A/N: Banzai for my beta for suggesting this. Thanks to her, I split the story into two parts. Hehehe. I must say I am guilty for being so careless. :P

BETA'ED BY: Azahkhiel

UNIMAGINABLE

© Danielle Luna Soulhart

November 2012

PROLOGUE: Encountering an unimaginable child part two

..:[]:..

Luce was beyond pissed for two reasons: one was because she wasn't able to finish her game, so she's immediately 'game over' when the time was up. Two, she was getting impatient from waiting for Reborn and Colonnello. It has been 3 hours already and she hasn't received any calls from the two of them. They usually inform her about their journey inside the targeted area. Right now, she was seated in front of Bermuda's desk who was currently talking to the head of the intelligence department through intercom. She observed him. This was one of the few cases wherein she could see how furious and nervous Bermuda was. Bermuda was a very refined man - a man of honor and respect. And almost everyone in the world knew about Bermuda because of his superb skills in shooting. Before this deceiving hotel was formed, Bermuda was the head of the tactical division responsible for stopping kidnapping, coup de tat, and other dangerous situations. However, he was betrayed by one of his colleagues and gave him to their general and the government. It made his position removed from him, his license and the dignity as a tactician. Arcobaleno Prism Towers was then born with a promise to eliminate all of the evil lurking in Japan.

And observation time was up.

"Luce, has the two idiots called already?"

Oookay. How should she explain this? "Uhm, they haven't. Maybe their phones can't pick up reception so they can't call."

"It's that tight inside?"

"Could be. The map drawn by the tactical division seemed to be pretty intricate and complicated at the same time to me." Luce said as she pulled out her own copy of the map from her envelope, "I just received this from Lal."

"I am aware. But she should have given me one too."

"You're not a Stigma or an assassin."

"I am the President of this company."

"Touché." Luce sarcastically replied as she flicked off pieces of hair out of her face.

"Anyway, where is it located?"

"I'm not quite sure. We have four impending cases inside the target area. Although I specifically instructed them to get the main mission and that one you instructed me to tell them."

"Ah. I see. Do you think they're near?"

"How should I know? They haven't called, remember?"

Bermuda was left staring at Luce's retreating figure, probably getting some coffee to shake off the irritation.

…:[]:…

"W-we…we should…stop…" the smaller boy merely said, panting off the fatigue from continuous running away from gun-toting soldiers. "You should just leave me alone…" He softly added.

He and the taller boy were now inside a room filled with computers. The place was dark and the only light present were the small red lights emitted by the small power boxes that gave power to the computers. There were also piles and piles of books and scattered papers. It seemed that the room was used not too long ago. After a little while, the smaller boy was able to calm himself down although he was all sweaty and felt his knees about to give out, not used from running too much especially from people who has all the capabilities of sending them to their death beds. When he looked up to say something more to the taller boy, he saw a frown more than apprehension and talked in a desperate, irritated manner.

"Leave you alone?! You want me to leave you alone! Do you know what you're saying?"

That loud voice made the smaller boy to shrink down the floor, burying his head to his knees and replied, "I don't…I don't want you to get involved anymore…"

The taller boy then heard sobs and he could see those frustrated tear drops cascading down the floor. He observed him once more and he just then realized that he was far luckier than the boy in front of him. He was healthier than this boy and a lot confident that they could get out. He was angry because the smaller boy gave up too easily and would choose the hard life than to be free from his oppressors, yet at the same time, he felt the utmost pity for him.

Because he was just taken to this building.

And the smaller boy had particularly lived the entire of his life in this building.

He, being the smaller boy's first friend, was treasured and so the smaller one doesn't want him to be injured like he was. The smaller guy was actually sacrificing himself for the taller one.

He was touched.

But he couldn't simply leave him behind.

Crouching down, he held the trembling boy by his shoulders carefully and softly, making the smaller one look at his smiling and comforting face. "I understand. You are also my first friend so I don't want you to be in danger too. I'm sure that my papa will save us."

