Hello! It's Yuii's birthday today (well technically yesterday now but I'm counting on the fact that the day's not over yet in some time zones) and this is my little birthday present for her. I hope you enjoy the short story! Especially you Yuii since it was written specifically for you. Reviews, favs and follows are sincerely appreciated. Cheers!
Disclaimer: I don't own KHR, only my plot
Warnings: Un-beta'ed, OOC-characters, crack, weird writing style and structuring
Tsuna was hunched over his desk, scribbling furiously at his paperwork. Why the sudden enthusiasm for that dreaded stack of torture? A cool barrel was digging into the back of his skull, courtesy of the World's Number 1 Hitman, Reborn. Enough said.
Sweating profusely, Tsuna gratefully scrawled his signature on the last two sheets of approved paperwork. He breathed an exhausted sigh of relief.
HE MADE IT OUT ALIVE!
However, the pressure on the back of his head never decreased. Instead, Leon was pushed even further into his skull. Tsuna winced in pain. Carefully leaning forward to ease the pressure, he whined at his personal devil, "Reborn! I'm done with all my paperwork! Can't you let me go now?"
Reborn hummed thoughtfully. "Who said you've finished all your paperwork?" he asked, smirking sadistically at the look of pure horror his words brought to his student's face.
"Hiiieeee?!" Tsuna shrieked, "You mean it's not over?!"
Right on cue, Gokudera walked in with another towering stack of paperwork in his hands. "Juudaime!" he called out, "More paperwork just came in from sorting."
He dumped the stack onto Tsuna's desk with an audible thump. The poor table groaned under the additional weight.
Tsuna stared at the monstrous pile with undisguised horror. He could just picture himself, sitting at his desk for the next two weeks, struggling to finish the teetering pile that made itself home on his desk. The very thought made him face-plant onto his desk. The abused desk could stand no more and promptly collapsed, sending Tsuna crashing to the ground, and his paperwork flying all around him.
Reborn snickered. "Congratulations Dame-Tsuna. You just created more paperwork for yourself by breaking your desk," he drawled, clearly entertained by Tsuna's suffering.
Not even bothering to pick himself up off the floor, Tsuna groaned weakly into the wreckage that was once his table. Now he would never get out of his damned office! Reborn always made sure everything he needed was brought in there so that he could NEVER escape his work. He hadn't seen any other human being apart from Reborn or the occasional maid for nearly a month! Now that he thought about it, when was the last time he had actually met his guardians outside their duties?
Tsuna lifted his head off the floor and gave Reborn the stink eye. "Reborn," he growled, "I haven't spent time with my guardians for nearly a month. You know I prioritise family over famiglia. I'm done with paperwork for now. I will spend time with my family WITH MY DYING WILL!"
Reborn silently appraised Tsuna, whose eyes glowed an unnatural burnt orange, determination etched into every line of his face. His lips twitched upwards in something that might have been close to approval. Dipping his head in acquisition, he spun on his heel and exited the office, Leon resting on his fedora.
Tsuna gaped at Reborn's retreating back. Had he really just won an argument with THE Reborn?
His Hyper Intuition kindly informed him that this wasn't over.
Ah, screw it.
Tsuna planned to make full use of his temporary vacation.
And of course, it came to bite him in the butt. Since when was the Universe ever kind to Tsuna?
Having gone to bed in his comfy 4-poster, king sized bed, it was rather disorienting for Tsuna to wake up the next day, tied up and gagged on a helicopter. It was heart-attack inducing to wake up in that situation to Hibari's death glare. Combine that, with Mukuro cuffed and gagged to his left side, leering at him, and you get a very panic-inducing situation. Add to that, the volatile combination of a highly defensive Gokudera and a grinning Yamamoto similarly tied up together, and you get a literally highly explosive situation. Craning his neck, he eyed in disbelief, two shiny silver duct-taped mummies whom he deduced to be Ryohei and Lambo from their prominent hair colour and hair style respectively.
Waaaaait a minute, where was Chrome? You could never find one half of the Mist without the other. It was as if they were joined at the hip! So how come Mukuro was there, but not Chrome?
Poor Tsuna wasn't given much time to think about that though.
He and his guardians, 'cept Hibari - he jumped out on his own, were promptly thrown out of the helicopter and into the canopy of the trees right below them. Tsuna screamed his signature "Hhhhiiieeeee!" in shock, but it came out more like, "Mmmmeeeeee!" due to the gag.
Oh well. He tried.
And then, Tsuna was very personally introduced to the trees of the forest below him.
Ow.
Owwww.
Ouch.
Ack!
