A/N : I don't own Katekyo Hitman Reborn~! By the way, I've seen the traffic chart and saw that some people actually follow this. Haha~~ I'm glad~! I appreciate any feedback and thoughts you have. Seeing reviews make me really giddy and a happy camper with cookies :3 Review please?
Kufufufufufufu~~
Ahhhhh I had so much trouble writing this, I've never written for a bow and arrow before. I've done swords, spears, magic but a bow and arrow is so foreign to me T_T I hope I didn't mess it up so much.
Satsuki had not shown up during lunch and spent the time in her room, thinking about her conversation with Shamal. Maybe what she really needed was a vacation. She never took one before, save for the murderous training camps Reborn randomly signed her up for. The Arcobaleno had a twisted idea of the word "vacation". Her phone ringing pulled her back to the present day. She was unpleasantly surprised to see that Gokudera was calling.
"Would it hurt you to come and talk to me…?"She muttered, momentarily glaring at the phone but answering it none the less. She had no opening to say "Hello." Gokudera was already screaming in her ear.
"Get your ass down here Satsu-baka!" Gokudera had a weird way of getting along with people but everyone knew that cursing, insulting and shouting was his way of showing that he cared… or that he was extremely pissed off. It was difficult to distinguish sometimes.
"I'm not feeling well, bakadera."
"I'm going to bomb your door open!"
That was the last she heard and the line was immediately cut off, an exasperated sigh leaving her lips. She hoped the guardians wouldn't start calling her one by one. She might just give up on locking herself up in her room. To be honest, if Mukuro was the one to have called, she might have already been down there for lunch and eating diligently. The phrase "Listen to Mukuro or he'll haunt your dreams" was famous for being true.
Her phone didn't ring anymore and the bomb attack Gokudera promised didn't come. She threw herself back on the bed and looked up the ceiling, lost in thought and confused on the path she was taking. A long time ago Tsuna had needed her help, what with warfare going on, battles to keep mafia status and irreparable wounds, she was an essential part of the family. She wasn't sure if she could still say the same right now. She knew what was happening, something had changed and it was selfish of her to say so, even cruel.
It had become boring. No one needed her help, no fights were happening and the adrenaline that used to rush through her veins every other day when war was still common had disappeared and gone through a coma. She shouldn't be thinking such thoughts, it was no different to wishing that another fight would break out, some kind of trouble. Fighting had already become part of her life, healing had already become automatic but there was nothing anymore. She wondered if she was the only one feeling this way, if she was the only one who missed the battles and feeling of strength coursing through her.
Satsuki abruptly sat up and bolted herself to the door, grabbing the only weapon she ever had any practice with. A bow and arrow. She had no idea why Shamal forced the weapon on her until she found out that she was no good with hand to hand, swords, whips or any of the usual weapons. In fact Shamal was delighted to know that she had the hands of a doctor and eyes of a nurse. Her hands were steady and her aim for detail was delicately accurate... Well, most of the time. There had been one time where she accidentally let loose an arrow on Shamal's behind. She passed it off as a slip of the hand.
This was in a long time her first to go to the training room. More often than not she had a reason to go to the training room, they had to keep their stamina and grow stronger in order to be able to protect themselves and everyone around them. This time, she was going only for the reason that she wanted something to do. She wanted to feel the bow and arrow in her hands again, being utilized.
She was dumbfounded to see that the training arena was already being used by none other than the silver haired bomber. His senses were sharp and on instinct, he threw a batch of bombs in her direction. It was automatic for her. Taking out three arrows and aiming them simultaneously at the bombs and piercing them right on the core. It detonated in mid air and smoke flew up. When it cleared away, Gokudera was standing a few meters in front of her, one hand in his pocket, the other holding another three sticks.
"What happened to bombing my door?"
"Boss said not to bother you."
He clicked his tongue in disappointment but grinned, "I can bomb you here." He threw the bombs again and just like earlier she drew three arrows but missed one. Satsuki cursed and threw herself out of the way, rolling on her front and ending up crouched on one leg just as the bomb hit where she was previously standing. Suddenly, cubes and horizontal pillars of different sizes and heights protruded from the floor. This feature was only accessible if someone had customized the arena and the customization panel was usually outside or in the observation room. Sure enough, when she lifted her head to the direction of the clear glass hovering above them, the observation room was occupied by a familiar, evil and smiling Arcobaleno.