The smaller one hiccupped as he listened and wiped the excess tears from the corner of his eyes, "B-but, there are lots of soldiers outside."

"We can do it together! We promised to stay together, right?"

As that came, the smaller boy remembered a memory that happened three and a half months ago, wherein he and the taller guy made a promise to each other that they will get out together. Sadly, he was broken first before that happened, destroying the smaller boy's hopes of getting out. But now, he felt safer and a little of that confidence returned to him. Timidly, he uncurled himself and looked at the taller boy's eyes with soft yet determined eyes.

"I…I-I may know the quickest way to the entrance."

The taller boy's mouth stretched to the toothy grin, "Why didn't you say so?" Then grabbing his hand, he pulled the smaller boy's body towards his and hugged him, "We'll make this a success together, okay? Just stay with me."

The smaller boy smiled genuinely, "O-okay…" And they took their last run for their freedom.

…:[]:…

"O-oi, is this the way to it, kora?" Colonnello asked, shaking his flashlight because it's losing its grip. "We're lost, aren't we?"

Reborn was pissed. Of course it's obvious they're lost. They were not informed that this building was more complicated than he thought, or so magic was just tricking them to the fullest. Che, magic doesn't exist, he mused. It's 21st century already, and magic and alchemy don't work in this kind of world. The only magic that existed today was the one called technology. Colonnello, on the other hand, frowned when he didn't receive any reply from the overly stoic Reborn. He knew, apart from anyone else, how quiet, anti-social and dangerous Reborn could be, plus he has trust issues. They were friends since middle school yet…yet…it seemed that Reborn was still cautious around people, including the ones who deeply cared for him. But that's not the case here; it's the matter of at least cooperating in a death-induced mission like this one. He doesn't expect Reborn to be like others, but he should show that he trusted his partners, especially him. He sighed. When will time come where Reborn will change…?

Suddenly, they came to a halt, surprising Colonnello from his train of thoughts and beamed the flashlight at Reborn's contorted face. "OI, KORA! You have a voice to warn me you're stopping!" he exclaimed.

Reborn scoffed. "You're spacing out, idiot. You should pay more attention to your surroundings or else you could get chopped." Then he spread out his map and studied the area. It seemed suspicious to him that the information on the file and the map were not connecting, and the hallway that they were in was somewhat not fitted in the map. He looked at his surroundings; ignoring Colonnello's continued bickering and looked back at the map. He found it really odd. With an abrupt turn, he looked at Colonnello and lent out a hand, palm facing upwards towards Colonnello's direction, "Colonnello, hand me your map."

Colonnello was baffled, "W-what?! You have your—," he was quickly cut off when he saw those deathly glares from Reborn and drew out his own map. "Here. But why do you need exactly of my map?"

"Don't you find this place odd?" Reborn asked, taking the map and crouched. Colonnello soon followed and watched Reborn's actions, "We've been running in circles and followed that series of gunshots. But we can't find a single room into this hall."

"Now that you've mentioned it," Colonnello stated and looked around, "this is actually the same spot where we heard the gunshots."

"Quite the perception there, bird-brain," Reborn smirked as Colonnello frowned. The fedora-wearing assassin was just naturally serious and seemingly indifferent, but only few knew who he truly was. And Colonnello was one of them. Reborn trusted Colonnello for what he was, and in times like this, he trusted Colonnello's special ability to differentiate things from the other. "At first, I thought I was just zoned, but when the second time I look around, it seemed that my hunch was right."

"You should have told me a while ago, bastard, kora." Colonnello grumbled and ducked his hand to his backpack, rummaging through it until he got what he needed, "I hope this thing Verde gave us would help us get through."

"Okay, let's try a quick run first. Then we'll strategize."

"I'll do the honors."

"You better not fail."

