AN: Thank you to all of you who are following my story and those that given me reviews. I really appreciated that you took the time to type those few words of encouragement. Thank you! Here chapter two! ^_^
Chapter 2: Invading Midmorning's Storm
Among the students packing up their bags, and those that got ready for clubs, Sawada Tsunayoshi couldn't help but stay back in his seat as he sort through his desk. Finding the envelop he got from Reborn stuffed inside his desk, Tsuna wonder upon the Ninth's message, "Open the letter soon Tsunayoshi. For your own safety and those that care for you."
A sudden explosion in the distance made him turns toward the window where most of his classmates had already gathered to see the source of the sound. Tsuna opted not to follow the others as the amount of people increase, 'it must be the firework from a sale' he concluded as he finished packing his bag and head out the classroom's door.
Thinking about his fridge, Tsuna was reminded that he should stop by the shopping district for his dinner. Reaching into his back pocket to find his wallet, he pulled it out once he found it at its usual place. The simple black leather two-fold wallet was wearing thin from it consistent uses, but Tsuna was more concern with the articles within where he found his two sheets of 1000 yens and a few yen coins. 'Only 6200 yens' Tsuna sighed as he wonders what he should do for the reminder of the month.
He knew he shouldn't have brought that fish, but the fishmonger was really assertive that day and he end up buying that fresh, sweet tasting, and mouth-melting bream. Yes that's right, it was just the common, you can find it anywhere in Japan's market, bream. Yet as he followed the direction to steam it as instructed by the old fishmonger, he was rewarded with such a heavenly aroma of flavors that he couldn't forget the taste even now. But thinking about that doesn't help him any in increasing his pocketbook nor will he get to eat that appetizing fish again. He was such an…
"Useless idiot!" the voice matched his thought, but it wasn't the sound of his own voice that had said it. Then the sudden crash of a body against the metal lamp pole snapped Tsuna out of his reverie as he paused before the duo fighting it out in the middle of the road. Two teens around his age group were fighting or more like one of them was beating the living day life out of the other. "You call yourself a citizen of this rundown city while you don't even know where Clam Street is located." The silver hair one spat.
The sudden 'eep' that escaped his lip at the sight of dynamites in the silver hair's hand, cause the Italian to turn his head, revealing pale porcelain skin, smooth, flawless features crafted perfectly onto his face if not for those sharp eyes and his angry frown; he could be confused for a male Victorian porcelain doll. His cold emerald eyes looked at Tsuna and the teen couldn't help but feel as if he was being lock into a fridge as his body froze.
"What do you want, kid?" the platinum blond glared at Tsuna and he fell back a step. "Well kid?", he asked once more causing Tsuna to fall flat on his bottom.
Gokudera wanted to growl when the brunette fell down. He could almost see the water work coming as he sigh and loosen his hold of the black hair teen in his hold. After all, he may be a mafioso, but making a young kid cry just leave a bad taste in his mouth and he didn't want that.
The male feeling his captor hold loosen took his chance to pull away before rushing toward the main road where the safety of number will protect him.
Gokudera looked shock for a moment but decide that the man wasn't worth his time to chase down anyway as he looked back at the kid still on the ground.
"Kid" he struggled to plaster on a gentle smile, but somehow it just turn into an aggravate glare with a lopsided grin.
Tsuna relaxed as he ascertains that Gokudera was no longer a danger. The teen was just one of those juvenile delinquents and the fact that he was asking for Clam street was just a coincidence since there was no way someone who was looking for him would have acted so openly. He was still safe.
Gokudera was surprised as the fear on the kid's face disappears so sudden as if he was just meeting the boy for the first time instead of minutes before. He wasn't even sure if it was even the same kid except for the fact that the boy still hadn't move from the ground. 'Perhaps the kid need help standing up', Gokudera thought as he reached for the boy's arm.
The unexpected touch made Tsuna snap away the taller boy's hand as he shift backward, rubbing his own hand over the arm that was touch as if it was hurt. His whole body shakes as the feeling of being eaten return. He wanted to run, yet something about the rough voice asking about his well being begin to bring him out of his nightmare.
Looking up, Tsuna saw worried green eyes staring at him, although with irritation, it was much more calming than any kind or gentle eyes could. Somehow he felt safe with this stranger despite the taller boy's temper.
Tsuna stood up quickly once his panic subsided and apologize to the taller teen.
