"Fuuta-nii!" Lambo shouted from a hallway inside the Vongola headquarters. "Play with me, will ya?!"

Fuuta groaned. "Hang on, Mariko." He said into his cell phone before turning to Lambo. "I can't right now, Lambo I'm talking to someone."

Lambo huffed and snorted. "Fuuta-nii is stupid! All you ever want to do lately is talk to boobies!"

Fuuta's face flushed. "Hey!" He shouted. "That's a very inappropriate way to talk!"

Lambo stuck out his tongue before running off laughing. Lately, most days had been this way for ten year old Lambo. He would run around the hideout, yelling at someone to play with him and the only one who would ever oblige would be I-pin, the only person at headquarters who shared his age. Everyone else was too busy, even Fuuta who had school too worry about and was also old enough now to help out with simple mafia tasks. This left Lambo and I-Pin often alone or bored or both.

"This is so lame." Lambo complained as he kicked at the ground and peeked around a hallway to see if anyone was coming. No one. As a child, large hideouts seem empty when nobody's around.

Lambo sighed and leaned against the wall. He scratched his head, used to things falling out like candy or toys when he does so, he eagerly expected some form of entertainment to come rolling out. This didn't happen since his afro had straightened out a bit and was now a large, curly mess of hair that Mama had demanded be cut soon. It was no longer nappy enough to hold anything.

Lambo scoffed when he thought of this and looked to his plump red knees to see several bruises and bandages. This look was matched on his sleeved arms and face. Often enough in his boredom, Lambo would "train" by playing in the artillery room, which would consistently end in disaster. His clothes, a long-sleeved cow print shirt underneath a short-sleeved black shirt and some tan shorts, were dirty and smelly. They had been washed, but his adventures that he called training never ended in way that would leave him fresh and clean.

"I guess I'll go mess around with the weapons again." He mumbled, standing to go find the room filled with guns, bazookas, and ammo. Once the locked room was found, he tried to open the door, but a loud beeping startled him.

Immediately Bianchi arrived at the scene. "What in the world do you think you're doing?" She hollered.

"I was bored so I was going to shoot stuff and blow it up." Lambo said plainly while trying to yank the metal doors to the artillery open.

Bianchi rolled her eyes and picked Lambo up making the boy flail and scream with anger. "So you're the reason why ammo has been missing from the inventory and why we had to put an alarm, lock, and password here!"

"You stupids! Now how am I supposed to get in?!" Lambo shouted, pouting.

"That's the point, brat!" Bianchi retorted. She then set Lambo back down and pointed in the general direction of Gokudera's office. "If you're so bored, go play with my idiot brother, I don't think he's busy."

Lambo glared at Bianchi for a few moments before blowing a raspberry and running off, laughing triumphantly.

Bianchi exhaled deeply. "Maybe we should build a nursery as an attachment for the brat. Or a playground. Or something." She muttered to herself while walking off to complete more work.

"Stupidera!" Lambo yelled as he skidded into the dully lit office. "Play with me!" Lambo commanded, searching for the gray-haired man amongst several stacks of papers and books.

"Ah, ah, keep it down, will you?" Gokudera said behind a pile of manila folders filled with information. "I'm trying to get some rest." He grumbled with his head laying down on his desk and glasses messily placed on his face.

"But I don't have anything to do!" Lambo whined as he ran to Gokudera and crawled into his lap. "Hey, you can at least tell me a story or something."

"No way," Gokudera answered, sitting up and pulling his hair back into a pony tail. "Whenever I try to explain something to you for longer than twenty seconds, you never sit still!"

"But I'll try extra hard this time to pay attention!" Lambo promised with determination set on his face.

Gokudera looked at him closely and raised an eyebrow. After a while he agreed. "Fine. I'll tell you the story of how I met the tenth!"

Lambo nodded and opened his eyes wide with the power of focusing.

"You see, Reborn had called me over from Italy and told me that if I defeated the Japanese kid that was my age and the successor to the ninth Vongola boss," Gokudera said all in one breath. "Then I could be a candidate to become the tenth Vongola boss. I wasn't especially excited about that, but I did want to see this kid's strength."

Lambo remained unblinking.

Gokudera continued the story. "I transferred into the tenth's school and was put into the his class. The first terribly unforgivable thing I did was kick over the tenth's desk. It was a horrible act and I regret it to this day, but my terrible deeds do not end there! I went to go test the tenth's power and actually threw some bombs at him! Double bombs too!"

Lambo's eyes were still open.

"Then, right as I was going to toss my triple bombs…" Gokudera paused to add suspense. "I dropped them! At that moment, I thought it was the end of me! That the explosives would go boom and engulf me in a raging, violent fire in which my flesh would be stripped straight from my bone and give me no time to even scream or bleed! But before that could happen, the tenth defused the bombs and saved my precious one and only life, which, because of that event, I have now devoted to the tenth! Good story, huh?"

Lambo's resolute eyes were now dry and the white's were turning a thirsty red. Gokudera shoved the boy's eyelids shut.

"You dumb cow," He scolded. "Focus doesn't mean letting your eyes get all dehydrated! You were probably so concentrated on concentrating that you didn't even listen to the story!"

After closing his eyes and replenishing the fluid in them Lambo commented, "You were telling a story? All I heard was tenth, tenth, tenth!"

The anger the remark induced in Gokudera caused Lambo to snicker and dash to the other side of the desk. The man was about to say something to Lambo, but a phone hidden beneath papers rang. He pressed a button a beep was heard.

"Gokudera Hayato-san?" a woman said through the speaker. Patiently, Lambo stood there, afraid that the call would snatch Gokudera from him.

"Yes?" Gokudera said back, clearly sounding slightly irked.