It actually took the two assassins forty-five minutes to study the whole place along with Colonnello's device attached to the wall. And the moment they're back, the device was still there. After the run, Colonnello took the device and sat on the floor with Reborn beside. Reborn took out the maps while Colonnello set the device on a mini laptop as they talked about possible strategies and places of where the rooms of their targets were. They were completely silent but not to the point of awkwardness, and deep inside both knew that this was the cooperation that they were waiting for.

Maybe Reborn was just in a bad mood earlier, and maybe Colonnello just woke up at the wrong side of the bed.

And now, both of them cooperated with ease.

At exactly 15 minutes, they were able to finish their analysis. Colonnello showed Reborn that the device was able to capture snapshots of the hallways they went to (not to mention those microscopic cameras that Colonnello attached to different places as they walked). Reborn then compared the images to the map they have and found that the maps they have were completely different.

"It seemed that we've been tricked" Reborn muttered, "The images are completely different from the map. Plus, our maps both have different images."

"But," Colonnello said, "wasn't Lal the head of the tactical division?" When he received a nod from the other, Colonnello continued, "If that's so, then she should have checked the maps if they were the same."

"I think these maps came from our intelligence department. Remember that Fong had his own mission here a week ago and Verde three weeks ago? Probably they had different interpretations of the pathways."

"Looks like the Inganno have planned this all along. We've fallen into their trap." Colonnello was on the verge of crushing his laptop if not only for Reborn who was holding it. Reborn was also in no mood after realizing that fact. They all knew that Inganno was destroyed, but it seemed that the famiglia managed to get away from the rumble.

"We can't do anything about it," Reborn said, turning Colonnello's laptop into sleep mode before closing, "It's done, and I believe that Estraneo is behind all this."

"They wanted to get all of those files from our server."

"That's true." Reborn then lay out the maps horizontally and called Colonnello's attention, "Falcon," Falcon was Colonnello's screen name and his name held promise of finishing tasks and eliminating targets below the deadline. Colonnello's ears now were as sharp as a falcon's, "We have studied that these maps are completely different from each other, however," Reborn rotated one map vertically and put it atop of the horizontal-faced map, "If we connect these two, new pathways emerge."

Colonnello nodded, "It makes sense. How about we try it, Chameleon?"

"Sure. Let's get our gears ready."

…:[]:…

"Are we there yet?" the taller boy asked as he looked side by side for soldiers. Thankfully, there's none.

The smaller boy timidly walked at the center of the intersection of the hallway. From what he can remember, this place was so complex that you need to enter a specific door to reveal the hallway. It's made to lure away intruders and the maps posted on this building's server were done differently to confuse the enemies. He somehow every corner of the building since he was always here. When he saw a familiar mark, he quickly but shyly grabbed the taller boy's hand and tugged him towards the direction he deemed right.

"I…I-I think…i-it's this way…" he mumbled softly. Because of what he did, he received a pat on the head that represented acknowledgement, something that he doesn't receive every day.

"That's more like it!" said the taller boy, "I knew you had something too. I can feel we'll be out of this building in no time."

The smaller boy just smiled, happy and proud that he was able to do something for his first friend. "Come on…"

As they ran, the smaller boy didn't fail to notice two dark figures that ran towards the hallway where he knew secrets were hidden. Their running came to a halt, which made the taller boy surprised.

"What's wrong?"

"There were two guys…" the smaller boy softly said, fear slowly engulfing his body for the lives of those men. "They were going to the secret room…"

"Secret room? I didn't know that."

"Of course you don't," the smaller boy's voice became a little louder, "you were just brought here, right?" The taller boy made no comment but nodded his head in approval. Nevertheless, the smaller one explained that secret room, "That room is the room where files can be seen. I've been hearing them a lot talking about files and protecting the secret room."

"But the soldiers are out everywhere."

"Yeah…"

"So, do you think they're good or bad?"

