SkyGem: Ahaha! Thanks so much for the reviews, and you know, I just knew when I wrote the last parallel world in the previous chapter that it would make a lot of controversy! Anyways, most of you have said that seven is a young age to make that kind of commitment, didn't you? And I'm sorry if I didn't explain it properly, but they weren't getting married then. The situation was more like they knew it wasn't 'right' for them to be together, so they came to see what their leaders thought. Anyways, it's not too uncommon for young kids to promise to marry one of their friends when they're older! It's just that in this case, the other friend is a guy. Got it? Okay! Here's the next chapter!
"Sakura! Can you come help me with the laundry?"
"Coming, okaa-san! Let me just finish praying!" the sixteen-year-old called to her mother before turning back to the little shrine they had in their living room that was dedicated to their gods. Putting her hands together, she bowed her head and whispered, "Please watch over me again today, Sora-kami and minna-san."
Then, lighting a stick of incense, she got up and went to help her mother.
Looking out the window, though, a small frown marred her features. "Looks like Ame-kami and Arashi-kami are really worried today," Sakura murmured to herself as she watched the storm raging outside, strong winds whipping the trees about, the bigger than normal raindrops splashing onto surfaces almost violently, which was quite unusual for their normally very gentle rain god.
And it was then that Sakura noticed, with a shock, that there was a lone figure standing outside, in the middle of the nearly deserted street, looking up at the sky as he, it was definitely a he, was completely drenched, having no coat or umbrella to protect himself from the rain.
Without even thinking, Sakura quickly grabbed an umbrella and let herself out of the house, feeling a multitude of drops fall on her before she was able to get the umbrella to open.
Once she had it opened, though, it offered a bit of protection, and she quickly made her way to where the figure was standing.
He didn't seem to notice her approaching, and only looked at her when her umbrella cut off his view of the sky.
Sakura felt a shiver run up her spine when her eyes met his warm brown ones. An almost sad smile graced his face, and the teen was completely frozen in her spot; there was a kind of ethereal beauty around him, in his dripping ebony locks and delicate cheekbones. He seemed almost inhuman, and a small part of Sakura's brain suggested that maybe he wasn't. Quickly shaking her head to get the weird thoughts out, Sakura looked back at the male, who seemed about her age, to see that he was staring at her.
"It looks like Inazuma-kami has gone missing," he said in a voice that strangely reminded Sakura of raindrops splashing to earth.
Looking back up at the sky, Sakura noticed for the first time that there was no lightning flashing across the sky, lighting up the heavens, as there usually was. "Even Kumo-kami seems a bit worried," observed Sakura almost absent-mindedly as she looked up at the intimidating black storm clouds.
There was a chuckle from the guy beside her that brought to mind an image of spring water trickling over rocks, and he said, "It's rare to see that guy showing emotion."
Sakura looked over at him, about to ask what he meant, but was cut off when there was a shout of frustration that sounded almost like thunder, and both turned to see yet another strangely beautiful guy approaching them. This one had silky gray locks like liquid moonlight and sea green eyes; his appearance seemed almost haphazard, despite every hair, every fold of his clothes, being exactly in place.
"There you are, Takeshi! What the hell have you been doing all this time? The brat's been found already!" shouted the new arrival in a grumbling roar, and Sakura jumped. Not because of his voice, but because of the name he had just uttered.
Just then, there was a crackle of lightning in the sky, and a smile crossed her companion's face.
"That's great," said the boy now known as Takeshi just as the rain lightened up to a drizzle before stopping altogether. "Now Tsunayoshi can finally relax."
At the mention of this particular name, Sakura felt her heart speed up to twice it's normal rhythm. These people…no way…
Suddenly, Takeshi turned to smile at Sakura, saying, "Thank you for the help, miss."
Sakura merely averted her eyes, saying in a breathless voice, "I-It was a pleasure…Ame-sama."
And without looking back, she turned and ran back to her house to the sound of a slightly amused chuckle.