Fate seemed to want him to smash into every single damned branch of the damned tree on the way down! As he fell the last couple of meters to the leaf-littered ground waiting to receive him, he was bruised and aching and more than relieved to meet it. Face-planting into the ground, he experienced a rush of déjà-vu. He sighed. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately, the sighing. And the face-planting.
Mukuro took that moment to make his presence know by falling onto Tsuna and squashing him. He had completely forgotten that Mukuro was cuffed to him!
Tsuna mentally screamed, "Curse you Reborn!"
Leon happily trotted to Tsuna's face and licked his cheek. Oh well, Tsuna would just have to deal with whatever mess Reborn decided to throw him into. As usual...
After a lot of pushing, shoving, stumbling and screaming, everyone was located and untied. Leon had turned into a key which had unlocked the cuffs connecting Tsuna and Mukuro as well as Gokudera and Yamamoto. During the entire process of getting untied, Ryohei and Lambo suffered the most. They had lost A LOT of hair in the process of removing the duct tape and their skin was now a rather striking shade of red. Lambo was crying a river in his agony and even Ryohei was in far too much pain to even whimper an "EXTREME!".
Duct tape was EVIL. EVIL I say!
Tsuna shook his head in exasperation. He never knew what went through Reborn's head sometimes. Only he would find pleasure in tormenting all of them like this. Speak of the devil, where was he? It was not like him to not grab a front-row seat to the TV show that was Tsuna's life now.
And then, Leon turned into a giant TV.
What the heck.
A TV? Could you even get reception here? And where was "here" in the first place?! How was a TV supposed to work without anywhere to plug it into for electricity anyway?
Perhaps Leon was a satellite-connected, solar-powered TV! That would explain it! Wouldn't be the strangest thing that has happened in Tsuna's life.
The Leon-TV flickered to life. Reborn could be seen sitting at Tsuna's desk, fingers wrapped possessively around a steaming mug of coffee. He smirked evilly at them. "Aaaahhhh, Dame-Tsuna and friends! Enjoying your trip so far?"
"No!" Tsuna shrieked at the screen.
Reborn ignored him. As usual...
"You see, my dame student here was complaining about how he hasn't been able to spend time with his Guardians lately. So, I took the liberty to arrange a little camping trip for you all. To reduce the possibility of you all razing this place to the ground, God knows the amount of deforestation going on is bad enough without you lot adding to it, I made sure to confiscate all your usual implements of destruction, Vongola rings and box weapons."
Tsuna eyed the steaming coffee enviously. It was pretty chilly in the forest.
Reborn paused to sip his coffee before he continued, "You have the whole day to get out of this forest or it's double the training for all of you. Think of it as a team-bonding exercise. Leon is there to baby-sit all of you for me. See you soon."
The screen turned black and Leon reverted to his chameleon self. Tsuna raised an eyebrow. Did Reborn think them so pathetic that a CHAMELEON had to baby-sit them? True, it was a magical shape-shifting chameleon owned by the World's No. 1 Hitman, but still. That was a new low...
Suddenly, a loud growl rang through the forest. Tsuna almost leapt out of his skin. He barely managed to restraint the shriek that almost left his throat. Were there BEARS in this forest? Tsuna didn't want to die! He was too young to die! There were so many things he wanted to do!
Yamamoto gave a sheepish chuckle and scratched his head. "Hahaha. Guess I'm still hungry. The baby didn't give us much time to eat breakfast this morning."
Everyone just stared at him.
Now that he thought about it, Tsuna felt pretty hungry too. And unlike Yamamoto, he didn't get the chance to eat anything at all before being literally thrown head-first into their current predicament. This was probably one of those times Reborn expected him to "act like a boss" wasn't it. Oh well, it could have been worse. He might have had to deal with both his Guardians AND the Varia.
Tsuna shuddered. Now THAT was a terrifying thought.
"Ok, Hayato and Takeshi, you two look for something for all of us to eat." Tsuna decided.
"YES JUUDAIME!" Gokudera shouted, eyes sparkling with delight at being given an order from his precious Juudaime. "I WILL NOT DISAPPOINT YOU! COME YAKYUU BAKA!" He proceeded to drag a laughing Yamamoto behind him, while lecturing him at the top of his lungs on how they must "BRING ONLY THE BEST FOOD FOR JUUDAIME!"
Tsuna shook his head fondly. "Lambo and Onii-san, could you collect some firewood so that we can cook whatever Gokudera and Yamamoto bring back?" he asked.
"NO PROBLEM LITTLE BRO! LAMBO AND I WILL BRING BACK LOADS OF FIREWOOD TO THE EXTREME!" Ryohei yelled. "COME ON LAMBO!" Ryohei then proceeded to drag a complaining Lambo to search for "EXTREME FIREWOOD!"
"Hibari-san, could you-" Tsuna began.