"Someone is looking for you outside." The woman said.

"What? Who?"

"I don't know who she is. She's not part of the family or a friend of ours, so we're not letting her in. I think it best if you come meet her at the door."

"How do we know she's not dangerous?"

"I think you and the guards would be able to handle the scheme of a simple-minded assassin."

"True. I'll be there." Gokudera then hung up and looked at Lambo whose brow was furrowed and lip was shaking. "Sorry, Lambo," He said as gently as possible. "I've got to go. Why don't you go play with—"

"No!" Lambo shouted with snot leaking from his nose and tears forming in his eyes. "I hate you!" He cried as he rushed out the room.

"Lambo!" Gokudera called after him, but the defiant boy was already set on running away.

Stumbling around and sniffling, Lambo tried to think of something to do. I-Pin was at practice in order to learn and master many different styles of martial arts. Usually, when this training session was over, the two of them would spar, but she wouldn't be there to play for an hour or so. Lambo sat down on a chair outside a random office. He had been roaming around aimlessly, so he had no clue who's it was. When he took a look inside, there was no one there, but a plaque on the desk read, 'Hibari Kyouya – Cloud Guardian.' The boy froze up and hopped off the chair and backed away from the office.

As he left the area he thought, 'I remember what happened last time! I know not to screw around in there!'

"Okay," He said to himself while standing in the middle of the hallway. "Stupidera and his big sister are busy, Futa-nii is talking to boobies, I-Pin is practicing, Yama-chan and Lawn Head are in Italia, and Vongola is busy signing papers and making deals in his office." After picking a booger out his nose and flinging it to the floor, Lambo came to a decision. "Vongola will be so glad to be graced with my presence that he'll quit working and start amusing me! I know it! Gyahahaha!"

Unfortunately for Lambo, he is stupid. This plan was obviously not going to turn out how he hoped. Lambo slammed the large double doors to Tsuna's office open and leapt inside with a big, foolish grin. "The great Lambo is here!" He shouted proudly. "Have no fear! Gyahaha!" Around Tsuna's desk stood Ryohei and Yamamoto who had now been wishing that someone would've taught Lambo to read the atmosphrere.

"Lambo," Tsuna said seriously. "It's very nice to see you, but Ryohei and Takeshi just got back from Italy and are we need to talk about something extremely important. Can't you go and play with—"

"Shut up." Lambo murmured.

"Lambo!" Yamamoto said. "That was—"

"You shut up too!" Lambo roared. "I hate you and Stupidera and I-Pin and Futa-nii and everyone! I hate being here and I hate being a part of the Vongola! I never want to see any of your faces again 'cause the only person who ever cared is Mama!" He stormed out of the office, through the hallways, past Gokudera and the unfamiliar woman, and kept sprinting off until he was too tired to even cry.

Frozen with shock, Tsuna, Ryohei, and Yamamoto all stared at the doorway that Lambo had been standing in.

"Hey, boss," Ryohei said. "Somehow, I think you really pissed'im off."

Tsuna sighed. "Well, it's Lambo. I'm sure he'll just cry a bit and forget about it later. For now, we have more urgent issues to deal with…"

In the pale darkness of dusk, Lambo staggered about fearfully.

"I don't know my way to Mama's house." He sniveled. "Where does Mama live?"

"Lost?" A voice whispered from a shadow.

Lambo shivered and looked up at the figure before him. He wasn't quite sure what to say.

"I think that we need to…" Tsuna was saying as Gokudera entered the room. "Ah, it's good that you've joined us. We were just going over the strategy we were forming earlier."

Gokudera looked around the room. "Lambo's not here, either, huh?"

"Hm? Lambo?" Yamamoto asked. "He was here a while ago, but ran off."

"Yeah, I saw him run out the door." Gokudera said. "But I thought he would've come back by now. I called the girls over to keep him company and I-Pin's here too, but none of us can I find him."

"What do you mean you can't find him?" Tsuna inquired angrily, standing from the seat behind his desk.

Gokudera gulped and frowned. "We've looked everywhere and talked to everyone, but no one knows where he is. We even phoned Tenth's Mama. When we told her he's missing, she became really worried."

"Dammit!" Tsuna cursed, slamming a fist onto the desktop. "Come on! We have to go find him!"

"What about the—?"

"That doesn't matter anymore! He could be hurt or lost!" Tsuna's brow furrowed with anxiety. "God forbid anything worse."

"I don't think I know you." Lambo said as he followed the strange form. He shuddered and snorted up trickling snot while stars began to emerge within the blue blanket of the sky. 'I'm scared.' He thought. 'I just want to find Mama.'

"Don't be afraid." The figure said, smiling so that its teeth shined maliciously in the dim city lights. "I don't plan on hurting you. Just follow me. Didn't you say you wanted to see Mama?"

Lambo tried to swallow his fear. 'If I run, it might make him mad and he might hurt me, but if I keep up with this scary guy, he might seriously take me to Mama…'

"Anything?" Tsuna asked as several of the Vongola family and friends stood at the center of Namimori.

Everyone kept their heads down without a single sign of relief or joy.

"Lambo…" Tsuna said softly. "Where…?"

"Stop it, I'm scared!" Lambo shouted as the figure grabbed onto Lambo's wrist.

"But you want to see Mama, don't you?" The form coaxed.

"I never had to go this way to see Mama!"

"Oh? Then you'll learn a shortcut."

"I don't want to go through a creepy shack as a shortcut!"

"Then really how strong is will to go home?"

Lambo stopped his bickering and looked over the crumbling hut. Terror washed over him, but he couldn't go back. There was no longer a path backwards, only a suggested one ahead.