"Look! That's him!"
"Can you see him? What does he look like?"
"Kyaa! The new crown prince is so handsome!"
Tsuna fought down the blush that was threatening to rise in his cheeks as he tried to ignore the whispers. The petite brunet had moved to the palace only the previous week, and already the attention was getting to him.
One would think that he'd be happy, suddenly going from pauper to prince, but Tsunayoshi found himself really missing his simple life back home with his family; he missed having his mother greet him when he woke up; he missed feeding the chickens and milking the cows; he missed the fresh mountain air and the beautiful flower fields of his childhood home.
Heaving a deep sigh, he continued wandering the halls aimlessly, until his eyes caught sight of a young boy sitting on the stone bench of the courtyard, looking dejectedly down into the beautifully clear pond.
Quietly approaching him, Tsuna asked the boy, "Is there something wrong?"
"Lambo-sama has nothing to do!" sighed the little boy without looking up.
Letting out a small chuckle, Tsuna sat down beside the young boy, saying, "Well, isn't that quite the coincidence? Neither do I! Why don't we play a game together?"
The young boy looked up, his expression excited, but when he caught sight of Tsuna's robes, his face paled to just a shade darker than a corpse.
"O-ouji-sama!" he stuttered out, bowing to the floor. "L-Lambo-sama is extremely sorry for-!"
"Ah! P-please don't bow!" said Tsuna hastily. "I'm really just a normal person! I promise I won't punish you or anything!"
Lambo just looked up at him hesitantly, as if he didn't know what to say, and Tsuna tried a warm smile.
"Really, all I want is someone to help me kill some time. Why don't you and I do something together, Lambo-kun?" he asked, holding his hand out in invitation.
The young boy looked at it warily for a moment before putting his tiny hand in it, and Tsuna smiled widely.
"Alright! Ikuzo, Lambo-kun!"
A quiet hush fell over the crowd as the lights suddenly went off and a spotlight turned on, illuminating a lone figure.
That figure, dressed in an orange ringmaster outfit, waited just a moment, his face solemn, before a giant, charismatic grin broke into his face and he shouted in a voice honed from years of training, "Ladies and gentlemen! Children of all ages! Welcome the utterly spectacular, the greatest, the most magnificent, the absolute best circus in the world! Welcome to…the VONGOLA!"
His statement was met with a shower of excited cheers from the audience, and once they had quieted down, he began again.
"We have quite the show for you tonight! From leopard tamers to sword jugglers to trapeze artists; you name it, we will most definitely have it!" And he went on and on like that, riling up the crowd until they were practically bursting with excitement, and when finally, they couldn't take it anymore, he announced, "Now, everyone, I would like for you to welcome our first act of the night! Please put your hands together for our daring leopard tamer, Gokudera Hayato, and his partner, the beautiful and powerful storm leopard, Uri!"
The crowd clapped and whistled as a growling roar ripped through the stadium and the next moment, a huge leopard appeared, a young teen with flowing silver hair standing on her back.
And like that, for the next few hours, the audience was entertained with many amazing acts from the Vongola performers and their animal partners.
One young boy in the audience, Miyami Chiaki, was so completely enthralled that, when the show had finally ended, he snuck off to try and find the performers, sparing not even a thought for how worried his parents would be.
It took the young boy a full ten minutes to find his destination, and he almost turned around when he found that he'd accidentally stumbled upon the resting place of the animals who were, to the young boy's horror, not in cages.
It turned out that Natsu was the first to notice him, and when the gigantic cat lowered his great head to look at the young boy, the bottom of his fiery orange mane brushing the floor, Chiaki almost fainted from fright.
Then, almost as if understanding his fear, the great cat backed away, and Kangaryuu, probably the least threatening of all of them (which wasn't really all that reassuring), stepped forward.
Picking Chiaki up with her surprisingly powerful arms, she tucked him into her pouch and headed off in a direction that the frightened little boy hoped was where her master was.
