"Peek-a-boo!" And a large, red, hairy head popped out from the spacing between the walls.

A surprised gasp escaped from Nana's and the now shivering old man's lips. They both took a reflexive step away from the offensive head, but the cramped alley between the stores they've been hiding in didn't seem to comply with their wishes. Not to mention the storage boxes sandwiched also between the walls are blocking their way further behind the stores.

In short, they were trapped like a chicken in a soup.

Then, without missing a beat, the man with the red hair reached out both of his hands and dragged them to the streets. Nana discovered resisting would be futile from the firmness of the man's grip.

Looking around the streets, it wasn't so empty as before as there were more than a couple of dozens of red-haired men loitering around. The heads, all red and big, swerved around in their direction, one man stopping in his act on grabbing a child—the child of the woman from earlier, Nana presumed—by the collar.

"Hey, you!" shouted one of the buffiest men Nana had ever seen, pointing a finger at her, although the distance (around only a foot) between them did not allow his arm to stretch to be considered intimidating. Nana tilted her head in innocence, making her look more like she had at her son's age.

"WHAT ARE YOUR VALUABLE ASSETS?"

OvO ._. OvO ._. OvO ._. OvO ._. OvO

It wasn't long after Gokudera had dialed the Bovino family that the tenth generation of the Vongola (and with the boss's tutor and the boss's extended family) was sitting back on the comfortable seats of the first-class private plane, which the ninth had stashed, camouflaged, in the nearby airport.

The Bovino, as long as the call had gone (which was approximately measured to be 0:09 seconds), had not hesitated in the slightest bit to help out the Vongola. Reborn's tone whilst talking to them might have not been needed for the persuasion.

Aboard the plane, it was still as chaotic as ever.

"Shut up, yakyuu-baka! The tenth is particularly worried about his mom! As his right-hand man, I should be helping him in his misery!"

"Maa, maa, Gokudera," a laugh was heard. "Tsuna's not that bad as you think. He's just happily staring out the window, see?" says the seemingly forever cheerful rain guardian while leaning his head to the boss's direction.

"That's right to the EXTREEEMMEE, tako-head! Sawada here can take care of himself just fine!" and of course, the extreme idiot just had to shake Sawada to death, or at least he thought did.

"GYAAHAHAHAHA! Lambo-san is dizzy!" exclaimed a certain someone, whose voice certainly wasn't a certain juudaime's. "Gyahahahaha! Ne, ne, I-pin! I'm on a roller coaster! Gyahahahah!"

Due to Ryohei's shock in finding the cow-child in his hands, his bandaged fingers slipped and poor, poor Lambo. He landed on the rather hard-looking floor of the plane with a loud thump. Everyone's eyes seemed to land on him as they waited with baited breaths as to how the infamous crybaby would react to his fall. And of course, he wasn't infamous for nothing.

"Gotta..," he started his all too known phrase, "stay… calm." And then he proceeded to bawl his eyes out, and then fumbled around his broccoli-shaped black hair. And to everyone's dread, a red bazooka found its way into Lambo's hands.

"Oh no! Lambo-kun's ranked 2nd out of 3 513 child-Mafioso likely to screw up when upset!"

Cue squeaky voice, "Lambo!"

"Damn it! I thought we took the bazooka—"

"Who gave Lambo that thing—?"

"THIS IS BAD TO THE EXTREEEMMMEEEE!"

"H-Hieee! Lambo put away that—"

"Lambo, be a good boy and hand it over," at least someone had the wit to ask the bazooka from the cow-child instead of just fussing over his having it.

Lambo sniffed as he looked at Yamamoto, still teary-eyed, then at the bazooka he was holding in, and back again. "Lambo don't wanna."

"Now, Lambo. You should now Mama's… sent away with that bazooka, right? We can't have anyone—"

Oh no… Now that he mentioned Mama.., was that the collective thought of everyone

"Mama?" Lambo looked back down at the bazooka in his arms. Yamamoto nodded in response. "Mama's gone because she got hit?"

"Yeah, by that and your idiocy, aho-shi. So, hand. it. over."

Gokudera was only met with a glare from similar green eyes plus a tongue stuck out. "Bleh, aho-dera!"

And so, feeling that he was provoked, Lambo proceeded to pull the trigger and a familiar red cannon ball soared through the air.

Good thing someone was a genius.

"Baseball!"