She was snapped out of her thoughts when two homing bombs chased her halfway across the arena before she was able to create a good distance between it and her to shoot. She groaned, realizing what she had gotten herself into. Satsuki and Gokudera were both, although not in the same way, trained by Shamal. One of Gokudera's Cambio Forma was in the form of archery and she realized this was bigger trouble than having a spar with a duplicate of herself. Gokudera knew her every move and more. He might have known what Satsuki would be thinking.
Satsuki ducked behind a cube and pressed a button on her mechanical arrow container. A hologram of arrow types hovered above the watch like structure on her wrist. She skimmed the arrows swiftly, noticing that she hadn't used special ones in a while. She had explosive arrows, fire arrows, poison arrows, arrows of different elelments and attributes. There was one section that read "S. arrows." and when she touched that section the hologram turned into a rectangular panel listing the arrows under "Shamal arrows".
Shamal had designed arrows for her and during training they had discovered that it was possible for her to use Shamal's disease inflicting mosquitoes in form of arrows. All she had to do was activate the arrows with her unusual rosy flame and it would react to her, allowing her access to the ability. She touched the "Cataratta Arrows" input five and took hold of the five arrows that shot out from her arrow container. This one was marked with a gray feather which had large letters printed in red on it saying "CAT ARR".
The next arrows she wanted, she could already identify by name. "Explosive 5, Deflect 5, Ice 5." Fifteen arrows with three different colored feather tips shot out of the containers and she left them there for use. She picked her head up and heard a hissing sound, mechanical formations and something clicking. She drew Deflect and shot it behind her just in time for it to block a reddish flame. Satsuki could see Gokudera behind all that red flame, he was using the Flame Arrow Cannon strapped on his left arm.
Satsuki sprinted away and took base on the highest cube in the arena, she could clearly see Gokudera from there and didn't waste time to let loose two Explosive. It came spiralling down on Gokudera and he countered it by shooting out Sun Flame Ammunitions. It shot out at such high speed that the impact and explosion were loud and clear, she wondered if people outside could hear. She didn't have time to think when Gokudera shot out of the smoke and raised his arm again with a smirk, she fumbled with an arrow, saw that the feather was gray and released her rosy flame from her hand, travelling down the arrow and let it fly. It shot and stopped in mid air then exploded into silver particles. It was a Cataratta arrow.
The silver particles blew towards Gokudera and he cursed. His eyes were becoming blurry and his vision getting darker. He was aware this would only last a few minutes but he didn't like wasting time. He shifted his cannon and activated Cloud Flame Ammunition. He went into a shooting frenzy, the ammunition spreading all over the arena and exploding at various points. Satsuki was too late to dodge one and it hit her leg, leaving the upper portion in a slightly bloody mess.
Seeing the blood was more of a surprise than pain. She hadn't seen her own blood in years. She stood for a while looking at it drip on the floor and didn't know if it was a good or bad sign that she smiled a little. "Now you're getting it, bakadera." Five bombs were still homing on her and she jumped, backed herself in a corner, pulling a Deflect from her bow and waited until the bombs were a few seconds away to shoot.
"No time to breathe!"
Gokudera had recovered from the momentary blindness and was suddenly a few cubes in front of Satsuki holding out his arm. The skull cannon opened it's mouth and fired a red flame infused with static. "Eat my Flame Thunder!" Satsuki positioned an Ice arrow above her shoulder and had to close one eye for good aim. She let it loose and thought that it wouldn't work when the flames swallowed her arrow but in a moment, the whole beam froze over starting from the front and down to Gokudera's arm. She jumped up the ice and quickly drew an Explosive with a grin as she slid down the ice towards a slightly shocked Gokudera. A few meters away from him and she thought she had the win, then she saw him smirk and at the same time her arrow flew towards him, Gokudera threw two dynamites straight at her.
The pain was inevitable when both their weapons came into contact with their target. Satsuki didn't know how far she got thrown off but knew that her back was aching and that her forehead was dripping with crimson. On closer look she found that she was thrown towards a cube and it stopped her from going any further but that had severely given her a massive headache. She groaned and stood shakily, one hand pressing on the the cube wall to stop her from crumpling into a heap on the floor. She had no idea where Gokudera was and just how much damage had gotten to him.
