Story 2

The purpose of the outing was meant to increase the family's bound but Tsuna was rather skeptical. He was sure that something disastrous was going to happen- he would probably have to end up paying for some sort of damage. After all, his past experiences told him that putting these members of the Vongola family together in the same room for a certain amount of time would only result in them fighting.

The memory of his last birthday party was still too vivid. Mukuro and Hibari's banters ended up changing to a match, which then somehow became a fight where almost everyone took part.

There was another reason that he did not want to participate in this outing, a very important one.

He did not know how to skate.

"Don't worry, tenth generation, I have prepared for this." Gokudera said as he pinned up a very large sheet of calculations on the wall of the skating rink. "You will be able to skate very well if you follow these instructions. Your right feet should be in this angle while your left feet is in that angle, one arm should be in this degree while the other…"

"No need to get so complicated." Yamamoto said with a friendly pat which encouraged Gokudera to take out his bombs. "But Tsuna, it is really easy to skate. You just go like this and this…"

"I don't understand these sound effects!" Tsuna yelled out.

"That is right, it is passion that counts!" Ryohei said loudly, with his fist thrust into the air. "Just charge!"

…and crash into the wall was not what he wanted to say, but it was what happened.

"I have no interest in treating man." Doctor Shamal said although it was not as if they were going to ask him. The doctor's eyes suddenly brightened as he turned to the nearby girl who was struggling to keep her balance. "But if the young lady is injured then I will do all that I can…"

Even he was not able to finish his words when a trident was only about one millimeter from his throat.

"Perhaps you will like to see what the path of the beast is like since you are so much like them?" Mukuro said with a too pleasant smile.

At this, Tsuna closed his eyes and mentally braced himself for the destruction that would follow.

However, the skating rink was saved.

"Mukukro-sama, can we…can you start teaching me now?" Chrome asked very quickly as she tugged at Mukuro's free hand. "I…I really want to skate with Mukuro-sama."

The Vongola all had to marvel at how fast Mukuro could change when Chrome was involved. The deadly aura he had immediately disappeared when he turned to Chrome.


An hour passed and Chrome was actually able to skate around the rink without any difficulty. However, the same level of progress could not be said for Tsuna.

"You have an hour left, Tsuna." Reborn announced. "Dino and his family are going to be here in an hour."

And it just happened that the two families would have a skating competition with the loser paying a billion dollars.

"But I can't even skate!" Tsuna yelled out desperately. "I've asked everyone to help me! Even Hibari-senpai."

Which was a very bad idea.

"Not everyone." Reborn pointed out.

"No way! Mukuro will never help me!"

"Then prepare to pay a billion dollars to Dino." At such a time, Tsuna really wished that he never met Reborn.

Tsuna was just going to protest when Reborn actually shoved him, causing Tsuna to skate to the other side in a remarkably fast speed.

So fast that he had no chance to grab onto anything to prevent himself from crashing against the wall.

"…I don't personally mind you lying there like an idiot but it might affect Chrome when she comes back, so I advice you to get up." Was the completely unsympathetic words from Mukuro.

"Where is Chrome-chan?" Tsuna asked as he scrambled up, after all, her presence was very important, if not essential, when one talked to Rokudo Mukuro.

"She went to get something hot to drink."

A billion dollars was a very large amount of money so Tsuna decided to take the risk. Much to his relief, Mukuro's smile did not disappear.

Tsuna's mistake was to forget that Mukuro could smile even if he was feeling very irritated.

"…I have a very efficient method of teaching." Mukuro said easily. "Whenever you fall, I will let you experience one of the five paths. Five paths as I will exclude the fifth path."

"Boss!" Chrome has returned and Tsuna was almost ready to describe her as his savior since Mukuro seemed to see any possible interruption of the time he was spending with Chrome as a good enough excuse to demonstrate his six paths.

"Chrome-chan seems to learn really fast." Tsuna said.

"That is because Mukuro-sama is a really good teacher." This was said with great admiration. "He is also so patient."

Chrome knew that asking Mukuro to help Tsuna was too much, but her suggestion was actually even worse. That was the most efficient way to make Mukuro angry.

"I can help you." She suggested with a too innocent smile. "Just like how Mukuro-sama helped me."

"No, it is alright!" Tsuna immediately said. Perhaps he was being too paranoid but he was sure that he saw the character in Mukuro's right eye turning into the word 'five'.

After all, Mukuro taught Chrome to skate by holding her hand or keeping an arm around her waist so that she would not fall.

"Then…good luck, Boss." Chrome said innocently.

As she and Mukuro skated away, Tsuna caught her telling Mukuro how much she was enjoying this outing.

Something that Tsuna could not say.


Author's Note: I really enjoy writing this story. I had many of inspiration from the chapter where they taught Tsuna how to swim in their various way (personally, I really like Gokudera's method).