Tsunayoshi Sawada ran his hands through his hair for what could have only been the hundredth time that day. At his side, a woman with gray hair and cloaked in a lab coat was preparing a syringe of liquid that shown a faint pink in the light. A concoction that was meant to be injected into the waiting arm of the mafia heir.

Tsuna resisted the urge to tug at his fringe once more in concealed anxiety, the entire situation a few steps outside of his comfort zone. All the while his golden-brown eyes continued to watch her, the thumb of his free hand rubbing against his boss ring which warmed at the contact. Natsu, himself, seemed to vibrate lightly at Tsuna's touch; likely mimicking his master's own twisting nerves.

It had been a mission from Nono that brought him here, sitting in one of the sterile white offices of the MBI.

MBI, or Mid Bio Informatics, is a large conglomerate that had surfaced in the past twenty years and was quick to climb to the top charts, almost topping Vongola's own civilian corporation VMA. Nono, not eager to start a war or anything of the like with the MBI, let this giant leap slide. That was until the MBI began expanding into other areas, gaining enough control to take over Tokyo and even hold a standing army of its own. It's power was said to rival the Vongola's own and, despite keeping to Japan, it still set many of the higher members on edge. More than likely it had to do with the connection that many of Vongola's higher officials and the heir himself had to Japan, and the slight risk to their families the MBI could prove to be.

The most openly disgruntled of all was naturally Kyoya Hibari himself, having used the influence of the Vongola to claim the entirety of Japan under his control. It was all anyone in the Vongola could do to prevent the Cloud Guardian from causing a national incident by "biting to death" the chairman of the MBI.

In a bid for peace and to soothe Tsuna's Guardian, Nono staged talks with Minaka Hiroto in order to try and come to an understanding. Tsuna himself wasn't present for these talks having been busy at the time stopping a war between the Baron Famiglia and the Stratos Famiglia.

Kormac Baron took offense to Mikhail Stratos refusing his daughter Angela's affections, despite said daughter being only 14 while Mikhail was 27. Kormac claimed it was an insult, while Mikhail maintained that playing along with Angela's affections would have been unethical and morally reprehensible. Mikhail himself, on top of being 11 years older than Angela, was also engaged. And his "scorning of Angela's affections" was him merely telling her that it wouldn't work out and proposing to set Angela up with his kid brother who was closer to her age. Despite the fair explanation and reasoning, Kormac continued actively finding ways to take offense at Mikhail's actions. Due to Kormac's hostility Tsuna himself had to stage talks between the two, as well as resist banging his head on the table at the stupidity of the matter, and couldn't be present at Nono's meeting whether he wanted to or not.

It proved not to be that big of a deal though, for the two were quick to come to a mutual agreement, one that involved Tsuna himself. No sooner that the 19 year old returned home was he told to start packing to leave again.

It so happened to turn out that Tsuna himself was to be used as a bargaining chip. Mr. Hiroto demanded a "show of goodwill" in the form of Nono allowing him to host one of the Vongola's higher members. This would both act as insurance that the Vongola wouldn't attack and allow for the Vongola to safely snoop to their heart's content, something mutually beneficial. Naturally Nono, who had been a mafia boss for 60 years and rarely encountered things like this ending so simply, was suspicious but ultimately decided with Reborn's input to agree.

Also under Reborn's urging, Tsuna was to be the one sent rather than one of his Guardians or the CEDEF. Most of Tsuna's Guardians were known to be eccentric, even more-so when Tsuna wasn't around to temper their more volatile traits, and the CEDEF members screamed military just as much as the Varia. Tsuna himself, being such a pure sky, would be able to naturally inspire trust leading to people unconsciously lowering their guards around him. That, mixed with his training, would put Tsuna in a position to get any information he needed and completely take down the MBI should it reach such a point.

Tsuna, for his part, was weary at the prospect of being a glorified hostage for roughly a year but nonetheless willing to do it. His guardians though, well there was a reason he left in the middle of the night. Sadly Reborn caught him, turning what was supposed to be a 3 AM departing time to 6 AM with "last minute preparations". But, though he would never admit it, the young mafioso was glad that Reborn cared.

Needless to say, Tsuna ended up sleeping through most of the ride there and had to change before he left the plane lest his clothes be ripped up and torn when he went to meet his host.

"Tsunayoshi-san, I am ready to give you your shot now," the woman's voice snapped him out of his thoughts. He couldn't help the small sigh as he released his grip on his ring and moved to push up his left sleeve to reveal the lean muscle of his upper arm.

The woman's eyebrow rose, but she silently dismissed whatever she was about to say. Instead she leaned closer, readying the needle to enter. There was a faint pinch, the sensation of something being pushed in, and then it was done and she was as far away from him as she could politely be.

"Am I good to go?" Tsuna asked, already standing and pulling his sleeve back down. The tender site protested the rub of fabric lightly, but the brunette dismissed it with ease. It was nothing compared to the irritating pull of tape when an IV was pulled out, a feeling he was sadly very accustomed to.

"Yes. That should do it. Just call back if you experience any allergic reactions to the vaccine," the doctor replied briskly before waving him out. All the while she was murmuring to herself about Minaka being a fool. She herself didn't seem enthused about the entire situation.