When Kangaryuu pulled back the curtain that was blocking the view of the room beyond, the room full of performers turned to stare, and a few amused chuckles could be heard, causing Chiaki to blush and finally wonder whether he'd really done the right thing by coming here.
"Kufufu, and what do we have here?" an amused voice asked over from the side, and the boy's head whipped around to see the twin illusionists standing there, their owl resting on the girl's, head. "A little trespasser, perhaps?"
A little intimidated by the older male, Chiaki didn't say anything, and in the end, he didn't need to, because at that moment, a chiding voice said, "Mukuro! Stop scaring the poor boy!"
At the sound of the familiar voice, although it was at a much lower volume than he was used to, Chiaki turned to see a man whose appearance made his eyes widen in amazement.
"Sora-san!" he breathed in an awed voice, and the brunet chuckled.
Bending down so he was eye level, he said in a kind voice, "Please, Sora is my stage name. You can call me Tsuna."
"Tsuna…nii?" asked the boy, receiving a nod from the older male, who he was for some reason surprised to see was really only a teenager himself, probably around the same age as Chiaki's eighteen-year-old brother.
"So, what are you doing here, young man?"
"I-I wanted to meet you," replied Chiaki, fidgeting now that he was in the presence of his hero.
"You've seen him now, so can you leave?" asked an annoyed voice, and Chiaki looked up to see the leopard tamer standing there, in all his intimidating glory. This surprised the young boy, because whenever he was out on stage with his leopard, the leopard tamer always had a playful air about him; it was strange to see him so unfriendly.
"Oh hush up, Hayato," Tsuna told his friend, before turning back to the young boy. "Did you tell your parents where you were going, little one?"
Ducking his head in shame, Chiaki shook his head, eliciting a small sigh of exasperation from the man in front of him.
For a second, he was worried that Tsuna didn't like him anymore, but then the young boy felt hands go under his armpits and two strong arms picked him up.
Looking up, he met the ringmaster's smiling eyes as the brunet said, "Then why don't we go looking for them, ne? I'm sure they're very worried about you right about now."
Chiaki nodded hesitantly in agreement, but before they could leave, a young boy approached them.
This young boy turned out to be the skilled nine-year-old acrobat whose stage name was Inazuma – Lightning.
Showing a friendly smile, the boy held out a hand with a grape candy in his palm, saying, "I'm glad you enjoyed our show. Please come and watch it again one day, ne?"
"No."
There was complete silence as everyone stared, wide eyed, at the illusionist that had let those words out of his mouth.
"What was that?" asked Reborn, cocking his Leon-gun threateningly.
"I said no," repeated the pineapple-haired illusionist bluntly. Looking over at the young Decimo candidate, Sawada Yoshimune, who was looking at him almost dejectedly, he said, "You may have a lot of potential, but you will never be my sky."
"And why is that?" growled Reborn threateningly.
"Because I already have one," said the Mukuro almost nonchalantly, his eyes flickering for just a second over to Tsuna, who was still sitting where he had tripped to the floor upon the arrival of the illusionist, and who was now looking at him with a horrorstruck expression on his face, silently begging him with his eyes not to do this. His declaration had drawn small gasps from four of the other five Vongola guardians while Reborn merely narrowed his eyes and Yoshimune looked surprised.
"Oi! Pineapple head! How dare you disobey the tenth?" demanded Gokudera Hayato, taking out several sticks of dynamite and looking more furious than Yoshimune and Reborn had ever seen him.
But there also seemed to be a small spark of…something in his eyes.
Reborn wanted to say it was jealousy or possibly longing, but that wouldn't make sense. Why would the hotheaded storm be jealous?
"Wait, Gokudera-kun-" started Yoshimune, but was silenced with a glare from the silveret, and Reborn started to get a little suspicious. Gokudera wasn't supposed to glare at Yoshimune like that; he was supposed to absolutely idolize the boy.