Not knowing how to answer to the apology, Gokudera decided to forgo any small talk and head straight into getting the favor returned for helping the kid out of his mental turmoil, "You wouldn't happen you know where Hamaguri House is located do you?"
Tsuna's eyes widen as he realize that the silver hair was looking for his apartment. He quickly plaster on his poker face unfortunately for him, Gokudera noticed before his mind could come up with any excuses.
"Sorry I'm not really sure where that is." Tsuna was avoiding those pale green eyes as he quickly moves from the spot.
The hope in those green orbs flared as Gokudera watch the boy lies to him. There exist a long list of things that can make Gokudera tick and being lies to no matter by who made him want to stuff them with dynamites until they explodes and regrettably, Tsuna had just made the list as he grabbed the boy's arm before he was able to escape.
Upon the touch, Tsuna's body unconsciously reacts violently against Gokudera as he did a morote-dori, a double handed grab of the opponent's wrist, which causes the taller teen to be thrown over his head and on to the ground, backside down with a very surprised expression planted on his face.
Tsuna façade reflected Gokudera as he let go of the boy before running off.
Unable to take a loss from a kid, Gokudera, raced after the poor boy. Streets after streets as the numerous buildings flashes pass his view; his mind solely focuses on the young boy forgetting his original task. He slides around a corner to see the boy escaping into a door on the second floor of an apartment building, which he figures was the boy's home.
Jumping three at a time up the stairs, he reaches the floor with ease and start banging on the door without consideration for the neighbors as he demand that Tsuna come out for a rematch.
Inside his one-room apartment, Tsuna slide down against the door, the vibration of Gokudera's pounding numbed to his sense as the chilling fear spread throughout his interior. His irregular heartbeats warn of the danger he was in. Why was that man looking for him? Could it be that he been found? Tsuna shook his head as he pushed away from the door.
The pounding on the wooden frame still loud enough to be heard from the whole apartment, but Tsuna ignored the petulant man and instead moved deeper into his home. Reaching the dresser in the corner, Tsuna opened the bottom most drawer. Ransacking within his mess of clothes, he pulled out his trusty HK pistol and a box of 9mm cartridge. Loading the magazine into the gun itself, Tsuna switch off the safety-lock as he headed back toward the still noisy door.
Gokudera was getting tired of pounding on the door and it didn't help that the other residents had started coming out to inspect the cause of the noise. But he refused to give up after being made such a fool. How could he, the Smoking-bomb Hayato get beaten up by an elementary kid. He would like to know how that shrimp had beaten him so easily. Sure, he had lets his guard down with the kid, but still he shouldn't have been lifted over the boy's body and the fact that the kid had known that address he was looking for was brothering him.
He stopped his pounding as an afterthought appears within his mind and just out of curiosity he looked over to one of the apartment's tenant.
The guy retreat a step back, but he keeps his door open to a crack out of his own curiosity.
"Hey" Gokudera growled out of annoyances for the guy's fear, "What is this apartment's name?"
"H-Hamaguri House" the man squeaks before quickly shutting his door with a slam, fear winning over curiosity after all.
Upon learning the building's name, Gokudera direct his attention toward the name plate, reading Sawada, Room B27 as his face turns an interesting shade of green.
It was quiet. Too quiet to Tsuna's ears as the sound of pounding stop just as he was about to fire. Lowering his gun, Tsuna inched his way toward the door, stretching his ears as much as he could so that he could catch any little sound outside. He cursed himself for not getting a room with a peep hole, but the high level security and cheap pricing of the location, had won him over. He should have known that cheap wouldn't guarantee safe. That would be too perfect. Where were those security measures he was promised when he brought the place anyway?
Tsuna jumps when another knock sounded at his door, a much more polite and softer knock. Could the security guards have captured the silver head Mafioso outside the door and is now knocking to let him know it was safe?
Making sure that his chain lock was still tightly locked, and his gun hidden from the door's view, Tsuna slowly unlock the door and drag it open enough for him to look outside.
The moment he did, he regrets his decision and slams the door shut again only to notice that it doesn't want to close. Looking down, he saw that it was because of the silver hair teen's foot. It'd looked painful, but Tsuna didn't want to take chances so he didn't reopen the door nor did he push harder.