Tsuna for one couldn't help but agree, as the faint niggling of his Hyper Intuition faded in time to his footsteps toward the elevator. This situation was fishy, no matter how it was spun. It was no surprised that what he was given wasn't really a "vaccine for a virus outbreak in Tokyo". His intuition spotted the lie as it was told. It was only through his confidence in Vongola, which was beaten into him by one particularly frightening Hitman, that he was able to take the "vaccine" without batting an eye. Anything the vaccine did, whether it be poison or something less harmful, he was all but confident that the Vongola could reverse it.

Though that didn't make him exactly happy that he had been injected with Primo knows what. His only comfort was that his intuition didn't register it as deadly or particularly harmful.

Tsuna paused his internal grumbling long enough to press the elevator call button before he allowed himself to settle back into his thoughts. All the while a sick heat had began to pool in his gut, likely the result of nerves that had been present since the plane ride. No matter how it was spun, Tsuna was at a disadvantage here. Mr. Hiroto held all the cards, he just was along for the ride in hopes that he would be free to act should the situation arise.

The mafia heir pushed those thoughts down and decided to focus his energy more on getting to the apartment he was to stay in and having a nice hot shower. He would worry about what happened next in the morning, however irresponsible that attitude may be. Frankly the 8 hour time difference was getting to him and to make matters worse the start of a headache was beginning to form behind his eyes, not improving his work ethic any.

He pushed past the desire to just curl up in the hallway then and there as the elevator sang it's arrival and revealed the nauseating crowd already in it. It was all Tsuna could do to maturely step into the group of warm bodies and wait for his stop like a proper polite adult rather than simply running to the closest window and flying out of it.

As convenient as his flames where, they were a hell and a half to explain. But maybe that could have been easier than Tsuna's current situation, surrounded by the smells of caffeine and depression as the office drones tiredly cluster around half-hearted conversations.

Finally, at long last the elevators open and Tsuna is the first one out. His chocolate mess of hair a blur that would likely be passed around in rumors about the speed of the handsome and wealthy stranger that screamed Italian despite his Japanese features. Tsuna couldn't bring himself to worry about the rumors and whispers as he ducked for the door.

The faint hum of a security scanner passed over his ears, but the brunette was all too used to it and did little to slow his pace to the sidewalk where his orange Kawasaki was waiting. He hardly even spared a minute to pull on his helmet before zooming onto the street to join the motor-traffic of Tokyo.

All was going well, shaping up to be a routine driving trip through a city and toward his apartment. That was until the throbbing started. The previous tapping of a pain in his head had built up into a full on pound that made his sight blur and the lights leave awkward trails that refused to be blinked away. Meanwhile his stomach refused to be still, the previous warmth now an aching inferno as if he had eaten his own sky flame.

None of the known poisons that were beaten into Tsuna's head seemed to fit the symptoms. Heck nothing that could have been given to him would have so successful circumvented his Hyper Intuition, but whatever this was did. If it was in fact a toxin, it would have had to be handmade and initially something entirely harmless, which wouldn't have been difficult for a pharmaceutical compan-

BANG!

A new pain took over the two previous ones, as his back impacted painfully with the cement. A few feet away his motorcycle laid sputtering on the road, wedged underneath a truck who decided now was a good time to run a red light, something that Tsuna would have noticed if he had been in any shape to pay attention.

The brunette's already blurry sight took on a doubled quality as he registered the warm red liquid trailing down his head. Tsuna was fainting aware of the silver haired man leaning over him, a half finished cigarette poking out of his mouth as he yelled at the mafia heir to stay awake. But it seemed the blow to the head was enough to push Tsuna's exhaustion over the edge and he greeted unconsciousness as darkness washed over him.

.:HXH:.

Homura for his part, continued to add to the growing string of cuss words as he watched the brunette's honey eyes slide shut.

What was supposed to be a routine smoke break turned south so quickly. One minute he was minding his business, enjoying the familiar puff of smoke tainting his lungs, then the next there is a horrible squeal of tires as metal meets metal in the familiar sounds of a wreck.

As honorable a man as the silverette was, he would have been happy to turn his back on such civilian troubles that he had no place getting involved in. But his horrible luck struck again as the sound of skin hitting pavement sounded hardly a foot away from him, followed by the impact of a motorcycle helmet against his shin. Against his better judgement, Homura turned to look and found a guy no older than him crumpled against the ground bleeding from his head and a few other cuts dotting his form.

Throwing caution to the wind, he approached the brunette only to watch as the guy's eyes started to close and refused to open even with all of Homura's yells. So, being the good Samaritan he apparently now was, he barked at all the gawkers to call an ambulance or something and busied himself with checking to see if the guy was alive and trying to wake him back up.

Even when the ambulance came and gave Homura the opening to simply leave the guy to be taken care of by paramedics and let the hospital deal with finding family and all that, his conscience outweighed common sense. Without a second thought, he jumped into the ambulance and rode with the guy to the hospital. All the while he continued to assure himself that it wasn't because of the faint tingling that shot up his arm as he checked the brunette's pulse. After all it was that Minato kid he reacted to… right?

||AUTHOR'S NOTE||

I'm sorry if the first chapter is boring. I was just trying to give all the exposition information needed and introduce you to the start of the story. It should get more interesting from here, I promise. I just needed to get the start out of the way and decided to go for a more direct approach as opposed to a bunch of fluff.

As with everyone, I enjoy reviews. So until next time, tell me what you think and I will try to update soon, meaning hopefully there won't be months between chapters. Wish me luck that all goes well and I can update semi-regularly.

~Aureux