The smaller boy pondered for a brief moment as he looked towards the direction where the men went. He hung his head down a little before muttering, "I don't know, but I can feel something is going to happen."

…:[]:…

'Falcon, do you read me?'

"I can hear you loud and clear, Chameleon."

Reborn and Colonnello, upon reaching their target site, decided to communicate through their headgears and split up. According to the files that Luce gave them, there are 6 missions that can be accomplished inside the target building; however they were only instructed to finish two of the missions – the main mission to retrieve a missing person and a lost data stolen from the Cielo server, the main sever of the well-renowned company, Vongola Incorporated. After deducting the possibilities, they came up with two options – either they go together, which will take a longer time; or they will separate to get the two missions done, but it could risk their lives. And so, they decided to split up and just communicate through a patched line from their headgears.

Colonnello went to the right side while Reborn went to the left after they found the secret room. By putting the images together and overlapping the two maps made them figure out where the secret room could be. That was probably what the words 'misty box' meant in the report. When they opened the door, they were surprised to see another hallway. The walls were painted gray and some of the fluorescent lights were blinking. Nothing more, nothing less. The hallway led to three pathways and they knew that this was intentionally made in order to protect whatever was being hidden inside. It also seemed that this was the only room built like this so it only made sense that this was the secret room.

But what alarmed them was the lack of security at the room's door.

Probably as a simple 'hide in plain sight' plan?

Whatever the reason was, it's definitely fishy suspicious, and it's not good if they'll stay longer in the building. As soon as Colonnello has reached his site, he unlocked the door using his general key card, which stored thousands of possible passwords. As he got in, he made sure to place a mini camera by the door handle to keep track of the outside and an emergency bomb that when triggered would explode. He snickered and silently thanked Reborn's intelligence. The room was exactly the one that kept the data. The large LED flat screen computer was still on and was still continuously downloading the files from an unknown server; most likely the files were duplicated, upon stolen from Cielo server, and passed to multiple servers in this building). This must be the main server of the building, Colonnello mused as he made his way to work. Setting his laptop and virus drive1 beside him, he began tapping the enemy base's computer and located the folder where the files have been downloaded. But, this was harder than he thought. On one folder, there existed a hundred folders to choose from and apparently, all of those needed password verifications in order to be opened. Cheeky bastards. With that, he pulled out a round device made by Verde – a green, orb-shaped device2 that can read the internal memory of the CPU. But when he's about to attach it, fate must be really cruel to him because there are 7 CPUs placed on the floor. Colonnello smirked wryly, looks like I'll be in a serious challenge here.

On the other hand, Reborn made his way to his target site and upon opening it, he was greeted by a bed, a desk filled with notes, scattered lab coats and broken test tubes. He scanned the room with keen eyes as he put on his digital gloves3. When he touched the lab coats, the gloves instantly read the temperature, blood pressure and the like sand other information of the owner of the coat and it looked like that the room was left bare just an hour and a half ago. Still scanning the room, he noticed two boxes that have different names on it. Turning around, he saw the broken test tubes bathing in yellow liquid. Could it be…? He thought grimly and immediately he took a sample of it. He's not a detective but he made sure that in every case he did, he would bring back evidence that could make the mission faster. And this mission was no ordinary mission. His search was suddenly interrupted when he heard loud sirens echoing throughout the whole place. He then noticed the infrared attached on the bed which detected the metal composition of his watch. Quickly, he drew out his gun and positioned himself at the door, ready to strike in case the enemy saw him inside. And he was not wrong. Soldiers went inside and immediately, he shot them on the head with ease. He knew that more soldiers will come and so, he hastily made a run away from the fallen and incoming soldiers, shot when necessary and exited the room.

The building echoed 'Intruder' next and as a result, soldiers increased.