Hibari glared at Tsuna. "I don't take orders from anyone, herbivore," he snarled. He then disappeared to Lord knows where.
Well...
That defeated the whole point of this being a bonding exercise. How did Reborn get Hibari to come anyway? You know what, nevermind. He didn't want to know.
And that left him with Mukuro. Oh joy...
Tsuna stared at Mukuro. Mukuro stared back.
"Oya little bunny, what am I supposed to do?" asked Mukuro, raising an eyebrow. "Even the birdie was supposed to do something, though he was too chicken to do it. Kufufufu."
Tsuna sweatdropped. That was so like Mukuro. "Ummmm...we can set up camp before the others get back."
"I suppose possessing your body will have to wait then..." Mukuro sighed.
Tsuna stared at Mukuro. Mukuro stared back.
"Don't look at me. I spent most of this life in a water tank. And camping isn't exactly one of the skills you pick up in Hell you know," he said innocently.
Tsuna facepalmed. He really should have thought through this whole thing better.
He sighed.
Again.
He probably should stop making a habit of it, shouldn't he. Reborn would LITERALLY beat it out of him if he found out. Knowing Reborn, he would find out about it within 2 seconds of him stepping through the gates of the Vongola Mansion. Heck, it might even take him only 1!
2 unexpected thuds behind him made him whirl around in shock. The twitching, bruised forms of Gokudera and Yamamoto met his eyes. Wait a second. There was a pair of leather shoes beside them. His eyes slowly trailed up to find those shoes attached to a pair of pant-clad legs, which were attached to a suit-clad torso, which belonged to one completely, utterly, terrifying Cloud Guardian.
Said guardian growled at him, "Control your minions herbivore."
"Hibari-san," Tsuna sighed exasperatedly. He could just feel a migraine building. "They were only following orders to search for food."
Gokudera lifted his head weakly off the ground and groaned, "You...bas...tard..."
"Weak", Hibari snorted. Turning to face Tsuna, he continued, "We're stuck here."
Processing data...
WHAT?!
At least that explained why he came back...This day was going splendidly, wasn't it.
"What do you mean by that Hibari-san?" asked Tsuna wearily.
"We're on a plateau with a sheer 500m drop down on all sides," Hibari replied.
OF COURSE REBORN HAD DONE THAT…..that nasty, sneaky, pint-sized hitman!
In Tsuna's office, Reborn sneezed. "That Dame student of mine must be talking bad about me. I'll triple his training when he gets back..."
Gokudera and Yamamoto had, by then, managed to stagger back onto their feet. Unfortunately for them, they were mowed down again by Lambo and Ryohei. Who were being chased by hornets. Really angry hornets.
Now might be a good time to start running.
"RRRUUUUNNNNNN!" Tsuna yelled.
Everyone took off sprinting. Hey, they might have actually broken a world record or two there...
As they ran away, Tsuna scowled at the thought of all the heartless deities that were out there, laughing at their misfortune. Of all times to be without Flames, it HAD to be when they were being chased by angry hornets.
A FLAMETHROWER WOULD BE NICE RIGHT ABOUT NOW, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!
Leon, who had hitched a ride on Tsuna's shoulder and apparently shared the same mind-reading capabilities of his owner, took that moment to grant Tsuna his wish, and turned into a giant green flamethrower. Tsuna's face visibly brightened before turning into dismay.
He shrieked, "Where's the instruction manual?!"
If chameleons could facepalm, Leon would certainly have done so. Seems like his partner's second student was just as dame as Reborn complained he was. He shifted form again, into a flamethrower that had a big button with the word "ON" written on it.
Tsuna, being the genius he was, slammed his hand on the button and proceeded to roast those damn hornets alive. Cue evil laugh.
Nobody threatens his family and gets away with it alive. Not even hornets.
His Guardians stopped running and started staring. Their boss could be pretty darn bloodthirsty when he wanted to be...
Coming off his bloodlust high, Tsuna realised that, well, that still left them in the middle of nowhere.
'Fan-tastic!', he thought. 'Bring out the drums and the maracas and let's have a party! Oh, and BRING YOUR OWN FOOD YA DAMN GATECRASHERS! WE HAVE NONE! (If you bring, please share. We're starving.)'
Back to the problem at hand...
Tsuna blinked. There was a large pile of firewood in front of him.
Huh.
Apparently, Gokudera had acted as his faithful right-hand man and had proceeded to arrange for all the firewood to be gathered with the help of the more, AMIABLE, Guardians. And the end result was the pile of firewood at Tsuna's feet.
At least they were getting somewhere...Hooray!
"Should we start a fire Juudaime? I remember watching one of those survival shows, was it Bear Grylls Into the Wild?, where he said that a fire is our number one priority." asked Gokudera, eyes shining in excitement.