Eyes sharpened suddenly and hand immediately grabbing the shinai perpetually hung on his back, Yamamoto did a swift lash as the shinai promptly turned to a katana, Yamamoto's Shigure Kintoki. The cannon ball sliced neatly into halves, each falling in front of I-pin, and to the worst lucked person ever to exist, Sawada Tsunayoshi.

There was a puff of orange smoke that covered I-pin and Tsuna when Yamamoto realized his mistake. It wasn't his bat he was carrying today. And that meant the 'ball' wasn't going homerun.

"Oops. My bad," and then he laughed nervously.

As if that's gonna fix anything… the idiot.

OvO ._. OvO ._. OvO ._. OvO ._. OvO

"Easy there, Natsu," said a pretty blond lady clad in a rather ridiculously sparse apparel. "I know you're not much for traveling but—"

"Oh shut it, Lucy," then this certain Natsu stuck out his pink head out the window as he emptied his stomach from the various foods he'd consumed for lunch. What a waste…

"Ugh.., what would I not give to not have this motio—barf—"

"Don't worry, Natsu. I think we're almost there, aye!" a cat with an unusual fur color of blue patted his partner's shoulder as his other paw tightened to a fist and raised above his head.

"Yes, yes, Natsu," the blond, Lucy, then took out a rolled up paper from her bag as she read it to her partners, whom she doubted even knew what guild they are supposed to be subduing. "According to the request, this guild has been terrorizing small towns. And according to one of these, they're supposedly going to ransack the town of Dandelion next, which is their neighboring town. It's been reported from several sightings that the guild is composed mostly, if not all, men. Says to have a few half-giant members, one of the reasons why they are hard to suppress. Oh gee, good luck with this Natsu," she offhandedly glanced at her sick partner and the cat whose eyes turned to saucers as he heard about the half-giants.

"They're also known for their ruthless ways, not caring at all about their victim's status. It's even said that they are even more brutal towards the high-positioned men. This client sure is nice enough to include so much information. Oh, it also says here that they're posting a request since they have a hunch that they will be next if this guild won't be stopped. Natsu? Happy?"

"Yeah..," he nodded as he perched his elbow on the window sill of the train and his best cat friend nodding vigorously on the seat beside him. "I get it. Are we there yet?"

"Should be. Oh, here we are."

And then the train started to slow down as a voice echoed through the speakers saying something about arriving on the Elm Wood Forest Station.

As they stepped out the train, "Wait, Lucy…"

"Yes?"

"Why are we in a forest?"

"Aye! In the forest?"

"Of course! Didn't I mention it?"

"Nope."

"Err… Let's go!"

"Aye?"

"What?"

OvO ._. OvO ._. OvO ._. OvO ._. OvO

"Ah!" A little girl, aged 7, looked up in surprise as she felt herself land on earthy ground on her rear. And as she did so, she heard someone growl.

Eyes widened with shock and fear, she screamed for desperate help. But she heard no one answer which she soon found reasonable as she was in the middle of something one could call a forest. Not to mention that the big bad wolf was hot on her heels at it tried to nip even her tiny feet.

Fumbling around the root-floored forest, and jumping around on the wide branches of the bigger trees, she remembered her training sessions with her equally short teacher. They were usually in the forest, and her training always ended up with her being sweaty with perspiration and of course their eating her teacher's favorite snack.

But this time, she was going to be the snack. And that wasn't good news at all.

"Ouch!" She unwittingly tripped herself over a protruding root of a nearby elm tree and landed with a soft thud on the leafy forest floor.

Looking back, she realized that the gap between her and the wolf was now too little to run away still complete with her feet. It was also just pure bad luck that she'd forgotten to bring her gyoza dumplings with her. What more? That wolf looked too big for her to take out in a single punch—or kick perhaps—and she couldn't waste a single second in trying not to be eaten.

Having made up her mind just as the wolf lunged at her, she quickly moved on her feet to get under the big bodice of the black-furred wolf instead of under its opened jaws, then swiftly delivered a blow to its stomach. It lurched up from the impact of the kick and made both a way and however little amount of time to run away.

Taking the chance to run away, I-pin headed back to the direction they came from, as she knew it would take a moment later for the wolf to turn around and sniff its way to where she was.

Now, she thought as she ducked behind a huge elm, how about I give you a good beating?

OvO ._. OvO ._. OvO ._. OvO ._. OvO

There were a lot of birds chirping as if they were gushing about a new, hot as the sun gossip. A nearby river's rush to the sea can be clearly heard as well, if one would listen intently enough.

