Situation: FUBAR

Summary: After an Epic Screw-up on Haru's part ends up involving her is a world…and situation…that she is pathetically unequipped to handle.

Disclaimer: I'm just borrowing the characters.

Haru Miura was, even at 35 years old, like a kitten, that is to say, she was exceedingly curious and able to get into trouble and mischief, usually when there is none to be found, with an ease that would have turned Loki green with envy…and, she was able to get out of said mischief with an ease that Tsuna had yet to accomplish.

Admittedly, her ability to get into said situations would have diminished greatly had Haru had the common sense to put her curiosity on hold for just a moment, and thought about what she was doing…

That is not to say, however, that she is unintelligent. Truthfully, and in spite of what Hayato said, her curiosity and her penchant for dangerous/surreal situations actually helped her intelligence, in that she was able to use her knowledge and skill to get out of said situation.

And, for what it's worth, she DID attend Midori Middle School (which was prestigious, elite, all girls' school)…and then she did manage to full-ride to Oxford University, just for the hell of it…so no, she was not unintelligent.

Alright, maybe she was never going to be a genius at Math and Physics like Hayato, or an engineering genius like Spanner or Shoichi…but then, they had not been able to locate the lost scrolls of Vongola Quinto, or translate them into legible Italian, and then decode the damned thing. Nope. That was all Haru.

And yes, actually, she was very proud of that fact. After all, none of Tsuna's guardians could have done what she did.

Not that she would have let them, even if they knew that she had managed to translate said papers. Oh, they knew that she had found them, but she had…er…neglected to mention that she had managed to translate them…and that she memorized them.

After all, if they knew that then Tsuna would have assigned Hayato or Takeshi to babysit her to make sure that she didn't do the very thing that she was planning on doing.

It was labeled, after all, "IN CASE OF EMERGENCY…" and, while the Consetti Problem wasn't an emergency, per say, but you never know when an Emergency will develop, and having something that Vongola Quinto swore by…well, it couldn't hurt the family. Right?

With this reasoning in her head, and having convinced herself that this was a good idea, and being curious as to what, exactly, Vongola Quinto created when he was designing this…Haru managed to beg out of a, relatively unimportant meeting…It's not as if the Cavallone Famiglia is going to turn on them after 20 years after all…and snuck to the clearing that she had prepared for this very purpose.

She started drawing the array with a small stick that she had left in the clearing, being careful that there were no mistakes made, and trying to quell her nervous excitement. After all, of someone were to come upon her, she had no ready story as to why she was outside rather than in the manor…

After 15 minutes of careful drawing and writing, Haru regarded the circle on the ground, and compared it to the identical sketch that was in the book that she was holding, and she nodded. The array was complete, and was drawn exactly as Quinto had specified.

She flipped through the pages of the book rereading notes that she had memorized ages ago, as to what was necessary to activate the array.

The first thing that was necessary was a piece of the person who created the array. Haru added a small lock of hair and a drop of blood, hoping that that would be enough to power the array.

The second thing that was necessary was a person with Sky Flames to power the array. This, however, Haru had a problem with. She didn't have Sky Flames, hers were lightning…and, for obvious reasons, she couldn't go to Tsuna and ask him to power the array.

She also couldn't go to Dino…as the older man would refuse and tell Tsuna what she was up too and he would yell and…no. It was just best that Dino and Tsuna were left in the dark for the moment. For the same reason, she was unable to go to Yuni. The three of them would take her research from her for her own good, and she would definitely get yelled at.

Xanxus was off limits because, well, he was scary and Haru didn't want to deal with his temper at the moment…and he was doing something in Spain with the rest of the Varia anyway.

Byakuran, however, would help her. In fact, he would have been more than happy to help her power an unknown array that would have an unknown result…sadly, he was in a meeting in Russia, and wouldn't be back until after Christmas…which was three months away

So Haru did the only thing she could. She shifted, and improvised, and decided to use her own Flames to power the array. After all, Lightning Flames and Sky Flames were only a little different, in fact, they were almost, practically, the same, and there shouldn't be any reason that she wouldn't be able to power the array. And, there shouldn't be too much of a difference, really, her flames were just as good as Tsuna's, after all.

Having managed to convince herself, which wasn't all that hard since she WANTED to know what the array did, Haru placed her hands on the array and started feeding her flames into it.

It was harder than she thought it would be…the array seemed to want to reject her flames, but was forced to take them anyway…which made the circle glow a dull green color, which soon became a brighter shade of green as the array started to accept the unmatched flames.

It took 30 minutes but soon enough the clearing was lit up with the eerie green glow of Lightning flames…and there was an electric feel to the air in the clearing…it was empowering, and slightly awe-inspiring.

And then the array stopped glowing, and the feeling went away, and Haru slumped, defeated. Nothing happened. No flash of light. No bang; just…nothing.

With a sigh, she packed up her stuff and started to leave the clearing, intending to clean up the following day, when she heard a faint humming noise…a noise that started growing louder and louder with every passing second…

And then there was a flash of blinding light, and a strange and painful feeling of someone squeezing her lungs in a vice…and she blacked out.

The first thing that Haru noted when she finally woke up was the pounding headache and the aching body. It rather felt like Spanner had taken to beating on her temples with some hammers…and that the five-year-old Lambo had used her body as a trampoline and no one bothered to tell her.

The second thing she noticed was the scent of lavender, which was odd. The clearing didn't have any lavender in it. In fact, the clearing didn't have much of anything in it, seeing as it had been October and all of the plants had died. As the thought made her head pound even more, she ignored it.

The third thing was that she was lying on something soft, like a mattress, and that she seemed to be wrapped in a blanket. She assumed that Tsuna had noticed the bright light, and had someone bring her back to the manor, and that she was resting in her bedroom…where the lavender scent came from, she still had no idea.

The fourth thing she noticed when the headache abated enough that she could open her eyes. She was no longer outside, as she had assumed, but she wasn't in her bedroom in the Vongola Manor either…the ceiling was pale yellow, for one, and there weren't any rooms in the Vongola Manor that were pale yellow.

The final thing she noticed as she slipped out of the bed, it seemed to be very, very tall. She never had to fall out of bed.

Confused, and bewildered, Haru wandered across the room to the mirror, to make sure that she hadn't injured herself in any way when she passed out, and froze.

She swallowed hard, twice, blinked three times, and, when the image didn't change, she pressed both of her hands to her mouth…and screamed.

Staring back at her was a three year old little girl, with fluffy brown hair and big brown eyes.

"Oh…shit." Haru breathed.