Tsuna thought about it. "Well, it's as good a place to start as any," he said.
And so, the guardians gathered in a circle around the firewood. Yes, even Mukuro and Hibari. Amazing isn't it!
They all stared at the firewood.
"Say Gokudera," began Tsuna, "did you happen to bring your lighter with you?"
"I'M SORRY JUUDAIME! BUT, REBORN-SAN CONFISCATED ALL MY LIGHTERS AND CIGARETTES ALONG WITH ALL MY DYNAMITE SAYING THAT I WAS A WALKING FIRE HAZARD. I HAVE FAILED YOU! I AM NOT FIT TO BE YOUR RIGHT HAND MAN!" yelled Gokudera, and proceeded to bang his head harshly on the ground.
Tsuna sweatdropped. Reborn was certainly right in that aspect. Lord knows the whole forest would have been blown to smithereens if not for Reborn's intervention. Especially with Takeshi's habit of antagonising Gokudera simply by existing.
Once again, Leon came to the rescue.
No, he didn't turn into a flamethrower again. He burped out a box of waterproof matches and promptly went to sleep. Everyone stared at the matchbox, and then at Leon, and back at the matchbox again. Oh well, they'd have to make do with what they had.
Tsuna tried to light one of the matches. It snapped in half. He tried again. And again. And again. Each matchstick snapped into pieces. Tsuna scowled at them. Stupid matchsticks.
"Hahahah. Shall I have a go, Tsuna?" asked Yamamoto. Tsuna nodded and tossed him the matchbox. He deftly caught it and attempted to light the matchstick. His attempts ended quite like Tsuna's, with a growing pile of broken matchsticks at his feet.
Gokudera snorted and snatched the matchbox away from Yamamoto.
"Give me that yakyuu baka! I'll show you how to properly light matches," said Gokudera.
He tried to light the matches. Unfortunately, the results were the same as before. A growing pile of broken matchsticks and no fire.
"Oya little puppy, a smoker who can't light a match? How pathetic," mocked Mukuro.
"YOU-" yelled Gokudera as he lunged for the male Mist, intent on wringing his neck.
"Hayato," warned Tsuna, tired from the events earlier and who had no patience left for dealing with the antics of his Guardians.
Scowling horribly, Gokudera snarled at Mukuro, "How about you try then!" while throwing the matchbox at his face.
Catching the matchbox easily with one hand, Mukuro confidently pulled out a match and he too attempted to light it. Well, we have to give Mukuro some credit. He managed to light the match, but the fire refused to catch onto the firewood. Yamamoto hurriedly claimed back the matchbox when he realised that there were only 2 matches left.
Yamamoto decided to make one last ditch attempt to start the fire. Drawing out a match, Yamamoto gently positioned the match against the side of the matchbox at an exact 45° and exerted a carefully controlled amount of force while drawing it against the side of the matchbox.
The match flared to life.
Everyone froze. Nobody could believe their luck. Finally, SUCCESS! Yamamoto hurriedly but cautiously transferred the match to the firewood, which after a few heart-stopping seconds, sputtered to life.
'HOORAY! FINALLY!' yelled Tsuna mentally as he did a little happy dance in his head.
While the above hullabaloo was going on, Lambo had picked up the matchbox and tried to light the remaining match. The match easily lit up.
"I don't see why everyone was making such a huge fuss earlier," drawled Lambo. "It was actually pretty easy."
"We've already lit the campfire. You can throw away the match," said Gokudera dismissively.
"Alright then," replied Lambo, shrugging his shoulders. He threw the match over his shoulder.
It was still lit.
Everyone, excluding Hibari since he couldn't care less, yelled a very cinematic "NNNNOOOOO!" as they ran in slow-mo towards the match in order to stop it from falling.
They were too late. The lit match fell on the floor. Nothing happened.
"LAMBO! You shouldn't have done that!" yelled Tsuna in relief. "You could have accidently-"
WHOOSH!
The leaves below the match caught fire.
"started a forest fire," finished Tsuna in dismay. Why did this keep happening to him?!
It was the middle of the dry season, so all the vegetation around them was highly flammable. And as you could conclude, the fire spread from the leaves on the ground to the trees and onward.
"RUN TO THE EXTREME!" yelled Ryohei.
As everyone ran from the forest fire, yes, including Hibari this time, Tsuna screamed out in frustration.
"HOW COME IT TAKES A WHOLE BOX OF MATCHES TO START A CAMPFIRE, BUT ONE CARELESS MATCH STARTS A FOREST FIRE!"
That's all I've got at the moment. Hope you guys enjoyed it and hopefully I'll see you around! Later folks!