"Are you sure we're not lost, aye?"

Lucy looked like she was asked to run around the entire town of Magnolia and scream her ears out an "I LOVE IT WHEN YOU UNCONSCIOUSLY THROW OFF YOUR SHIRT, GRAY-SAMA!" and then proceeding to jump at the town plaza's foot-deep fountain as if expecting to jump off a cliff. She blushed as if she was thrown at the face a tomato paste.

"O-Of course not! It says right here," she exclaimed as she pointed guiltily at the innocent piece of paper in her hands. The paper had a map sketched onto it—if you would count a toddler's scribbles a proper map. "We're walking along these dotted lines and if we walk some dozen of meters straight more, then we would arrive to the entrance of the town!"

Natsu looked at her as if she told him two and two make one. "You sure about that, Lucy? I'm hungry."

"Aye! Maybe there's fish in the river I hear..?"

"Shut it Natsu! It's not my fault you threw up all your lunch back there in the train." Then turning to the cat she said, "And no, Happy, you've eaten enough fish earlier. And besides, we can't waste time catching fish."

"Lucy's grumpy..," the cat began.

"Yeah, yeah… she won't even admit she got us lost…"

"And now she's taking it out on me not to eat fish…"

"And me not to eat lunch again…"

"And…"

"OH BE QUIET YOU TWO!"

"See, Happy?"

"Aye, Natsu! Lucy the Cranky Mage had made her move."

"I'm not cranky!"

"What did I say?"

Cutting off their argument, they heard a loud growl that echoed throughout the forest.

"W-What was that?"

"Ooh! An adventure," Natsu happily said as he rubbed his hands in excitement. "Happy!"

"Aye!"

"Wait you two! Where are you going?"

"Off to find the adventure, of course!" Both Natsu and Happy had raised a fist as if going on a long journey to find the Golden Fleece, before turning their backs to Lucy and proceeding to run off to who knows where.

"Oh come on! Wait up!"

OvO ._. OvO ._. OvO ._. OvO ._. OvO

Tsuna blinked as he tried to make out the place he was currently in. His mother had been blown away with the bazooka and had never come back within the usual five minutes and so he figured he would be stuck in wherever this was for an indefinite amount of time. But that also meant he can find his mother as long as he wants to.

"Oi, kiddo!" a voice called out, a bit distant and rough.

Tsuna found out he had landed on a dingy pub. It wasn't too shabby with its somehow warm lighting and antiquity look. It was like he was some kind of historical movie.

"Oi! I called you, kiddo!"

Realizing he was the one being called, he turned around and saw a robust middle-aged-looking man, sporting fingerless leather gloves on his huge hands were he held a green bottle Tsuna assumed to be beer, or something along the lines. He was wearing a huge grin which brought out the sparkling nature of his brown eyes and was dressed in a simple red polo under a black vest. He looked more like mafia than a bartender to Tsuna.

"Ah… I'm sorry," Tsuna bowed lowly as he sincerely apologized. "I thought you were calling someone else…"

The man grinned as he put down the bottle and walked his way to Tsuna. "No worries. I just thought it was strange for someone to pop out in a pub so early in the afternoon. And you're a minor."

Tsuna blushed as though remembering a time when he had been forced to drink liquor. He wasn't quite fitted for it. "Ah no… I really didn't mean to end up here..."

"A transportation spell gone bad, eh? Then you better go home, kiddo."

Tsuna found himself liking the man for his hospitality. Who knows just how many people are left who were as kind as this man he was talking with. And he didn't even know him.

"I-I think I should be." Then after an afterthought, he continued, "do you know where I am, by any chance?"

"Of course! Cornflower street, you are!"

Tsuna tilted his head to his side. "Corn…flower street?"

The man looked like he had a light bulb popping above his head with a sound. "You're not around here, huh? I'll show you around then."

The man turned for a minute to place the bottle on the shelf behind the counter and then proceeded to open the front door (Tsuna assumed) out to the streets.

Tsuna only then realized something.

"Ano… I'm Tsunayoshi." Tsuna asked not unkindly, "What's your name, oji-san?"

"Of course! I'm sorry I forgot to introduce myself! I'm Ryo Okabe! Nice to meet you, kiddo!"

Tsuna shook the offered hand and smiled back. This man was a lot like Ryohei-niisan, just toned down and matured.

When they got out to the streets, he was greeted by a bladed boomerang which would have cut right through his neck had he not dodged it. Thank kami he was trained by a monster tutor.