"And how dare you blindly follow his orders?" demanded Mukuro. "Being his right-hand man does not mean that you just agree to every stupid idea he has! It means that you stand by him when everyone else has left! It means that you take care of him and do what's best for him, even if it's going against his orders!"
Gokudera didn't seem to be able to say anything to this, but Yamamoto did.
"If it's what our sky wants, then who are we to deny him that?" asked the baseball player in a hopeless voice.
"We're his guardians!" shouted Mukuro, "And just because it's what he wants, that doesn't necessarily mean it's what makes him happy. Don't you guys understand what it means to be a guardian of the sky? It means that without our sky, we're nothing, and vice versa!"
And when he heard this, Lambo, who like the rest of the guardians had a mind ten years older than his body, broke down and finally acted like the five-year-old he was in this world.
Tsuna's hand twitched a little, wanting to comfort the crying boy, but he didn't move.
As everyone watched, Lambo stumbled forward, crying pitifully. The little cow boy walked until he was just a few steps away from Tsuna, standing there sniffling and crying, his beautiful bright green eyes shut tight.
Tsuna, being himself, just wasn't able to sit there and do nothing while his youngest guardian cried, so he held his arms open in welcome for the boy, who didn't hesitate to accept the warm, powerful embrace of his sky; his true sky, not just some replacement.
Reborn watched the scene in rapt attention as the annoying young Bovino crawled into his student's brother's arms, sniffling and clutching at his shirt as if it were his lifeline.
"Tsuna-nii," he sobbed, burying his face in the older boy's chest.
Watching this, an idea began to formulate in Reborn's mind that left the little infant completely shocked. The sun arcobaleno whipped his head around to look at Gokudera, and sure enough, the longing and jealousy in his eyes was more visible, confirming Reborn's suspicions.
"You two…" growled Gokudera threateningly, but was cut off when Hibari walked over to stand beside Tsuna, Mukuro following after him.
"Fighting you is nowhere near as satisfying as fighting the omnivore," stated the skylark, looking over at the one that had tried to take the place of his sky. Then looking over at Gokudera, he asked, "You don't get it yet, do you, herbivore? You didn't think this over properly."
"What are you-?"
"Do you really think you can follow these orders until the end? Can you really accept anyone but Tsunayoshi as your sky?"
Gokudera wasn't able to say anything to this, and Mukuro picked up where the prefect had left off.
"Because that is what you will have to do. Yoshimune will eventually take over the family and you will become his guardian. Do you know what that means? It means that he will be your sky. You will have to put your life on the line for him, and you will have to follow his orders…even if he tells you to kill his own brother."
It was this last one that really seemed to finally put Gokudera over the edge.
The silveret looked over at Yoshimune, who still seemed confused, then over at Tsunayoshi, who was still silently begging for him not to do this.
"…I'm sorry, Juudaime," he said in a quiet voice as he walked over and collapsed to the floor, his nose touching the floor as he prostrated himself in front of his boss. "I will have to refuse your orders this time."
And after Gokudera, Yamamoto and Ryohei both returned to Tsuna's side as well.
"W-why?" sobbed the brunet. "Why are you guys doing this for me? I-if you'd stayed by Yoshimune's side, you could have been the Vongola guardians again! It would have been just like it was before!"
"No, it EXTREMELY wouldn't," Ryohei told his surrogate brother.
"Because you wouldn't be there," explained Yamamoto, hugging his best friend around the shoulders.
"You're our sky," Gokudera said in a whisper as he got up, "and no one can take your place."
SkyGem: Done! I hope you guys liked, ne? I really loved writing this chapter! Anyways, just to let you know, there will be absolutely no updates for the next three or four days because I have exams on Tuesday and Wednesday, and I'll be busy studying for them. Please wish me luck on that, ne? Ciao!
P.S. These universes will also be up for adoption, so if you want to use any of these concepts, then please check out my blog and go through the adoption process there. I will put summaries up for these soon, and if you guys want some help with plots, then just ask, ne? I'd love to be of service.