori, his beloved hometown. "The herbivore has sent us without my permission."
"And why did he do it?" Yamamoto asked again and threatingly stepped forward, but Reborn stopped him with a click of his pistol.
"Stop Yamamoto, get some rest and we'll begin to fix this past tomorrow." Reborn said, hopping onto Yamamoto's shoulders and directed him to turn around. The Rain guardian wanted to disobey; however he complied with the Acrobaleno's request and left the room.
Hibari was left to his own devices as he gingerly touched the purple stone of his Vongola ring. He let a small smirk reached his face as he muttered, "Tsunayoshi became an omnivore."
"Shou-chan~ Can you please tell me where the Vongola rings disappear to?" A sugary voice asked towards a bleeding figure that was chained to the wall. Momentarily, the voice stopped to nibble a small marshmallow treat. However, it continued to direct the slashes on the figure's body.
A small painful grunt was heard as Shoichi struggled to hold his screams and his consciousness. His vision was blurry and he couldn't make out the towering figure over him. But, he knew it was his ex-leader Byakuran, with his snow white hair and twinkling violet eyes; Shoichi shivered in fright. However, he needed to stay strong for the Guardians to help the past Tsunayoshi.
'Itai…' He thought as another monstrous bruise formed on his stomach; he watched the blurred figure laugh at his pain.
"One second here equals a minute there…" Shoichi whispered, darkness taking over his vision.
'Save the cielo, save the sky Vongola guardians.'
To be continued...