They both knew that she was no match for him. A guardian with a ring. In all honesty Gokudera could have gotten rid of her if he had only used his Version X gear, but he wanted a fair fight. This was a spar, not a war. The cubes and structures clicked and they disappeared down to the floor, the arena was now empty. She looked around and stifled a laugh when she saw Gokudera spread eagle on the floor, side bleeding profusely. She limped over and looked down at him who had an expressionless face.
"You blasted off my side, you shit."
If she wasn't in so much pain she would have laughed right then and there but her head was pounding and her leg was aching. She crouched down next to him and hovered her hand above the broken side, her hand glowing a rosy pink. Slowly, the tendons and bones that were obliterated began regrowing and restructuring themselves. The process was a rather gruesome one to watch but she was used to it and saw muscle tissues cover up the bones and finally Gokudera's outer skin covering the red flesh. He sat up almost immediately and flexed his sides and tried pinching it.
"Good as new..."
He mumbled as if he hadn't seen it before. Satsuki was now even more dizzier than before, she never realized it but using the healing ability was something that slowly drained her of her energy.
"Shit. I forgot you can't use it on yourself." Gokudera muttered taking a good look at the beat up girl. Indeed it was true that her healing ability was something that did not work on herself. She tried it once, but it never got through to her own body and her wounds had to heal on their own. "Well at least you're a little back to your senses." Satsuki froze and her eyes widened in slight surprise, noticing the fact that she had not felt this alive in such a long while but more surprising was that Gokudera had actually meant for her to do this. She let the smile creeping up her face show and she shrugged. "Do you always come here?" She asked, genuinely not knowing.
"What the hell do you think I do in this place? Sleep? Of course I come down here." Gokudera scoffed as if it was the normal thing. "Baseball head uses this too. Discipline Freak likes to destroy his own room. Lawn Head runs around the mansion fifty times a day and destroys the walls sometimes." She felt bad because she didn't know any of this. Had she become that distant to not know how her family operated? Deep inside her something sparked, and she felt happy again. These people were just like her. Fighting was something that couldn't be tamed and put down in a short time. They didn't want a war, they didn't want bloodshed and she finally understood that what she wanted was not a bad thing. She just wanted the feeling of being able to protect her family, the feeling that gave her strength and the sensation in her veins when she was fighting for something.
"Tsuna and Lambo? What do they do?" She asked, suddenly curious. Gokudera stood and scoffed, "Tenth diligently does his paperwork. He has to be an example of peace!" He shouted as if outraged that Satsuki had even asked such a thing. "That annoying cowhead sleeps outside during thunderstorms." Satsuki didn't want to know what Mukuro could be doing inside his own world and asked no more questions.
The mechanical doors of the training arena slid open smoothly before Satsuki could sincerely thank Gokudera for pulling her out of her reverie and she heard footsteps approaching at a fast pace, running. "Satsuki! Gokudera!" Gokudera instantly perked up at the sound of Tsuna's urgent voice. "Boss!" He grinned and puffed his chest out. A proud boy showing off his beaten and worn out trophy. "Oh you've healed him already." Tsuna said, rather unsusrprised.
Satsuki laughed a little and stood, hand pressing down on her bleeding forehead. "You shouldn't be so...violent, Gokudera." Tsuna said to which Gokudera nodded at eagerly, "I wasn't! She's still alive!" Tsuna sighed and sent a sheepish smile towards Satsuki. She nodded in agreement and smiled, "It was a good spar but I think I have to go to the infirmary right now. They haven't had enough trouble there lately." She joked and excused herself from the two but Tsuna came running after her in the hallway.
"I'll walk you there." He smiled, his face relaxing into a comfortable smile. Throughout ten years Tsuna's features had become more mature and if Satsuki was to compare him to a picture she once saw of Giotto, they almost had the same aura and almost the same eyes. Calm, gentle and kind eyes. In ten years, it seems as if Tsuna had entered a permanent Hyper Dying Will mode.
"Ah, by the way, Satsuki-chan." She tilted her head towards him, seeing him scratch the back of his head. "Train with me sometime. Paperwork becomes frustrating."
So Gokudera was lying about the paperwork after all.