He felt stupid. He should have thoroughly checked everything before passing by. Maybe that infrared was installed in order to prevent their captive to hold any sharp objects or guns (they have metal compositions) to defend themselves, and probably they had chains worn in order to alert the building that someone escaped. Damn the watch, but what's done was done. All he needed to do was to outsmart the idiots, find Colonnello and leave the goddamn building. They're main purpose wasn't even there. He cursed. Soldiers appeared in front of him and he expertly shot the enemies. He made a powerful kick to those who tried to surprise him from behind and jabbed others with a poisoned dagger. He smirked. Idiots will be forever idiots. As he ran to the other end, he found the room where Colonnello was supposed to be empty. He cursed and went inside. The coast was clear and the computer flashed 'Intruder alert'. So, Colonnello might have triggered something too… he thought. When he turned around, he saw soldiers covered in gas masks and in a split second, they blasted the tear gas all over the place. Reborn inwardly cursed and immediately held his breath, praying that he would survive as he eliminated the idiots. With swift, unhesitating movements, he slashed them with his dagger and made powerful punches to knock them out. He even twisted the arm of the other soldier before slashing his neck and kicked him to where the tear gas was concentrated and lastly shot the soldier who threw the tear gas in the face and chest before exiting the room.

Ah, he was in tears.

Blasted tear gas.

Thankfully, he managed to get out of the secret room without getting injured and ran at the opposite side in hopes of finding Colonnello. He pushed a button from his headgear and spoke, "Falcon, do you copy?"

Static reached his ears.

Damn it. "Falcon? Come in, Falcon." The other line was still in static. Reborn grunted, "We've been jammed."

He continued running, trying to endlessly avoid all gunshots that came from behind and even expertly evaded a bullet that almost hit his head. He flew towards the wall and slamming to it, before firing his own gun that effectively ended the lives of his pursuers. Once he regained his composure, he made another run, but a human figure caught his eye and the physical features were exactly the same in the description written on the file. Without hesitation, he made a full turn towards the direction where that figure was heading. When he was near enough, he heard gunshots upfront and quickly craned his neck to where the gunshot was. He saw a child, about 6 years in age, who defiantly kept standing despite the gun wound on his left leg. It was bleeding badly. However, it was not the boy that he saw earlier. Reborn seethed. Now he had failed to retrieve the subject without getting hurt. How could this get worse? He paused from running, hiding by the wall near the scene and hopefully from his idiotic pursuers, and retrieved something from his bag – a Claridge Hi-Tec S9 Pistol4. When he's ready, he positioned himself for firing, but studied the atmosphere first because he doesn't want to cause any harm to his subject. He watched the whole scene of yanking, kicking and even biting, typical for a kid. But when the soldier behind him was about to fire, Reborn wasted no time and shot the soldier. Of course, it brought attention to the older soldier and the kid.

"Who are you?! Show yourself!" The soldier snapped, holding the kid still by the collar of his shirt. "You must be the one that triggered the infrared!"

Reborn smirked and slowly showed himself. It's a good thing they were in their assassination uniform, along with that mask covering half of their faces. "My identity is not important, but you have something important to me."

"Heh," The soldier scoffed, "Are you talking about this brat? Sorry, but the train's full enough to board another passenger."

"If that's the case, I shall weave my way into your 'train'." And with that, Reborn seemingly disappeared and at the nick of time appeared behind the soldier and kicked him at the side, effectively dropping the child. However, the soldier was trained, and he pulled out a jagged knife, slashing Reborn's cheek to a line before giving the assassin a nice, painful punch at the stomach. Reborn smirked; coughing out blood as he and the soldier regained their composure at both ends of the room. Not bad…he thought and straightened himself, positioning his arms outward and taunting the soldier with his hands moving up and down. Of course, it provoked the soldier and delivered another ton of punches towards Reborn, only to be deflected by Reborn's graceful palm and used his elbow to paralyze the arm via pressure point. He did target the pressure points on both legs as well through his powerful sideward kick. When he saw the soldier unable to stand anymore, he quickly walked towards the injured boy and talked to him.