"WAIT DECIMO!" Gokudera grabbed onto the doorframe with his hand as he pull himself forward, despite the pain shooting through his whole body from the leg he managed to struggle forward, "Signor Reborn send me…" he was able to say as Tsuna's hands loss feeling and the gun in his hand fell to the floor. He knows it was a foolish thing to do, since if what the boy had said was a lie, Tsuna would have loss his life at that very moment. However, it wasn't the fact that Reborn's name came up that he lose his strength, but the fact that Gokudera had called him "Decimo?"
He looked up at the other seeing the honesty in his grey-green eyes that somehow calm him. Pulling himself back together, he signal to Gokudera to move back which the boy stubbornly refused afraid that he would be locked out again.
"I can't open the door if you won't let me release the chain." Tsuna finally explained as he point toward the chain holding the door from opening farther.
Gokudera tentatively pull his hand and feet back out the door as Tsuna slam the door close. For a second, Gokudera wonder if he did the correct thing by allowing the boy to shut the door, but his worry was futile when the sound of the chain sliding off the lock was heard and the door soon welcome him in with a wide entrance.
"Thank you Decimo" Gokudera limped his way in as Tsuna guide him toward the low table not ten feet away. Flopping down on one of the cushion, Gokudera was surprise when Tsuna didn't join him but head to the kitchen to make coffee.
However, when he came back Tsuna wasn't carrying any coffee within the two cup but some green liquid, and next to them was a small first aid kit. Gokudera extend his hand for the box knowing it must have been for him.
Tsuna tossed the box over to the Italian without question as he place the two cups of green tea down on the table.
Gokudera looked shock, he wouldn't expect that the person he was looking for would be so…so…what was the word he was looking for uncharismatic? Couldn't the boy just give him the box without trying to pick a fight? What's more the boy was weak-looking, short, and baby-face; no special aura nor any traits that would want to make you loyal to him. He gives off the feeling of a broken robot. Could Vongola really survive with him as the future boss?
The boy definitely holds the top spot on his list of 'things he hates'.
Tsuna watched in irritation as Gokudera fumble with the bandage, obviously having never treated his own wound before as he wasted another piece of perfectly good bandage.
"Grrr, just give that here!" Tsuna extended his hand for the tape as Gokudera open another pack seeing as his first one was tangling together in a mess on Tsuna's perfectly clean floor.
"That's okay. I can handle it myself." He reached in the box for yet another pack of tape, only to receive a glare of hate so powerful that his first thoughts about the boy had disappeared.
"Just give me your foot!" Tsuna growled, grabbing Gokudera's swollen ankle which earn a howl of pain from the silver haired Italian as he clutch onto the cushion below him. "Sheesh, who would stick their foot out like that anymore, who do you think you are, some pushy salesman? What's more you can't even treat your own wound, spoil brat."
Gokudera would have beaten the crap out of the smart-mouth kid if he wasn't in so much pain, but since he was he couldn't even yell at Tsuna. He was anything but a spoil brat. At the age of only seven he had to learned the terrible true of his mother, his older step-sister had tried to poison him numerous times, and he had always survive on his own, so what if he doesn't know how to treat his own wounds. They were just scratches that would heal even if you left them alone.
So engulfed with his own memories, he did notice the slight shaking from the boy's cold hand which smoothed his pain. He stayed silence the entire time as Tsuna care for his ankle.
"What did Reborn send you for?" the question broken the silence as Gokudera looked over to see that his foot had been taken care of with surprising ease and experiences. He couldn't even feel the pain anymore, until what Tsuna had said reach his brain and cause him to look up.
"Reborn? How close are you to signor Reborn?" Gokudera asked completely forgetting his assignment.
Tsuna, however, didn't allow him to forget it as he glared at the taller teen which sends a strange chill through him, not really one's of fear, but an emotion he could put his hand on.
"What did he want?", Tsuna's face returns to normal seeing the look on Gokudera's visage, "Why didn't he just tell me when we met this morning?", but knowing Reborn, he already had a suspicion about the little hitman's reason. And seeing that Gokudera had called him 'Decimo' a while ago he was pretty positive that it had to do with the Ninth's order.
"Signor Reborn send me here to be your body guard." Gokudera stated professionally, straighten up as he tried to present himself to the future boss of Vongola.
"No thanks" Tsuna shot him down bluntly, "I don't need your protection so go home."
Gokudera would have tossed the boy a whirlwind of dynamites for his insult if not for the large green hammer knocking the boy out first. Frozen in shock, Gokudera couldn't even response to protecting his own head from being hit by the same hammer as he just shut his eyes in preparation of the pains.