That didn't mean he wasn't shaken though.

"Hiee! What was that?"

"Ah! Gomennasai nii-san! I didn't mean to…"

Tsuna smiled nervously at the lad running his way to him. The boomerang had stuck itself to the wall next to the pub's door and Tsuna helped the younger boy take it off.

"Just be careful next time…"

The boy grinned widely at Tsuna before he bowed again in apology and ran back to his friends.

"That was some good reflexes you have, kiddo!" Okabe patted Tsuna's shoulder once, with a bit of a force, as he beamed toothily at the much younger boy. "Not many would've been able to dodge that fast."

"I really am just used to surprise attacks…"

"Meh," Okabe stroke his chin as though a century-old wise man. "Guess you can be a mage, then! Interested?"

"M-mage?"

OvO ._. OvO ._. OvO ._. OvO ._. OvO

Meanwhile, the tenth generation Vongola, with the gang, had arrived at Italy and had settled into the comfy castle of the Vongola.

"Maa, Gokudera," Yamamoto was so close to give in to the temptation to shove a tub full of ice water on his fellow guardian, just so he'd cool down. "Tsuna will be fine."

"Shut it, yakyuu-baka. Just why did you think the tenth is not here right now?" Gokudera was sulking in a corner, his knees held close to his chest as he let his lengthy bangs cover his worried emerald eyes. "How can we get him back?"

"Because the red ball blew them up? And… I don't know about that." Even the rain guardian's smile was faltering a little. There's no way a loyal companion as he would be unmoved with his boss's being M.I.A.

"Gyahahhaah! Aho-dera is such a crybaby!" And here enters the real reason of the three people's 'disappearance'. "Gyahahha! Lambo-san wins! Aho-dera's such a crybaby, crybaby!" Lambo was making weird dance moves with slaps to his cow-printed pants on the rear side, and some twirls which would have made the ballerinas run for their money.

"Shut up, you cow. What if the Tenth's in trouble? As his right-hand man, I should be by his side and prevent anything bad to happen to the boss. I'm such an incompetent man. I'll have to commit seppuku… yes, such a useless right-hand you are. You should just go and sulk up in a corner of dynamites and smoke…"

"YOU AN EXTREME IDIOT, TAKO-HEAD?" There was a slight shaking of the chandelier hanging from the ceiling due to the vibration. Ryohei should really try to get into a chorale. "SAWADA WON'T LIKE THAT ONE BIT! YOU THINK HE'LL BE HAPPY IF HIS RIGHT HAND MAN JUST GO UP AN—"

A rather big green mallet set with a pair of eyes promptly found its way on the boxer's head, effectively silencing the extremely loud mouth he is.

"At least keep your voice down, Ryohei," Reborn looked down at Ryohei as he proceeded to climb up on him as he felt everyone's eyes fall to him. "We've talked about how to get Mama, I-pin, and Dame-Tsuna back in this world."

There was an audible sigh of relief that echoed in the room.

"But of course," Reborn smirked as he again felt the tension from earlier come back, "there's a catch."

Pairs of eyes looked into another as they took in the piece of information.

"Just what's the catch, Reborn-san?"

OvO ._. OvO ._. OvO ._. OvO ._. OvO

~A/N

Oh yeah, good day to you all. And thanks for reading.

And there are some things I want to tell some people. :)

XWhiteDragonX: Thank you. I've been thinking on how to differentiate mine from other similar fics, and I think I'm being successful so far. And actually I've read your fic for FT and KHR also(although I've used my other account) and I do hope you'll continue to write yours too. And I'd like to say the same to you. You can do it! :)

cael05: Thank you. And yes, I thought it would be different from others because of that. Maybe that was one of the reasons why I even posted this. It would be boring if all fics would have the same plotline, right? But as you've read (judging from the fact that you're already reading this bottom part), I hope you liked it. :)

MizukixXxKaryna: Thank you. I needed your encouragement. :)

khr and fairy tail liker: Hello, and thank you also. And as much as I'm thankful of your suggestions, I'll be doing something else. Yes, maybe I'll take an idea from your suggestions but I will be trying not to make Tsuna and the others from KHR the heroes of the story. You see, I am a bit annoyed myself about those overpowering things. I am alright with it, but it it's overboard, that's a no-no. So I'll try and keep it from going that way. But thank you for the suggestions anyway. They sparked something in my head. :)

Oct.15.2011