"Are you okay? Do you know a boy about your age with reddish-orange eyes?"

"M-mister!" The boy exclaimed. It's only natural for someone to be traumatized after being shot. "I…I…"

"Don't worry, we're getting out of here. We have to find my subject first." When he was about to pick up the boy, he felt him struggle, "What is it?"

"W-we…have…to…" And before he continued talking, he heard a grunting sound coming from the fallen soldier and pointed a gun.

"You won't…escape…" The soldier said and fired relentlessly.

Reborn had no time to think, and the best possible way was to shove the injured child away from him. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to save himself because he was caught at point-blank, the bullets collided on his right shoulder and right leg, and another one grazing his head. As revenge, he threw his poisoned dagger to the soldier and watched him squirm in pain as the poison rapidly decayed his organs. The mighty assassin slid down against the wall and the child hurried towards the man, crying his fear and worry out as he held his uniform.

"I…I-I'm so-sorry…" He sniffed, "I…knew…knew…"

"Knew this was going to happen?" Reborn muttered, "You should have alerted the police."

"I-I…I can-can't. It…It's too…dangerous…and it…it…it already…already…wounded…m-my f-f-friend…"

"Where's he? I believe he's the subject I'm looking for."

"We…we split up…af-after…the so-soldier…fire-fired his gu-gun…"

Reborn didn't respond. Here he was, pathetically wounded and with an equally pathetic snot-nosed child. But he doesn't have any choice. All interrogation may come later, but his first priority was to get out of here. Soon. He'll take this child for investigation though. After all, he's ruthless – may it be adults or children. Work is work.

Suddenly, a shadow loomed the floor and Reborn hurriedly cocked the gun towards the incoming intruder. Thankfully he didn't shoot because if ever he did, he just killed his subject. A scene of a reunion followed suit and the skilled assassin watched as the two children bawled their hearts out. He thought that it could be from fear, relief and happiness that both of them made it alive. Yet, fate seemed to have lots of plans because they're meeting was short lived and all could Reborn do was to widen his eyes as he watched his subject fall to the ground with gun wound on his lower back.

Soldiers came afterwards and the only coherent words he heard were 'give him back'.

Reborn was no idiot to pay attention to idiots, and with anger seeping out, he charged bullets at them with no mercy. When everything's done, he allowed himself to sit and looked at the still, horrified expression of the boy in front of him. With a click of his communicator, he talked.

"Falcon, go to sector F, 165 289." Reborn paused to take in a deep breath, "We've got medics code here. Over."

And in an instant, Colonnello was there, both with the feelings of anxiety and proud, only to be crushed when he saw Reborn wounded along with a child horrid-stricken.

Whew, I should really thank my beta, Azahkhiel-kun for this. I might be sleeping as I type this story because of lots of grammatical errors. LOL. I also realized that there are parts that should be correct but was not because I was not paying attention to what I write. :P

OH! The glossary! Chotto matte…

VIRUS DRIVE – I made this device that was made by Verde. This is a small, USB device that stored multiple viruses to destroy the server. It affects all servers in one certain address.

DIGITAL GLOVES – Another thing I thought (although I'm not sure if this is already present in the real world, or something). This thing actually reads chemical components and temperature to determine time. Sometimes you can store information of targets here and by touching things only will give more details about the target.

GREEN, ORB-SHAPED DEVICE – Remember the device Verde made in the actual series that emits green particles to make the Arcobaleno paralyzed? That's it. :D

CALRIDGE HI-TEC S9 PISTOL – This is one of America's fire arms. :D I researched about guns and I think this is one of the pistols that suited Reborn. This is a medium-sized pistol unlike any other pistols, for example the Beretta. You can look for its image here, www. imfdb wiki / Claridge_Hi-Tec / Goncz_GA

I hope this won't confuse you. Enjoy! :D