It didn't come. Opening his eyes, he saw the reason. Tsuna was standing before him holding the handle of the hammer as he blocks the punch directed at him with his left hand. Following the other hand, a smaller one up to their owner, Gokudera was surprised to see Reborn smiling.
No one had ever seen the baby hitman's smile before. Sure there were smirks and grins, but never a true smile showing happiness and pride. On the other hand, the look on Tsuna's face reflected the opposite of his tutor as a spine chill glare of anger flash within those huge orbs.
"Reborn" the anger clearly direct at the hitman, "What's the meaning of this?"
"Your was for being foolish and this's…" the baby pull back from his position as Leon, his partner chameleon, shift into it's gun form allowing the hitman to fire a shot aimed at Gokudera, "for thinking about betrayal".
Everything became slow motion as Gokudera just watch the bullet closing in on him, knowing that there was no way to escape from Reborn once the green chameleon turns into it's gun form. He only wishes he could had explained to the hitman that he wasn't thinking of betrayal, only that he wanted to blow the boy up for his insult. Guess thinking about blowing up the next head of the Vongola is a traitorous' thought after all. Heh, he felt foolish and deserve to die for being a traitor.
So absorb in his self loathing, Gokudera accepted his punishment wholeheartedly. This is why he became so surprise when a yellow blur enter his field of vision as the bullet made a hit.
He watched as the blur cleared and the image of a boy…a yellow school uniform…a mop of brown hair…fell to the floor before him. On his chest a splash of red tinted his white undershirt, the honey-brown orbs shut close as a pain filled expression planted on the boy's face.
"D-Decimo?" Gokudera couldn't understand how it could have happen, but it did. The boy had jumped in front of him just as the bullet hit. He had protected him.
But Gokudera just couldn't understand why? Why did the next Vongola Decimo protect him? He who is nothing but a lowly bastard born from a mistress who was killed for being in love with a low rank mafia boss? Why did this boy protect him?
"Because he too kind" Reborn answered him as if the hitman had read his mind. "Tsuna is and will never be fitted to be a Mafia Boss. His heart is too kind for the dark world we lived in, but Tsuna would always protect those that are his friends. That is the true reason we made you his bodyguard. To give him something to protect and make him stronger as the future boss of Vongola."
Gokudera felt insulted as Reborn hit him with the truth, "To be protected?" he couldn't accept that. A young kid had to die to protect him? Even if this was the great Reborn he was talking to, he just couldn't forgive the hitman for assigning him this type of assignment.
"Don't misunderstand" Reborn's glare silenced his rage as fear froze him once more. As a child born into the world of the mafia, he had seen many scary and unspoken stuff, but never before had a glare made him froze like he was now, "you are not brought here only to be protected, but to protect him with your own existent. Your life is nothing compare to him."
"Then WHY?" Gokudera anger overcame his own fear as he held on to the cold body on his lap, "Why did you kill him?"
Reborn grin making Gokudera flare up in anger as he gently move Tsuna off his lap to stand up. Not noticing the pain in his leg as he grab his favorite instrument of destruction, dynamites, out of who knows where on his body and aim them at Reborn.
The little hitman jump out of the way with ease as his grin grew larger at the Italian's rage.
The sound of explosions was the first sound that awakens Tsuna as he lay on the cold tatami carpet of his room. His mind trying to wrap around the reason for him to be on the floor when there was sound of explosion around. Images of Gokudera and Reborn pop into his head as he quickly sat up to see his room being destroy by dynamites as Gokudera threw another at Reborn only to have it miss and destroy his kitchen.
"What are you guys doing to my home?"
Gokudera's turns toward the voice to see the guy who was shot dead a moment ago while protecting him was up and moving. His face angry as painful tears clouded his brown orbs. The red liquid still dripping from his chest as he move from his crater on the floor to the strip of cloths hanging from his window which used to be curtains, then toward the pile of woods and papers, which was once a small book shelf.
Tsuna couldn't find it in himself to go farther toward his kitchen which was still smoking as if something had burn in the oven, but he knew better. His whole house was destroyed by those two mafiosos! He send them both a deep glare which even gotten Reborn to stop grinning at Gokudera.
Gokudera wanted to ask how Tsuna was still alive, but seeing the anger within those blazing brown eyes had silence him from questioning the boy. The only thought his mind would provide was "RUN".
He didn't know if he said it out loud or if it was Reborn, but both made their escapes at the same moment leaving Tsuna to slam his door on them on the way out with shout to not come back. EVER!